CHAPTER 1 OUTLINE Psychology is about understanding all the things we do reasons for people s behavior provides a means of building knowledge that is accurate and dependable and assessing myths By probing why s and how s of human behavior psychology can help us find answers to pressing questions as well as issues that affect each of us every day Psychologists are committed to investigating questions about human behavior in a scientific way seek to formulate precise questions about behavior and then test possible answers via systematic observation Psychology s Early History I A New Science is Born The Contributions of Wundt and Hall psychology comes from two Greek words psyche soul and logos study of a subject Two word roots were first put together to define a topic of study in the 16 th century This was when psyche was used to refer to the soul instead of the body early 18th century psychology became a more popularly used word by scholars and gained the meaning study of the mind Psychology is as old as the human race but has short history because it only started to emerge as a hot science field in the past 140 years two intellectual parents philosophy and physiology Wilhelm Wundt 1832 1920 German professor who campaigned for psychology to be its own discipline instead of an offshoot of physiology and philosophy FOUNDER OF PSYCHOLOGY The timing was right for Wundt s appeal because German universities were in a period of expansion resources available for new disciplines Wundt advocated a scientific approach There was an intellectual climate in the air so Wundt s proposals were well received by the academic community 1879 Wundt succeeded in establishing the first formal lab for psych research at the University of Leipzig Also the year of psychology s historical birth 1881 first journal established by Wundt for publishing psych research METHOD Wundt had a physiology background so he wanted psych to be a science like others Primary focus of the science would be consciousness awareness of immediate experience Psychology is now the scientific study of the conscious experience Kept psych focused on the mental stuff while demanding the scientific method Studies in Wundt s lab focused on attention memory sensory processes and reaction time experiments Provided estimates to the duration of mental processes Students came to study under Wundt then brought the science back to North America It was in North America that psych made bounds G Stanley Hall 1846 1924 Studied under Wundt briefly contributed to rapid growth of psych Established America s first research lab at Johns Hopkins 1883 1887 Established America s first psych journal 1892 driving force behind establishment of the American Psychological Association APA and was the first president APA is now the world s largest organization devoted to the advancement of psych Started with 26 other people First two major schools of thought in psych structuralism and functionalism Structuralism based on the notion that the task of psych is to analyze consciousness into its basic elements and investigate how these elements are related driven by Edward Titchener Englishman who came to US after studying in Wundt s lab Taught at Cornell Admired Wundt structuralists care about the components of the conscious experience Most of their work examined vision hearing and touch dependent on the method of introspection self observation of one s own conscious experience Introspection requires training to make the subject more objective and aware Once trained subjects would be exposed to auditory tones illusions whatever and were asked to analyze their experience Functionalism based on the belief that psychology should investigate the function purpose of consciousness rather than structure William James 1842 1910 was the driver American trained in medicine but didn t want to pursue medicine b c it wasn t hard and he was sickly Harvard University Book Landmarks of Psychology 1890 became a psych standard and very influential James explains that psychology is embedded in cultural and intellectual influences He liked Darwin Discussed how people acquired habits lead to leaps and bounds in the study of learning His idea of the self led to theories about personality natural selection heritable characteristics that provide a survival or reproductive advantage are more likely than alternative characteristics are more likely to be passed on and become selected over time Typical characteristics of a species must serve some purpose James noted that consciousness is a characteristic of our species and therefore psych should investigate its function like natural selection and not structure James argued that consciousness consists of a continuous flow of thoughts By splitting consciousness up structuralists were looking at static points that actually flow together stream of consciousness founded by William James Refers to one s continuous flow of thoughts This school of thought is significant because it was the first time consciousness wad not depicted as some kind of encompassing mental container rather than an ongoing process Leary James McKeen Cattell and John Dewey Functionalists who began to investigate mental testing patterns of development in children the effectiveness of educational practices and behavioral differences between the sexes Functionalism fostered two important descendants behaviorism and applied psychology Mary Whiton Calkins studied under William James founded one of the first dozen psychology labs in America at Wellesley College She invented a widely used technique for studying memory First woman to serve as president of the American Psychological Association Could never receive her PhD because she was a woman and Harvard would only let her take classes as a guest student She was offered a doctorate from Radcliffe but refused it because of sexism Margaret Floy Washburn pg 6 First woman to get her PhD In psychology Wrote The Animal Mind which served as a force to the emergence of behaviorism and became standard reading in psych Became the second woman to serve as president of the APA Studied under James McKeen Cattell at Columbia University Permitted to take graduate classes only as a hearer Resulted in her transferring to Cornell where she got her doctorate Spent most of her career at Vassar Leta Setter Hollingworth Did pioneering work on adolescent development mental retardation and gifted children First person to use the word gifted to refer to