History of psychology
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Psychology is defined as "the scientific study of behavior and mental processes". Philosophical interest in the human mind and behavior dates back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Persia, Greece, China, and India.[1]
Psychology as a field of experimental study began in 1854 in Leipzig, Germany when
Soon after the development of experimental psychology, various kinds of applied psychology appeared. G. Stanley Hall brought scientific pedagogy to the United States from Germany in the early 1880s. John Dewey's educational theory of the 1890s was another example. Also in the 1890s, Hugo Münsterberg began writing about the application of psychology to industry, law, and other fields. Lightner Witmer established the first psychological clinic in the 1890s. James McKeen Cattell adapted Francis Galton's anthropometric methods to generate the first program of mental testing in the 1890s. In Vienna, meanwhile, Sigmund Freud independently developed an approach to the study of the mind called psychoanalysis, which would go on to become highly influential.[3]
The 20th century saw a reaction to
The final decades of the 20th century saw the rise of
There are conceptual divisions of psychology in so-called "forces" or "waves," based on its schools and historical trends. This terminology is popularized among the psychologists to differentiate a growing humanism in therapeutic practice from the 1930s onwards, called the "third force," in response to the deterministic tendencies of Watson's behaviourism and Freud's psychoanalysis.[4] Humanistic psychology has as important proponents Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Gordon Allport, Erich Fromm, and Rollo May. Their humanistic concepts are also related to existential psychology, Viktor Frankl's logotherapy, positive psychology (which has Martin Seligman as one of the leading exponents), C. R. Cloninger's approach to well-being and character development,[5] as well as to transpersonal psychology, incorporating such concepts as spirituality, self-transcendence, self-realization, self-actualization, and mindfulness.[6] In cognitive behavioral psychotherapy, similar terms have also been incorporated, by which "first wave" is considered the initial behavioral therapy; a "second wave", Albert Ellis's cognitive one; and a "third wave", with the acceptance and commitment therapy, which emphasizes one's pursuit of values, methods of self-awareness, acceptance and psychological flexibility, instead of challenging negative thought schemes.[7] A "fourth wave" would be the one that incorporates transpersonal concepts and positive flourishing, in a way criticized by some researchers for its heterogeneity and theoretical direction dependent on the therapist's view.[8] A "fifth wave" has now been proposed by a group of researchers seeking to integrate earlier concepts into a unifying theory.[9][10]
Early psychological thought
Many cultures throughout history have speculated on the nature of the mind, heart, soul, spirit, brain, etc. For instance, in Ancient Egypt, the Edwin Smith Papyrus contains an early description of the brain, and some speculations on its functions (described in a medical/surgical context) and the descriptions could be related to Imhotep who was the first Egyptian physician who anatomized and discovered the body of the human being.[11] Though other medical documents of ancient times were full of incantations and applications meant to turn away disease-causing demons and other superstition, the Edwin Smith Papyrus gives remedies to almost 50 conditions and only two contain incantations to ward off evil.
Ancient Greek philosophers, from
Plato's
Other Hellenistic philosophers, namely the
In the
Walter M Freeman proposes that Thomism is the philosophical system explaining cognition that is most compatible with neurodynamics, in a 2008 article in the journal Mind and Matter entitled "Nonlinear Brain Dynamics and Intention According to Aquinas".[18]
In Asia, China had a long history of administering tests of ability as part of its education system. Chinese texts from 2500 years ago mention neuropsychiatric illness, including descriptions of mania and psychosis with or without epilepsy. "Imbalance" was the mechanism of psychosis. Other conditions described include confusion, visual illusions, intoxication, stress, and even malingering. Psychological theories about stages of human development can be traced to the time of Confucius, about 2500 years ago.[19]
In the 6th century AD,
India had a theory of "the self" in its
Medieval
Avicenna, similarly, did early work in the treatment of nafs-related illnesses, and developed a system for associating changes in the mind with inner feelings. Avicenna also described phenomena we now recognize as neuropsychiatric conditions, including hallucination, mania, nightmare, melancholia, dementia, epilepsy and tremor.[32]
Ancient and medieval thinkers who discussed issues related to psychology included:
- Socrates of Athens (c. 470 – 399 BCE). Emphasized virtue ethics. In epistemology, understood dialectic to be central to the pursuit of truth.[4]
- As early as the 4th century BC, the Greek physician Hippocrates theorized that mental disorders had physical rather than supernatural causes.[33]
- Plato's Chariot Allegory and concepts such as eros defined the subsequent Western Philosophy views of the psyche and anticipated modern psychological proposals.[34]
- Alcmaeon theorizes the brain in the seat of the mind.[35]
- In 387 BCE, Plato suggested that the brain is where mental processes take place.[2]
- Boethius and his work represented an imaginary psychological dialogue between himself and philosophy, with philosophy personified as a woman, arguing that despite the apparent inequality of the world.
- In the 6th century AD, Lin Xie carried out an early psychological analysis experiment. It has been cited that this was the first psychology experiment.[36]
- Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari, who developed al-‘ilaj al-nafs (sometimes translated as "psychotherapy"),[37]
- Padmasambhava was the 8th-century medicine Buddha of Tibet, called from the then Buddhist India to tame the Tibetans, and was instrumental in developing Tibetan psychiatric medicine.[38]
- Patanjali founded Yoga and the method of psychological balance and resilience through breathing exercises and inner peace.[39]
- Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (Abulcasis), described head surgery;[34]
- William of Ockham who has lot of interests in writing about logic and invented occams razor.[41][42]
- Thomas Aquinas whose works allocated notion regarded emotions.[43]
- Albertus magnus describes metaphysical morals in psychology and philosophical theories.
Further development
Many of the Ancients' writings would have been lost without the efforts of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish translators in the House of Wisdom, the House of Knowledge, and other such institutions in the Islamic Golden Age, whose glosses and commentaries were later translated into Latin in the 12th century. However, it is not clear how these sources first came to be used during the Renaissance, and their influence on what would later emerge as the discipline of psychology is a topic of scholarly debate.[44]
Etymology and the early usage of the word
The first print use of the term "psychology", that is, Greek-inspired neo-Latin psychologia, is dated to multiple works dated 1525.
The term did not come into popular usage until the German Rationalist philosopher,
Enlightenment psychological thought
Early psychology was regarded as the study of the soul (in the Christian sense of the term).
Although not educated as a physician,
The philosophers of the British
The Danish philosopher
Transition to contemporary psychology
Also influential on the emerging discipline of psychology were debates surrounding the efficacy of
The development of modern psychology was closely linked to
Emergence of German experimental psychology
Until the middle of the 19th century, psychology was widely regarded as a branch of philosophy. Whether it could become an independent scientific discipline was questioned already earlier on: Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) declared in his Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786) that psychology might perhaps never become a "proper" natural science because its phenomena cannot be quantified, among other reasons.[57] Kant proposed an alternative conception of an empirical investigation of human thought, feeling, desire, and action, and lectured on these topics for over twenty years (1772/73–1795/96). His Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798), which resulted from these lectures, looks like an empirical psychology in many respects.[58]
Meanwhile, individual differences in reaction time had become a critical issue in the field of astronomy, under the name of the "
The 19th century was also the period in which physiology, including neurophysiology, professionalized and saw some of its most significant discoveries. Among its leaders were
In 1864 Wundt took up a professorship in
Experimental psychology laboratories were soon also established at Berlin by Carl Stumpf (1848–1936) and at Göttingen by Georg Elias Müller (1850–1934). Another major German experimental psychologist of the era, though he did not direct his own research institute, was Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909).
Psychoanalysis
Experimentation was not the only approach to psychology in the German-speaking world at this time. Starting in the 1890s, employing the case study technique, the Viennese physician Sigmund Freud developed and applied the methods of hypnosis, free association, and dream interpretation to reveal putatively unconscious beliefs and desires that he argued were the underlying causes of his patients' "hysteria". He dubbed this approach psychoanalysis. Freudian psychoanalysis is particularly notable for the emphasis it places on the course of an individual's sexual development in pathogenesis. Psychoanalytic concepts have had a strong and lasting influence on Western culture, particularly on the arts. Although its scientific contribution is still a matter of debate, both Freudian and Jungian psychology revealed the existence of compartmentalized thinking, in which some behavior and thoughts are hidden from consciousness – yet operative as part of the complete personality. Hidden agendas, a bad conscience, or a sense of guilt, are examples of the existence of mental processes in which the individual is not conscious, through choice or lack of understanding, of some aspects of their personality and subsequent behavior.
Psychoanalysis examines mental processes which affect the ego. An understanding of these theoretically allows the individual greater choice and consciousness with a healing effect in neurosis and occasionally in psychosis, both of which Richard von Krafft-Ebing defined as "diseases of the personality".
Freud founded the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1910, inspired also by Ferenczi.[59] Main theoretical successors were Anna Freud (his daughter) and Melane Klein, particularly in child psychoanalysis, both inaugurating competing concepts; in addition to those who became dissidents and developed interpretations different from Freud's psychoanalytic one, thus called by some neo-freudians, or more correctly post-freudians:[60] the most known are Alfred Adler (individual psychology), Carl Gustav Jung (analytical psychology), Otto Rank, Karen Horney, Erik Erikson and Erich Fromm.
Jung was an associate of Freud's who later broke with him over Freud's emphasis on sexuality. Working with concepts of the unconscious first noted during the 1800s (by John Stuart Mill, Krafft-Ebing, Pierre Janet, Théodore Flournoy and others), Jung defined four mental functions which relate to and define the ego, the conscious self:[citation needed]
- Sensation, which tell consciousness that something is there.
- Feelings, which consist of value judgments, and motivate our reaction to what we have sensed.
- Intellect, an analytic function that compares the sensed event to all known others and gives it a class and category, allowing us to understand a situation within a historical process, personal or public.
- And intuition, a mental function with access to deep behavioral patterns, being able to suggest unexpected solutions or predict unforeseen consequences, "as if seeing around corners" as Jung put it.
Jung insisted on an empirical psychology on which theories must be based on facts and not on the psychologist's projections or expectations.
Early American
Around 1875 the
William James was one of the founders of the American Society for Psychical Research in 1885, which studied psychic phenomena (parapsychology), before the creation of the American Psychological Association in 1892. James was also president of the British society that inspired the United States' one, the Society for Psychical Research, founded in 1882, which investigated psychology and the paranormal on topics such as mediumship, dissociation, telepathy and hypnosis, and it innovated research in psychology, by which, according to science historian Andreas Sommer, were "devised methodological innovations such as randomized study designs" and conducted "the first experiments investigating the psychology of eyewitness testimony (Hodgson and Davey, 1887), [and] empirical and conceptual studies illuminating mechanisms of dissociation and hypnotism"; Its members also initiated and organised the International Congresses of Physiological/Experimental psychology.[61]
In 1879 Charles Sanders Peirce was hired as a philosophy instructor at Johns Hopkins University. Although better known for his astronomical and philosophical work, Peirce also conducted what are perhaps the first American psychology experiments, on the subject of color vision, published in 1877 in the American Journal of Science (see Cadwallader, 1974). Peirce and his student Joseph Jastrow published "On Small Differences in Sensation" in the Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, in 1884. In 1882, Peirce was joined at Johns Hopkins by G. Stanley Hall, who opened the first American research laboratory devoted to experimental psychology in 1883. Peirce was forced out of his position by scandal and Hall was awarded the only professorship in philosophy at Johns Hopkins. In 1887 Hall founded the American Journal of Psychology, which published work primarily emanating from his own laboratory. In 1888 Hall left his Johns Hopkins professorship for the presidency of the newly founded Clark University, where he remained for the rest of his career.
Soon, experimental psychology laboratories were opened at the
In 1890, William James' The Principles of Psychology finally appeared, and rapidly became the most influential textbook in the history of American psychology. It laid many of the foundations for the sorts of questions that American psychologists would focus on for years to come. The book's chapters on consciousness, emotion, and habit were particularly agenda-setting.
One of those who felt the impact of James' Principles was John Dewey, then professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan. With his junior colleagues, James Hayden Tufts (who founded the psychology laboratory at Michigan) and George Herbert Mead, and his student James Rowland Angell, this group began to reformulate psychology, focusing more strongly on the social environment and on the activity of mind and behavior than the psychophysics-inspired physiological psychology of Wundt and his followers had heretofore. Tufts left Michigan for another junior position at the newly founded University of Chicago in 1892. A year later, the senior philosopher at Chicago, Charles Strong, resigned, and Tufts recommended to Chicago president William Rainey Harper that Dewey be offered the position. After initial reluctance, Dewey was hired in 1894. Dewey soon filled out the department with his Michigan companions Mead and Angell. These four formed the core of the Chicago School of psychology.
In 1892,
In 1894, a number of psychologists, unhappy with the parochial editorial policies of the American Journal of Psychology approached Hall about appointing an editorial board and opening the journal out to more psychologists not within Hall's immediate circle. Hall refused, so James McKeen Cattell (then of Columbia) and James Mark Baldwin (then of Princeton) co-founded a new journal, Psychological Review, which rapidly grew to become a major outlet for American psychological researchers.[63][64]
Beginning in 1895,
Early French
Jules Baillarger founded the Société Médico-Psychologique in 1847, one of the first associations of its kind and which published the Annales Medico-Psychologiques.[33] France already had a pioneering tradition in psychological study, and it was relevant the publication of Précis d'un cours de psychologie ("Summary of a Psychology Course") in 1831 by Adolphe Garnier, who also published theTraité des facultés de l'âme, comprenant l'histoire des principales théories psychologiques ("Treatise of the Faculties of the Soul, comprising the history of major psychological theories") in 1852.[65] Garnier was called "the best monument of psychological science of our time" by Revue des Deux Mondes in 1864.[66][54]
In no small measure because of the conservatism of the reign of
In 1876, Ribot founded Revue Philosophique (the same year as Mind was founded in Britain), which for the next generation would be virtually the only French outlet for the "new" psychology (Plas, 1997). Although not a working experimentalist himself, Ribot's many books were to have profound influence on the next generation of psychologists. These included especially his L'Hérédité Psychologique (1873) and La Psychologie Allemande Contemporaine (1879). In the 1880s, Ribot's interests turned to psychopathology, writing books on disorders of memory (1881), will (1883), and personality (1885), and where he attempted to bring to these topics the insights of general psychology. Although in 1881 he lost a Sorbonne professorship in the History of Psychological Doctrines to traditionalist Jules Soury (1842–1915), from 1885 to 1889 he taught experimental psychology at the Sorbonne. In 1889 he was awarded a chair at the Collège de France in Experimental and Comparative Psychology, which he held until 1896 (Nicolas, 2002).
France's primary psychological strength lay in the field of psychopathology. The chief neurologist at the
In 1889, Binet and his colleague
Early British
Although the British had the first scholarly journal dedicated to the topic of psychology – Mind, founded in 1876 by Alexander Bain and edited by George Croom Robertson – it was quite a long while before experimental psychology developed there to challenge the strong tradition of "mental philosophy". The experimental reports that appeared in Mind in the first two decades of its existence were almost entirely authored by Americans, especially G. Stanley Hall and his students (notably Henry Herbert Donaldson) and James McKeen Cattell.
Soon after, Charles Spearman (1863–1945) developed the correlation-based statistical procedure of factor analysis in the process of building a case for his two-factor theory of intelligence, published in 1901. Spearman believed that people have an inborn level of general intelligence or g which can be crystallized into a specific skill in any of a number of narrow content area (s, or specific intelligence).
Laboratory psychology of the kind practiced in Germany and the United States was slow in coming to Britain. Although the philosopher
In 1901 the Psychological Society was established (which renamed itself the British Psychological Society in 1906), and in 1904 Ward and Rivers co-founded the British Journal of Psychology.
Early Russian
Insofar as psychology was regarded as the science of the soul and institutionally part of philosophy courses in theology schools, psychology was present in Russia from the second half of the 18th century. By contrast, if by psychology we mean a separate discipline, with university chairs and people employed as psychologists, then it appeared only after the October Revolution. All the same, by the end of the 19th century, many different kinds of activities called psychology had spread in philosophy, natural science, literature, medicine, education, legal practice, and even military science. Psychology was as much a cultural resource as it was a defined area of scholarship.[67]
The question, "Who Is to Develop Psychology and How?", was of such importance that Ivan Sechenov, a physiologist and doctor by training and a teacher in institutions of higher education, chose it as the title for an essay in 1873. His question was rhetorical, for he was already convinced that physiology was the scientific basis on which to build psychology. The response to Sechenov's popular essay included one, in 1872–1873, from a liberal professor of law, Konstantin Kavelin. He supported a psychology drawing on ethnographic materials about national character, a program that had existed since 1847, when the ethnographic division of the recently founded Russian Geographical Society circulated a request for information on the people's way of life, including "intellectual and moral abilities." This was part of a larger debate about national character, national resources, and national development, in the context of which a prominent linguist, Alexander Potebnja, began, in 1862, to publish studies of the relation between mentality and language.
Although it was the history and philology departments that traditionally taught courses in psychology, it was the medical schools that first introduced psychological laboratories and courses on
in January 1884, the philosophers Matvei Troitskii and Iakov Grot founded the Moscow Psychological Society. They wished to discuss philosophical issues, but because anything called "philosophical" could attract official disapproval, they used "psychological" as a euphemism. In 1907, Georgy Chelpanov announced a 3-year course in psychology based on laboratory work and a well-structured teaching seminar. In the following years, Chelpanov traveled in Europe and the United States to see existing institutes; the result was a luxurious four-story building for the Psychological Institute of Moscow with well-equipped laboratories, opening formally on March 23, 1914.
Second generation German
Würzburg School
In 1896, one of
The Würzburgers, by contrast, designed experiments in which the experimental subject was presented with a complex stimulus (for example a Nietzschean aphorism or a logical problem) and after processing it for a time (for example interpreting the aphorism or solving the problem), retrospectively reported to the experimenter all that had passed through his consciousness during the interval. In the process, the Würzburgers claimed to have discovered a number of new elements of consciousness (over and above Wundt's sensations, feelings, and images) including Bewußtseinslagen (conscious sets), Bewußtheiten (awarenesses), and Gedanken (thoughts). In the English-language literature, these are often collectively termed "imageless thoughts", and the debate between Wundt and the Würzburgers, the "imageless thought controversy".
Wundt referred to the Würzburgers' studies as "sham" experiments and criticized them vigorously. Wundt's most significant English student,
The imageless thought debate is often said to have been instrumental in undermining the legitimacy of all introspective methods in experimental psychology and, ultimately, in bringing about the behaviorist revolution in American psychology. It was not without its own delayed legacy, however. Herbert A. Simon (1981) cites the work of one Würzburg psychologist in particular, Otto Selz (1881–1943), for having inspired him to develop his famous problem-solving computer algorithms (such as Logic Theorist and General Problem Solver) and his "thinking out loud" method for protocol analysis. In addition, Karl Popper studied psychology under Bühler and Selz in the 1920s, and appears to have brought some of their influence, unattributed, to his philosophy of science.[69]
Gestalt psychology
Whereas the Würzburgers debated with Wundt mainly on matters of method, another German movement, centered in Berlin, took issue with the widespread assumption that the aim of psychology should be to break consciousness down into putative basic elements. Instead, they argued that the psychological "whole" has priority and that the "parts" are defined by the structure of the whole, rather than vice versa. Thus, the school was named Gestalt, a German term meaning approximately "form" or "configuration". It was led by Max Wertheimer (1880–1943), Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967), and Kurt Koffka (1886–1941). Wertheimer had been a student of Austrian philosopher, Christian von Ehrenfels (1859–1932), who claimed that in addition to the sensory elements of a perceived object, there is an extra element which, though in some sense derived from the organization of the standard sensory elements, is also to be regarded as an element in its own right. He called this extra element Gestalt-qualität or "form-quality". For instance, when one hears a melody, one hears the notes plus something in addition to them which binds them together into a tune – the Gestalt-qualität. It is the presence of this Gestalt-qualität which, according to Ehrenfels, allows a tune to be transposed to a new key, using completely different notes, but still retain its identity. Wertheimer took the more radical line that "what is given me by the melody does not arise ... as a secondary process from the sum of the pieces as such. Instead, what takes place in each single part already depends upon what the whole is", (1925/1938). In other words, one hears the melody first and only then may perceptually divide it up into notes. Similarly in vision, one sees the form of the circle first – it is given "im-mediately" (i.e. its apprehension is not mediated by a process of part-summation). Only after this primary apprehension might one notice that it is made up of lines or dots or stars.
Gestalt-Theorie (Gestalt psychology) was officially initiated in 1912 in an article by Wertheimer on the phi-phenomenon; a perceptual illusion in which two stationary but alternately flashing lights appear to be a single light moving from one location to another. Contrary to popular opinion, his primary target was not behaviorism, as it was not yet a force in psychology. The aim of his criticism was, rather, the atomistic psychologies of Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894), Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920), and other European psychologists of the time.
The two men who served as Wertheimer's subjects in the phi experiment were Köhler and Koffka. Köhler was an expert in physical acoustics, having studied under physicist
The terms "structure" and "organization" were focal for the Gestalt psychologists. Stimuli were said to have a certain structure, to be organized in a certain way, and that it is to this structural organization, rather than to individual sensory elements, that the organism responds. When an animal is conditioned, it does not simply respond to the absolute properties of a stimulus, but to its properties relative to its surroundings. To use a favorite example of Köhler's, if conditioned to respond in a certain way to the lighter of two gray cards, the animal generalizes the relation between the two stimuli rather than the absolute properties of the conditioned stimulus: it will respond to the lighter of two cards in subsequent trials even if the darker card in the test trial is of the same intensity as the lighter one in the original training trials.
In 1921 Koffka published a Gestalt-oriented text on developmental psychology, Growth of the Mind. With the help of American psychologist Robert Ogden, Koffka introduced the Gestalt point of view to an American audience in 1922 by way of a paper in Psychological Bulletin. It contains criticisms of then-current explanations of a number of problems of perception, and the alternatives offered by the Gestalt school. Koffka moved to the United States in 1924, eventually settling at Smith College in 1927. In 1935 Koffka published his Principles of Gestalt Psychology. This textbook laid out the Gestalt vision of the scientific enterprise as a whole. Science, he said, is not the simple accumulation of facts. What makes research scientific is the incorporation of facts into a theoretical structure. The goal of the Gestaltists was to integrate the facts of inanimate nature, life, and mind into a single scientific structure. This meant that science would have to swallow not only what Koffka called the quantitative facts of physical science but the facts of two other "scientific categories": questions of order and questions of Sinn, a German word which has been variously translated as significance, value, and meaning. Without incorporating the meaning of experience and behavior, Koffka believed that science would doom itself to trivialities in its investigation of human beings.
Having survived the onslaught of the Nazis up to the mid-1930s,[70] all the core members of the Gestalt movement were forced out of Germany to the United States by 1935.[71] Köhler published another book, Dynamics in Psychology, in 1940 but thereafter the Gestalt movement suffered a series of setbacks. Koffka died in 1941 and Wertheimer in 1943. Wertheimer's long-awaited book on mathematical problem-solving, Productive Thinking, was published posthumously in 1945 but Köhler was now left to guide the movement without his two long-time colleagues.[72]
Emergence of behaviorism in America
As a result of the conjunction of a number of events in the early 20th century, behaviorism gradually emerged as the dominant school in American psychology. First among these was the increasing skepticism with which many viewed the concept of consciousness: although still considered to be the essential element separating psychology from physiology, its subjective nature and the unreliable introspective method it seemed to require, troubled many. William James' 1904 Journal of Philosophy.... article "Does Consciousness Exist?", laid out the worries explicitly.
Second was the gradual rise of a rigorous animal psychology. In addition to
A third factor was the rise of Watson to a position of significant power within the psychological community. In 1908, Watson was offered a junior position at Johns Hopkins by James Mark Baldwin. In addition to heading the Johns Hopkins department, Baldwin was the editor of the influential journals, Psychological Review and Psychological Bulletin. Only months after Watson's arrival, Baldwin was forced to resign his professorship due to scandal. Watson was suddenly made head of the department and editor of Baldwin's journals. He resolved to use these powerful tools to revolutionize psychology in the image of his own research. In 1913 he published in Psychological Review the article that is often called the "manifesto" of the behaviorist movement, "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It". There he argued that psychology "is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science", "introspection forms no essential part of its methods..". and "The behaviorist... recognizes no dividing line between man and brute". The following year, 1914, his first textbook, Behavior went to press. Although behaviorism took some time to be accepted as a comprehensive approach (see Samelson, 1981), (in no small part because of the intervention of World War I), by the 1920s Watson's revolution was well underway. The central tenet of early behaviorism was that psychology should be a science of behavior, not of the mind, and rejected internal mental states such as beliefs, desires, or goals. Watson himself, however, was forced out of Johns Hopkins by scandal in 1920. Although he continued to publish during the 1920s, he eventually moved on to a career in advertising (see Coon, 1994).
Among the behaviorists who continued on, there were a number of disagreements about the best way to proceed. Neo-behaviorists such as
Behaviorism was the ascendant experimental model for research in psychology for much of the 20th century, largely due to the creation and successful application (not least of which in advertising) of conditioning theories as scientific models of human behaviour.
Second generation francophone
Genevan School
In 1918, Jean Piaget (1896–1980) turned away from his early training in natural history and began post-doctoral work in psychoanalysis in Zurich. Later Piaget rejected psychoanalysis, as he thought it was insufficiently empirical.[73] In 1919, he moved to Paris to work at the Binet-Simon Lab. However, Binet had died in 1911 and Simon lived and worked in Rouen. His supervision therefore came (indirectly) from Pierre Janet, Binet's old rival and a professor at the Collège de France.
The job in Paris was relatively simple: to use the statistical techniques he had learned as a natural historian, studying molluscs, to standardize
In 1921, Piaget moved to Geneva to work with Édouard Claparède at the Rousseau Institute. They formed what is now known as the Genevan School. In 1936, Piaget received his first honorary doctorate from Harvard. In 1955, the International Center for Genetic Epistemology was founded: an interdisciplinary collaboration of theoreticians and scientists, devoted to the study of topics related to Piaget's theory. In 1969, Piaget received the "distinguished scientific contributions" award from the American Psychological Association.
Soviet Marxist Psychology
In the early twentieth century,
A few attempts were made in 1920s at formulating the core of theoretical framework of the "genuinely Marxist" psychology, but all these failed and were characterized in early 1930s as either right- or left-wing deviations of reductionist "mechanicism" or "menshevising idealism". It was Sergei Rubinstein in mid 1930s, who formulated the key principles, on which the entire Soviet variation of Marxist psychology would be based, and, thus become the genuine pioneer and the founder of this psychological discipline in the Marxist disguise in the Soviet Union.
In late 1940s-early 1950s, Lysenkoism somewhat affected Russian psychology, yet gave it a considerable impulse for a reaction and unification that resulted in institutional and disciplinary integration of psychological community in the postwar Soviet Union.
Cognitivism
Noam Chomsky's (1959) review of Skinner's book Verbal Behavior (which aimed to explain language acquisition in a behaviorist framework) is considered one of the major theoretical challenges to the type of radical (as in 'root') behaviorism that Skinner taught. Chomsky claimed that language could not be learned solely from the sort of operant conditioning that Skinner postulated. Chomsky argued that people could produce an infinite variety of sentences unique in structure and meaning and that these could not possibly be generated solely through the experience of natural language. As an alternative, he concluded that there must be internal mental structures – states of mind of the sort that behaviorism rejected as illusory. The issue is not whether mental activities exist; it is whether they can be shown to be the causes of behavior. Similarly, the work by Albert Bandura showed that children could learn by social observation, without any change in overt behaviour, and so must (according to him) be accounted for by internal representations.
The rise of computer technology also promoted the metaphor of mental function as information processing. This, combined with a scientific approach to studying the mind, as well as a belief in internal mental states, led to the rise of cognitivism as the dominant model of the mind.
Links between
With the increasing involvement of other disciplines (such as philosophy, computer science, and neuroscience) in the quest to understand the mind, the umbrella discipline of cognitive science has been created as a means of focusing such efforts in a constructive way.
See also
- History of behavioral neuroscience
- History of clinical psychology
- History of cognitive neuroscience
- History of cognitive science
- History of evolutionary psychology
- History of experimental psychology
- History of hypnosis
- History of mental disorders
- History of neurology
- History of neuropsychology
- History of neurophysiology
- History of psychiatry
- History of psychotherapy
- History of sociology
- History of science
- Applied psychology
- Basic science (psychology)
- Psychophysics
- Psychology of art
- Psychology of religion
- Kurt Danziger
- Timeline of psychology
- Archives of the History of American Psychology
Notes
- ^ For a condensed historical overview of psychology, see the timeline of psychology article.
- ^ S2CID 6784135.
- ISBN 978-1-4338-0762-6
- ^ S2CID 240658779.
- ^ Cloninger, C. R. (2004). Feeling Good: The Science of Well-Being. EUA: Oxford University Press
- ^ Friedman, Harris L.; Hartelius, Glenn (2015). The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Transpersonal Psychology. Wiley Blackwell.
- PMID 27993338.
- S2CID 3812244.
- ^ "Psychotherapy's Fifth Wave". Psychology Today. Retrieved 2019-09-06.
- ISBN 9781461400578. OCLC 733246746
- S2CID 239920399, retrieved 2022-03-13
- ^ see e.g., Everson, 1991; Green & Groff, 2003
- ^ see, e.g., Robinson, 1995
- ^ see, e.g., Durrant, 1993; Nussbaum & Rorty, 1992
- ^ Stok, Fabio (2011). "Sigmund Freud's Experience with the Classics". Classica (Brasil). 24 (1/2).
- ^ see e.g., Annas, 1992
- ^ See sub-heading: Of the two Spirits of Man
- ^ Freeman, Walter (2008). "Nonlinear Brain Dynamics and Intention According to Aquinas". Mind and Matter. 6 (2): 207–234.
- ^ "Analects of Confucius 論語". www.acmuller.net. Retrieved 2023-05-10.
- ^ Higgins, Louise T. and Zheng Mo "An Introduction to Chinese Psychology--Its Historical Roots until the Present Day" Archived 2014-01-22 at archive.today, The Journal of Psychology Vol. 136, No. 2, March 2002, pp. 225-39.
- ^ Ramoo, Dinesh (2017-09-02). "History of Psychology as a Science" (PDF).
- ^ Kak, Subhash C. (2005). Science in Ancient India (PDF). Louisiana State University. p. 4.
- ^ Kak, Subhash C. (2005). Science in Ancient India (PDF). Louisiana State University. p. 4.
- ^ see e.g., Paranjpe, 1998
- PMID 26869984.
- ^ Segall, Seth Robert. (2003). Encountering Buddhism: Western Psychology and Buddhist Teachings (SUNY series in transpersonal and humanistic psychology). [S.l.]: State University of New York Press. OCLC 940561199
- PMID 23858249.
- ^ a b Germano, David F.; Waldron, William S. «A Comparison of Alaya-Vijñana in Yogacara and Dzogchen». In Nauriyal, D. K. Drummond, Michael S. Lal, Y. B. Buddhist Thought and Applied Psychological Research: Transcending the Boundaries. London and New York: Routledge. 2006. pp. 36–68
- ^ William H. Grosnick. «The Mahavaipulya Tathagatagarbha Sutra». In Lopez Jr; Donald S. (2007) Buddhism in Practice: Abridged Edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- ^ A. Vanzan Paladin (1998), "Ethics and neurology in the Islamic world: Continuity and change", Italian Journal of Neurological Science 19: 255-258 [257], Springer-Verlag.
- ^ a b Deuraseh, Nurdeen; Abu Talib, Mansor (2005). "Mental health in Islamic medical tradition". The International Medical Journal. 4 (2): 76–79.
- ^ S Safavi-Abbasi, LBC Brasiliense, RK Workman (2007), "The fate of medical knowledge and the neurosciences during the time of Genghis Khan and the Mongolian Empire", Neurosurgical Focus 23 (1), E13, p. 3.
- ^ a b "Société Médico-Psychologique | A propos". Société Médico-Psychologique (in French). Retrieved 2019-09-08.
- ^ PMID 12134355.
- ^ S2CID 235334263.
- S2CID 11438100.
- S2CID 38740431.
- ISSN 1057-7408.
- ISBN 9781315262635, retrieved 2022-10-14
- ISBN 90-04-09459-8.
- OCLC 1099192944.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link - OCLC 1099204950.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link - OCLC 638962580.
- ^ Advances in the History of Psychology » Blog Archive » Presentism in the Service of Diversity?
- ^ See Danziger, 1997, chap. 3.
- ISBN 978-0-9515922-5-0.
- ^ Reissued in 2002 by Thoemmes, Bristol, as Vol. 1 of The Early American Reception of German Idealism
- ^ See Joseph Henry Dubbs, The Reformed Church in Pennsylvania, Lancaster, PA: Pennsylvania German Society, 1902; pp. 295-312.
- ^ See E. Brooks Holifield, Theology in America: Christian thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003; p. 470.
- ISBN 0-691-01833-2
- .
- ISBN 0-14-022562-5.
- ^ See Yeates, Lindsay B. (2016a), "Émile Coué and his Method (I): The Chemist of Thought and Human Action", Australian Journal of Clinical Hypnotherapy & Hypnosis, Volume 38, No.1, (Autumn 2016), pp.3-27; (2016b), "Émile Coué and his Method (II): Hypnotism, Suggestion, Ego-Strengthening, and Autosuggestion", Australian Journal of Clinical Hypnotherapy & Hypnosis, Volume 38, No.1, (Autumn 2016), pp.28-54; and (2016c), "Émile Coué and his Method (III): Every Day in Every Way", Australian Journal of Clinical Hypnotherapy & Hypnosis, Volume 38, No.1, (Autumn 2016), pp.55-79.
- ^ a b Berrios, G. E. (1996). The history of mental symptoms: descriptive psychopathology since the nineteenth century. Cambridge: Cambridge University.
- ^ Berrios, G. E.; Porter, R. (1999). A history of clinical psychiatry: the origin & history of psychiatric disorders. London: Athlone.
- ^ Pichot, P. (1983) Un siècle de psychiatrie. Paris: Dacosta.
- ^ Thomas Sturm, Is there a problem with mathematical psychology in the eighteenth century? A fresh look at Kant's old argument. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 42 (2006), 353-377.
- ^ Thomas Sturm, Kant und die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (Paderborn: Mentis Verlag, 2009).
- ^ "History of the IPA". International Psychoanalytical Association. Retrieved 2019-09-07.
- OCLC 57076044.
- PMID 23355763.
- ^ Glucksberg, S. History of the psychology department: Princeton University. Retrieved July 9, 2008, from "History and Profile of the Psychology Library of Princeton University". Archived from the original on 2010-06-14. Retrieved 2011-06-07.
- PMID 25664883.
- PMID 26120920.
- ^ Gustave Vapereau, Dictionnaire universel des contemporains, Hachette, 1858, p. 720
- ^ La Revue des deux Mondes, t. LIV, 1er novembre 1864, p. 1039.
- .
- ^ See Kusch, 1995; Kroker, 2003.
- ^ Ter Hark, 2004
- ^ see Henle, 1978
- ^ Henle, 1984
- ^ For more on the history of Gestalt psychology, see Ash, 1995
- PMID 17152748.
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Scholarly journals
There are three "primary journals" where specialist histories of psychology are published:
- History of Psychology (journal)
- Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences
- History of the Human Sciences
In addition, there are a large number of "friendly journals" where historical material can often be found.Burman, J. T. (2018). "What Is History of Psychology? Network Analysis of Journal Citation Reports, 2009-2015". SAGE Open. 8 (1): 215824401876300.
External links
Scholarly societies and associations
- Cheiron: The International Society for the History of Behavioral & Social Sciences
- European Society for the History of the Human Sciences
- Forum for the History of Human Science
- History & Philosophy Section of the British Psychological Society
- History & Philosophy of Psychology Section of the Canadian Psychological Association
- Society for the History of Psychology (American Psychological Association Division 26)
Internet resources
- History of Psychology History of Psychology - Poster with visual overview.
E-textbooks
- The History of Psychology - e-text about the historical and philosophical background of psychology by C. George Boeree
- Mind and Body: René Descartes to William James e-text by Robert H. Wozniak
- History of Psychology Textbook Chapter Archived 2019-10-23 at the Wayback Machine
- Gerhard Medicus (2017). Being Human – Bridging the Gap between the Sciences of Body and Mind, Berlin VWB
Collections of primary source texts
- Classics in the History of Psychology - on-line full texts of 250+ historically significant primary source articles, chapters, & books, ed. by Christopher D. Green
- Fondation Jean Piaget - Collection of primary sources by, and secondary sources about, Jean Piaget (in French; edited by Jean-Jacques Ducret and Wolfgang Schachner)
- The Mead Project - collection of writings by George Herbert Mead and other related thinkers (e.g., Dewey, James, Baldwin, Cooley, Veblen, Sapir), ed. by Lloyd Gordon Ward and Robert Throop
- Sir Francis Galton, F.R.S.
- William James Site Archived 2008-11-05 at the Wayback Machine ed. by Frank Pajares
- History of Phrenology on the Web ed. by John van Wyhe
- Frederic Bartlett Archive - A collection of Bartlett's own writings and related material maintained by Humboldt Prize Winner Professor Brady Wagoner (University of Aalborg), the late Professor Gerard Duveen (University of Cambridge) and Professor Alex Gillespie (LSE)
Collections of secondary scholarship on the history of psychology
- History & Theory of Psychology Eprint Archive - Open access on-line depository of articles on the history & theory of psychology
- Advances in the History of Psychology - Blog edited by Jeremy Burman of York University (Toronto, Canada), advised by Christopher D. Green
Websites of physical archives
- The Archives of the History of American Psychology - Large collection of documents and objects at the University of Akron, directed by David Baker
- Archives of the American Psychological Association directed by Wade Pickren
- Archives of the British Psychological Society
Multimedia resources
- An Academy in Crisis: The Hiring of James Mark Baldwin and James Gibson Hume at the University of Toronto in 1889 - 40-min. video documentary by Christopher D. Green
- Toward a School of Their Own: The Prehistory of American Functionalist Psychology - 64-min. video documentary by Christopher D. Green
- This Week in the History of Psychology - 30-episode podcast series by Christopher D. Green
- BPS Origins timeline