Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition) - a summary
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Foundation of psychology
Chapter 9
What is science?
Science’s claim of superiority was based on four principles
Thoughts before the scientific revolution
Plato, Aristotle and the sceptics
Plato
A strong rationalist view of knowledge acquisition.
Human perception was fallible and the observable world was only a shadow of the Real world.
The human soul had innate knowledge of the universe, which could be harnessed
Aristotle
More scope for observation and made a distinction between deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning.
True, theoretical knowledge started from axioms, form which new knowledge was deduced via so-called demonstrations.
Perception was the source of information but not knowledge itself.
Correspondence theory of truth: a statement is true when it corresponds with reality. Assumes that there is a physical reality which has priority and which the human mind tries to understand it. First formulated by Aristotle.
Pyrrho of Ellis
Scepticism: philosophical view that does not deny the existence of a physical reality, but denies that humans can have reliable knowledge of it; first formulated by Pyrrho of Ellis.
Humans must suspend judgment on all matters of reality.
Augustine
Augustine (354-430CE)
True knowledge was knowledge based on God’s revelations.
This view became dominant until well into the seventeenth century.
Interaction between theory and experiment: the scientific revolution
Galilei’s thought experiments
Galilei is usually credited as the person who convinced the world of the importance of observation and experimentation for the acquisition of knowledge.
But Galilei might in reality be a transition figure steeped in the Aristotelian tradition.
Bacon: induction
Francis Bacon promoted the use of systematic observation and inductive reasoning as the road to new knowledge.
Instead of demonstrated knowledge or divinely revealed knowledge, an inductionist approach had to be followed.
von Leibig (1863)
Ridiculed Bacon.
What was the point of fact collection if there was no question or goal behind it?
Science started from the researcher’s imagination, not from blind data collection.
Newton
Isaac Newton
Advice regarding science was deeply ambivalent about the roles of theory and observation, to such an extent that it can be used as an illustration of both Aristotle’s deductive approach and Bacon’s inductive approach.
In 40 years, Newton seems to have shifted his preference from deduction to induction.
In Newton’s eyes, the scientific method was not so different from Aristotle’s demonstrations based on deduction, except for the fact that the first principles had to be based on observation, experimentation and inductive reasoning, rather than self-evident axioms.
Probabilistic reasoning and the ascent of hypotheses
Inductive reasoning and probable truths
Inductive reasoning was disapproved of up to (and including) the scientific revolution because it did not guarantee true conclusions.
Only deduction was legitimate, as proven by the success of mathematics and geometry.
There was little denying that inductive reasoning was exactly what the new scientists were doing, backwards reasoning from observed effects to probable causes.
Two critical assertions from Christian Huygens:
Definition of probability
Induction did not lead to necessary truths but to ‘highly probable conclusions’.
This required a definition of probability.
Two definitions were proposed
An increased appreciation of hypotheses
As the appreciation of inductive reasoning for the advancement of knowledge grew, hypotheses also received a more positive evaluation than had been the case with Newton (who was against hypotheses).
John Herschel (1792-1871)
Although scientific reasoning started from observation, it became increasingly more abstract.
Observation-independent scientific reasoning led to truth if done carefully.
Because scientific theories were to some extent speculative, Herschel acknowledged that it was possible to have different views of the same phenomenon.
The temporary co-existence of rivalling theories was not bad, because a choice could be made between them by formulating hypotheses and seeing which hypotheses accounted best for the findings.
Theories influence observations
A final insight formulated before the twentieth century was the distinction between observations and ideas was not as clear as traditionally assumed by philosophers.
Fact and theory depended on each other
Whewell
William Whewell (1794-1866)
Called the distinction between thoughts and things, theory and fact ‘the fundamental antithesis of philosophy’.
Reason why the fundamental antitheses of philosophy was wrong (according to Whewell)
It was an illusion to think they referred to neatly distinguished entities
Comte
Acknowledged the influence of theory on observation.
Idealisation of scientific knowledge
Much of the doubts about the status of scientific knowledge were forgotten towards the end of the nineteenth century, when the writings of the positivists dominated.
Science’s victory march was used as an argument to sweep the more critical passages on the scientific method under the carpet.
The doubts were rarely read, let alone taught to future scientists or communicated to the wider public.
Interim summary
Thoughts before the twentieth century
Philosophy of science and the demarcation of science
In the early twentieth century a group of philosophers and scientists decided to revisit the specificity of the scientific method.
Demarcation: setting and marking the boundaries of a concept; used, for instance, in the philosophy of science to denote attempts to define the specificity of science
Philosophy of science: branch of philosophy that studies the foundations of scientific research, to better understand the position of scientific research relative to other forms of information acquisition and generation.
Logical positivism
The Vienna Circle
Moritz Schlick (1882-1936)
Wiener Kreis (Vienna circle) in the 1920s
Logical positivism: philosophical movement in the first half of the twentieth century, claiming that philosophy should stop thinking about metaphysics, and instead try to understand the essence of the scientific approach; central tenet was the verification principle.
Scientific knowledge was true knowledge.
The 1929 manifesto
The Wiener Kreis made the following conclusions in a manifesto:
According to the logical positivists, science proceeded by means of a cycle consisting of
The logical positivists also accepted deductive reasoning as a way of making meaningful statements.
But this type of reasoning could only be used to deduce conclusions from what was already known. It did not generate new knowledge.
The ensuing statement had to be verified anew
Problems with the verification criterion
Verification is logically impossible
It is logically impossible to prove the truth of a conclusion on the basis of repeated observations.
In order to move from observation to a general conclusion, one needs inductive reasoning, and inductive reasoning does not lead to conclusions that are guaranteed to be true according to the rules of logic.
Scientific theories are full of non-observable variables
Many scientific theories include non-observable variables.
To solve this problem, logical positivists had to accept that not all variables in scientific theories needed to be directly observable, as long as they involved dimensions that could be measured in relatively simple ways.
If you could express variables in numbers by referring to the ways in which you measured them, the resulting law was fine.
How should we define ‘observable’?
Although the criterion that non-observable variables in scientific theories should have an operational definition solved some problems, it was not watertight.
Some variables require complex, indirect methods to be revealed.
Any dividing line between observable and non-observable ultimately turned out to be an arbitrary distinction.
Non-observables may become observable
Over time, many initially hypothesised, non-observable phenomena became observable, because of technical improvements and because the theory allowed the scientists to know what they were looking for.
This raises the question of how to make a distinction between hypothesised non-observables that turn out to be empirically verifiable and hypothesised non-observables that turn out not to exist.
Verifiable observations are no guarantee of correct understanding
There are many occasions on which erroneous scientific conclusions had been drawn from empirically verified ‘facts’.
Positivism as naive idolatry of science?
All in all, rather than solving the demarcation problem of science, the logical positivists testified to the difficulty or maybe the impossibility of doing so.
Another descendant of logical positivism’s failure: a new look at the meaning of words
The demarcation problem not only called positivism into question, it also led to a completely different understanding of language.
Wittgenstein
Language was a faithful depiction of the state of affairs in the world and so the world could be known by analysing the logical structure of language.
By analysing the meaning of the words and interrelations, one could get insights into the physical reality.
But, the impossibility of conclusively defining science made Wittgenstein realise that the same was true for many other words in the language.
The meaning of words was determined by their use in a social context, which Wittgenstein called language games.
The meaning of words depended on the circumstances in which they were used.
They did not have fixed meanings, objectively depicting the physical reality, as Wittgenstein originally thought.
Interim summary
Logical positivism
Preliminary: perception is more than sensing stimuli
Perception requires interpretation
When the logical positivists claimed that science was special because it was based on facts, they assumed that facts could be perceived prior to and independently of any theoretical framework, and that the perception of facts was the same for all careful observers.
But there is considerable evidence that this is not the case.
A theory changes the perception of the facts
The understanding of a scientific phenomenon involves more than simply sensing the isolated facts.
It involves an element of interpretation to understand what the different facts mean and how they relate to each other.
Once such an interpretation has been found, the meaning of the originally observed facts changes spectacularly.
A theory enables scientists to focus on the important facts
A theory not only changes the perception of facts, it allows scientists to search in a more directed way.
It helps them to sort out the avalanche of facts and to decide which facts are important and which are not.
Without a theory scientists do not know which observations are important and which are not.
What humans observe depends on what they know (or think they know).
The more observers know about a particular phenomenon, the richer their perception.
Popper: falsification instead of verification
Science constantly questions its explanations
Karl Popper (1902-1994)
Fully accepted the importance of theories in scientific thinking.
What distinguishes science from non-science is that the formed is based on facts (observations, verifications) and the latter on ideas (dogma, prejudices).
Both proceed by constant interactions between observation and interpretation.
What sets science apart is that it constantly questions its explanations, whereas non-scientific movements have no such inclination.
Falsification instead of verification
Popper argued that what distinguishes scientific from non-scientific theories is that scientific theories are falsifiable.
Falsificationism: view within the philosophy of science that statements are scientific only if they can be falsified empirically.
A theory is falsifiable if it rules out a range of outcomes, or if there is agreement about observations that would be incoherent with the theory and, therefore, refute the theory.
Whereas it is impossible to prove the truth of an inductive conclusion, it is easy to prove the falseness of an inductive conclusion.
All you need is a counterexample.
Hypothesis testing should not be directed at trying to confirm a theory, but at seeing whether the theory could be falsified.
The hypothetico-deductive method
Hypothetico-deductive method: model introduced by Popper to understand the scientific method; on the basis of observation, induction and educated guesswork, a theory of a phenomenon is formulated; the correctness of the theory is evaluated by the formulation of a testable prediction (hypothesis) on the basis of deductive reasoning; the prediction is subsequently put to a falsification test, which provides new observational data for further theorising.
Degrees of falsifiability
There were different degrees of falsifiability, dan the degree to which a statement or theory exposed itself to falsifiability was informative.
The more falsifiable a theory was, the higher its scientific status.
The clearer and the more precise a theory, the higher its status if it stands repeated falsification tests.
And the more facts a theory explains, the better it is.
Implications of Popper’s proposals for science’s status
Science proceeds by trail and error
Popper was the first philosopher of science to accept that scientific explanations could be wrong, even when they initially seemed to be in line with the collected evidence.
He argued that scientist were never fully sure of the correctness of their scientific explanations, given that these were based on inductive reasoning.
All the scientists could say was that a particular theory thus far had passed the various falsification tests and, therefore, was likely to be correct.
They also had a lot of information about explanations that were wrong, because they did not pass the falsification test.
The progress in science is best seen as a process of trial and error, in which many possible explanations are ventured and only the fittest survive.
The ruthless falsification ensures that scientists are less likely to stick to wrong opinions than people who do not critically evaluate their opinions.
Falsification goes against human intuition: the confirmation bias
When confronted with arguments, humans have a tendency to assess the validity of the statement by searching for corroborating evidence rather than trying to make sure there is no possibility to refute the statement.
Confirmation bias: tendency people have to search for evidence that confirms their opinion; goes against falsificationism.
The application of the falsification criterion turned out to be more complicated than at first thought.
Sophisticated falsificationism
Do not give in too easily
Problems
Science is more than simply rejecting falsified bold conjectures and replacing them with equally bold alternative conjectures.
Often it is better to adapt an existing, good theory so that it is no longer contradicted by the available empirical evidence.
Even Popper agreed that scientists should not give up their theories too easily.
Modifications of theories in the light of counterevidence
If modifications of existing theories are allowed, the next question is which modifications are acceptable and which are not.
Ad hoc modifications: modifications to a theory that according to Popper make the theory less falsifiable; decrease the scientific value of the theory
Why researchers do not like to give up theories
Rejecting a theory means the scientists have to start all over again.
They have to search for a new, plausible theory that explains everything the previous theory explained plus the novel, contradicting finding.
Interim summary
Popper’s falsification alternative to logical positivism
Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)
Agreed with Popper about the priority of theory over observation.
All observations and theoretical concepts were dependent on the language of the adopted theory/conjecture.
Only certain research questions are considered to be of interest by the majority of researchers; in addition, these questions must be examined in well-specified ways.
The general layout of Kuhn’s theory
Pre-science → normal science → crisis → revolution → new normal science → new crisis → …
Pre-science
Research discipline starts with an unorganized amalgam of facts, observations and models to explain small-scale phenomena.
Researchers try to understand isolated facts without having an idea of the wider framework.
As a consequence, their explanations often contradict each other.
They also do not agree about the methods to use
Creation of a paradigm
At some point in time, a general framework (theory) is proposed.
This not only informs the researchers about the interrelations of the various blobs, but they also gain an idea of the methods that must be used to properly investigate the different facts.
Paradigm: notion introduced by Kuhn to refer to the fact that scientists share a set of common views of what the discipline is about and how problems must be investigated.
A paradigm will determine
Normal science
Once the researchers share a paradigm, the discipline finds itself doing normal science.
This involves attempts to falsify the theory, to see how strong the theory is.
If there is a consistent deviation between the theory and a line of findings, a modification or extension is introduced to capture the intractable fact without changing the core of the paradigm.
Although there is no specific ban, researchers are not expected by their colleagues to question the paradigm and to come up with incommensurable, bold conjectures.
Researchers are guided by the rules of the paradigm
Crisis and revolution
Inevitably, the phase of normal science will yield results that cannot be accounted for by the paradigm.
At the time of the crisis, a scientific discipline is more open to bold, alternative conjectures that question the core of the paradigm
These alternatives must provide the same level of detail and falsifiability as the existing paradigm and, in addition, provide a better interpretation for the deviating findings.
Scientists are looking for a conjecture that allows the discipline to make progress again, to yield new predictions that can be falsified and stand the test.
Imre Lakatos
Kuhn called the replacement of a paradigm in crisis an incompatible, new paradigm that makes new predictions and that repeatedly stands the falsification test, a scientific revolution.
During a scientific revolution a paradigm shift takes place, in which the old paradigm is replaced by a new paradigm.
This is a time of intense scientific progress.
Return to normal science
Once a paradigm shift has taken place, the new paradigm takes over and forms the new background against which research occurs.
After rapid changes and excitement of the revolution, the situation returns to normal and the scientists go back to their usual activity.
They will defend the new paradigm with the same vigour as they defended the previous paradigm.
On the relativity of paradigms and he science wars
Paradigms are ever changing
Each paradigm is considered to be a temporary set of ideas, bound to turn into a crisis to be replaced by an alternative paradigm.
So current scientific knowledge cannot be considered as absolute truth but must be seen as a transition from the previous paradigm to the next.
The unbearable lightness of science
Kuhn was unclear about whether a revolution meant progress of simply a change of paradigm.
Kuhn’s analysis rekindled the controversy between realism and idealism.
Realism
Idealism
George Berkeley (1685-1753)
If one assumes that all knowledge is based on observation, then there is no guarantee of an outside physical reality corresponding to the knowledge.
The only thing that is real for people is perception itself
Kuhn’s scrutiny suggested that all scientists were doing was creating a set of stories about perceptions (idealism), shrouded in a secretive language (jargon) and adorned with an unjustified air of objectivity, which in a hundred years time would be looked upon as another outmoded paradigm based on wrong assumptions.
The science wars
Postmodernists: in the philosophy of science, someone who questions the special status of science and sees scientific explanations as stories told by a particular group of scientists.
According to post-modernists scientific knowledge was a social construction by the scientific community, affected by their language and culture.
Social construction: notion used by postmodernists to indicate that scientific knowledge is not objective knowledge discovering the workings of an external reality, but a story told by a particular scientific community ion the basis of language and culture.
The truth of scientific statements depends on how coherent they were with the rest of the paradigm shared by the group.
Scientific knowledge was not superior to other types of knowledge.
Science wars: notion used by the postmodernists to refer to their attacks against the special status of science and their unmasking of scientific knowledge as a social construction.
Interim summary
Kuhn’s theory
Peirce and pragmatism
Charles Peirce (1839-1914)
Success in coping with the physical reality could be taken as the criterion to decide how worthwhile knowledge is.
Pragmatism: view within philosophy that human knowledge is information about how to cope with the world; the truth of knowledge depends on the success one has in engaging with the world, on what works.
The truth of a theory is only of interest if it makes a practical difference.
Because the world constantly changes, the truth is not fixed either.
Why pragmatism was overlooked for a long time in the philosophy of science
Pragmatism did not seek to draw a distinction between scientific knowledge and non-scientific knowledge
Peirce made a distinction between four ways of gathering knowledge
According to Pierce, there was no clear difference between the scientific method and the three other methods of knowledge acquisition.
All knowledge that helped to cope with the world was useful, wherever it came from.
Renewed interest in pragmatism
Pragmatism does not require a stance for or against the existence of an independent physical reality.
Interim summary
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Foundation of Psychology
Chapter 1
The wider picture, where did it all start?
Introduction
This book describes the growth of psychology as an independent branch of learning and tries to comprehend the essence of the discipline.
The introduction of written records represents one of the most important moments in the development of science.
The preliterate culture
Preliterate civilisation: civilisation before writing was invented.
Though these civilisations have not left us with written testimonies, it is possible to discern several important features of them by studying existing cultures that do not use writing.
This research revealed three important characteristics of knowledge in these kinds of cultures:
The first writing systems
Written language appeard separately in at least four cultures:
These four written languages were preceded by protowriting, the use of symbols to represent entities without linguistic information lining to them.
Characteristics of writing systems
From an early stage, writing systems were a combination of pictograms and phonograms.
Pictogram: an information-conveying sign that consists of a picture resembling the person, animal or object it represents.
Phonogram: a sign that represents a sound or a syllable of spoken language.
Phonograms were gradually replaced by simpler signs symbolizing meaningful sounds in language, (phonemes or syllables).
The use of phonograms to represent phonemes led to the alphabetic writing systems.
Logograph: a sign representing a spoken word, which no longer has a
.....read moreFoundation of Psychology
Chapter 2
The scientific revolution of the seventeenth century and its aftermath
Introduction
The word psychology did not appear in literature before 1500.
Scientific revolution: name given to a series of discoveries in the seventeenth century, involving Galilei, Descartes and Newton, that enhanced the status of science in society.
The geocentric model of the universe in the sixteenth century
The earth as the centre of the universe
The model that of the universe used in the sixteenth century was the model described by Aristotle who built on others) and elaborated by Ptolemy.
Aristotle’s universe was a limited universe with the Earth in the middle
Geocentric model: model of the universe in which the Earth is at the centre; was dominant until the seventeenth century.
The addition of epicycles
A key problem within the Aristotelian universe was the movements of some of the wandering stars.
To explain strange movements, Ptolemy used the notion of ‘epicycles’.
Epicycles: small cycles made by the wandering stars in addition to their main orbit around the earth.
Copernicus’s alternative heliocentric model
The sun at the centre of the universe
Aristotle’s model was not the only one that had been proposed in ancient cultures.
Heliocentric model: model of the universe in which the sun is at the centre.
Copernicus saw the heliocentric model as a valid alternative for the geocentric model.
Why Copernicus waited to publish his model
Only shortly before his death, Copernicus was persuaded to get his book printed.
Possible reasons
Galilei uses a telescope
Because of the many problems with Copernicus’s model, it failed to have much impact.
Galilei’s observations
Galilei built a telescope and found out that:
Foundation of Psychology
Chapter 3
Eighteenth- and nineteenth- century precursors to a scientific psychology
A characteristic of current Western society is that people derive their self-image and self-esteem from their own qualities and accomplishments rather than from the position of their family in society.
Individualisation: trend in a society towards looser social relations and a greater focus by individuals on themselves than on the groups they belong to.
Historians believe that this process of individualisation started sometime around the end of the Middle Ages and is still growing.
Following factors are contributions:
Interim summary
Since the end of the middle ages there has been increasing individualisation in society. Factors hypothesised to play a role include:
Descartes was the first Western philosopher after the Ancient Greeks to value new and independent thinking.
Epistemology: branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of knowledge.
Empiricism instead of rationalism
The traditional rationalist
.....read moreFoundation of psychology
Chapter 4
Establishing psychology as an independent academic discipline
By 1850 there was a thriving literature of psychological subjects in Germany.
The universities reform in Germany
Universities in the German states for a long time were dominated by the humanities and religion.
This was a feature proponents of the Enlightenment fought against.
The Enlightenment ideas mainly came from a group of academics who had been expelled from the University of Leipzig, because of their critical attitude and modern ways of thinking.
A reform took place after the defeat of the Holy Roman Empire in 1805-1806.
The defeat by the French particularly upset the Prussians, who decided it was high time to modernise their country.
The school system was reorganised and a new university model was installed.
The emphasis on scientific research and the freedom given to the professors made the German universities dynamic and open to new areas for scientific investigation.
Wundt and the first laboratory of experimental psychology
Wundt’s career
After this Phd in medicine, he obtained an assistantship with Hermann von Helmholtz where Wundt began to identify himself as a scientific psychologist.
In 1862 he gave his first course in ‘Psychology as a natural science’ and in 1874 he published a book on physiological psychology.
In the book, psychology was defined as the study of the way in which persons look upon themselves, on the basis of internal physiological changes that inform them about the phenomena perceived by the external senses.
Wundt called his psychology physiological because:
Foundations of psychology
Chapter 5
Strengthening the scientific standing of psychology
The USA began to rule psychology in the twentieth century.
The expansion of psychology around the start of the twentieth century
As well as laboratories, in 1892 the American Psychological Association (APA) was founded, giving psychology researchers a forum to meet and discuss their findings.
Two journals were established that would dominate the field and that still exists today.
The first American psychology: functionalism
As psychology in the USA expanded, it got moulded by the expectations and preoccupations of American society.
There was a mistrust of intellectualism, knowledge for the sake of knowledge.
America was a nation of common-sense businessmen, not interested in abstract science, but in practical accomplishments that at the same time made money, revealed God’s glory, and advanced the American dream.
If psychology were to prosper, it had to subscribe to American values, which it readily did.
Part of the attraction to the functionalist approach to the Americans was that Wundt’s experimental research programme ran into problems in 1880s.
Psychology and its position within universities
Most psychology laboratories were set up within philosophical and theological institutes.
Staff members were not always happy with this.
On other occasions experimental psychologists were told not to stay too far from good old psychology as developed in philosophical writings.
Trying to win over the public
Phrenology
Phrenology: view that mental functions are localised in the
.....read moreFoundations of psychology
Chapter 6
The input from brain research
Beliefs of the ancient Egyptians
The Edwin Smith papyrus
In 1862 an American collector, Edwin Smith, bought a papyrus scroll in the Egyptian city of Luxor.
In the text, written around 1700 BCE, but probably a copy of an older papyrus from 3000 BCE, a series of 48 cases were described dealing with the consequences of head and neck injuries.
Each case included a title, details of the examination, a diagnosis and an indication of the treatment.
The diagnosis consisted of one of three conclusions
The Edwin Smith papyrus: papyrus from Ancient Egypt that contains short descriptions of the symptoms and treatment of different forms of brain injury; named after the person who bought the papyrus in Egypt and had it analysed.
They illustrate how physicians treating wounded soldiers quite early became convinced of the importance of the head (brain) in controlling behaviour.
Beliefs in the wider society
The existence of the Edwin Smith papyrus did not imply that the knowledge contained in it was widespread.
In Ancient Egypt most scholars were convinced that the heart was the seat of the soul.
The roles of the heart and brain in Ancient Greece
The discussion over whether the soul was in the heart or in the brain continued in Ancient Greece.
Plato
Plato and Hippocrates placed the soul in the brain.
Plat also saw a function for the heart.
According to Plato, the soul was divided into three parts
Aristotle
Aristotle was convinced that the heart was the seat of the soul.
The function of the brain was to counterbalance the
Foundations of psychology
Chapter 7
The mind-brain problem, free will and consciousness
Throughout history, humans have been impressed by their ability to reflect about themselves and the world around them.
Self: the feeling of being an individual with private experiences, feelings and beliefs, who interacts in a coherent and purposeful way with the environment.
Mind-brain problem: issue of how the mind is related to the brain.
Three main views
Mind: aggregate of faculties humans (and animals) have to perceive, feel, think, remember and want.
Dualism: view of the mind-body relation according to which the mind is immaterial and completely independent of the body; central within religions and also in Descartes’ philosophy.
Dualism in religion and traditional philosophy
Religion
Dualism is central to religions.
They are grounded in the belief that people possess a divine soul created by God, which temporarily lives in the body, and which leaves the corpse upon its death.
The soul is what gives people their purpose and values in life.
It usually aims for the good, but can be tempted and seduced by evil forces.
This gave rise to the demonologist view of psychopathology.
Demonologists view: the conviction that mental disorders are due to possession by bad spirits.
Plato and Descartes
Dualism was central in the philosophies of Plato and Descartes.
Cartesian dualism: theories in which the mind is seen as radically different
.....read moreFoundation of psychology
Chapter 8
How did psychology affect everyday life?
Introduction
Over the course of the twentieth century, the discipline of psychology grew from a marginal academic field to a discipline that has done more than any other to transform the routines and experiences of everyday life.
Applied psychology: the application of psychological knowledge and research methods to solve practical problems.
Evolutions before World War II
Mental health problems must be treated by partitioners with a medical degree
Psychologists were not allowed to provide unsupervised therapies in official settings and their private practices were not covered by health insurance.
The first clinical psychology centres
Treatment centres run by psychologists started in the USA and were university-related.
Lightner Witmer
Opened the faculty that was the first psychology health centre in 1896.
Aimed at helping behavioural and learning problems in school children.
The founding of clinical psychology centres was impeded by the lack of support from academic psychologists.
In the meantime mental health problems and psychoanalysis became popular courses in psychology.
Clinical psychology: branch of psychology applying psychological knowledge to the assessment and treatment of mental disorders.
The first clinical psychology centre in the UK was set up in 1920 in a private house in London.
The impact of World War II
An urgent need for psychological advice and treatment
Shell-shock: anxiety response of battlefield that prevents soldiers from functioning properly; was one of the first topics addressed by applied psychology.
The finding of shell-shock in World War I gave rise tow two developments
When the USA decided to join World War II they also decided to properly staff the military psychiatric service.
A crash course in the treatment of mental disorders was offered to all medical officers, and clinical psychologists were taken on broad, both for testing and treatment.
The beginning of client-centred therapy
The rising demand for psychological help provided a rich environment for new developments in therapy.
Foundation of psychology
Chapter 9
What is science?
Science’s claim of superiority was based on four principles
Thoughts before the scientific revolution
Plato, Aristotle and the sceptics
Plato
A strong rationalist view of knowledge acquisition.
Human perception was fallible and the observable world was only a shadow of the Real world.
The human soul had innate knowledge of the universe, which could be harnessed
Aristotle
More scope for observation and made a distinction between deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning.
True, theoretical knowledge started from axioms, form which new knowledge was deduced via so-called demonstrations.
Perception was the source of information but not knowledge itself.
Correspondence theory of truth: a statement is true when it corresponds with reality. Assumes that there is a physical reality which has priority and which the human mind tries to understand it. First formulated by Aristotle.
Pyrrho of Ellis
Scepticism: philosophical view that does not deny the existence of a physical reality, but denies that humans can have reliable knowledge of it; first formulated by Pyrrho of Ellis.
Humans must suspend judgment on all matters of reality.
Augustine
Augustine (354-430CE)
True knowledge was knowledge based on God’s revelations.
This view became dominant until well into the seventeenth century.
Interaction between theory and experiment: the scientific revolution
Galilei’s thought experiments
Galilei is usually credited as the person who convinced the world of the importance of observation and experimentation for the acquisition of knowledge.
But Galilei might in reality be a transition figure steeped in the Aristotelian tradition.
Foundation of psychology
Chapter 10
Is psychology a science?
The foundation of psychology as an academic discipline was legitimised on two pillars
Psychology has a long, respectful past and uses the scientific method
Steven Ward
Makes the case that a new branch of knowledge can establish itself and survive only if it succeeds in convincing the ruling powers of the need for such knowledge as well as reassuring them that it is no threat to their prosperity.
The founders of psychology promoted it as a new academic discipline by stressing two messages
Consequences for the psychology curriculum
Because psychology was promoted on the basis of its long past and its sound method, both ‘history of psychology’ and ‘research methods’ were major components of the curriculum.
These books on history were self-legitimisation as much as essential stepping stones for a good psychology education.
Science is defined by its method rather than by its subject matter
Every topic studied within the scientific method is a science
To be accepted as a science, psychologists had to make the case that what differentiated sciences from non-sciences was the way in which problems were investigated, and not the type of problems addressed.
Although few people spontaneously associated the study of mental life with scientific research, the first academic psychologists maintained that there was nothing inherent in the subject matter that prevented it from being studied using the scientific method.
Methodolatry
Because of its emphasis on method in the definition of science, academic psychology invested heavily in developing appropriate research designs and analysis techniques.
It has been argued that psychology throughout its existence has overplayed the role of research methods at the expense of theory building.
Methodolarty or methodologism: tendency to see methodological rigour as the only requirement for scientific research, at the expense of theory formation.
The shadow of positivism
One reason why psychologists tended to stress valid testing rather than theory formation was that they tried too hard to be good scientists.
Foundation of psychology
Chapter 11
The contribution of quantitative and qualitative research methods
Quantitative research methods: research methods based on quantifiable data; are associated with the natural-science approach based on the hypothetico-deductive method.
Assumptions underlying quantitative research methods
There is an outside reality that can be discovered
Quantitative psychologists start from the assumption that phenomena in the world have an existence outside people’s minds.
They defend the idea that humans can discover reality by using the scientific method.
They are well aware of the fact that science is not a linear accumulation of facts but proceeds through trial and error. But are convinced that in the long term the scientific method based on the hypothetico-deductive model leads to an understanding of reality → scientific knowledge is cumulative
The main aim of scientific research is to find universal causal relationships
Researchers are primarily interested in discovering relationships between causes and effects.
How general are principles? And how do humans function?
Ideally they hope the mechanisms they discover will apply to all humans.
Trying to avoid confounds and sources of noise
Users of quantitative research methods are extremely vigilant about the possible intrusion of undesired factors into their designs.
They try to maximally control the circumstances under which they run their studies
They also try to eliminate the impact of random variables called noise.
Suspicion about the researcher’s input
A source of confounding and noise that is of particular interest to quantitative psychology researchers is the researcher him- or herself.
To protect themselves against biases and noise, quantitative researchers make use of standardised measurements and instruments.
Progress through falsification
Researchers constantly try to prove each other wrong.
Research methods are divided into three broad orientations
Descriptive research
Observation of numerical data
Detailed observation is the start of scientific research.
Typical for quantitative research is that the data are gathered in a numerical form, either by collecting measurements or by counting frequencies of occurrence.
Before researchers collect data, they have a good idea of how they will analyse them; what types of measurements they will obtain and what types of statistics they can apply to summarise and evaluate the data.
Large samples and a few data points per participant
The vast majority of descriptive quantitative studies involve the collection of a limited amount of data from a
.....read moreFoundation of psychology
Chapter 13
Psychology and society
Science overtakes religion in Western society
Initial strong links between psychological thinking and religion
Psychology as a separate branch of knowledge grew out of the rising role of scientific thinking in Western society.
Education for a long time was controlled by the churches, which did not look favourably upon those who tried to examine the soul.
Many early psychologists had strong connections with religion.
Alliance formation with the expanding sciences
Rapidly, the experimental psychologists distanced themselves from religion, because it jeopardies their scientific credentials.
They sought to align themselves with the rapidly growing natural sciences, by denouncing weaker fields that might contaminate them, such as religion, philosophy, and sociology.
Psychologists replace pastors
Fewer people felt comfortable discussing their mental health problems with religious authorities.
Whereas for a long time churches were the first port to call for mental health problems, growing secularisation increased the need for non-religious counselling.
At the same time, a growing number of clergy started to study psychology to improve the help they were able to provide.
Changes in society impinge on psychological practice
Impact on psychological research
The massive changes in the organisation of Western society in the nineteenth and twentieth century generated ideas and research opportunities for psychologists.
Six historical developments that affected psychological research
Societal influences were not limited to the science-oriented track of psychology, but also shaped thought in the hermeneutic part.
Impact on clinical practice
Changes in society influenced clinical practice.
Mental disorders show cultural variation.
This is not only true between cultures, but also across time within a culture.
Each culture has a symptom pool, a collective memory of how to behave when ill.
At each time period patients with psychological problems gravitate towards the symptoms that at the time are thought to be legitimate indications of disease, as no patients wants to select illegitimate symptoms.
Society as a metaphor provider
Metaphors: in science, stands for an analogy from another area that helps to
.....read moreThis is my personal collection of content about the history of psychology
The invention of writing
The discovery of numbers
The Fertile Crescent
Civilisations in the Fertile crescent:
The Greeks
Developments from the Roman Empire to the end of the Middle Ages
Ancient Romans:
Byzantine empire
Arab empire:
Western Roman empire:
Introduction
Mind-brain problem: issue of how the mind is related to the brain.
Three main views
Dualism
Materialism
Functionalism
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