The history of and introduction to
psychology
Chapter 1 4
The concept of psyche 4
Hippocratis 4
Socrates 4
Plato 4
Aristotle 5
An atomic footnote 5
Three islamic pioneers 5
Europe’s intellectual reawakening 6
Chapter 2 7
Descartes 7
Locke 7
Leibniz 8
Chapter 3 9
Gall 9
Gall’s phrenology 9
Pierre Flourens and the discrediting of phrenology 9
Localization of language 9
Sensory and motor areas 10
Wernicke’s theory of aphasia 10
Localization of memory 10
Stimulation studies 10
The multiplicity of memory systems 11
Chapter 4 12
Immanuel Kant 12
Hermann Helmholtz 12
Helmholtz vision and perception 12
Fechner’s psychophysics 12
Gestalt psychology 13
Chapter 5 14
Wundt 14
Experimental psychology and Völkerpsychologie 14
Experimental studies 14
Völkerspsychologie 14
Language and introspection 15
Titchener’s structuralism 15
Experimenting on higher functions 15
,Chapter 6 16
Darwin 16
The theory of evolution by natural selection 16
Darwin’s books 16
Darwin’s influence 17
Chapter 7 18
Galton 18
Darwinian theory and hereditary genius 18
The history of twins 18
Eugenics 18
Galton’s influence 19
Chapter 8 20
William James 20
William James’ book 20
Hall 20
Calkins 20
Thorndike 20
Chapter 9 21
Pavlov 21
Watson 21
Skinner 21
Reinforcement schedules 22
Reinforcement and punishment 22
Chapter 10 23
Gassner and Mesmer 23
Developments of mesmerism 23
The nancy-salpetriere controversy 23
Binet and the study of suggestion 24
Development of social psychology 24
Social influence today 24
Chapter 11 25
Psychoanalysis 25
If hypnosis fails: 25
Interpretation of dreams 25
Psychosexual development 25
Metapsychology 26
Freud’s students 26
Chapter 12 28
Allport 28
Nomothetic and idiographic studies 28
Maslow 29
, Humanistic psychology 29
Chapter 13 30
Binet 30
Binet’s Intelligence test 30
Piaget 31
Piaget’s influence 31
Chapter 14 32
Mechanical computers 32
Logic Theorist 32
Limitations of thinking machines 33
Cognitive psychology 33
Chapter 15 34
Hugo Münsterberg 34
Walter Scott 34
Lillian Gilbreth 34
Elton Mayo 34
Leta Hollingworth 35
Chapter 16 36
Harrower 36
Shakow 36
Carl Rogers 36
Aaron Beck 37
Starke Hathaway 37
Paul Meehl 37
, Chapter 1
The concept of psyche
The original meaning of the Greek word psyche was simply “breath.” All living things were
said to possess a psyche and dead things to lack one. Psyche is traditionally rendered as
“soul.” Pythagoras discovered and emphasized the wondrous regularities of mathematics,
and their relationship to the physical world. Heraclitus and Zeno pondered the concept of
perspective and infinity. Protagoras favored a focus on purely human experience and
behavior and declared: “Man is the measure of all things.”
Hippocratis
Hippocratics proposed a humoral theory to explain health and illness as the result of the
balance or imbalance among four prominent liquid substances, which they called humors,
found in the human body: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm.
Socrates
Socrates was a teacher. Meno, where Socrates relates a myth that the human psyche or
soul is immortal and becomes repeatedly reincarnated in new bodies following the deaths of
older ones. In the process of rebirth, each psyche’s accumulated knowledge is forgotten but
under certain conditions can be partially aroused or “recalled.” question-and-answer
process. philosophical nativism, in the notion that fully formed but forgotten knowledge lies
within a psyche, and just needs help from empirical experience to bring it out. The path to
wisdom was not simply to accumulate opinions and experiences through the external
senses, but rather to “Know thyself” and interpret those experiences in light of one’s own
innate rational faculties.
Plato
Theorem about four triangles. Although they all look different, our intellect tells us first that
they share in common the obvious perceptual feature of having three sides and one right
(90-degree) angle. Plato took this sort of evidence as proof that there exists in some higher
realm an ideal right triangle, which is never directly or completely perceived by the human
senses. Prisoner sees reality instead of shadows (like all other prisoners). For Plato the
enlightened prisoner is like the genuine philoso- pher, whose search for true knowledge is
often painful and disturbing, and whose insights are likely to be dismissed or suppressed by
the ordinary population.
He argued, for example, that the human psyche, or soul, has three separate basic
components that govern the appetites (needs for physical gratification); courage (the
propensity to confront difficulties with action); and reason (the ability to appreciate the
underlying realities of the world). he symbolically represented these three as a driver trying
to control a chariot pulled by two winged horses. One horse represents the appe- tites and
tries to pull in the direction of the fastest and most immediate physical gratification; the other
represents duty and the motivation to respond bravely to threats to the self or society; and
the charioteer represents the rational com- ponent that must try to direct and coordinate the
horses so they cooperate and proceed in the same direction. In terms of our modern
nature-nurture or heredity-environment debate, he favored nature and heredity.
Aristotle
Aristotle was Alexander’s tutor for 3 years. After Alexander became king, Aristotle returned
to Athens and became the director of his own school, called the Lyceum.
Aristotle was interested in natural history. He and his friend Theophrastus found biological
field of taxonomy, the arrangement of organisms into hierarchically ordered groups and