History of Psychology (A brief Survey)

History of psychology was divided into two parts

1. Pre-scientific period
 Greek period
 Middle Ages
 Islamic period
2. Scientific period/Schools of psychology
 Structuralism
 Functionalism
 Behaviorism
 Gestalt psychology
 Psychoanalysis
 Humanistic behavior

Pre-scientific period

Greek Period: According to Greek philosophers “Psyche is a substance like breath,

air or fire” and these substances are thought to control the body. Some of them
are discussed below:

 Hippocrates (430 BC)

His focus was relationship between mind and body.
He gave a theory that “personality traits and human behaviors are based
on 4 temperaments/characteristics, associated with four fluids (humors)
of the body.
1. Choleric (yellow bile from liver)
2. Melancholic (black bile from kidney)
3. Sanguine (red blood from heart)
4. Phlegmatic (white phlegm from lungs)

 Plato (427-347 BC)

 His studies focus on body and soul.
He gave a theory of mind-body dualism and postulated that “ as long as
soul remains in the body, the man is alive and when the soul leaves the
body, the man dies.”

 Aristotle (384-322 BC)

He rejected theory of Plato.
He suggested that “mind is a function of body itself as just vision is the
function eye.”
This concept of Aristotle made a direction for making psychology as a
science. (Study of organism)

Middle Ages:

 Plotinus (205-270 BC)

He was influenced by Plato and Aristotle’s thought.
He tried to understand religious beliefs through reasoning (to make
explanations for understanding a concept).

 St. Augustine ( 354-430)

He believed that human being is interaction of soul and body.
He introduced Introspective method. (Method in which an individual can
understand their own inner feelings).

Islamic Period: Describes the principles of life in the light of Quran and Sunnah.
They said that problems and their solutions are founded in Quran.

 Al-Kindi (803-873 AD)

He believed that human soul is originated from God’s will.
He said that our real happiness lies in the reason and spiritual life.
 He tried to combine religion (focuses on action) and philosophy (focuses
on theoretical aspects)

 Al-Farabi (870-950 AD)

He was influenced from Plato and Aristotle.
He believed that man is composed of body and soul, which belongs to
Allah
And Allah is immortal and above all the human thoughts.

 Ibn Sina (980-1037 AD)

According to him, there are three kinds of mind;
1. Human mind
2. Animal mind
3. Vegetable mind

He said that only human mind has the ability to reason and have
intelligence.

He said that physical illness can be treated with medicines but mental
illness can be treated psychologically with religion.

He thought that body has no link with mind.

 Imam Ghazali (1058-1111 AD)

According to him “those obsessed with love of Allah and treating the right
path do not contact mental illness”.
He said that man was identified by his actions.
He also stressed on children’s education.
He thought that mental disorders are caused by negative emotions
present in the mind and one should get rid of them.

 Ibn Khuldun (1332-1406)

He introduces theories of social psychology.
 He explained human beliefs, prejudice and attitudes etc.
He thought that religion influences human body and whole life.

 Shah Waliullah ( 1702-1763 AD)

He discovered that causes of mental diseases and treated them.
According to him “healthy personality develops when there is a balance
between positive and negative forces within the mind.

Scientific Period/Schools of psychology

Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920):

Introduced by Wilhelm Wundt (German), also known as father of experimental

psychology

He set up first experimental laboratory in Leipzig, Germany in 1879.

He was originally trained as a physician and defines psychology as a study of

conscious mind. (Conscious mind involves all the things that you are currently
aware and thinking about it).

He published a book named “Principles of physiological psychology”.

Structuralism:

Structuralism was based on fundamental elements forming foundation of

thinking, consciousness, emotions and other mental states.

They focus on two main points and stated that:

1. Mind is the sum total of experiences

2. Study of the elements of consciousness

Key concepts of structuralism are:

 Study of conscious mind

  Study method adopted was introspective method (Conscious effort).
(Introspection is way of looking inward and examining one’s internal
thoughts and feelings.)
 Law of continuity (association) was introduced by titchner. (A single
thought can evoke the other associated thoughts.)
 Titchner also proposed three states of consciousness.
Sensation (stimuli): Collect knowledge from our environment through our
senses.
Perception (response): Knowledge collected goes to our mind form an
image.
Attention: Primary (Involuntary) and Secondary (Voluntary).

Method: Wilhelm and other Structuralists used a procedure called introspection

to study the structure of mind. Using this method Wilhelm presented his trained
subjects a stimulus such as bright green card or sentence printed on a card. The
subjects were asked to describe it in their own words. Different responses were
given by the subjects. The Structuralists finally concluded that all conscious
processes consisted of three elements; sensation, images and feelings.

Criticism:

 Psychologists were not satisfied from introspection method to uncover the

elements of mind.
 Consciousness could not be studied in elements of mental units.
 Introspection was not truly a scientific technique.

Functionalism:

In 1990, another school of thought was presented by William James

(American psychologist).
William James published a book named “Principles of psychology”.
This school of thought was presented against structuralism.
Functionalist’s main focus was on “functions” of mental activity.
William James examined the ways in which behavior allows people to
satisfy their needs.
 According to William James “Function of the mind is more important than
structure of mind”.
Another functionalist, John Dewey redefined psychology as “the study of
man’s adjustment to his environment”, and said role is more important
than components.
Basically, functionalism is influenced by the “Darwin’s theory of evolution”.
(Darwin beliefs were that a thing evolves/changes).
So, functionalists also believed that:
 Mind also grows and evolves
 Mind is not static (Not fixed), rather ever changing.

Example: Pen

Structuralists View Functionalists View

Structure of pen : like pen is made up of Function of pen: Like how it writes? And
Ink, body, pointer or nib of pen etc. where we can use it?

Method:

The methods used were experimental including the use of introspection.

Functionalists mainly focused on the function of specific behaviors. They studied

topics like thinking, memory, consciousness, motivation and the animal
intelligence.

Criticism:

 They did not explain functions of mind.

 Also did not explain mind-body relationship.
 They used introspection method which is not scientific.
Functionalists believed that this is a subjective method because in
introspection one can examine their own conscious state (mental process).
They believed in individual differences.
 They did not explain unconsciousness.
Behaviorism:

Behaviorism was introduced by an American psychologist named “John B.

Watson” in 1913.

Watson stated that “behaviorism is a theory of cognition that focuses on behavior

instead of thoughts, feelings or motivations”.

Cognition= mental actions or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding

thought, experiences, senses”.

Watson’s work not only changed the focus of psychology from consciousness to
behavior, but also from instincts to learned behavior.

Instincts= “a way of thinking or feeling that is not learned” OR “a natural desire or

tendency that makes you want to act in a particular way”.

According to Watson “All human behavior were learned”. Watson’s beliefs were
strengthened by the work of Russian psychologist named “Ivan P. Pavlov”.

Pavlov worked on the process of learning and presented a theory of learning and
this theory was based on idea that “all behaviors are acquired through
conditioning”.

(Conditioning = Interaction with environment).

Pavlov studied a form of behavior called a “Conditional Reflex”. (Conditional

reflex = the stimulus which is associated with another stimulus and response is
generated).

Example: Dog (Salivation)

To test his theory, Pavlov set up an experiment in which he rang a bell shortly
before presenting food to the dogs.  At first, the dogs elicited no response to the
bells. However, eventually, the dogs began to salivate at the sound of the bell
alone.
Pavlov’s Observation

First stage:

He presented Unconditioned Stimulus Food

Unconditioned response generated Salivation

2nd stage:

Neutral Stimulus Ringing bell

Response Nil

3rd stage:

Unconditioned Stimuli Food + Neutral Stimuli (Ringing bell)

Unconditioned response Salivation
(Repeating the 3rd stage for several times)

4th stage:

Conditioned Stimulus Ringing bell

Conditioned response Salivation

Method:

Watson used experimental method for studies.

B.F. Skinner also performed many experiments on animals and defined

psychology as the science of behavior.

Criticism:

 They used their ideas to extreme.

 They limited psychology to the study of observable behavior.
 Did not explain consciousness and sub-consciousness.
Gestalt Psychology:

In early 1990, Gestalt school of thought was developed by Max Wertheimer

(Austrian) along with Wolfgang Kohler (German) and Kurt Koffka (German).

The word gestalt is German word which means “whole” (Complete).

This school of thought was also proposed against structuralism.

According to gestalt psychologists “the whole is greater than some of its parts”
OR “whole is other than the part”.

(Any phenomena should be taken in its overall form)

The main goal of gestalt psychology was to study perception, learning, problem
solving or personality as a whole”.

Kurt Koffka wrote a book named “Principles of gestalt psychology”.

Phi-Phenomena: Max Wertheimer gave an idea “an illusion of movement that

arises when stationary objects—light bulbs, for example—are placed side by side
and illuminated rapidly one after another”.

Zeigarnik Effect: it was presented by a Russian lady named “Bluma Zeigarnik”,

According to Zeigarnik hypothesis; participants were more likely to remember
incomplete tasks because they spurred “psychic tension.” Once someone
completed the task, this relieves psychic tension, and thus they can release it
from their memory, and the person no longer uses significant cognitive effort to
remember.

Laws or Principles of Gestalt psychology:

1. Law of proximity: The law of proximity describes how the human eye

perceives connections between visual elements. Elements that are close
to each other are perceived to be related when compared with
elements that are separate from each other.
2. Law of similarity: The Law of Similarity is the gestalt grouping law that
states that elements that are similar to each other tend to be perceived
as a unified group. Similarity can refer to any number of features,
including color, orientation, size, or indeed motion.

3. Law of continuity: The Gestalt Principle of Continuity states that we are

more likely to see continuous and smooth flowing lines rather than
broken or jagged ones. This is because once our eyes begin to follow
something; they will continue to travel in that direction until it
encounters another item or object.
4. Law of closure: The Law of Closure is the gestalt law that states that if
there is a break in the object, we perceive the object as continuing in a
smooth pattern or tendency of finishing the unfinished objects.

5. Law of figure and ground: The figure-ground principle states

that people instinctively perceive objects as either being in the
 foreground or the background. They either stand out prominently in the
front (the figure) or recede into the back (the ground).

Criticism:

 Only worked in the area of perception.

 Did not work on unconscious processes.
 Approaches were not purely scientific.

(Psychoanalysis and humanistic psychology are not studied yet)