Introduces the scientific study of mental processes and behavior with emphasis on the nervous system, learning and memory, cognition, sensation and perception, motivation and emotion, personality, intelligence, stress, psychological disorders and therapy, and social influence. Stresses roles of bot...
Psychology’s Roots, Critical thinking, and Self-Improvement Tools
o Psychology is a science
Specifically study how people act, think and feel by applying critical thinking and a
scientific approach
Critical thinkers do not blindly accept arguments and conclusions
Examine assumptions, asses the source, uncover hidden values, weigh evidence
and assess conclusions
Science-aided thinkers challenge old beliefs and forge new, fact-related paths
o Psychology’s earliest explorers: Magellan’s of the Mind
Wilhelm Wundt: established the first psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig,
Germany
“atoms of the mind”
Charles Darwin: thinking on species variation in the natural world led to evolutionary
psychology
English naturalist
Ivan Pavlov: learning, Russian psychologist
Sigmund Freud: Austrian physician, personality theorist and therapist
Jean Piaget: Explored children’s developing minds, Swiss biologist
William James: legendary teacher who authored and important 1890 psychology text
Mary Whiton Calkins: mentored by James (above), became famous for memory research
and for being first woman president of the American Psychological Association
Margaret Floy Washburn: refused to grant Calkins the degree she earned after Harvard,
became first woman to receive Psychology PhD
Focused on animal behavior research in The Animal Mind
o Increasing Diversity
Drastic change in sex and races that are part of the APS
o Contemporary Psychology
John B. Watson and Rosalie Raynor
Working with Rayner, Watson championed psychology as the scientific study of
behavior
Showed that fear could be learned in famous controversial study on a baby known
as “Little Albert.”
B. F. Skinner
, Leading behaviorist
Rejected idea of studying inner thoughts and feelings
Believed psychology should study how consequences shape behavior.
Sigmund Freud
Controversial ideas
Personality theorist and therapist
o Branches of psychology:
Structuralism
Early school of thought
o Promoted by Wundt
Focused on the structure of the human mind
Functionalism
Early school of thought
o Promoted by James, influenced by Darwin
Focused on how the mind functions
Behaviorism
View that psychology (a) should be an objective science that (b) studied behavior
without reference to mental process
o Most psychologists agree with (a) but not (b)
Humanistic psychology
Historically important perspective that emphasized human growth potential
Cognitive psychology
Study of mental processes, involved in perceiving, learning, remembering,
thinking, communicating, and solving problems
Cognitive neuroscience
Interdisciplinary study of cognitive psychology and neuroscience with researchers
in many disciplines
o Studies the brain activity underlying mental activity
o Unpacking the definition of psychology
Today’s psychology builds upon the work of many earlier scientists and schools of
thought
Psychology
o Science of behavior and mental processes
o Behavior
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