PSYC 4600 1st Edition Exam 2 Study Guide Note This is a basic list of topics to help you focus your study efforts it is not an exhaustive list nor it is intended to be a detailed explanatory document see your class notes lecture slides and textbook for those CHAPTER 4 THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY Wilhelm Wundt o Founding Father of Modern Experimental Psychology o Established first laboratory Leipzig 1879 o Edited first psychology journal o Began experimental psychology as a science Why Wundt o Founding intentional and deliberate act o Wundt sold psychology as a science Psychology s subject matter according to Wundt Consciousness o Voluntarism o Mediate experience o Immediate experience o Introspection Wundt s Method of Introspection o Examination of one s own mind to inspect and report on personal thoughts or feelings o Explicit rules and conditions o Highly trained observers Elements of Conscious Experience o Sensations o Feelings o Tridimensional theory of feeling Organizing the Elements of Experience o Apperception Wundt s Legacy o Began a new science o Still one of the most if not the most important psychologists who ever lived o History of psychology after Wundt consists of rebellion against the limitations he placed on the field Other Developments in German Psychology Hermann Ebbinghaus o Wundt Can t experiment on higher mental processes o Investigated learning and memory o Changed the way association learning is studied o First venture into a truly psychological area not part of physiology o Research with Nonsense Syllables o Ebbinghaus forgetting curve Franz Brentano Act psychology Carl Stumpf Phenomenology Oswald K lpe o Main difference with Wundt K ple believed that higher thought processes could be studied experimentally o Systematic experimental introspection K lpe s introspective method Chapter 5 Structuralism Edward Bradford Titchener Structuralism o Wundt s self appointed representative in the U S Differences between Wundt and Titchener o Wundt Recognized the elements contents of consciousness but was concerned with their organization Believed the mind had the power to organize mental elements voluntarily o Titchener Focused on mental elements Discarded Wundt s doctrine of apperception Life as Titchener s graduate student asked to record feelings and sensations while participating in various experiments be familiar with examples of these experiments Paradoxical stances with regard to women in the profession be familiar with how he both supported and inhibited the professional development of women in psychology o Women not allowed in the Titchener s Experimentalists meetings because they were considered by Titchener to be too pure to smoke The content of conscious experience o Titchener Subject matter of psychology is conscious experience This is dependent on the person who is experiencing it o Stimulus error o Consciousness vs mind o Titchener saw psychology as a pure science no speculation on the practical worth of psychologists work Titchener s introspection o Detailed qualitative subjective reports of his subjects mental activities during the act of introspecting o Observers trained to describe the elements of their conscious state rather than report the familiar name o Similar to K lpe s system systematic experimental introspection o Unlike Wundt emphasized parts and not the whole Elementary states of consciousness o Sensations o Images o Affective states o An Outline of Psychology listed more than 44 000 elemental qualities of conscious experience o Mental elements are basic and irreducible o Can be characterized by their quality intensity clearness and duration After Titchener s death structuralism did not last very limited in scope Criticisms of structuralism o Artificial and sterile for trying to analyze conscious processes down into elements o Limited concept of the field Titchener regarded animal psychology and child psychology as not psychology at all Contributions of Structuralism o Research methods Based on observation experimentation and measurement More scientific approach to the method of introspection o Catalyst for other schools of thought Point of criticism something to oppose Chapter 6 Functionalism Antecedent Influences Functionalism How the mind functions and how it is used by organisms to adapt to the environment Protest against Wundt s and Titchener s systems Charles Darwin and evolution Living things change with time On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection o Stayed out of the public debate over evolution Huxley his public defender o Fundamental points Natural selection of traits best suited for the environment Elimination of those not fit for the environment Variation is a law of heredity Darwin s Influence on Psychology resonated with the times zeitgeist o Focus on animal psychology animals more like humans than previously thought o Emphasis on the functions rather than the structure of consciousness How humans and animals function in adapting to their environment o Acceptance of methodology and data from many fields Darwin used data from a variety of sources o Focus on the description and measurement of individual differences Francis Galton Mental inheritance and individual differences o Hereditary Genius o Eugenics o Anthropometric Laboratory Statistical Methods o Physical measurements cluster around average regression towards the mean o Applied normal curve to mental characteristics o Came up with concept of correlation which is still heavily used in social sciences Mental Tests o Galton concept Cattell term o Assumed intelligence can be measured with motor and sensory capacities Association of Ideas o diversity of associations of ideas o Reaction time time required to produce associations Mental Imagery o First exhaustive use of psychological questionnaire recall scene of breakfast table Animal Psychology and the Development of Functionalism Darwin s theory of evolution animal psychology George John Romanes o Anecdotal method o Introspection by analogy o Launched observational stage of comparative psychology and paved the way for experimental study of animal behavior C Lloyd Morgan o Recognized the weaknesses in anecdotal and introspection by analogy methods o Law of parsimony AKA Lloyd Morgan s Canon Chapter 7 Functionalism Development and Founding Herbert Spencer Social Darwinism survival of the fittest Vastly popular in America compatible with American values and individualistic spirit Synthetic philosophy William James