A wee history

• Before Psychology - Descartes and Locke

  Descartes and his idea of the mind is very different to Aristotle’s psyche. Descartes was associated with nativism (certain knowledge is innate), dualism and rationalism.

  John Locke with tabula-rasa and empiricism - all knowledge is acquired through experience.

  Idea that we are born with certain mental stuff  - ties in with developmental psychology, are we born with certain stuff or do we get it from the environment =>Philosophy (mind-brain, nativism, empiricism, etc.)
• Before Psychology - physiology and psychology.


  Physiology (sensations, reaction times, etc.). In psychophysics the ability to distinguish between two stimuli is being measured.

  In mental chronometry, the time taken to do so is measured.

  Psychology comes out of philosophy and physiology.
• Before Psychology - Pseudoscience

  ‘Pseudoscience’ (phrenology in 1840s = people feel skull and try to work out personality, mesmerism = precursor to hypnotism, involved an interaction with experimenter and observer, and all experiments now involve the same process)

  Unless you have a firm boundary between non-science and science, it doesn’t mean a lot. These things may not be scientific in how we define science, but they didn’t get it all wrong, according to information we have now collected.
• Before Psychology - Evolutionary theory

  Evolutionary theory (natural framework for study of mind) – mid 19th century, earlier versions but Darwin’s caught on; variation in a species, natural selection and survival of the fittest etc. provides a big scientific framework from which we can understand human beings (and their survival?), and within that the role of the mind within survival.
• Psychology before c.1880

  c.1700: ‘psychology’ (from psychologia: study of soul/mind)

  c.1800: ‘Psychology’ (a discipline and calling it a ‘science’ of the mind based on introspection. Could do this because the term science was looser then)

  c.1860: experimental methods, based on measurement, coming out of physiology. Measurement gets us to science for most people.

  c. 1870: courses, textbooks, but still no discipline. What is a discipline of psychology? When does psychology begin, well that depends on how you define psychology.
• The origins of Psychology

  Wilhelm Wundt’s laboratory in Leipzig University 1879 – where it’s thought that psychology began. Laboratory is a physical space where you can do science, acts as a physical demarcation, and ergo we have science.(N.B. methods not new (Wundt uses those that already exist), and feels that the scope limited)For a science to exist, measurement isn't enough. For Psychology to be seen as discipline we need: a physical space = lab, a place to publish = journal (1881), teach students (who became Psychologists)= experimental study of human mind
• Psychology changes overtime, need perspective to see that.
• Origins of Psychology in Britain:

  Galton, Darwin's cousin, is studying ‘natural ability’ in London. Enthralled with evolutionary theory but wants to tweak it = natural variation in minds = “natural ability” = becomes what is known as intelligence.

  Public pays to be part of the study. Measurements of body and mental stuff. His idea is that the mind is nature, which is tied to physical stuff. Coined the term nature-nurture. But it’s all correlational. He kind of starts differential psychology, but he is doing correlational psychology.= correlational study of individual differences
• Origins of Psychology in Paris:

  Charcot on hysteria. Is a medic studying neurosis called hysteria. He uses hypnosis, studying behaviour of patients to try to study the nature of neurosis = sort of clinical psychology birth.= observation (of pathological condition)
• Origins of Psychology for Britain, Germany and France:

  At the same time in these 3 different places, lots of different things being studied in different ways. Cf. paradigms, theory-laden data

  Experimental study of human mind, correlational study of individual differences, study of a pathological condition through observation. – thus we can’t compare the data because it represents different things. data is bound up with what you think it represents and the method of collecting it/measurement.N.B. experimental v. correlational v. clinical
• American Psychology

  Psychology laboratories (founders taught by Wundt or Hall):1883 - Johns Hopkins1887 - Indiana1888 - Wisconsin1889 - Clark, Kansas, Nebraska, Penn1890 - Iowa, Michigan1891 - Wellesley, Columbia, Cornell, Catholic, Toronto1892 - Brown, Illinois, Harvard, Yale

  1893 - Chicago, Stanford, Princeton …1900 - 42 labs in North America plus:American Journal of Psychology (1887); Psych Review (1894), Principles of Psychology (1890), A.P.A. (1892) with Hall as the President.
• Psychology c.1900 (U.S.) - who is Titchener and what did he do?

  Titchener’s, an Englishman who studied with Wundt, then went to USA believed in:

  Titchener's ‘structuralism’: a science of mental content (via introspection), should be studying content an structure of the human mind using experimental introspection. Subjects presented with stimuli (which can be manipulated), but reports are introspective.

  Radical views about what, how and why psychology should study the things it does. – conference in 1909. i.e. below.
• Psychology c.1900 (U.S.) - Functionalism 


  Others disagree with Titchener and think that it should be: Functionalism: study of mental operations and utility (via various methods), that shouldn’t be studying content and structure, but rather what the mind does.

  Not as related to other functionalism, because same words mean different things in different contexts.= science and applied psychology -> should it be scientific but also something that benefits society etc.
• Psychology c.1900 USA - psychoanalysis and psychical research

  Psychoanalysis and Psychical Research – hated psychoanalysis because it was already hard enough to study the conscious mind let alone the unconscious.

  Radical views about what, how and why psychology should study the things it does. – conference in 1909 -> disputed object of study, methods, scope, purpose of psychology
• Psychology in U.S. (e20C) - Watson

  All of prior approached to psychology are rejected by Watson who rejects study of mind in favour of behaviourism because it is observable.= study of behaviour (as Stimulus-Response (S-R)) - dominant approach in U.S. at the time but not elsewhere. – classical conditioning in terms of little albert.
• 1930s: neo-behaviourism focus on ‘reinforcement’


  Tolman’s ‘intervening variables’ (1932) as behaviour – rats in mazes. Finds that rats who are familiar with the maze find food quicker compared to rats who aren’t familiar with that maze -> reinforcement? Cannot talk about remembering because he is trying to be a behaviourist so can't talk about the mental stuff. Claims that we’re not looking at the mind, we’re talking about variables.NB. study of mental (IQ, attitudes, personality) – other people also in the States and elsewhere while behaviourist approach is also occurring.
• Differences between classical and operant conditioning...?



  The main difference between classical and operant conditioning is that classical conditioning refers to involuntary behaviours, whereas operant conditioning involves voluntary behaviours. Additionally, with CC, the stimulus comes before the desired behaviour, whereas in operant conditioning the consequence comes after the behaviour.
• Psychology in Germany (e20C)

  Wertheimer (1910): phi phenomenon (elements perceived as movement), not illusion (associationism): Gestalts natural (nativism) -> gestalt psychology. = study of experience, anti-reductionist, nativistBy 1930, dominant in Germany but … many gestalt psychologists are jewish, and flee to USA, changing USA approach to psychology.
• Difference between behavioursism and gestalt psychology:

  Behaviourism: ignores mind, reductionist, ‘nurture’ – complete opposite to gestalt psychology)
• What is gestalt psychology?

  Gestalts natural (nativism) -> gestalt psychology. A thing that is defined by its form not its elements/content i.e. a square is about the form that the lines make, not the lines themselves. Studies conscious experience, which is complete opposite of Behaviourism.  = study of experience, anti-reductionist, nativist
• Psychology (e20C)

  Experimental: behaviourism (learning), Gestalt (perception)

  Correlational (differential) studies: (IQ, personality)

  Social Psychology: social attitudes, social influence – prejudice, racism arises as a term here.

  Piaget on mental development in France, Bartlett on remembering – studied memory as meaningful information, whereas Ebbinghaus was meaningless

  .Psychoanalysis (influential in psychiatry by 1960s (but then changes), criticised by psychologists who try to debunk it)
• Psychology (m20C)

  ‘Cognitive revolution’, but not really.

  Paradigm shift in the states from behaviourism to cognition and provided a new way of thinking about and new language for the mind: computer metaphor (c. 1948)cognition as information-processing: mental content as informationmind as function of brain (software v hardware) – later cog neuroscience

  Can’t see mental things in the brain, have to interpret measurements as something related to a process – ambiguity and apprehension around doing so?Ulric Neisser’s Cognitive Psychology (1967) is definitely a thing now
• Why was it not a ‘Cognitive revolution’ in the mid 20th Century?

  Because it's not new ideas, people have been studying mental stuff already. However, it was a paradigm shift.
• Here and now …

  BPS core areas (bio, cog, dev, diff, soc), still lots of methods and variation within these 5 separate areas.A variety of aims: truth v. utility: why? People talk about psychology in lots of different ways…Beyond the academy: boundaries, application (scientificity v. relevance)Beyond here and now: elsewhere, other times (universality v. specificity) – i.e. WEIRD countries, does the psychology that we do now and for a very long time, is it about PEOPLE or very specific types of people.
• A variety of objects and methods: what and how? – when we change method we change what we study.