Intro to Psychology Origins of Psychology September 19th Evidence that monkeys and apes are afflicted with psychological disorders o Depression anxiety OCD self harm o Prehistoric views Shamans would treat the possessed by driving out demons Exorcisms incantations and prayers Trephination small hole in persons skull Used for medical reasons heal brain injuries Psychological reasons release demons Large percentage of people survived Showed modern understanding of brain Ancient views explanations o Chinese moved to more natural and physiological Connection between organs and emotions Heart mind Liver soul Lung animal soul Spleen ideas and intelligence Kidneys will and vitality o Ancient Egyptians used narcotics to treat pain o Acrophobia first written by Hippocrates Medieval to Early Modern views o Back to supernatural causes Demons spirits and the devil Witchcraft Some harmless some devil Trails you were always guilty Burned at the stake Later found to be caused by hallucinations or depression Asylums facilities for the mentally ill St Mary of Bethlehem in London Hospital for the insane in 1547 Used as a storage house for mentally ill o Treated by removing from society o Horrible conditions o Bedlam chaotic and noisy conditions Moral treatment relaxing treated with dignity and care First kind of treatments that helped people Modern views Evolution of Psychology o Psychoanalysis subconscious mind is most powerful force Humans shaped by evolutionary forces over time Many psychological adaptations that evolved through natural selection Behavior generated by these adaptations o Evolved to solve common problems in human ancestral environments A Brief History of Scientist Psychology Charles Darwin o Natural selection survival of the fittest individuals best adapted to their environment survive to reproduce Survive to reproduce Reproduced pass on adaptations Characterizes are more common All species come to current form this way As environment changes so does what fits Empiricism all knowledge and thought comes with experience Psychophysics study how people perceive physical stimuli o Light sound touch o Sensitivity of under ideal conditions o Gustav Fechner o No longer exists as separate thing o See Chapter 4 Principles of Perception Wilhelm Wundt s analytics introspection in the lab o Introspection look into ones own mind No one can look into your own mind but you o Would present someone with something o Train the observers to report objectively on mental events that result Edward B Titchener o Structuralism breaking down experience offers best way to understand thought and behavior o Hoped to create a periodic table of mental elements o Mental atomism atoms combine to form stuff mental events combine to form mental stuff Basic types of mental elements Sensation and feelings o Very successful until the results in lab were not replicable o Functionalism look at why the mind works the way it does o No mental elements instead stream of consciousness o Methods of contemplation reflection theorizing o Explore the purposes of mental processes and why the mind William James works as it does How to help us adapt John B Watson o Behaviorism psychology can only be science if it examines observable behavior and not ideas o Psych as a branch of experimental natural science Think and emotion cant be observed scientifically Instead science of behavior o Behavior is learned from and caused by events in the environment Watson give me a baby and I can make him anything o Pavlov and his dogs Set out to study digestion in dogs Meat powder salivation Soon Changed Salivate at sight of powder Sound of footsetps Classical conditioning Stimulus any event that a organism responds Reflex involuntary response to a stimulus EXAMPLE knee jerk when tapped Unconditioned stimulus produces an automatic response Unconditioned response automatic response Conditioned stimulus neutral stimulus presented repeatedly before a UCS is learned Conditioned response learned response Acquisition period that CR is learned Extinction CS is presented repeatedly without the UCS intensity is lessened Reflex doesn t disappear for good Spontaneous recovery reflex can come back Stimulation generalization CR occurs when a stimulus that is similar but not identical to the CS is presented Will response just less intense the farther the stimulus is away from the CS Stimulus discrimination CR does not occur when a stimulus is similar but not identical Higher order conditioning use CS as UCS to teach another response EXAMPLE tuning fork light over and over again CR to light Aversive conditioning classical condition to an unpleasant UCS Stimulus triggers pain or negative emotion EXAMPLE tuning fork shock fear of tuning fork Little Albert 9 month old baby no previous fear of animals White rat scared the shit out of albert o 6 times Afraid of rat other animals or fuzzy things EXAMPLES o White rat neutral stimulus to conditioned stimulus o Banging unconditioned stimulus o Fear Unconditioned response o Fear of rat conditioned response o Fear of other things generalization o No fear of cotton ball discrimination o Showing the rat with no noise extinction trials o Fear reappeared spontaneous recovery o Perfume white rat higher order conditioning Undoing conditioning Phobias intense irrational or excessive fears o Feared object or situation is avoided o Creates distress or impairment o Mary Clover Jones treated a 3 year old s phobia of rabbits Brought a rabbit and brought it closer Extinction counter conditioning positive response to create an incompatible response Process still used most effective Advances in classical conditioning Renewal effect successfully extinguished response in location other that originally conditioned response may return o EXAMPLE Needle phobia goes through extinction process gets very nervous before going to DR o To extinguish needs to be done in original environment Learned when classical conditioned o CS predicts the USC Little Albert learns that rat loud noise White rat after noise weaker Same time weaker o Unconscious learning o Extinction trials teach that the CS does not predict the UCS o Extinction is not unlearning is new learning Old association remains new one conflicts it Biology of conditioning o Watson Causes of behavior are observable environmental events Behaviors observable events Processes do not need to be understood to understand laws of learning NOT RIGHT o Preparedness more prepared to create response