The birth of psychology
29 important questions on The birth of psychology
Which two categories of disciplines are there according to kant?
- Natural science: lawful, quantitative description in the language of mathematics
- Historical doctrine of nature: describing cases in normal language (not math), categorisation, merely empirical, Kant also calls this “systematic art”
Did kant think psychology could be a science, why or why not?
- Kant thinks that psychology can at most describe, but will have no explanatory laws, such as in physics
- If it can't be written in the language of math, it is not a science.
What did wolff do for psychology as a science?
- Produced the first book where psychology was portrayed as a science
- Launches the idea of introspection as a scientific method
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How do we call the view that authentic knowledge can only be obtained by means of the scientific method; saw religion and philosophy as inferior forms of explanation?
What were the views of Comte on introspection?
- introspection is not a reliable observation because there is no distinction between the investigator and the investigated, they are not independent
- Moreover, objectivity is impossible with introspection, because you can't look inside my mind to check my introspection
- Evidence from introspection is therefore not public and this does not sit well with scientific principles
What did kant say about introspection?
- Mental states have no quantitative properties like objects have weight or length, Introspection can therefore not provide a mathematical description
- Consciousness “never stands still”, is always in flux, and cannot be kept constant to look at it closely, and thoughts cannot be separated
- Observing the mind automatically changes the mind
Why did psychology got kind of stuck after these criticisms on introspection?
What were the three main reasons to say psychology is not a science?
- The mind is immaterial and can't therefor be studied using scientific method
- you can't make a mathematical description of the properties of the mind due to it being immaterial
- humans are not animals due to humans having a mind and thus can't be studied like animals.
How did donders counterargumented one of the three main reasons for psychology not being a science?
- By deciding the duration of mental processes he described the mind mathematically
- Deducted the time needed for a task with only repetition from a task with repetition and discrimination
- The result is an estimate of how long the mental process of discrimination takes
How did Hooke counterargumented one of the three main reasons for psychology not being a science?
- He could describe a psychological proces mathematically
- he determined the limits of human visual acuity
- he measured the distance from where you no longer could discriminate lines
Describe the law of weber
- Created by fechner
- The law is about distinguishing weight
- if you need to distinguish which weight is heavier, it becomes harder when the weights get heavier
- at some point you can barely discriminate them, this is called the just noticeable difference
- the model follows a logarithmic function
What did Quetelet do for psychology as a science?
- Was the first to apply statistics to people
- wanted to predict events by counting them beforehand; e.g. Amount of suicides in a region, criminality, marriages, etc.
- turns out he can't predict events (at this time and place this and that will happen) due to amount of random variables
- so instead he focused on averages; over a year, in this neighborhood criminality will be such and such.
What did francis galton study?
How did galton contribute to psychology as a science?
- In his study of heritability of intelligence he discovered that humans are very noisy
- he introduced correlation and regression analysis to deal with this noise.
- instead of focusing on creating newtonian laws, he focused on formulating probabilistic laws using these methods.
How did darwin counterargument one of the three arguments against psychology being a science?
- He created the evolution theory
- by doing this he refutes the argument that the man is different from the animal, and can't be studied likewise.
- evolution is caused by mutations and natural selection
- evolution is a completely blind and fully automatic system, driven by a statistical principle
How is the argument that the mind is immaterial refuted?
- In the 18th and 19th centuries it quickly became clear that mental functions are linked to the brain
- Localization gains strength (Wernicke, Broca)
- The discovery and study of the reflex introduces the idea of mechanisms behind behavior
What did wundt do for psychology as a science?
- He was the founder of the first psychological lab, psychologists from all over the world came to visit it.
- important methods in this lab were;
- Experimental observation (e.g. reaction time research
- Introspection (e.g. investigating affective states)
- Historical method (e.g. reading texts of different cultures and extract knowledge from that)
What is one of the most important discoveries through introspection by wundt?
- The characterization of affect in terms of valence and arousal
- "afraid"=negativeaffectwith high arousal
- "depressed"=negativeaffect with low arousal
- "satisfied"=positiveaffect with low arousal
- "excited"= positive affect with high arousal
Wundt was a structuralist, what is structuralism?
- Mental states are thus “built” from basic properties
- Structuralists think we should study the structure of mental experiences
- Complex psychological states are systematic constellations of thoughts and feelings:
- guilt=a[negative]feeling linked to the thought [that you've done something wrong]
- hope = a [positive] feeling linked to the thought [that something might get better in the future]
What is william james' view on structuralism?
- He thinks that the mind is always in flux, the brain is never in the exact same state as it was
- Doubts whether there really are these “building blocks” that are at the basis of structuralism because that would mean that if people experience the same feeling they have the same building blocks as last time, which is impossible due to the mind being in flux.
What did william james do for psychology as a science?
- William James introduces psychology in the U.S.
- Writes the influential book; Principles of Psychology
- Strongly influenced by Darwin
- Emphasizes the function of psychological phenomena
- He is therefore one of the founding fathers of functionalism
What theory did james develop?
- he developed theories about emotions
- Emotion equals physiological change
- And these physiological changes have a function
- Disgust coincides with sticking the tongue out, which has the function of spitting out bad food
- Fear coincides with an increased heart rate, which has the function of being ready to flee
- this is called the Facial feedback hypothesis
What did freud do for psychology as a science?
- He was the first to propose psychotherapy
- puts forward the first comprehensive psychological theory;
- Psychoanalysis revolves around the tension between the conscious and the unconscious
- The unconscious is a set of uncoordinated instinctual desires like sex and aggression, too threatening to allow in the consciousness; the id
- the ego is thinking what is allowed according to social rules
- the superego mediates between what is desired (id) and what is possible (ego)
How does freud use psychoanalysis to treat people?
- If the desires of the id are suppressed for too long they can come out in undesired, unexpected ways.
- freud states that if you take repressed material out of the unconscious and into the conscious the id feels less suppressed en is better understood.
Give a timeline of the view on mental disorders
- Before the 16th century;
- lived at home or on the street
- 'possessed' by the devil or ghosts
- From the 16th century onwards: responsibility shifts to authorities
- The first institutions look like prisons, then more like hospitals.
- Treatments such as cold showers or quickly turning around
- In the 19th century: focus shifts from “teaching morality” to biological components
- Neurologists focus on nervous disorders
- Use of hypnosis
- Psychological therapy instead of medical or educational treatment
How did freud think therapists should treat people?
- psychological problems arise from problems in the unconscious (complexes, repressed memories, etc.)
- In order to solve the problems a client faces, the latent cause must be traced and addressed
- these problems, if the therapist can bring them to the conscious, come in masked ways.
- the therapist has to find them and identify them
In what ways can a therapist spot the unconscious problems according to freud?
- the unconscious sometimes shows itself, when the censoring ego isn’t paying attention:
- Slip of the tongue; Freudian slip is when you say one thing, but mean your mother, it is the id speaking
- Dreams; a language through which the unconscious "speaks
- Free associations
- From the interpretation of dreams, slips of the tongue, and associations Freud infers the problem and solves it by making it conscious
How are freuds ideas still relevant today?
- He was the first to propose talking to people and doing that cure them
- he was the first to propose the idea of an unconscious still relevant today
- defense mechanisms of the mind are still a relevant idea
- but, many ideas of freud have been refuted
What did binet do for psychology as a science?
- The founding father of the psychological test
- Binet first tries to establish intelligence like Galton did: reaction times, basal perceptual tests, skull size, etc.
- That doesn't work, and Binet comes up with the idea of letting kids solve simple tasks
- E.g., repeating a sentence, give a definition of everyday concepts (“what is a spoon?)
- count money
- Binet just counted how many problems a kid solved: he calculated a sum score
- this was a much better predictor
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