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Unit 1 - History & Approaches

Myers-Psychology-for-AP-Textbook.pdf

Barron's Review - History & Approaches.pdf

Unit 1 StudyMate

Lectures

Dr. Jessica Koehler - By Modules

Module 1: Psychology & Its History	Module 2: Today's Psychology & Its Approaches	Module 3: Subfields in Psychology

Mr. Snyder

Module 1: Historical Developments & Perspectives	Module 37: Applied Psychology & Psychology Careers

History & Approaches

Generally agreed upon to be the study of mind and behavior.

Ancient Greek is a language from which many of our words –especially scientific words come

Psyche= mind        Logos=study

 

Let’s find out what it is by what it is not! - Michelangelo

Dare for an A –name one thing that is not connected to psychology?

OK so it is the study of the mind...What is the mind?

Mind vs. Brain

What comes first?

Neural activity or thoughts?

Why should it be studied?

Who should study it?

Psychology is increasingly reliant on the study of the brain.  But that leads us back to some interesting questions –does our brain make us do things?

• fMRIprofessional vs.novice pianists
• Elliot a middle-aged husband who had a brain tumor.
• After it was removed, Elliot started to be unable to make good decisions:
•                         got divorced, remarried, lost his money, got divorced again
•                         Was any of that his fault?

Turns out what was removed was the part that allowed him to feel emotions. Thus, psychology includes the study of brains and emotions

Psychology has generally been a study of what goes wrong with the mind, brain, behavior and emotions.–see how broad it is.

History

Psychology began as philosophy

• Plato believed in nativism–some knowledge is innate
• Example: the ability to learn language

Aristotle believed in tabula rasa= blank slate –humans are born knowing nothing and that they learn everything

This gives rise to the nature vs. nurture debate

A “sense of humor”from the 4 humors= 4 liquids

Hippocrates-If you take blood from a vein and let it sit in a glass, it separates into a blackish clot at the bottom, than a layer of yellow fluid, and finally a thin layer of white on top. This fact was the basis of the early belief that personality comes from what is in your blood:

• If you have too much “black bile” (darkish material at the bottom) flowing through your “tubes” inside, it makes you depressed and sad. This term was called melancholy.
• If you have too much “yellow bile”, you are bitter, angry, and hot-tempered.
• If you have too much “Phlegm” flowing, you are dull and sluggish.
• Blood:
• The Greeks thought personality could be changed by “bloodletting”using leeches or a knife to pierce the skin in order to allow evil spirits to escape.
• “Bloodletting” was popular as a treatment for many years to follow. Ex. George Washington in the late 1700’s suffered from bouts of depression unless he stayed active, so he often had blood removed, and he claimed it made him feel better (Flexner, 1974)

The French Connection

Rene Descartes

(1600’s)argued that the mind and the brain are two different things = DUALISM

Cool theory but how do the mind and brain interact?

Cogito ergo sum = Paul Broca(mid 1800’s)identified Broca’s areabasedon his patient “Tan”Monsieur Leborgne we’ll study him in the brain chapter

English Ideas

Thomas Hobbes= political philosopher thought the mind is what the brain does Monism (you’ve studied him in politics = opposite of John Locke)

Franz Joseph Gall also thought the mind and brain were linked,but by size

Phrenology–study of the brain by feeling bumps of the skull and scalp

The German explosion of Psychology

Hermann von Helmholtz measured people’s reaction time, precise calculations, and the scientific method and study the difference between a pin prick at the foot and at the thigh

Wilhem Wundt - 1879 Liepzig Germany = first psychology lab*Wundt wrote a book in 1867 called ‘Principles of Physiological Psychology’ in an attempt to make psychology a ‘hard science’ like biology, chem., physics

• Wundt thought psychology should focus on consciousness.
• Chemistry was studied by breaking things into elements
• Wundt wanted to do the same thing with the mind

Structuralism – what things are the mind made of? An anger part? A memory part? A sleep part?
Possible homework: draw, sculpt or make a model of your mind

Introspection – looking inside your mind to examine your consciousness *Wundt trained his grad students in specific ways to think
*He tried to objectively and scientifically measure thoughts

American Developments

Edward Titchener studied under Wundt set up a lab at Cornell 1890’s
In his book he outline 44,000 elemental qualities of consciousness

William James

• came up with a new approach in 1890’s Functionalism (Ferrari)
• wrote the first psychology book ‘the principles of psychology – what can the mind do? What should the mind do? How fast, how much? – American education
• asked how can psychology be used? What is it good for?
• disagreed with breaking down consciousness into elements
• thought consciousness was a stream that was constantly flowing *was influenced by Charles Darwin’s natural selection theory
• mental abilities must have evolved and serve a function
• Wundt disagreed with James’s lack of scientific inquiry in a lab and thought James’s thoughts were merely theory
• Still James’s ideas became very popular
•                                         *G. Stanley Hall set up the first American Psychology lab at Johns Hopkins 1881
•                                         *believed children develop similarly to our species
•                                         * We’ll study G. Stanley Hall in the development Chapters

Margaret Floy Washburn

• 1st women to get a PhD in psychology.
• Experimented with animal sensations and what animals can know.

Mary Calkins

• 1st woman president of A.P.A
• Studied paired associations of words and color to scientifically explore memory

Gestalt (geshtalt)Psychology

“the whole is more than the sum of its parts”

Max Wertheimer realized that we do not perceive the world in pieces or think in parts. We think and perceive in groups of things.

Herman Ebbinghaus – phi phenomenon
Illusion is an error that is made by the brain by following rules that usually work.

7 MODERN PARADIGMS

Psychology is a broad science and there are a lot of ways of looking and the mind and behavior

Etiology – study of causes – each paradigm is a search for a cause – what makes people do things

Development of Different schools of psychology

• Everything we talked about studied psychology academically
• No one used it to help people who were suffering *Mid 1800’s there was the idea of hysteria
• Hysteria = loss of physiological functions based on upsetting experiences - not running and screaming
• People became blind, couldn’t speak, etc.
• it was like a part of the mind was disagreeing with another part

1. Evolutionary – CHARLES DARWIN

Premise:

• A. all behavior is a result of instincts that helped our species survive fixed action pattern
• B. mental life and personality are programmed by genes
  • Some people are geniuses
    Some people see the world differently
• males act a certain way because that is what nature has programmed them to be
• females act a certain way because that is what nature has programmed them to be
• Illness:
  • 1. people acting differently then what nature intends
  • 2. People have bad genes
• Treatment: there is no treatment, an abnormal person is a mutation who may or may not pass on his genes.
• Advantage: can’t be disproven, flexible theory that makes a lot of sense.
• Disadvantage: not provable
  • Psychologists look at
    1. Anthropology
    2. Anatomical and biological mechanisms that make it possible
    3. Environmental conditions which encourage or discourage it
• Key Words
  • Habitability – the degree to which behavior is because of genetics
  • Genotype – all of the genetic instructions
  • Phenotype – visible genetic instructions
  • Maturationism – children grow according to genetic instructions and environment plays a secondary role

2. Psychodynamic

premise: all behavior and thoughts are a result of unconscious struggles

Sigmund Freud (1890’s-1930’s)

• was trained as a medical doctor not a psychologist
• didn’t do any research – everything was theory driven
• had several students that split off from him
• was addicted to cocaine – may or may not have been obsessed with sex
  • - but we’d have to define sex
• - developed psychoanalysis – way of treating the unconscious
• Illness: fundamental animal needs, sex, food, tenderness aggression are in conflict with imposed societal
  restrictions
• different parts of the mind
• treatment is to resolve conflicts in a healthy way
• advantages: fun, cool theory that can’t be proven wrong
• Disadvantages: totally hypothesized and can’t be proven right

3. Behavioral

premise: ALL behavior is learned …the mind is impossible to study it is not empirical so… we should focus on behaviors. We can see behaviors!

*Do animals have a mind? *Margaret Floy Washburn thought so. “The Animal Mind”
                    *first women to get a PhD in psychology – Cornell University from Titchener

                      *John Watson & Rosalie Rayner strongly disagreed and worked with the idea of behaviorism

Watson was heavily influence by Ivan Pavlov
                         *Pavlov was a Russian doctor studying digestion in dogs
                          *Found that dogs associated a bell with the smell of food and would drool at the sound of a bell = response

**John Watson applied Pavlov’s techniques to human infants **Controversial experiment on Little Albert
*Taught the boy who used to like rats to be afraid of them
**Believed that the environment was critically important
**Had an affair with his assistant - At the time is was Scandalous! – was fired from Johns Hopkins
**Ended up working for an advertising firm in NY and applied psychological principles to business.

B.F. Skinner took Watson’s ideas and went further
Skinner recognized that Watson’s subjects didn’t try anything
He wanted to reward and punish dogs = reinforcement
                   Created ‘Skinner boxes’
                    Thought children should be raised according to his ideas

• Paycheck is a reward – that is why people go to work
• poverty is a punishment – that is why people work
• illness: - people behave badly – seek wrong rewards
• treatment: relearn proper rewards, punishments, and associations to behave correctly
• advantages: easy to measure, empirical
• disadvantages: too simple for complex emotions and experiences it accounts for data input and reaction but does not explain the processor

4. Cognitive

premise: ALL human situations are the result of thought….how humans process information

• Rebellion against simplicity of behaviorism
• Jean Piaget studied stages of child mental development
• Noam Chomsky intersection of thoughts and language
• George Kelly – thought people are natural thinkers but the process of thinking is corrupted/influence by environment
• 1960’s = development of computers
  • Keyboard = stimulus ???????? Printer = response
• attempts to explain what goes on in the mind itself
• A cop, good or bad?
• Illness: having the wrong thoughts
• treatment people have to retrain themselves to think differently
• advantages: can’t be disproven, flexible theory that can explain a lot of behavior
• disadvantage: not empirical or scientific

5. Biological / medical / cognitive neuroscience

premise: All behavior and thoughts are a result of neurons, electricity, and hormones

Karl Lashley – removed parts of rats brains to see how it affected them. – never could find ‘the learning part’
ETHICS?! – is it ok to do the same thing on humans?

does medicine affect how you act and think? If so then you are the medicine

• Illness – wrong chemistry, electricity or wrong connections
• Treatment: medicine, electric based, and surgery MRI, fMRI, PET scan, CAT scan, EEG, XRAY
• Advantages easily measurable and fast results
• Disadvantages – doesn’t account for complexity of human experience

6. Humanistic

premise: each person interprets the world differently each person is good and has positive potential

Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow (We’ll study them in the motivation chapter)

• use the word client instead of the word patient
• No one chooses to be a failure, things just happen
• Illness: people are not interacting well with society
• Treatment: remove the impediments towards natural growth
  • Not fixing the individual
• Advantages: positive and flexible
  • Opposite of Freud’s theory
• Disadvantages:
  • 1.  vague and unscientific – not empirical
    2. -ignores personal responsibility
    3. can’t change society

7. Social

Premise: behavior and thoughts are the result of social interactions, roles and where people fit into groups and society

• there is no personality
• You act differently with your parents and your friends – are you fake?
• humans are naturally social creatures

Philip Zimbardo - demonstrated the power of conformity to a group

Stanley Milgram demonstrated how normal people will obey any order from an authority figure

• Illness - acting according to the wrong role
  • Not knowing a role
• Treatment - people need to act according to an appropriate, positive role.
• Advantages - applicable to most people, lots of evidence
• Disadvantages - doesn't work well for individuals, only groups or people in a group

Gordon Allport suggested that racism was as natural and as unavoidable as an optical illusion – because we naturally put things into categories – including people

Psychology Today

A.P.A = American Psychological Association
130,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students

• Psychology is about asking and answering questions about humans.
  • Why we do things?
  • When should we do things?
  • What is normal?
    
  • Why people are different?
  • Can we get better?

Psychology is at the forefront on mental health

• How can we help people who have suffered
  • Trauma, abuse, etc
• How can we help people who ‘choose’ self-destructive behaviors?

All of these questions and more are relevant to everyone every day.
To this end the most important step is to think critically. It is not enough to say Oh, someone did X and that is because Y. We need to think like scientists!

what can you do with a degree in psychology?
Define degree:
 Associate’s
 Bachelor’s
 Master’s
 Doctoral level

Where is the money?

• University teaching
• University – researching
  • Publish or perish!
  • Experimental - psychology
• Treatment facility = clinical psychology
  • Schools
  • Hospitals
  • Private practice
• Who is a psychologist?
  • Psychologist Ph.D – emphasis on research
  • Psychologist Psy.D – emphasis on clinical
  • Counselor / Therapist MA
  • Psychiatrist = MD

• Business
  • People are not necessarily motivated by money!
  • How to make or allow employees to be happy
  • How to make customers connect products
    • Supermarkets
    • McDonalds
    • Restaurants
• Family, Parenting, relationships
  • Psychology is tied to raising a child
    • Should a parent pick up a crying baby?
    • How much money is quality time with a child worth?
    • Day care vs. parental contact
    • Does listening to classical music make children smarter?

1. Industrial/Organizational & Human Factor psychologists – what and how influences peoples performance

• Leadership style
• McDonalds
  
• Worker productivity
• Advertising
  
• Crime

2. Personality psychologists – are there types of personality that points someone in the direction of failure or success?

• What “type” of person should be hired?
  
• Human resources

3. Developmental psychologists – study the life-span of humans

• medical field - pediatrics
  
• education – what to teach when
  
• retirement planning

4. Clinical psychologists – diagnose and treat people with disorders. There are all types of clinicians from the different paradigms

5. Educational psychologists – how do people learn, why do they not learn

• How can psychology help education?

6. Quantitative psychologists – take all of the data of other fields and try to make a coherent model of humanity

• Social media
  
• Data mining
• NSA

7. Cultural psychologist – are people the same or does our culture make us who we are

• USA vs. Japan
  
• Britain vs. Argentinians

Review

AP Psychology: 1.1 Introducing Psychology	Myers' Unit 1 Review