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    AP Psych Outline - Prologue, Pgs 1-11

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    Psychology began in the late 1800s with Wundt establishing the first psychology lab. Since then, it has developed into various schools of thought and approaches. Today, psychology is defined as the scientific study of both observable behavior and mental processes. It examines influences on people from biological, psychological, and social-cultural perspectives using various subfields like clinical, counseling, and developmental psychology. The nature vs nurture debate regarding influences on human traits remains a core issue in psychology.

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    AP Psych Outline - Prologue, Pgs 1-11

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    Cody Dukes
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    Psychology began in the late 1800s with Wundt establishing the first psychology lab. Since then, it has developed into various schools of thought and approaches. Today, psychology is defined as the scientific study of both observable behavior and mental processes. It examines influences on people from biological, psychological, and social-cultural perspectives using various subfields like clinical, counseling, and developmental psychology. The nature vs nurture debate regarding influences on human traits remains a core issue in psychology.

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    AP Psych Outline- Prologue, Pgs 1-11

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    Psychology began in the late 1800s with Wundt establishing the first psychology lab. Since then, it has developed into various schools of thought and approaches. Today, psychology is defined as the scientific study of both observable behavior and mental processes. It examines influences on people from biological, psychological, and social-cultural perspectives using various subfields like clinical, counseling, and developmental psychology. The nature vs nurture debate regarding influences on human traits remains a core issue in psychology.

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    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    229 views5 pages

    AP Psych Outline - Prologue, Pgs 1-11

    Uploaded by

    Cody Dukes
    Psychology began in the late 1800s with Wundt establishing the first psychology lab. Since then, it has developed into various schools of thought and approaches. Today, psychology is defined as the scientific study of both observable behavior and mental processes. It examines influences on people from biological, psychological, and social-cultural perspectives using various subfields like clinical, counseling, and developmental psychology. The nature vs nurture debate regarding influences on human traits remains a core issue in psychology.

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    of 5

    Dakota Doukas

    AP Psych Outline: Prologue, pgs 1-11

    The Story of Psychology

    What is Psychology?

     Psychology’s Roots
     Psychological Science is Born
     Before 300 BC, philosopher Aristotle theorized about learning
    and memory, motivation and emotion, perception and
    personality – can be credited with asking right questions
     1879, Germany’s University of Leipzig – true birth of
    psychology- professor Wilhelm Wundt created first
    psychological experiment that measured time lag between
    people’s hearing a ball hit a platform and their pressing a
    telegraph key
     Psychology then organized into different schools of thought –
    each with different thinkers
    • Early schools: structuralism and functionalism
    • Later schools: Gestalt psychology (ch6), behaviorism (ch7),
    psychoanalysis (ch13)

     Thinking about the Mind’s Structure


     Professor Wundt’s student, Edward Bradford Titchener
    introduced structuralism – an early school of psychology
    that used introspection to explore the structural elements of
    the human mind
    • Method: engage people in self-reflective introspection
    (looking inward) and get their reactions/immediate
    sensations/feelings to certain experiences (such as looking
    at a rose)
    • Structuralism faded because it proved to be somewhat
    unreliable – we often just don’t know why we feel what we
    do

     Thinking about the Mind’s Functions


     William James – under influence of evolutionary theorist
    Darwin

    1
    • James believed that thinking developed because it was
    adaptive and contributed to our ancestor’s survival –
    consciousness is a function
    • Studied functionalism – a school of psychology that
    focused on how our mental and behavioral processes
    function – how they enable us to adapt, survive, and
    flourish
    • James admitted Mary Calkins into his graduate seminar
    (although women had few rights) and tutored her alone
    because all other men dropped out – she was denied
    degree and went on to be a memory researcher and the
    American Psychological Association’s first female president
    ♦ Margaret Floy Washburn- first woman to receive
    psychology Ph.D – wrote influential book, The Animal
    Mind, which synthesized animal behavior research
    • James wrote textbook – Principles of Psychology – which
    introduced psychology to educated public

     Psychological Science Develops


     Developed from the more established fields of philosophy and
    biology
     In psychology’s early days – focus was more in inner
    sensations/feelings (Wundt, Titchener, James)
     Sigmund Freud – emphasized the ways emotional responses
    to childhood experiences and our unconscious thought
    processes affect our behavior
    ♦ Until 1920s, psychology was “the science of mental life”
     1920-1960 – psychology redefined as “the scientific study of
    observable behavior”
     Behaviorism – recording a behavioral response, since you
    cannot observe a feeling/thought (ch7)
    • the view that psychology (1) should be an objective science
    that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental
    processes (today most psychologists only agree with (1) )
     Humanistic Psychology – emphasized importance of
    current environmental influences on personal growth (ch13)

    2
    • historically significant perspective that emphasized the
    growth potential of healthy people and the individual’s
    potential for personal growth
     Cognitive Neuroscience – how mind processes and retains
    info (ch14/15)
    • Study of brain activity linked with cognition (perception,
    thinking, memory, language)
     Today, psychology = the science of observable behavior and
    mental processes (inner thoughts/feelings)
    • Behavior = anything an organism does – anything we can
    observe and record (Ex: yelling, smiling, sweating, talking)
    • Mental processes = internal experiences we observe from
    behavior – sensations, perceptions, dreams, thoughts,
    beliefs, feelings

    Contemporary Psychology

     Psychology’s Biggest Question


     Psychology’s biggest historic issue (ch4) is the nature-nurture
    issue – controversy over the relative contributions of biology
    and experience
    ♦ Nature = genes, nurture = all other influences
     Do our human traits develop through experience or are we
    born with them?
    • Plato assumed that character and intelligence are largely
    inherited
    • Aristotle countered that there is nothing in the mind that
    does not first come in from the external world through the
    senses
    • Descartes believed that some ideas are inborn - his views
    gained support by Darwin
    ♦ Darwin’s On the Origin of Species explained
    evolutionary process of natural selection – the
    principal that, among the range of inherited trait
    variations, those contributing to reproduction and
    survival will most likely be passed onto succeeding
    generations – nature selects the traits that best enable

    3
    an organism to survive and reproduce in a particular
    environment
     Today, science emphasizes the interaction of genes and
    experiences in specific environments – nurture works on what
    nature awards

     Psychology’s Three Main Levels of Analysis


     Different levels of analysis (the differing complementary views
    —biological, psychological and social-cultural—factored in to
    analyze any given phenomenon) form an integrated
    biopsychosocial approach
     Levels of Analysis:
    • Biological Influences (natural selection, brain mechanics,
    hormonal influences),
    • Psychological Influences (learned fears, emotional
    responses, perceptual interpretations)
    • Social-Cultural Influences (presence of others,
    cultural/societal/family expectations, peer influences)
    • Together, they affect Behavior or Mental Process

     Psychology requires all the different perspectives to reveal the


    whole picture – each perspective brings out something
     Current perspectives =
    • neuroscience (how body and brain enable emotions,
    memories, sensory experiences)
    • evolutionary (how the natural selection of traits promoted
    the survival of genes)
    • behavior genetics (how much our genes and our
    environment influence our individual differences)
    • psychodynamic (how behavior springs from unconscious
    drives and conflicts)
    • behavioral (how we learn observable responses)
    • cognitive (how we encode, process, store, and retrieve info)
    • social-cultural (how behavior/thinking varies across
    situations and cultures)

     Psychology’s Subfields – all fields work together to describe/explain


    behavior and the mind underlying it

    4
     Basic Research = pure science that aims to increase the
    scientific knowledge base (done by biological psychologists-
    exploring links between brain and mind, developmental
    psychologists- studying our changing abilities from womb to
    tomb, cognitive psychologists- experimenting with how we
    perceive, think and solve problems, personality psychologists-
    investigating our persistent traits, and social psychologists-
    exploring how we view and affect one another)
     Applied Research = scientific study that aims to solve
    practical problems (done by industrial/organizations
    psychologists who use psychology’s concepts to improve
    productivity in the workplace)
     Counseling Psychology = a branch of psychology that assists
    people with problems in living (often related to school, work or
    marriage) and in achieving a greater well being
     Clinical Psychology = a branch of psychology that studies,
    assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders
     Psychiatry = a branch of medicine dealing with psychological
    disorders; practiced by physicians who sometimes provide
    medical (ex: drug) treatments, as well as psychological therapy

     How psychological principles can help you as a student


     SQ3R method – acronym for survey, question, read, rehearse,
    review – applies principles derived from psychological research

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