Psychology began with foundations in both philosophy and biology. Both fields had a set of questions that required experimentation and scientific investigation. Philosophy had questions that great minds speculated on for hundreds of years, before the thought of using science to answer them even occurred. Psychology’s biological basis had more of a concern with the physical side of human function.
The first scientific method used to analyze the human consciousness was introspection created by Wilhelm Wundt. Introspection was not a freethinking method, which had been common practice. Wundt trained subjects to “report verbally everything that went through their minds when they were presented with a stimulus or task” (Kowalski & Weston, 8). Wundt concluded from the responses of his subjects that there were two elements of consciousness: sensations and feelings. Although Wundt did not believe that experimentation was the only mode that he could use to obtain psychology knowledge, this was the first step toward a purely scientific approach to psychology.
Edward Tichener, a student of Wundt’s, used introspection as the main form of experimentation in the school of thought he initiated called structuralism, given its name because of his study of the structure of consciousness. Tichener, unlike his teacher, thought that experimentation was the only method that anyone should use in psychological research. Tichener believed that “concepts such as ‘attention’ implied too much free will to be scientifically useful” (Kowalski & Weston, 9). Using this thought process, psychologists that followed Tichener took his ideas even further.
The second school of thought that began was functionalism. Functionalism, as indicated by its name, was intent on examining the function of the psychological process. William James, the man who wrote the first book on psychology, founded the school of functionalism. James believed that the contents of the mind did not need studying, but the reason the mind functioned in such a way did. By studying children, animals, and the mentally ill, James believed functionalists could gain more knowledge than from just introspection and experiments.
The connection between biology and psychology began to appear as doctors examined patients’ with head wounds. Depending on the location of the head wound a person could forget how to read, write, or change behavior completely. This started the science of biopsychology. “Instead of studying thoughts, feelings, or fears, behavioral neuroscientists…investigate the electrical and chemical processes in the nervous system that underlie these mental events” (Kowalski & Weston, 6). Researchers began their initial studies on rats, in which they would lesion certain areas of the rats’ brains. These researchers would study the rats’ reactions to certain stimuli before and after the lesions. The result would yield them the localization of function, the thought process that certain areas of the brain control different functions. Depending on which area of rats’ reactions changed, researchers knew what part of the brain was responsible.
The first perspective, chronologically, is the psychodynamic perspective. Developed by Sigmund Freud and created in response “to patients whose symptoms, although real, were not based on physiological malfunctioning…. If the symptoms were not consciously created and maintained… their basis must be unconscious” (Kowalski & Weston, 13). This theory suggests that many people’s conscious minds do not control their actions, but their unconscious minds do. These events of the unconscious mind controlling actions occur without the person’s awareness.
The second perspective that emerged was behaviorism. The most famous experiments of the behaviorists were Pavlov’s dogs. Pavlov would ring a bell before he would feed the dog. After quite some time, the dog became accustomed to associating the bell with food. Pavlov noted that after time, he could ring the bell and the dog would salivate clearly anticipating food. The behaviorist perspective relies on experiments used to study the relationship between outside stimuli and behavior.
The cognitive perspective comes third chronologically. “The cognitive perspective focuses on the way people perceive, process, and receive information” (Kowalski & Weston, 17). Thus, cognitive psychologists were more interested on how exactly the mind worked and processed information. Memory was a particular interest. Psychologists using this perspective depended mostly on experiments. They would show subjects different images over a prolonged period, and then months later asked them if they recalled the images.
The evolutionary perspective based itself on the survival of the fittest theory. This perspective dictates that humans exhibit certain behaviors because those behaviors are what helped human ancestors to survive. Charles Darwin’s theories of natural selection play heavily in this perspective. Evolutionary perspective theorists view moths and mice changing colors to suit their environments as proof of Darwin’s theories. If a species can reproduce successfully, they have a higher chance of survival. This also applies to individuals of a species. The slowest or smallest of the species will not be able to reproduce as well as the strongest or smartest, so only the best can pass on their genes.
There are very few universally agreed upon aspects of psychology, most likely because of its diverse background. From freethinking philosophers to biologists experimenting on mice, Psychology has grown and progressed exponentially since it first became a science.
Resource Used: Kowalski, R., & Weston, D. (2005). Psychology (4th ed.). Hoboken NJ. Wiley
