Contributors to Psychology

...

between physiology and psychology at Harvard University in 1875

c. Tended to be suggested by Americans to be the ‘founding father’ of psychology

d. Advocated Functionalism

i. Argued that the workings of the mind are function (to survive and adapt)

ii. Should investigate what behavior and thoughts are for

iii. Influenced by Charles Darwin’s views

6. John Watson

a. Was a behaviorist

i. Were extremely critical of all the approaches that concerns themselves with ‘minds’

ii. Proposed that psychology should only investigate observable behavior if it wanted to be an objective science

7. Sigmund (“Sick Mind Fraud”) Freud

a. Developed psychoanalysis, a method of therapy, in Austria

b. In many major books (e.g. The Interpretation of Dreams, 1900), described in detail an underlying theory of the human mind and behavior that has had an enormous (and controversial) impact on psychology

i. Argued that the proper object of psychological investigation should be the unconscious mind, and that our behavior is determined by the processes of which we are not aware

8. Edward Titchener

a. Was a structuralist

b. Claimed that there were a total of 46,708 basic sensations that combined to form the structure of the human mind

c. Studied under Wilhem Wundt for several years

d. Attempted to classify the structures of the mind into sensations and thoughts

e. A sensation had four distinct properties: intensity, quality, duration, and extent

i. Each related to some corresponding quality of stimulus, although some stimuli were insufficient to provoke their relevant aspect of sensation

9. Gustav Fechner

a. An early pioneer in experimental psychology and founder of psychophysics

b. Identity hypothesis: mind and body are not regarded as a real dualism, but different sides of one reality

c. Most significant contribution was made in his Elemente der Psychophysik (1860)

i. A text of the "exact science of the functional relations, or relations of dependency, between body and mind"

d. Established new methods of mental measurement, and the beginning of quantitative experimental