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 physical resemblance to the word’s meaning.
Written documents form an external memory
Writing and the accumulation of knowledge
The importance of writing lies in the external memory written reports provide about the knowledge available at a certain point in time.
This is important because it allows an accumulation of knowledge.
Written records not only made more information available, they also subtly changed the way in which knowledge was preserved.
The reader
Who can read?
Written records only have impact if somebody can read them.
For most of history, the number of people who could read was relatively small.
In addition, the early scripts lacked an important characteristic that makes alphabetic languages easier to read: spaces between words.
Only in the eight century did writers start to put spaces between words.
The influence of orthography
Reading acquisition is easiest in languages which a transparent relationship between spelling and sound.
Reading without critical thinking
For a long time students were taught to read and understand texts exactly as they were.
They were in no way encouraged (and were often discouraged) to question the writings or to compare them to other writings).
Scholastic method: study method in which students unquestioningly memorise and recite texts that are thought to convey unchanging truths.
The scholastic method was prevalent in schools up to the twentieth century.
Interim summary
Another development that has been crucial for the growth of knowledge is the discovery of numbers.
The limits of visual perception and the special status of the number five
The ease of understanding the numbers one to three
The possession of goods required to ability of count them.
It is reasonable to assume that quite early in their evolution humans could make distinctions up to three, which were represented by one, two, and three makings.
Newborn babies and all kinds of animals can distinguish between one, two and three entities: subitising.
Larger numbers and the need for grouping the tallies
A problem with tallies to represent numbers is that they rapidly exceed the limits of perception.
Giving numbers names and symbols
The names one to ten
Humans had a struggle before they could come up with a handy numerical system.
Names for numbers existed before languages began to split up.
The problem of naming the teens
11-19
Due to groupings of the tallies, at some point it was realised that large numbers were best represented as multiples of smaller numbers, so-called base-numbers.
The most frequently chosen base number was 10 (double five).
Representing numbers by symbols
Once the different numbers had their names, it was a small step to represent them by different symbols.
The discovery of place coding
Although the Greek and the Roman number notation was a major achievement, it was not the most parsimonious or transparent system. The length of the symbol series was not systematically related to the base 10 structure of the numbers.
A much better system was developed in India.
Here, people started to work with nine different symbols to represent the numbers one to nine.
In addition, they used the place of the symbols in the digit string to represent powers of 10.
Place coding system: system in which the meaning of a sign not only depends on its form but also on its position in a string.
Works only if there is a symbol for the absence of a quantity at a certain slot (zero).
In the beginning, this was solved by inserting spaces between symbols.
Interim summary
The presence of written records marks the distinction between prehistory and history.
Fertile crescent: region in the Middle East with a high level of civilisation around 3000 BCE; included the Ancient Mesopotamian and the Ancient Egyptian civilisations.
Mesopotamia and Egypt started keeping written records and developed a number system.
Whether the inventions in both regions occurred independently, or they influenced each other, is still a matter of debate.
Ancient Egypt
Two main contributions from the Egyptians
Ancient Mesopotamia
Mathematical knowledge was more sophisticated in Mesopotamia.
Conditions for growth of knowledge
Interim summary
Civilisations in the Fertile crescent:
In the beginning, the Ancient Greeks borrowed heavily from Egypt and Mesopotamia.
But they soon added their own knowledge.
The start of philosophy
Ancient Greece was probably the first culture that started to ask serious questions about the nature of the world they lived in.
Philosophy: critical reflection on the universe and human functioning: started in Ancient Greece.
Plato
Plato was the first thinker to call philosophy a distinct approach with its own subject and method.
He wrote his philosophy in dialogues.
The realm of ideal forms
Plato made a distinction between:
We perceive nothing but the shadows of the objects.
Plato considered the soul and the body as two distinct and radically different kinds of entity.
The soul defined the person.
The soul was immortal, made of the leftovers of the cosmos-soul.
It travelled between the stars and the human body was temporarily inhabited.
For Plato, the most prestigious knowledge was mathematical and geometrical knowledge.
In these disciplines new information derived from a set of principles by means of reasoning.
The three parts of the soul
Plato defended the idea that the soul was divided into three parts
Aristotle
Aristotle was a student of Plato, but deviated in important ways of his mentor.
He wrote about a great variety of topics.
Three types of knowledge
Aristotle divided knowledge into three kinds:
Theoretical knowledge starts with axioms
According to Aristotle, theoretical knowledge consisted of a series of axioms from which the remaining knowledge was derived by means of logic.
The axioms were self-evident truths about nature, which were acquired through observation and intuition, and of which the final cause could be discerned.
Final causes: the purpose of things in the universe.
Aristotle’s universe consisted of
Two region were distinguished in the universe:
Knowledge of the organisation of the universe and the propensities in it, together with perceptual information, provided humans with the axioms from which all other knowledge could be derived via logic.
Aristotle developed a system of how to thing logically, to decide what reasoning resulted in true knowledge.
Logic
Aristotle called elementary statements ‘propositions’.
They consisted of two terms related to each other, either in an affirmative way or in a negative way.
Syllogism: argument consisting of three propositions; the major premise, the minor premise, and the conclusion. The goal of logic is to determine which syllogisms lead to valid conclusions and which do not.
In his writings Aristotle set out to enumerate which syllogisms invariably led to true conclusions and which led to false ones, thereby defining ways of reasoning that are valid and others that are not.
The role of observation
Aristotle struggled with the role of observation in the generation of knowledge.
Theoretical knowledge for Aristotle first consisted of knowledge derived from axioms by means of logic.
Observations helped to formulate the axioms.
The axioms were more fundamental that observations, they defined the essence of things, what is was to be that thing within the universe.
Perception was the source of knowledge, but was not knowledge itself.
On the soul
The psyche discriminated living from non-living things.
It consisted in three kinds:
The foundation of schools
Something the Greek society introduced was a class of literate individuals who hired themselves out for teaching and who transferred the culture.
As a result, reading and writing were quite widespread in Ancient Greece.
It resulted in creation of four prestigious schools.
The shift to Alexandria
The Greek culture underwent a big expansion under Alexander the Great.
The Greek culture was propagated over a much wider area, expanding from Egypt to India and including the whole Fertile Crescent.
This created a new dynamic of interactions, the Hellenistic culture, and which continuous after Alexander the Great’s death when the empire fell apart.
Much of the new dynamic took place in Alexandria.
Here thinking was more influenced b y mathematics and became much more specialised than the grand, universal philosophies of Plato and Aristotle.
Interim summary
The Romans
Assimilation of Greek culture
By 200 BCE the Roman empire had already expanded well outside the Italian peninsula and had started to annex the Greek provinces.
The Greek methods and learning were transferred to Rome, where there was already a strong Greek presence and where many educated people mastered Ancient Greek and visited the Greek schools as part of their education.
Emphasis on practical knowledge
One major difference between the Romans and the Greeks was that the Romans were much more interested in practical questions than the philosophical debates that preoccupied the Greeks.
Therefore, the transfer of Greek knowledge did not so much involve the subtleties of philosophy, but subjects of practical value and intrinsic appeal.
For the same reason, the Roman legacy is much more dominated by technological inventions and improvements than by their profound philosophical writings.
The Byzantine Empire
Towards the end of the second century CE, the political stability and patronage in the Roman Empire began to fade away.
Rome remained the capital of the West Empire, but the heart of the civilisation shifted to the east, the Hellenistic world, where the Byzantine Empire was founded.
Is capital was Constantinople.
During much of history it was also known as the Empire of the Greeks because of the dominance of the Greek language and culture.
This lasted till 1453.
Preservation of the Ancient Greek legacy
Byzantine science never reached the same level as that of the Ancient Greeks.
The main contribution of Byzantium to the history of science seems to have been the preservation of the legacy of the Ancient Greeks.
Role of religion
For centuries, religious orders and schools were the main conservators and proponents of the intellectual achievements.
They were not interested in natural science and considered it to be inferior knowledge. Their attention was directed towards religion-related and cultural topics.
As a consequence of the change of focus, the brightest pupils were directed away from scientific issues and science was often associated with paganism.
The Arab empire
Expansion of the Arab empire
The Arabian peninsula had been untouched by Alexander’s military campaigns, and as a result it was not much affected by Byzantine culture either.
In the late sixth century Mohammed was born and preached Islam.
By the time of Mohammed’s death his 632 followers had taken over the Arabian peninsula and were pushing northwards.
Scientific achievements
Interest in science increased when in 749 the dynasty of the Abbasid family came to power and a period began of stronger political stability and patronage.
Around this time the translation of Greek works in Arabic started.
The remains of the Western Roman empire
Science arguably received its biggest blow in the western part of the Roman empire, including Rome itself.
Already before the Roman Empire fell to the German tribes there was a sharp decline in scientific endeavour because of the political upheaval and economic downfall.
Decreased access to Greek knowledge
One factor that contributed to this decline was the diminishing knowledge of the Greek language.
Because the Romans dominated other nations, it became increasingly unnecessary to study languages other than Latin.
As a result, a language barrier emerged between the Romans and Greek science.
Only the works that were thought to be of interest to the Romans made it into Latin and were preserved.
The contribution of the Catholic church
After the fall of Rome in 476 and the takeover by Germanic tribes, the Catholic church became the patron of learning through the creation and support of schools.
But, science was not at the forefront of the education.
In addition, Catholic education was not the sort to foster critical thinking in students.
As a result, scientific knowledge not only stalled but fell back from the level it had reached at the height of the Roman empire.
Dark ages: name given in the Renaissance to the Middle ages, to refer to the lack of independent and scientific thinking in that age.
Interim summary
Ancient Romans:
Byzantine empire
Arab empire:
Western Roman empire:
The foundation of schools and universities
The revival of learning in the West has a long history
Students who finished the master’s programme at the universities had the right to teach everywhere, which led to increased mobility of the masters and a harmonisation of the curricula.
At the same time, scholars became aware of the much richer cultures on outskirts of Western Europe and the translation of Arabic and Greek texts into Latin reached a high point.
Inclusion of Greek and Arabic texts in the curricula
Many of the Greek and Arabic books were integrated within the curriculum without problems, as they were clearly superior to what was available and often filled a void.
There were more difficulties with Aristotle’s work.
For many scientifically-minded scholars, his views and methodology were more inspiring than those of Plato and the Christian theology built on it.
Problems:
The issues were more than isolated differences of view.
They arose because Aristotle had come to his conclusions on the basis of observation and reasoning (logic) rather than biblical revelation and church tradition.
As these were the elements in Aristotle’s philosophy that attracted the scholars, other disagreements were soon to follow.
A cultural movement based on imitation of the Greek and Roman civilisations
The availability of the ancient texts not only influenced scientists but society as a whole.
Renaissance: cultural movement from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century based on a rediscovery and imitation of the classical Greek and Roman civilisations.
This started in Italy.
This period saw the return of scientists in Western Europe of a stature high enough to be remembered today.
The protestant reformation
The renaissance saw the birth of Luter who revolted against the perceived greed and corruption of the Papacy.
This led to the Protestant reformation.
Protestant reformation: movement against the Roman catholic church, which was important for the development of science, because it emphasised the need for education, critical thinking, hard work and worldly success.
This resulted in large parts of Europe no longer being under the control of the Roman Catholic church.
Book printing
Interwoven in all these developments was the introduction of book printing in Europe.
Four ways in which printing changed the lives of people interested in knowledge:
Colonisation of the world
The new explorations brought the Europeans in contact with other cultures and inventions.
It led to one of the first firm indications that Aristotle was not infallible.
Interim summary
Post-medieval developments in Western Europe
A cultural movement:
The Protestant reformation
Book printing
Colonisation of the world
Biases in history writing
Too much centred on persons
A typical characteristic of historical writings is that they tend to focus on individuals.
As a result, the history of science is presented as a succession of discoveries and insights made by geniuses that far exceed the intellectual level around them.
In all likelihood, other individuals would have come to the same conclusion around the same time or shortly after.
Zeitgeist: word used in the history of science to indicate that the time was right for a certain discovery; the discovery did not originate from a single genius, but from a much wider development leading to the discovery.
The Matthew effect
Matthew effect:the tendency to give more credit to well-known scientists than they deserve; increases the perceived impact of these scientists.
Hindsight bias
A tendency to assume that individual scholars knew more than they actually did.
On the basis of what we know now, we assume that the same knowledge was shared by the person who first described the phenomenon.
We also have a tendency to believe that the evidence presented by that person was much more convincing than it actually was.
Ethnocentrism
Authors have a tendency to attach excessive weight to the contribution of their own group and the group of their readers.
History reviews are summaries of summaries
The biases described above are particularly strong because very few general history books are based on a full analysis of the original sources.
Rather, they build on other books that summarise part of the history to be described and try to maximise the clarity and the persuasiveness of the message.
History writing: rewriting or streamlining the past?
History writing and reshaping the past
In Kuhn’s view, science does not progress via a linear accumulation of new knowledge, and science as we know it now is only one of the possible interpretations of reality.
As a result, the present review of the history of science is the view of twentieth-first-century scientific psychologists writing for an Anglo-Saxon audience.
History as writing and simplifying the past
An interpretation is that all biases happen, but are motivated by the need to make the knowledge digestible given the constraints under which it has to be transmitted.
History is a simplification of what has happened because it has to be summarised.
Interim summary
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The wider picture, where did it all start? - summary of chapter 1 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)
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 more The scientific revolution of the seventeenth century and its aftermath - summary of chapter 2 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)Foundation 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:
Eighteenth- and nineteenth- century precursors to a scientific psychology - summary of chapter 3 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)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 more Establishing psychology as an independent academic discipline - summary of chapter 4 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)Foundation 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:
Strengthening the scientific standing of psychology - summary of chapter 5 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)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 more The input from brain research - summary of chapter 6 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)Foundations 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
The mind-brain problem, free will and consciousness - summary of chapter 7 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)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 more How did psychology affect everyday life? - summary of chapter 8 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)Foundation 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.
What is science? - summary of chapter 9 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)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.
Is psychology a science? - summary of chapter 10 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)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.
The contribution of quantitative and qualitative research methods - summary of chapter 11 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)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 more Psychology and society - summary of chapter 13 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)Foundation 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 more Historical Psychology
This is my personal collection of content about the history of psychology
All the interim summaries of the first half of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)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:
All the interim summaries of the second half of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)Introduction
Mind-brain problem: issue of how the mind is related to the brain.
Three main views
Dualism
Materialism
Functionalism
Foundations of psychology In this magazine, you can find the summaries you need to finish the course foundations of psychology in the second year of the study psychology at the uva.
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