origins of psychology

• introspection


  first systematic experimental attempt to study the mind by breaking up conscious awareness into the basic structures of thought ,images and sensations
• psychology


  the scientific study of the mind , behaviour and experience
• science


  a means of acquiring knowledge through systematic and objective investigation - aim is to discover general laws
• first lab


  • opened by wilhelm wundt
  • 1879
  • in germany
• what was wundts aim

  try to analyse the nature of human consciousness and represented the first systematic attempt to study the mind under controlled conditions - introspection
• what was one of wundts main objectives

  try and develop theoris about mental processes such as language and perception
• what were his standardised procedures

  he and his co workers recorded their experiences of various stimuli they were presented with

  • they would divide their observations into three categories - thoughts , images and sensations
• structuralism


  isolating the structure of consciousness in this way

  • the stimuli wundt and his co workers experiences were always presented in the same order and the same instructions were issued to all participants
• 17th-19th century


  psychology was known as experimental philosophy
• 1879


  wilhelm wundt opened first psychology lab in germany
• 1900s


  freud emphasises influence of unconscious mind on behaviour

  • develops psychoanalysis therapy
• 1913


  John B Watson writes ' Psychology as the Behaviourist views it '

  then BF Skinner establishes the behaviourist approach

  PA and behaviourist approach dominate psychology for the first half of the 20th century
• 1950s


  Rogers and Maslow develop humanistic approach rejecting behaviourist and psychodynamic view that behaviour is determined by outside factors

  Humanistic psychologists emphasise the importance of self determination and free will
• 1950s


  • introduction of digital computer gives psychs a metaphor for the opertions of the human mind
  • vognitive approach reintroduces study of mental processes in a more scientific way than wundts investigations
• 1960s


  Bandura proposes SLT

  • approach draws attention to role of cog factors in learning
• 1980s onwards


  Biological approach establishes itself as dominant scientific perspective in psychology

  • due to advances in technology have increased understanding of brain and biological processes
• eve of the 21st century

  cognitive neuroscience emerges - brings together cog and bio approaches

  cog ns investigates how biological structures influence mental states
• 1900s behaviourists


  • value of introspection was questioned by many - mostly by watson
  • problem was that introspection produced subjective data so it was difficult to establish general laws
• 1950s cog approach


  • digital revolution gave new gen pf psych a metaphor for studying the mind
  • cog psych likened the mind to a computer - the multi store model and tested their predictions about memory and attention using experiments
  • cog approach ensured that study of mind was once again a legitimate and highly scientific aspect of the discipline