{"id":1698,"date":"2016-10-06T01:23:57","date_gmt":"2016-10-06T01:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/waymaker-psychology\/?post_type=chapter&p=1698"},"modified":"2017-05-19T13:08:23","modified_gmt":"2017-05-19T13:08:23","slug":"outcome-the-evolution-of-psychology","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-intropsych\/chapter\/outcome-the-evolution-of-psychology\/","title":{"raw":"The History of Psychology","rendered":"The History of Psychology"},"content":{"raw":"

What you\u2019ll learn to do: describe the evolution of psychology and the major pioneers in the field<\/h2>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1740\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"346\"]\"Painting<\/a> Plato, Aristotle, and other ancient Greek philosophers examined a wide range of topics relating to what we now consider psychology.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nMany cultures throughout history have speculated on the nature of the mind, heart, soul, spirit, and brain. Philosophical interest in behavior and the mind dates back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, China, and India, but psychology as a discipline didn't develop until the mid-1800s, when it evolved from the study of philosophy and began in German and American labs. This section will teach\u00a0you more about the major founding psychologists and their contributions to the development of psychology.\r\n
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Learning Objectives<\/h3>\r\n
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  • Define Psychology<\/li>\r\n \t
  • Define structuralism and functionalism and the contributions of Wundt and James in the development of psychology<\/li>\r\n \t
  • Describe Freud\u2019s influence on psychology and his major theoretical contributions<\/li>\r\n \t
  • Describe the basic tenets of Gestalt psychology<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    What is Psychology?<\/h2>\r\nIn Greek mythology, Psyche was a mortal woman whose beauty was so great that it rivaled that of the goddess Aphrodite. Aphrodite became so jealous of Psyche that she sent her son, Eros, to make Psyche fall in love with the ugliest man in the world. However, Eros accidentally pricked himself with the tip of his arrow and fell madly in love with Psyche himself. He took Psyche to his palace and showered her with gifts, yet she could never see his face. While visiting Psyche, her sisters roused suspicion in Psyche about her mysterious lover, and eventually, Psyche betrayed Eros\u2019 wishes to remain unseen to her. Because of this betrayal, Eros abandoned Psyche. When Psyche appealed to Aphrodite to reunite her with Eros, Aphrodite gave her a series of impossible tasks to complete. Psyche managed to complete all of these trials; ultimately, her perseverance paid off as she was reunited with Eros and was ultimately transformed into a goddess herself (Ashliman, 2001; Greek Myths & Greek Mythology, 2014).\r\n
    \r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"265\"]\"A Antonio Canova's sculpture depicts Eros and Psyche.[\/caption]<\/figure>\r\nPsyche comes to represent the human soul\u2019s triumph over the misfortunes of life in the pursuit of true happiness (Bulfinch, 1855); in fact, the Greek word psyche<\/strong> means soul, and it is often represented as a butterfly. The word psychology<\/em><\/strong> was coined at a time when the concepts of soul and mind were not as clearly distinguished (Green, 2001). The root -ology<\/strong> denotes scientific study of, and psychology refers to the scientific study of the mind. Since science studies only observable phenomena and the mind is not directly observable, we expand this definition to the scientific study of mind and behavior.\r\n\r\nThe scientific study of any aspect of the world uses the scientific method to acquire knowledge. To apply the scientific method, a researcher with a question about how or why something happens will propose a tentative explanation, called a hypothesis, to explain the phenomenon. A hypothesis is not just any explanation; it should fit into the context of a scientific theory. A scientific theory is a broad explanation or group of explanations for some aspect of the natural world that is consistently supported by evidence over time. A theory is the best understanding that we have of that part of the natural world. Armed with the hypothesis, the researcher then makes observations or, better still, carries out an experiment to test the validity of the hypothesis. That test and its results are then published so that others can check the results or build on them. It is necessary that any explanation in science be testable, which means that the phenomenon must be perceivable and measurable. For example, that a bird sings because it is happy is not a testable hypothesis, since we have no way to measure the happiness of a bird. We must ask a different question, perhaps about the brain state of the bird, since this can be measured. In general, science deals only with matter and energy, that is, those things that can be measured, and it cannot arrive at knowledge about values and morality. This is one reason why our scientific understanding of the mind is so limited, since thoughts, at least as we experience them, are neither matter nor energy. The scientific method is also a form of empiricism. An empirical method<\/strong> for acquiring knowledge is one based on observation, including experimentation, rather than a method based only on forms of logical argument or previous authorities.\r\n\r\nIt was not until the late 1800s that psychology became accepted as its own academic discipline. Before this time, the workings of the mind were considered under the auspices of philosophy. Given that any behavior is, at its roots, biological, some areas of psychology take on aspects of a natural science like biology. No biological organism exists in isolation, and our behavior is influenced by our interactions with others. Therefore, psychology is also a social science.\r\n
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    \r\n\r\nPsychology is a relatively young science with its experimental roots in the 19th century, compared, for example, to human physiology, which dates much earlier. As mentioned, anyone interested in exploring issues related to the mind generally did so in a philosophical context prior to the 19th century. Two men, working in the 19th century, are generally credited as being the founders of psychology as a science and academic discipline that was distinct from philosophy. Their names were Wilhelm Wundt and William James.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
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    Wundt and Structuralism<\/h2>\r\nWilhelm Wundt (1832\u20131920) was a German scientist who was the first person to be referred to as a psychologist. His famous book entitled Principles of Physiological Psychology<\/em> was published in 1873. Wundt viewed psychology as a scientific study of conscious experience, and he believed that the goal of psychology was to identify components of consciousness and how those components combined to result in our conscious experience. Wundt used introspection (he called it \u201cinternal perception\u201d), 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. Wundt\u2019s version of introspection used only very specific experimental conditions in which an external stimulus was designed to produce a scientifically observable (repeatable) experience of the mind (Danziger, 1980). The first stringent requirement was the use of \u201ctrained\u201d or practiced observers, who could immediately observe and report a reaction. The second requirement was the use of repeatable stimuli that always produced the same experience in the subject and allowed the subject to expect and thus be fully attentive to the inner reaction. These experimental requirements were put in place to eliminate \u201cinterpretation\u201d in the reporting of internal experiences and to counter the argument that there is no way to know that an individual is observing their mind or consciousness accurately, since it cannot be seen by any other person. This attempt to understand the structure or characteristics of the mind was known as structuralism<\/strong>. Wundt established his psychology laboratory at the University at Leipzig in 1879. In this laboratory, Wundt and his students conducted experiments on, for example, reaction times. A subject, sometimes in a room isolated from the scientist, would receive a stimulus such as a light, image, or sound. The subject\u2019s reaction to the stimulus would be to push a button, and an apparatus would record the time to reaction. Wundt could measure reaction time to one-thousandth of a second (Nicolas & Ferrand, 1999).\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"650\"]\"Photograph (a) Wilhelm Wundt is credited as one of the founders of psychology. He created the first laboratory for psychological research. (b) This photo shows him seated and surrounded by fellow researchers and equipment in his laboratory in Germany.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nHowever, despite his efforts to train individuals in the process of introspection, this process remained highly subjective, and there was very little agreement between individuals. As a result, structuralism fell out of favor with the passing of Wundt\u2019s student, Edward Titchener, in 1927 (Gordon, 1995).\r\n
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