Subject Area Review

Welcome to the subject area review. We will start with history and approaches.

Psychology is a natural science. Psychology studies the laws of nature. Psychology also involves the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of people.

Psychology can be traced back to ancient Greece. The first psychological laboratory was founded in the eighteen hundreds by Wilhelm Wundt.

Today’s psychologists use many different models. This section gives an overview of the history of psychology. We will also cover the seven theoretical approaches to psychology.

Welcome to the section on logic, philosophy and the history of science.

Philosophy influenced psychology. Philosophy emphasizes self examination and wisdom. Physiology also influenced psychology. Physiology is the study of living organisms. Both philosophy and physiology influenced the ancient Greeks.

Hippocrates is known as the father of medicine. Hippocrates was a philosopher who used empirical observations. Hippocrates thought the mind and body were

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separate. This idea that the body and mind are separate is called mind body dualism.

Plato and Aristotle were two other famous Greek philosophers who influenced psychology. Plato was a rationalist. Plato believed that knowledge should be acquired through rational methods. Aristotle was Plato’s student. Aristotle was an empiricist. Aristotle believes that we acquire knowledge through empirical methods. Aristotle thought we gain knowledge through experience, observation and experiments. Aristotle is created with creating the modern scientific method. The scientific method allows scientists to do research in an orderly way.

Rene Descartes was a French Philosopher. Descartes was interested in the mind body problem. Descartes thought of the concept called interactionism. Interactionism says that the interaction between the body and mind occurs in the pineal glad. The pineal gland is a small gland in the lower center of the brain. Descartes thought the mind was essential and separated us from the animals. Descartes is famous for saying, I think, therefore I am.

Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher. Hobbes believed in the idea of monism. Monism says that our experiences are physical processes which come from the brain. Hobbes did not think the mind was independent of the body. Hobbes thought we could only understand the mind if we understood the body.

John Locke was a British empiricist and philosopher. Locke believed the interaction between the body and mind

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was symmetrical. Locke disagreed with Descartes. Locke thought the mind and body depended on each other. Locke presented the idea of tabula rasa. Tabula rasa means that each child is born a blank slate. Locke thought that humans were shaped by their experiences.

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher. Kant thought a set of mental powers linked the body and mind. These powers included the senses, understanding and reason. Kant used both rationalism and empiricism to try to understand the body and mind.

Charles Darwin was the first person to purpose a theory of evolution. Darwin’s book called the Origin of Species introduced the ideas of evolution and natural selection. Natural selection is the idea of survival of the fittest. Natural selection means that those who can adapt to their environment are the most likely to survive and reproduce.

Wilhelm Wundt created the first psychology lab in Germany. Wundt focused on perception and consciousness. Wundt refined the idea of objective introspective. In objective introspection, thoughts, feelings and experiences are recorded in great detail.

Edward Titchener was one of Wundt’s students. Titchener broke down consciousness into three elements: (Pause) things we see, things we feel, and memories. Titchener proposed that even complicated thoughts could be broken down into these elements. Both Wundt and Titchener believed in structuralism. Structuralism breaks down consciousness into smaller pieces using

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introspection.

William James was the first psychologist born in America. James did not believe in structuralism. James was a leader in the functionalism movement. Functionalism presented the idea of learning by adapting to the environment.

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