History of psychology

History of psychology

Issues relating to human behaviour have been of concern to human beings since the beginning of history. For a long time people have tried to address the mind –body problem, and yet they have not come up with a complete satisfactory answer. Matters relating to behaviour have been a subject matter in theology and philosophy (refer to the books of religion and writings of philosophers such as Plato and Socrates).

Psychology as an independent field started in 1879 when Wilhelm Wundt established a laboratory (read scientific approach) at Leipzig to study the structure of the mind (a subject matter of psychology). He wanted to find the basic elements of thinking, consciousness and other mental functions. Before then most of these issues related to behaviour had been based on speculation. So, the psychology is acknowledged to have been started in that year because of the use of scientific method to describe a psychological phenomenon.

Now we let us look at different perspectives that underpin the history of psychology. These theoretical perspectives indicate the way psychologists have explained the subject matter of psychology over the time. The perspectives have been influenced by the way people explain their experiences based on the realities of that period. So, each perspective has been influenced by the previous perspectives and they in turn influence the future perspectives. Each perspective has contributed in psychology and consequently better understanding of human development. However, it is worth noting that no single perspective in psychology can explain all aspects of human behaviour. In this lecture we are only briefly mentioning some of these perspectives. Their impact on education will be discussed later in more details in the relevant lectures.

Structuralism

The first school of thought in psychology is called structuralism. Wilhelm Wundt (1932-1920) was trying to find the basic elements that form conscious sensations, feelings and images. He was influenced by the advances in physical sciences of time (the identification of atoms in physics and cells in biology). His main method of obtaining these elements was called introspection i.e. self observation. He trained his assistants to report verbally what they were sensing when presented with an object. For example, an assistant will hold a banana and report what he experienced in term of his sensation. The main limitation of introspection was lack of objectively in that results could not be independently verified.  The trained persons on introspection frequently gave conflicting sensations on the same object leading to misunderstandings among themselves.  

 Functionalism

This school of thought was formed in USA by William James who was influenced by Charles Darwin’s concept of natural selection i.e. survival for the fittest. He believed that psychology should investigate the functions or purposes of consciousness and not the structure of consciousness as advocated by Wundt. The interest was on how peoples’ behaviour functions to adopt the demands of the real world around them. Based on this perspective John Dewey developed the first school of psychology and the best ways of meeting educational needs of children.

Psychodynamic

The major force under this perspective was a physician called Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). He was born in Vienna and later on moved to USA. His theory is based on the observations he made when treating people with psychological disorders. He relied on interpretations he made on the meanings of the dreams, fears and thoughts of his clients. He postulated that there is interplay between mental processes and behaviour, thus the concept psychodynamics. He asserted that most of our actions are controlled by our minds as result of the way we unconsciously think, feel and wish. Thus, the unconsciousness component of us has more influence on us than the consciousness component. Sometimes there is a conflict between the motives of our feelings, thoughts and wishes leading into a conflict within us.  He believed that these conflicts have no physical basis but have a strong impact on the way we live. The main contribution of this perspective is the acknowledgment of the importance of childhood experiences on the quality of life in later years; and the role of psychology in treating people with psychological problems through therapy. 

Behaviourism

This school of thought originated in the USA and was a modification of functionalism. The behaviorists believe that one cannot objectively observe and verify processes that take place in the mind of a person. They rejected introspection and other methods used in psychoanalysis as not being truly scientific. Instead they proposed that psychology should only focus on observable behavior and the environmental conditions that have influence on how human beings behave. The methods of research in psychology should be the same as those used in other sciences.  B.F. Skinner (1904 –1990) is the best known behaviorist who observed that behaviour of an organism can be controlled by the manipulation of the environment. Behaviorists insist that behaviour is controlled by its consequences. If behaviour is followed by reinforcement then it will be repeated under the same conditions. However, if it is followed by punishment the likelihood of it reoccurring under the same conditions decreases. Behaviourism was the major force in psychology between 1950 and 1970 and was adapted in approaches of learning and teaching. The main limitation of behaviorism was that it ignored mental processes which are also very important in influencing behaviour.

Cognitive Perspectives

Gestalt

Gestalt is a German word meaning “whole” or “pattern”. This perspective was postulated by three Germans who had immigrated to USA. For them human behaviour cannot solely be explained by behaviour alone or reduced into single elements as explained by the behaviorists. They were also against the notion that humans are passive to the environment. They believed that humans are rather active in gaining experiences from the environment.  Gestalt psychologists put more emphasis on mental processes i.e. how we organize sensory information into meaningful state through perception, memory and thinking. Based on a number of experiments they proposed that brain automatically organizes sensory information into meaningful wholes.

Gestalt perspective can be considered as one of the foundation of cognitive perspective. Currently, more psychologists hold the cognitive perspective rather than the behavioral perspective. Cognitive psychologists hold that psychology should also include memory systems that have influence on how sensory information is received, processed, stored and retrieved or forgotten. Also they believe that traits related to mental functions such as emotions, memories, motivation and beliefs have effects on our behaviours and learning. It is safe to say that this perspective has been influenced by the development of computers.

Cognitive perspective

This perspective has evolved from structuralism and believes that most of human behaviour is rooted in the mind. They focus on people’s understanding of the world i.e. how they think, understand and think about the world around them.