Chapter 1: The Evolution of Psychological Science
§ Learning objectives
1. Explain the distinction between dualism and materialism
2. Explain the distinction between realism and idealism
3. Explain the distinction between empiricism and nativism
Psychology = the study of mind and behavior
Dualism vs. Materialism
- Philosophical dualism = the view that the mind and the body are fundamentally different
things
More the view of religions: the idea that there is a nonphysical soul
o René Descartes believed that the mind was a nonphysical entity that met the
physical body in a structure called the pineal gland
Developed ideas about reflexes and how the brain controls behavior
- Philosophical materialism = the view that all mental phenomena are reducible to physical
phenomena
More the view of psychologists: the mind is what the brain does
o Thomas Hobbes believed that the idea of a substance that was distinct from the
body was a contradiction in terms because substance and body signify the same
thing
Realism vs. Idealism
- Philosophical realism = the view that our perceptions of the physical world are a faithful
copy of information from the world that enters our brains through our sensory apparatus
o John Locke believed that, in essence, your eye is a camera that sends a picture of the
world to your brain
- Philosophical idealism = the view that our perceptions of the physical world are our brain's
best interpretation of the information that enters through our sensory apparatus
Perception of the world is not like a photograph but like a painting
Your perception of the world is an inference: your brain's best guess about what's
probably out there
More the view of psychologists
o Immanuel Kant believed that interpretation also plays a role in forming your
perception
Empiricism vs. Nativism
- Philosophical empiricism = the view that all knowlegde is acquired through experience
Tabula rasa = blank slate
o Aristotle, John Locke
o Francis Bacon was called the 'father of empiricism' and popularized the scientific
method
- Philosophical nativism = the view that some knowledge is innate rather than acquired
More the view of psychologists
o Immanuel Kant, Plato
Innate knowledge (space, time, causality, number)
§ Learning objectives
1. Define introspection and explain how it was used in structuralism
2. Define natural selection and explain how it influenced functionalism
Reaction time = the amount of time between the onset of a stimulus and a person's response to that
stimulus
Hermann von Helmholtz: calculated the speed at which nerves transmit information
o Generally, it took people longer to respond when he touched their toes than when
he touched their thighs
,Structuralism = an approach to psychology that attempted to isolate and analyze the mind's basic
elements
Wilhelm Wundt founded structuralism and established psychology as a formal science and
founded the first psychology laboratory
o Introspection = the analysis of subjective experience by trained observers
Edward Titchener popularized the method of introspection
There is no way to tell if a person's description of their experience was
accurate and there is no way to tell if their experience was the same as or
different from someone else's
Functionalism = an approach to psychology that emphasized the adaptive significance of mental
processes
Charles Darwin
o Natural selection = the process by which the specific attributes that promote an
organism's survival and reproduction become more prevalent in the population over
time
William James believed that the task for psychologists is to find out what the use is of
consciousness, which must have been evolved for a use and wrote the first comprehensive
textbook of psychology in english and founded the American Psychological Association (APA)
along with G. Stanley Hall, who founded what is considered the first psychology research
laboratory in the US
o Mary Whiton Calkins was a pioneering researcher who studied memory, personality,
and dreams: first woman president of the APA
o Margaret Floy Washburn studied animal behavior: first woman to receive a PhD in
psychology and also became woman president of the APA
o Edward Thorndike discovered the 'law of effect'
o Francis Cecil Sumner was the first black person to receive a PhD in psychology
o Kenneth Clark was the first black person to become the president of the APA
§ Learning objectives
1. Outline the basic ideas behind Freud's psychoanalytic theory
2. Define the basic idea behind behaviorism
3. Explain the principle of reinforcement
Unconscious = the part of the mind that contains information of which people are not aware of
Psychoanalytic theory = a general theory that emphasizes the influence of the unconscious on
feelings, thoughts, and behaviors
Sigmund Freud was the founder of this theory
o The mind is a set of processes that are largely hidden from our view and when you
look inside there are the person's anxieties and impulses
Psychoanalysis = a therapy that aims to give people insight into the contents of their unconscious
minds
Behaviorism = an approach to psychology that restricts scientific inquiry to observable behavior
John Watson founded behaviorism
o Inspired by Ivan Pavlov who discovered the principles of classical conditioning = a
type of learning that occurs when a neutral stimulus produces a response after being
paired with a stimulus that naturally produces a response
Principle of reinforcement = a principle stating that any behavior that is rewarded will be repeated
and any behavior that isn't rewarded won't be repeated
B. F. Skinner founded this principle and he studied operant conditioning, which is
conditioning on the basis of reinforcement
o Abraham Maslow also studied operant conditioning and was a proponent of
behaviorism
,§ Learning objectives
1. Explain why several European psychologists resisted behaviorism
2. Explain why American social psychologists resisted behaviorism
Gestalt psychology = an approach to psychology that emphasized the way in which the mind creates
perceptual experience
Max Wertheimer is the founder of Gestalt psychology: the whole is more than the sum of its
parts
Developmental psychology = the study of the ways in which psychological phenomena change over
the life span
Sir Frederic Bartlett argued that the mind uses theories of how the world usually works to
construct our memories of past experience
Hermann Ebbinghaus was a memory researcher who used nonsense syllables in extensive
experiments on memory
Jean Piaget pioneered the study of cognitive development in children
George Miller demonstrated some limitations in human memory (7)
Social psychology = the study of the causes and consequences of sociality
Kurt Lewin believed that behavior is not a function of the environment but of the person's
subjective construal of the environment and responses do no depend on stimuli, rather they
depend on how people think about those stimuli
Solomon Asch's studies led to an avalanche of research on how people draw inferences
about others
o Primary effect occurs when you heart the good traits of a person first and the bad
traits at the end which makes people tend to believe that person is good
Humanist psychology = the study of psychology that emphasizes the human growth potential
Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow
§ Learning objectives
1. Summarize Chomsky's critique of Skinner
2. Explain what cognitive psychology is and how it emerged
3. Explain what evolutionary psychology is and why it emerged
Chomsky had critique on Skinner's theory of language, which helped spark the cognitive revolution =
a movement of psychologists who used ideas from computer science and other disciplines as a way
to understand mental processes such as perceiving, remembering, and thinking
Chomsky's critique was based on Skinner's book called Verbal Behavior, in which he offered a
behaviorist account of how children learn language
Chomsky published a critique in 1959 arguing that behaviorist principles could never explain
some of the most obvious features of language-learning
Broca's area is a particular region in the brain which is responsible for the ability to speak
Cognitive psychology = the study of human information processing
Allowed psychologists to use the language of information processing to study mentalistic
phenomena
Evolutionary psychology = the study of the ways in which the human mind has been shaped by
natural selection
§ Learning objectives
1. Define neuroscience and explain how modern psychologists study the brain
2. Define cultural psychology and explain why it matters
Cognitive neuroscience = the study of the relationship between brain and the mind (humans)
Psychological processes and neural activity
Behavioral neuroscience = the study of the relationship between the brain and behavior (animals)
Behavior and neural activity
Cultural psychology = the study of how culture influences mental life
, TIMELINE
387 bce Plato
335 bce Aristotle
1605 Francis bacon
1637 René Descartes
1651 Thomas Hobbes
1690 John Locke
1849 Hermann von Helmholtz
1859 Charles Darwin
1879 Wilhelm Wundt
1883 G. Stanley Hall
1885 Hermann Ebbinghaus
1890 William James
1892 Edward Titchener
1894 Mary Whiton Calkins
1899 Sigmund Freud
1905 Edward Thorndike
1905 Ivan Pavlov
1908 Margaret Floy Washburn
1910 Max Wertheimer
1913 John B. Watson
1938 B. F. Skinner
1943 Abraham Maslow
1947 Kurt Lewin
1950 Solomon Asch
1951 Carl Rogers
1952 Jean Piaget
1956 George Miller
1958 Donald Broadbent
1963 Stanley Milgram
1967 Michael Gazzaniga
§ Learning objectives
1. Explain the distinction between dualism and materialism
2. Explain the distinction between realism and idealism
3. Explain the distinction between empiricism and nativism
Psychology = the study of mind and behavior
Dualism vs. Materialism
- Philosophical dualism = the view that the mind and the body are fundamentally different
things
More the view of religions: the idea that there is a nonphysical soul
o René Descartes believed that the mind was a nonphysical entity that met the
physical body in a structure called the pineal gland
Developed ideas about reflexes and how the brain controls behavior
- Philosophical materialism = the view that all mental phenomena are reducible to physical
phenomena
More the view of psychologists: the mind is what the brain does
o Thomas Hobbes believed that the idea of a substance that was distinct from the
body was a contradiction in terms because substance and body signify the same
thing
Realism vs. Idealism
- Philosophical realism = the view that our perceptions of the physical world are a faithful
copy of information from the world that enters our brains through our sensory apparatus
o John Locke believed that, in essence, your eye is a camera that sends a picture of the
world to your brain
- Philosophical idealism = the view that our perceptions of the physical world are our brain's
best interpretation of the information that enters through our sensory apparatus
Perception of the world is not like a photograph but like a painting
Your perception of the world is an inference: your brain's best guess about what's
probably out there
More the view of psychologists
o Immanuel Kant believed that interpretation also plays a role in forming your
perception
Empiricism vs. Nativism
- Philosophical empiricism = the view that all knowlegde is acquired through experience
Tabula rasa = blank slate
o Aristotle, John Locke
o Francis Bacon was called the 'father of empiricism' and popularized the scientific
method
- Philosophical nativism = the view that some knowledge is innate rather than acquired
More the view of psychologists
o Immanuel Kant, Plato
Innate knowledge (space, time, causality, number)
§ Learning objectives
1. Define introspection and explain how it was used in structuralism
2. Define natural selection and explain how it influenced functionalism
Reaction time = the amount of time between the onset of a stimulus and a person's response to that
stimulus
Hermann von Helmholtz: calculated the speed at which nerves transmit information
o Generally, it took people longer to respond when he touched their toes than when
he touched their thighs
,Structuralism = an approach to psychology that attempted to isolate and analyze the mind's basic
elements
Wilhelm Wundt founded structuralism and established psychology as a formal science and
founded the first psychology laboratory
o Introspection = the analysis of subjective experience by trained observers
Edward Titchener popularized the method of introspection
There is no way to tell if a person's description of their experience was
accurate and there is no way to tell if their experience was the same as or
different from someone else's
Functionalism = an approach to psychology that emphasized the adaptive significance of mental
processes
Charles Darwin
o Natural selection = the process by which the specific attributes that promote an
organism's survival and reproduction become more prevalent in the population over
time
William James believed that the task for psychologists is to find out what the use is of
consciousness, which must have been evolved for a use and wrote the first comprehensive
textbook of psychology in english and founded the American Psychological Association (APA)
along with G. Stanley Hall, who founded what is considered the first psychology research
laboratory in the US
o Mary Whiton Calkins was a pioneering researcher who studied memory, personality,
and dreams: first woman president of the APA
o Margaret Floy Washburn studied animal behavior: first woman to receive a PhD in
psychology and also became woman president of the APA
o Edward Thorndike discovered the 'law of effect'
o Francis Cecil Sumner was the first black person to receive a PhD in psychology
o Kenneth Clark was the first black person to become the president of the APA
§ Learning objectives
1. Outline the basic ideas behind Freud's psychoanalytic theory
2. Define the basic idea behind behaviorism
3. Explain the principle of reinforcement
Unconscious = the part of the mind that contains information of which people are not aware of
Psychoanalytic theory = a general theory that emphasizes the influence of the unconscious on
feelings, thoughts, and behaviors
Sigmund Freud was the founder of this theory
o The mind is a set of processes that are largely hidden from our view and when you
look inside there are the person's anxieties and impulses
Psychoanalysis = a therapy that aims to give people insight into the contents of their unconscious
minds
Behaviorism = an approach to psychology that restricts scientific inquiry to observable behavior
John Watson founded behaviorism
o Inspired by Ivan Pavlov who discovered the principles of classical conditioning = a
type of learning that occurs when a neutral stimulus produces a response after being
paired with a stimulus that naturally produces a response
Principle of reinforcement = a principle stating that any behavior that is rewarded will be repeated
and any behavior that isn't rewarded won't be repeated
B. F. Skinner founded this principle and he studied operant conditioning, which is
conditioning on the basis of reinforcement
o Abraham Maslow also studied operant conditioning and was a proponent of
behaviorism
,§ Learning objectives
1. Explain why several European psychologists resisted behaviorism
2. Explain why American social psychologists resisted behaviorism
Gestalt psychology = an approach to psychology that emphasized the way in which the mind creates
perceptual experience
Max Wertheimer is the founder of Gestalt psychology: the whole is more than the sum of its
parts
Developmental psychology = the study of the ways in which psychological phenomena change over
the life span
Sir Frederic Bartlett argued that the mind uses theories of how the world usually works to
construct our memories of past experience
Hermann Ebbinghaus was a memory researcher who used nonsense syllables in extensive
experiments on memory
Jean Piaget pioneered the study of cognitive development in children
George Miller demonstrated some limitations in human memory (7)
Social psychology = the study of the causes and consequences of sociality
Kurt Lewin believed that behavior is not a function of the environment but of the person's
subjective construal of the environment and responses do no depend on stimuli, rather they
depend on how people think about those stimuli
Solomon Asch's studies led to an avalanche of research on how people draw inferences
about others
o Primary effect occurs when you heart the good traits of a person first and the bad
traits at the end which makes people tend to believe that person is good
Humanist psychology = the study of psychology that emphasizes the human growth potential
Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow
§ Learning objectives
1. Summarize Chomsky's critique of Skinner
2. Explain what cognitive psychology is and how it emerged
3. Explain what evolutionary psychology is and why it emerged
Chomsky had critique on Skinner's theory of language, which helped spark the cognitive revolution =
a movement of psychologists who used ideas from computer science and other disciplines as a way
to understand mental processes such as perceiving, remembering, and thinking
Chomsky's critique was based on Skinner's book called Verbal Behavior, in which he offered a
behaviorist account of how children learn language
Chomsky published a critique in 1959 arguing that behaviorist principles could never explain
some of the most obvious features of language-learning
Broca's area is a particular region in the brain which is responsible for the ability to speak
Cognitive psychology = the study of human information processing
Allowed psychologists to use the language of information processing to study mentalistic
phenomena
Evolutionary psychology = the study of the ways in which the human mind has been shaped by
natural selection
§ Learning objectives
1. Define neuroscience and explain how modern psychologists study the brain
2. Define cultural psychology and explain why it matters
Cognitive neuroscience = the study of the relationship between brain and the mind (humans)
Psychological processes and neural activity
Behavioral neuroscience = the study of the relationship between the brain and behavior (animals)
Behavior and neural activity
Cultural psychology = the study of how culture influences mental life
, TIMELINE
387 bce Plato
335 bce Aristotle
1605 Francis bacon
1637 René Descartes
1651 Thomas Hobbes
1690 John Locke
1849 Hermann von Helmholtz
1859 Charles Darwin
1879 Wilhelm Wundt
1883 G. Stanley Hall
1885 Hermann Ebbinghaus
1890 William James
1892 Edward Titchener
1894 Mary Whiton Calkins
1899 Sigmund Freud
1905 Edward Thorndike
1905 Ivan Pavlov
1908 Margaret Floy Washburn
1910 Max Wertheimer
1913 John B. Watson
1938 B. F. Skinner
1943 Abraham Maslow
1947 Kurt Lewin
1950 Solomon Asch
1951 Carl Rogers
1952 Jean Piaget
1956 George Miller
1958 Donald Broadbent
1963 Stanley Milgram
1967 Michael Gazzaniga
