PSYCHOLOGY: YESTERDAY AND TODAY

Instructor’s Manual Chapter 1: Psychology: Yesterday and Today 1 - 1 Copyright © 2022 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd. Unauthorized copying, distribution, or transmission of this page is strictly prohibited Chapter 1

PSYCHOLOGY: YESTERDAY AND TODAY

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this chapter, students should be able to:

• Define psychology and describe the goals and levels of analysis psychologists use.
• Describe the influences of early myths and ancient Greek philosophies on psychology.
• Name important early psychologists and describe their major theories and research

methods.

• Summarize the major principles of the psychoanalytical, behaviourist, humanistic, cognitive,

and neuroscience approaches to psychology.

• Describe the three major branches of psychology and summarize key trends in psychology.

LECTURE OUTLINE

• What Is Psychology?
• Psychology is the study of mental processes and behaviour.

b. The goals of psychology are to:

• Describe behaviour and mental processes.

ii. Explain behaviour and mental processes.iii. Predict behaviour and mental processes.iv. Control behaviour and mental processes.

• The study of psychology occurs at multiple levels
• The brain—biological activity associated with mental processes and behaviour.

ii. The person—the content of mental processes.iii. The group—the social and cultural influences on behaviour.

II. Psychology’s Roots in Philosophy

• Early explanations of psychology were rooted in superstition and magic.
• Beginning with the ancient Greeks, philosophers tried to develop more objective

theories of human consciousness and reality.

• Philosophy is the study of knowledge and reality.

ii. Philosophers’ methods of introducing problems and questioning solutions are the core of today’s scientific method.

• The works of early philosophers contributed to the later formation of psychology as a

natural science.

• Hippocrates produced one of the first psychological theories, that of the humours.

ii. Plato believed that the human mind was imprinted with all relevant knowledge that is inborn and existing within a person from birth.iii. Aristotle’s writings dealt with topics important to psychology: sensation, dreams, sleep, and learning.(Psychology Around Us, 4th Canadian Edition, 4e Nancy Ogden, Michael Boyes, Evelyn Field, Ronald Comer, Elizabeth Gould) (Instructor Manual, For Complete File, Download link at the end of this File) 1 / 3

Comer, Psychology Around Us, Fourth Canadian Edition

Instructor’s Manual Chapter 1: Psychology: Yesterday and Today 1 - 2 Copyright © 2022 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd. Unauthorized copying, distribution, or transmission of this page is strictly prohibited iv. Aristotle was also one of the first to promote empirical investigations of the natural world.

• Rene Descartes thought the brain controlled the body through the movement of

fluid through tubes that ran throughout the body.vi. Muller sought to understand how humans process sensory information.vii. Von Helmholtz was the first to measure the speed of a nerve impulse and laid a part of the foundation for modern physiological psychology and neuroscience.viii. Fechner published a book that laid out many of the methods and study techniques that would come to be used by those working in psychology.ix. Psychophysicists began to explain how our bodies sense and perceive the world around us.

III. The Early Days of Psychology

• Charles Darwin proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection.

b The development of psychology has been strongly influenced by shifts in the social environment and development of new technology.

• The first psychology laboratory was founded in Leipzig, Germany, by physiologist

Wilhelm Wundt.

• Wundt was interested in human consciousness and will.

ii. Wundt studied his subjects through use of small, structured activities that could be easily watched and replicated.

• James Mark Baldwin established the first psychology lab in the British Empire in

Toronto.

• Edward Titchener, one of Wundt’s students, expanded on Wundt’s work and founded

the school of structuralism in the United States.

• Structuralists relied on a method originated by Wundt, known as introspection,

which means “looking inward.” ii. Introspection was aimed at carefully observing the details of mental processing in order to find the building blocks of consciousness.

• William James established the first psychology laboratory in the United States at

Harvard University.

• James’s approach was called functionalism, which focused on what the mind did

and not how it was put together or how it worked.ii. Functionalism emphasized the need for research to include animals, children, and persons with mental disorders, so as to understand normal and abnormal psychological functioning.

• Gestalt psychology was founded in Germany.
• It was based on the idea that our inborn tendencies to impose structure on what

we see cause us to perceive the “whole” or “form” of something and not its parts.ii. Gestalt psychologists developed over 100 perceptual principles to describe how the brain and sensory systems perceive environmental stimuli.

IV. Twentieth-Century Approaches

a. Psychoanalysis: The Psychology of the Unconscious

• Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory focused on the importance of unconscious 2 / 3

Comer, Psychology Around Us, Fourth Canadian Edition

Instructor’s Manual Chapter 1: Psychology: Yesterday and Today 1 - 3 Copyright © 2022 John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd. Unauthorized copying, distribution, or transmission of this page is strictly prohibited mental processes.ii. Freud believed that childhood experiences helped set the stage for later psychological functioning.iii. Psychoanalytic notions have not held up well to rigorous scientific study yet remain an influential theory of mental functioning and personality.

b. Behaviourism: The Psychology of Adaptation

• Behaviourists believed strongly that psychology should restrict its focus to the

careful study of observable behaviour.ii. Major behaviourists were Ivan Pavlov, Edward Thorndike, John Watson, and B. F.Skinner.iii. The work of the behaviourists, especially B. F. Skinner and his emphasis on the role of reinforcement in shaping behaviour, have been widely used in industry, education, and the military.

c. Humanistic Psychology: A New Direction

• Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow rejected the behaviourists’ approach as too

mechanical a view of people.ii. It emphasized the individual’s potential for growth and self-actualization.iii. Rogers developed a humanistic approach to psychotherapy, called client-centred therapy.

d. Cognitive Psychology: Revitalization of Study of the Mind

• Revitalized the study of the mind in the years after World War II.

ii. Compared the workings of the mind to the workings of the computer.iii. Early founders of the cognitive school were George A. Miller, Donald Hebb, and Ulric Neisser.iv. Cognitive psychologists focused on the functioning of cognitive mechanisms.

• Cultural psychology is concerned with the varying cognitive processes of diverse

populations.vi. Cross-cultural research studies what is generally or universally true about human beings regardless of culture.

e. Psychobiology/Neuroscience: Exploring the Origins of the Mind

• Aristotle, Pavlov, and Freud were interested in the biological bases of

psychological phenomena.ii. The main emphasis of psychobiology is on the workings of the brain and genetic inheritance. It is now commonly referred to as neuroscience.iii. Karl Lashley and Roger Sperry were at the forefront of learning the basis of cognitive functions of the brain. The Canadian Donald Hebb postulated that neurons must fire together to wire together. He provided the theoretical basis for understanding brain development and neuroplasticity.iv. Psychology has spawned the subfields of behavioural genetics, sociobiology, and evolutionary psychology.

• Psychology Today
• The theoretical and cultural diversity of psychology has increased dramatically over

recent years.

b. There are three key branches of psychology: academic, applied, and

clinical/counselling.

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