The History of Psychology
Unit 1
Lesson 2
Objectives:
Students will identify key ideas and figures
in the history of psychology.
Students will begin to distinguish between
the major schools of psychology.
Warm Up:
What is psychology?
Scientific study of mental processes and
behaviors of organisms.
Stone Age…
 TREPHINING or
TREPANNING
 Odd behavior = evil
spirits…hole in head
releases = fixed!
Philosophical Roots
 Ancient Greece (600-300BC)
Thought about how we
thought (psyche = soul,
logos = study)
Plato (nativist)
Aristotle (empiricist)
Hippocrates (BC) and Galen (AD)
Physicians who studied
causes of mental illness
Elemental or Humoral Theory
 All things = 4 elements
 Earth
 Air
 Fire
 Water
 4 elements = humors
 Earth = Black Bile
 Fire = Yellow Bile
 Air = Blood
 Water = Phlegm
 Good health = balance
 Imbalances = illness
 Bloodletting, laxatives,
herbs & medicines
 Personality Twist (Galen)
 Melancholic
 Choleric
 Sanguine
 Phlegmatic
The Renaissance… 1600/1700’s
 Experiment over faith
 Body = machine
 Anatomy & surgery
 Mind (Soul) vs Brain/Body
 “Psychologia” emerges
 1520 as word
 Mid 1600s as new science
Descartes “Dualism = mind & body separate” vs.
Locke – empiricist, mind is blank slate
Pseudosciences… (~1800)
 Phrenology
Franz Gall
Skull structure = traits,
skills
 Mesmerism
Franz Anton Mesmer
Magnetic fluids in body
Early hypnosis
Physiological Roots…
 Helmholz – Neural
communication
 Darwin – Natural
selection & evolution
 Gustav Fechner
Elements of
Psychophysics (1860)
Sensation & Perception
Father of Psychology…
Wilhelm Wundt
 1st lab (GRM) 1879
 Introspection- report
cognitive experiences
Pioneers in Psychology
 Edward Titchener
 Structuralism (1885)
Break down mental
experience into basic
elements.
Ex: Taste
Psychology in America
 1890 William James
“Principles of Psych”
 Functionalism
Study function of mind
rather than its structure
Habits
Pioneers in Psychology
 G. Stanley Hall
1883 - 1st US Lab @
Johns Hopkins
1892 – Founded APA
Pioneers in Psychology
 Herman Ebbinghaus
– Memory studies
(1888)
 Mary Whiton Calkins
– 1895
 Francis Cecil Sumner
- 1920
Psychoanalytic Perspective
Sigmund Freud –
1890’s
 Behavior and personality
are the result of mental
conflicts locked in
unconscious
 Also: Jung, Adler,
Erikson, Horney
Behavioral Perspective
 John B. Watson (1913)
 Psych limited to
observable behaviors.
Behavior is product of
learning and
association.
Other Leading Behaviorists…
 1898 Edward Thorndike - 1st animal studies
 1906 Ivan Pavlov –classical conditioning
 1930’s BF Skinner –operant conditioning
 Albert Bandura – social learning (modeling)
Cognitive Perspective
 Jean Piaget – 1920s
 Behavior guided by
person’s ability to
acquire, organize,
remember, and use
knowledge.
Cognitive Perspective
 1959 Noam Chomsky
Language
 1958 Lawrence Kohlberg
Moral / ethical reasoning
Sociocultural Perspective
1960’s
Behavior and
thought are
influenced by rules
and expectations
of culture.
Humanistic Perspective
 1960’s Abraham
Maslow and Carl
Rogers
 Behavior driven by
hierarchy of needs
and desire to be our
best selves.
Biological Perspective
 1980’s…
 Behavior influenced
by hormones, genes,
the brain, and the
CNS.
 Medicine to treat
illness/imbalances.
Closure
Which theory or ideas about psychology
did you find most interesting and why?