Notes on Module 1:
1.1
● Psychology refers to the scientific study of the mind and behavior.
Psychologists use the scientific method to acquire knowledge.
● An empirical method for acquiring knowledge is one based on observation,
including experimentation, rather than a method based only on forms of
logical argument or previous authorities.
● Psychology created in 19th century
1.2
● Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) was a German scientist who was the first
person to be referred to as a psychologist.
-Famous book : Principles of Physiological Psychology was published in 1873.
Wrote Volkerpsychologie in 1904.
-He believed that the goal of psychology was to identify components of
consciousness and how those components combined to result in our conscious
experience.
● Introspection (Internal Perception)-A process by which someone examines
their own conscious experience as objectively as possible, making the human
mind like any other aspect of nature that a scientist observed.
● Voluntarism—People have free will and should know the intentions of a
psychological experiment if they were participating
● Wundt established his psychology laboratory at the University at Leipzig in
1879
● Despite his efforts to train individuals in the process of introspection, this
process remained highly subjective, and there was very little agreement
between individuals.
Edward Titchener
● One of Wundt's students developed structuralism
, ● Structuralism- Focuses on the contents of mental processes rather than their
function
Functionalism
● William James, John Dewey, and Charles Sanders Peirce helped establish
functional psychology
● They accepted Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection and viewed
this theory as an explanation of an organism’s characteristics. Key to that
theory is the idea that natural selection leads to organisms that are adapted to
their environment, including their behavior.
● Adaptation means that a trait of an organism has a function for the survival
and reproduction of the individual, because it has been naturally selected.
● James saw that psychology’s purpose was to study the function of behavior in
the world,
● Functionalism focused on how mental activities helped an organism fit into
its environment.
● Functionalism has a second, more subtle meaning in that functionalists were
more interested in the operation of the whole mind rather than of its individual
parts, which were the focus of structuralism.
Freud
● Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) was an Austrian neurologist who was
fascinated by patients suffering from “hysteria” and neurosis.
-Freud theorized that many of his patients’ problems arose from the unconscious
mind.
-In Freud’s view, the unconscious mind was a repository of feelings and urges of
which we have no awareness.
-Gaining access to the unconscious, then, was crucial to the successful resolution of
the patient’s problems.
-According to Freud, the unconscious mind could be accessed through dream
analysis, by examinations of the first words that came to people’s minds, and
through seemingly innocent slips of the tongue.
1.1
● Psychology refers to the scientific study of the mind and behavior.
Psychologists use the scientific method to acquire knowledge.
● An empirical method for acquiring knowledge is one based on observation,
including experimentation, rather than a method based only on forms of
logical argument or previous authorities.
● Psychology created in 19th century
1.2
● Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) was a German scientist who was the first
person to be referred to as a psychologist.
-Famous book : Principles of Physiological Psychology was published in 1873.
Wrote Volkerpsychologie in 1904.
-He believed that the goal of psychology was to identify components of
consciousness and how those components combined to result in our conscious
experience.
● Introspection (Internal Perception)-A process by which someone examines
their own conscious experience as objectively as possible, making the human
mind like any other aspect of nature that a scientist observed.
● Voluntarism—People have free will and should know the intentions of a
psychological experiment if they were participating
● Wundt established his psychology laboratory at the University at Leipzig in
1879
● Despite his efforts to train individuals in the process of introspection, this
process remained highly subjective, and there was very little agreement
between individuals.
Edward Titchener
● One of Wundt's students developed structuralism
, ● Structuralism- Focuses on the contents of mental processes rather than their
function
Functionalism
● William James, John Dewey, and Charles Sanders Peirce helped establish
functional psychology
● They accepted Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection and viewed
this theory as an explanation of an organism’s characteristics. Key to that
theory is the idea that natural selection leads to organisms that are adapted to
their environment, including their behavior.
● Adaptation means that a trait of an organism has a function for the survival
and reproduction of the individual, because it has been naturally selected.
● James saw that psychology’s purpose was to study the function of behavior in
the world,
● Functionalism focused on how mental activities helped an organism fit into
its environment.
● Functionalism has a second, more subtle meaning in that functionalists were
more interested in the operation of the whole mind rather than of its individual
parts, which were the focus of structuralism.
Freud
● Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) was an Austrian neurologist who was
fascinated by patients suffering from “hysteria” and neurosis.
-Freud theorized that many of his patients’ problems arose from the unconscious
mind.
-In Freud’s view, the unconscious mind was a repository of feelings and urges of
which we have no awareness.
-Gaining access to the unconscious, then, was crucial to the successful resolution of
the patient’s problems.
-According to Freud, the unconscious mind could be accessed through dream
analysis, by examinations of the first words that came to people’s minds, and
through seemingly innocent slips of the tongue.
