Class notes for Introduction to Psychology

Psychology: Chapter 1



 Psychology’s Roots, Critical thinking, and Self-Improvement Tools
o Psychology is a science
 Specifically study how people act, think and feel by applying critical thinking and a
scientific approach
 Critical thinkers do not blindly accept arguments and conclusions
 Examine assumptions, asses the source, uncover hidden values, weigh evidence
and assess conclusions
 Science-aided thinkers challenge old beliefs and forge new, fact-related paths
o Psychology’s earliest explorers: Magellan’s of the Mind
 Wilhelm Wundt: established the first psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig,
Germany
 “atoms of the mind”
 Charles Darwin: thinking on species variation in the natural world led to evolutionary
psychology
 English naturalist
 Ivan Pavlov: learning, Russian psychologist
 Sigmund Freud: Austrian physician, personality theorist and therapist
 Jean Piaget: Explored children’s developing minds, Swiss biologist
 William James: legendary teacher who authored and important 1890 psychology text
 Mary Whiton Calkins: mentored by James (above), became famous for memory research
and for being first woman president of the American Psychological Association
 Margaret Floy Washburn: refused to grant Calkins the degree she earned after Harvard,
became first woman to receive Psychology PhD
 Focused on animal behavior research in The Animal Mind
o Increasing Diversity
 Drastic change in sex and races that are part of the APS
o Contemporary Psychology
 John B. Watson and Rosalie Raynor
 Working with Rayner, Watson championed psychology as the scientific study of
behavior
 Showed that fear could be learned in famous controversial study on a baby known
as “Little Albert.”
 B. F. Skinner

,  Leading behaviorist
 Rejected idea of studying inner thoughts and feelings
 Believed psychology should study how consequences shape behavior.
 Sigmund Freud
 Controversial ideas
 Personality theorist and therapist
o Branches of psychology:
 Structuralism
 Early school of thought
o Promoted by Wundt
 Focused on the structure of the human mind
 Functionalism
 Early school of thought
o Promoted by James, influenced by Darwin
 Focused on how the mind functions
 Behaviorism
 View that psychology (a) should be an objective science that (b) studied behavior
without reference to mental process
o Most psychologists agree with (a) but not (b)
 Humanistic psychology
 Historically important perspective that emphasized human growth potential
 Cognitive psychology
 Study of mental processes, involved in perceiving, learning, remembering,
thinking, communicating, and solving problems
 Cognitive neuroscience
 Interdisciplinary study of cognitive psychology and neuroscience with researchers
in many disciplines
o Studies the brain activity underlying mental activity
o Unpacking the definition of psychology
 Today’s psychology builds upon the work of many earlier scientists and schools of
thought
 Psychology
o Science of behavior and mental processes
o Behavior

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