Yagi Studio/Getty Images

Psychology

• Psychology: Scientific study of mind and

behavior
– Mind: Private inner experience
– Behavior: Observable actions of human beings and
nonhuman animals

• Functional magnetic resonance imaging

(fMRI): Neuroimaging technique which allows
one to see which parts of the brain are active
during a given task
• What are the bases of perceptions, thoughts,
memories, and feelings, or our subjective
sense of self?
• How does the mind usually allow us to function
effectively in the world?
• Why does the mind occasionally function so
ineffectively in the world?
THE PERILS OF PROCRASTION
Procrastination: Avoiding carrying out a task
• Over 70% of college students procrastinate.
• Study shows procrastination to have both
beneficial and detrimental effects.
– Procrastinators tended to feel better early on, but
suffered more stress and health problems as
deadline approached.
– No evidence to support procrastinators did their best
work “under pressure”; procrastinators had poorer
grades than non-procrastinators
Psychology’s Roots:
The Path to a Science

Letters to William James from various correspondents and photograph album, 1865-
of Mind
• William James (1842-

1929. MS Am 1092 (1185) #8, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

1910): First to take
scientific approach to
study Psychology;
wrote The Principles
of Psychology

William James (1842-1910)

Psychology’s Roots: The Path to a Science
of Mind
• Two original movements in Psychology:
– Structuralism: Analyzes the mind by breaking it
down into its basic components
– Functionalism: Studies how mental abilities allow
people to adapt to their environments
Psychology’s Ancestors: The Great
Philosophers
How do young children learn
about the world?
Nativism: Philosophical view that
certain kinds of knowledge are innate
or inborn
Plato was a nativist who believed that
certain kinds of knowledge are innate.

Philosophical empiricism:
Philosophical view that all knowledge
is acquired through experience
Aristotle believed that the mind is a
blank state on which experiences are
Geo Martinez/FeaturePics
written.
 From the Brain to the
Mind: The French
Connection
• Rene’ Descartes
(1596-1650): French
philosopher that
© Thom Lang/Corbis

argued for dualism

between mind and
Rene Descartes believed that body
the physical body was a
container for the non-physical • Thomas Hobbes
thing called the mind. (1588-1679): Agued
Most modern scientists reject against Descartes
Descartes’ “dualism” and
embrace Ryle’s “scientific
materialism.”
 From the Brain to the
Mind: The French
Connection
• Franz Joseph Gall (1758-
1828)
– Phrenology: Now defunct
theory that specific mental
abilities and characteristics
are localized in specific
Mary Evans Picture Library/The Image Works

regions of the brain

• Pierre Flourens (1794-
1867): Surgically removed
brain pieces; argued
against Gall’s methods
• Paul Broca (1824-1880):
Studied brain damaged
patients (left frontal lobe) to
link localization to ability
 From the Brain to the
Mind: The French
Connection
Paul Broca (1824-1880):
• Studied brain damaged
patients (left frontal
lobe) to link localization
to ability
Apic/Getty Images
• Had the crucial insight
that damage to a
specific part of the brain
When Mr. Leborgne died in impaired a specific
1861, Paul Broca dissected mental function, clearly
his brain and found a lesion in
the left hemisphere which, he
demonstrating that the
concluded, had been brain and mind are
responsible for Leborgne’s closely linked
loss of speech.
What fundamental question has puzzled
philosophers ever since humans began thinking
about behavior?
 Structuralism: Applying
Methods from
Physiology to
Psychology
• Physiology: Study of
biological processes,
especially in the human
body
• Hermann von Helmholtz
(1821-1894): Studied
human reaction time;
Hulton Archive/ Getty Images
estimated the length of
nerve impulse
– Stimulus: Sensory input
from the environment
– Reaction time: Amount of
time taken to respond to a
specific stimulus
Structuralism:
Applying Methods

Archives of the History of American Psychology

from Physiology to
Psychology

Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920): Opened the first

psychological laboratory
– Consciousness: Person’s subjective experience of the world and
the mind
– Structuralism: Analysis of the basic elements that constitute the
mind
– Introspection: Subjective observation of one’s own experience
Titchener Brings
Structuralism to the
United States
Edward Titchener (1867-
1927)
• Studied under Wundt;
focused on identifying basic
elements of the mind

• Was not first to try to identify

the elements of conscious
experience

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

• As this drawing shows, the
17th-century physician and
artist, Robert Fludd tried to
do the same thing—and was
about equally successful
What are the problems of the introspective
method?
James and the Functional Approach

William James Charles Darwin G. Stanley Hall

(1842-1910) (1809-1882 (1844-1924)

• First to take • Inspired James; wrote • Set up first

scientific approach On the Origin of psychological
to study Psychology; Species by Means of laboratory in North
wrote The Principles Natural Selection America; focused on
of Psychology • Natural selection: the development and
• Functionalism: features of an education. Founded
Study of the purpose organism that help it the American
survive and Journal of
mental processes reproduce are more
serve in enabling Psychology
likely than other
people to adapt to features to be passed
their environment on to subsequent
generations
IMPROVING STUDY SKILLS
• Psychologists have focused on mental
strategies that can enhance your
ability to acquire information, retain
it over time, and retrieve what you
have acquired and retained

Superstudio/ Getty Images

• Rehearse
– Spaced and elaborative rehearsal
better
– Visualization helps
• Study smart: Regular review, no
cramming, test yourself, hit the main
points, effective note-taking skills,
organization
• Get some sleep!
The Development of Clinical Psychology

• Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893), Pierre

Janet (1859-1947): Studied hysteric patients
through hypnosis
– Hysteria: Temporary loss of cognitive or motor
functions, usually as a result of emotionally upsetting
experiences
Rue des Archives / The Granger Collection, NYC — All rights reserved.

Sigmund Freud (1856-

1939):
Hysteria caused from
painful unconscious
experiences

Unconscious: Part of the mind that operates outside of awareness but

influences conscious thoughts, feelings, and actions

Psychoanalytic theory: Approach to understanding human behavior that

emphasizes the importance of unconscious mental processes in shaping
feelings, thoughts, and behaviors

Psychoanalysis: Therapeutic approach that focuses on bringing

unconscious material into conscious awareness to better understand
psychological disorders
The Path to Freud and Psychoanalytic
Theory
• Carl Jung (1875-1961), Alfred Adler (1870-
1937): Followed but broke away from Freud
• Psychoanalytic theory became controversial
 Influence of
Psychoanalysis and the
Humanistic Response
• Abraham Maslow
(1908-1970), Carl
Rogers (1902-1987):
Pioneered a new

© United Archives GmbH / Alamy

movement in
Humanistic Psychology
– Humanistic psychology:
Approach to
understanding human
Humanistic psychology offered a nature that emphasizes
positive view of human nature that the positive potential of
zeitgeist of the 1960s. human beings
The Search for Objective Measurement:
Behaviorism Takes Center Stage
Behaviorism
• Advocates that psychologists restrict themselves
to the scientific study of objectively observable
behavior
• Represented a dramatic departure from previous
schools of thought
Watson and the Emergence of Behaviorism

Margaret
John Watson Ivan Pavlov (1849-
Washburn (1871-
(1878-1958) 1936)
1939)
• Influenced by • Studied behavior • Studied the
Pavlov; goal to in different animal physiology of
predict and species; digestion and
control behavior published The founded classical
through the study Animal Mind; conditioning
of observable developed theory (stimulus-
behavior of consciousness response)
• Response: Action
or physiological
change elicited
by a stimulus
B.F. Skinner and the
Development of
Behaviorism
• Skinner (1904-1990): Developed
the “Skinner box” or conditioning
chamber to explain learning, and
founded operant conditioning;
published The Behavior of
Organisms, Beyond Freedom and
Dignity, Walden II

Nina Leen/Time Life Pictures/ Getty Images

– Reinforcement: Consequences
of a behavior that determine
whether it will be more likely
that the behavior will occur
again
 Was there really a
baby in the box?
• Skinner’s well-publicized
questioning of such cherished
notions as free will led to a rumor
that he had raised his own
daughter in a Skinner box.
Bettmann/ Corbis

• This urban legend, while untrue,

likely originated from the climate-
controlled, glass-encased crib he
invented to protect his daughter
from the cold Minnesota winter.
Introducing Skinner’s
“Heir Conditioner” • Skinner marketed the crib under
various names, but it failed to
catch on with parents.
The Emergence of Cognitive Psychology

• Cognitive psychology: Scientific study of

mental processes, including perception, thought,
memory, and reasoning
• Sir Frederic Bartlett (1886-1969): Discovered
that memory recall is flawed, in contrast to
Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909)
Return of the Mind:
Psychology Expands
• Max Wertheimer (1880-
1943): Founded induced
motion phenomena
– Gestalt psychology: a
psychological approach that
emphasizes that we often
perceive the whole rather
than the sum of the parts
– Illusions: errors of
perception, memory, or
judgment in which What do you see
subjective experience when you look at this
differs from objective reality image? Why do you
see more than just
random markings?
 Bill Anderson / Photo Researchers, Inc.
Jean Piaget (1896-1980): Studied perceptual and cognitive
errors in children
– Theorized that younger children lack a particular cognitive ability
that allows older children to appreciate the fact that the mass of an
object remains constant even when it changes its shape
 The Emergence of
Cognitive Psychology

Kurt Lewis (1890-

1947)
• Studied the construal
of stimuli; topology as
a mathematical to
model subjective
experience
• Argued that people
Peter Dazeley/Getty Images

react to the world as

they see it and not to
the world as it is
 How was he computer analogy
helpful in the early days of
cognitive psychology?

• This 1950s computer was

among the first generation of
digital computers.
• Emergence of computers
led to reemergence of
© Bettmann/CORBIS interest in mental processes
all across the discipline of
psychology.
Technology and the Development of
Cognitive Psychology
During WWII, the military needed help
understanding the human interface with
technology.
• Donald Broadbent (1926-1993): Discovered
attention has limited capacity
• George Miller: Found consistency in capacity
limits in memory
 Shutterstock
Noam Chomsky (b. 1928): Pointed out that even young
children generate sentences they have never heard before,
and therefore could not possibly be learning language by
reinforcement
The Brain Meets the Mind: The Rise of
Cognitive Neuroscience
Karl Lashley Behavioral Cognitive
(1890-1958) neuroscience neuroscience
• Lesioned rats’ • Approach to • Field that
brains to psychology attempts to
unsuccessfully that links understand the
localize psychological links between
learning; lead processes to cognitive
to activities in the processes and
physiological nervous brain activity
psychology system and
other bodily
processes
 Roger Ressmeyer / Corbis

PET Scans of Healthy and Alzheimer’s Brains

Brain scanning is an invaluable tool because it allows the
observation of the brain in action and to see which parts
are involved in which operations.
The Adaptive Mind: The Emergence of
Evolutionary Psychology
• Evolutionary psychology
• Explains mind and behavior in terms of the
adaptive value of abilities that are preserved
over time by natural selection
• Inspired by functionalist approaches of William
James and G. Stanley Hall
Beyond the Individual: Social and Cultural
Perspectives
• Human beings are social animals
• Psychology is influenced by the presence and
absence of other people
The Development of Social Psychology

• Social psychology: Subfield of psychology that

studies the causes and consequences of
interpersonal behavior
• Solomon Asch (1907-1996): Studied “mental
chemistry” and obedience in lab experiments
• Gordon Allport (1897-1967): Studied
stereotyping, prejudice, and racism as
perceptual errors
Social movements such
as this have the power
to sway individuals.

AP Photo/ Ahn Young-joon

Social psychology studies how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of

individuals can be influenced by the presence of others.

Members of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church are

often married to one another in ceremonies of 10,000 people or more;
in some cases couples don’t know each other before the wedding
begins.
The Emergence of Cultural Psychology

• Cultural psychology: Study of how cultures

reflect and shape the psychological processes of
their members
• Wilhelm Wundt (1900–1920)
– Studied by psychologists and anthropologists
– Absolutionism: Culture makes little difference on
psychology
– Relativism: Psychological phenomena are likely to
vary considerably across cultures
The Profession of Psychology: Past and
Present
• Psychologists band together
• American Psychological Association (APA)
– Seven men began in 1892
– Each worked at a large university where they taught
psychology courses, performed research, and wrote
textbooks
– Today academic psychologists make up 20% of
membership; 70% work in clinical and heath-related
settings

• American Psychological Society (APS)

– Began in 1988; changed to the Association for
Psychological Science (2006)
William E. Sauro / New York Times Co. / Getty Images

Kenneth B. Clark Mary Whiton Calkins

(1914–2005) (1863–1930)

Growing role of women and minorities

– Francis Sumner (1895-1954): first African American awarded
Ph.D. in psychology
– Kenneth Clark (1914-2005): first African American APA President
– Mary Calkins (1863-1930): first female APA President
What Psychologists Do: Research Careers

• Most undergraduate psychology students move

on to graduate school and conduct research
– Postdoctoral fellowships
– Faculty positions
– Research position in industry
• Variety of career paths
– Clinical psychology, counseling psychology, school
psychology, industrial/organizational psychology are
just a few
 Psychologists are
drawn to many
different subfields in
psychology.

Here are the

percentages of
people receiving
PhDs in various
subfields.

Clinical psychology
makes up almost half
of the doctorates
awarded in
psychology.

Source: 2004 Graduate

The Major Subfields in Psychology Study in Psychology.
Compiled by APA
Research Office.
PSYCHOLOGY AS A
HUB SCIENCE

Boyack, Kevin W., Klavans, Richard, and Borner, Katy, Mapping the backbone of science. Scientometrics,
Boyack and colleagues used
data from more than 1 million
articles to map the similarities

Vol.64, No.3 (2005) 351-374. ©2005, Springer-Verlag/Akademiai Diado

and interconnectedness of
different science areas.

Psychology is one of the

seven major fields that
emerged.
 Fact or Falsehood?

Sigmund Freud established the first psychology false

laboratory at the University of Vienna, Austria.

The science of psychology developed from the

more established fields of biology and
true
philosophy.

Psychology is best defined today as the study of false

mental life.

William James is associated with functionalist true

psychology.

Behaviorism is primarily concerned with teaching false

animals how to behave.
How did work involving patients with brain
damage help demonstrate the mind-brain
connection?
What was the useful application of Hemholtz’s
results?

How did the work of chemists influence early

psychology?
What are the problems of the introspective
method?
How does functionalism relate to Darwin’s theory
of natural selection?
How was Freud influenced by work with hysterics?
Why are Freud’s ideas less influential today?
How did behaviorism help psychology advance as
a science?
What did Skinner learn by observing the behavior
of hungry rats?
Which of Skinner’s claims provoked an outcry?
Why might people not see what an experimenter
actually showed them?
How did the advent of computers change
psychology?
What did psychologists learn from pilots during
World War II?
What have we learned by watching the brain at
work?
How did historical events influence the
development of social psychology?
How did anthropologists influence psychology in
the 1980s?
Why are psychological conclusions so often
relative to the person, place, or culture described?
How has the face of psychology changed as the
field has evolved?
In what ways does psychology contribute to
society?