Contemporary Psychology

The lack of history

Regarding the homage (or lack thereof) to 19 th century psychology and

prior:
No introductory course in psychology and certainly no concentration
or major in psychological studies is considered complete or even
respectable unless the great old names are periodically trotted out,
dusted off, congratulated for having seen farther than most, and then
gently returned to their crypts as psychology gets on with more
pressing matters.

Even the history classes always begin with the Greeks, may spend a bit
with Aquinas and Augustine, move on to the modern era with paid respects
to Descartes and Locke, then the real study of psychology can begin.

This approach to the foundations of the discipline virtually guarantees

to each generation of psychologists the privilege of rediscovering
some of the more compelling ideas in the history of thought. It also
confers on psychology that state of perpetual youth which is
proclaimed by most of its spokesmen in all of its ages

~ Daniel Robinson, The Intellectual History of Psychology

Recent times
Functionalism
Behaviorism
Gestalt

Psychology
Psychoanalysis
Humanistic Psychology
Cognitive Psychology
Today?

Functionalism

Offshoot of the pragmatic thought of Dewey, James and

Peirce

Stage one, moral and mental philosophy:

Early philosophy and psychology in the U.S.:

Psychology included topics such as ethics, divinity, and

philosophy.
To learn psychology was to learn the accepted theology of the
day.

Stage two, intellectual philosophy

Psychology became a separate discipline and became primarily

influenced by the Scottish common sense views (Reid and
others)

Functionalism
Stage three, the U.S. Renaissance
Psychology becomes an empirical science.
The late 1880s saw the publishing of John Deweys
textbook, the first issue of the American Journal of
Psychology, and in 1890 Jamess Principles of
Psychology.
Psychology began emphasizing individual differences,
adaptation to the environment, and practicality.
Stage four, functionalism
science, emphasis on the individual, and evolutionary
theory combined into the school of functionalism.

Functionalism
Never a well-defined school with one recognized leader and an agreed-on
methodology.
Common themes, however, ran through the work of whose calling
themselves functionalists:

Opposed the elementarism of structuralism

Wanted to understand the function of the mind, not a description of its contents.
The function was to aid the organism in adapting to its environment.
Wanted to be a practical science, apply findings to the improvement of the
human condition
Urged that research include animals, children, and abnormal humans as
subjects.

They also urged the use of any methodology that was useful.

Concern for the why of mental processes led directly to an interest in

motivation.
Accepted both mental processes and behavior as legitimate interests for
psychology
More interested in individual differences among organisms than similarities.
Influenced by Darwins theory of evolution.

Key Figures in Functionalism

Harvard

Chicago

William JamesJames
Hugo Munsterberg
Mary Whiton Calkins
G. Stanley Hall
Francis Sumner
Kenneth Clark
John Dewey
James Angell
Harvey Carr

Columbia

James Cattell
Robert S. Woodworth
Edward L. Thorndike

Behaviorism

The zeitgeist of the time resulted in the developing of

the philosophy and psychology of behaviorism.
Objective psychology was already established in
Russia and several functionalists were discussing
openly many ideas later emphasized by John Watson.
The strain between those using introspection
(structuralism and many functionalists) and those
proposing a strict objective science of psychology
created the atmosphere which ultimately led to the
behaviorist revolution.

Key Figures in Behaviorism

Russian objective psychology

Ivan Sechenov
Ivan Pavlov
Vladimir Bechterev

American Behaviorism

Watson

Psychology is a purely objective experimental branch of natural

science.
Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior.
Introspection forms no essential part of its method.
The behaviorist, in his efforts to get a unitary scheme of animal
response, recognizes no dividing line between man and brute.

Neobehaviorism
Ideas and concepts preceding development of
neobehaviorism:
Positivism in various forms had been active for
centuries.

Essentially, positivism argues that what constitutes appropriate data

are observations that are public domain.
Also, it is important to avoid or at least, minimize theoretical
speculation from the data.

Logical positivism (developed by the Vienna Circle)

divided science into two parts the empirical and the
theoretical.

In turn, it wedded the two together, by adding theory as a

part of empirical science
Abstract theoretical terms were allowed only if such terms
could be logically tied to empirical observations.

Neobehaviorism
Operationism the insistence that all abstract scientific terms be
operationally defined.
An operational definition is the defining of an abstract, theoretical concept
by the procedures used to measure it.

In other words, operational definitions tie theoretical terms to observable

phenomena.
Thus, there is no ambiguity about the definition of the theoretical term.

Once operationism was presented most psychologists agreed with the

logical positivists that unless a concept can be operationally defined it is
scientifically meaningless.
Physicalism the desire for the unification of and a common vocabulary
among the sciences including psychology.
One outcome of logical positivism was that all sciences were viewed as
essentially the same following the same principles, with the same
assumptions and all attempting to explain empirical observations.

Why shouldnt they use the same terminology?

Neobehaviorism
Neobehaviorism The combination of behaviorism and logical
positivism
Though there were major differences among the neobehaviorists,
they all tended to agree on a few important issues.

If theories are used, they must be used in ways demanded by logical

positivism.
All theoretical terms must be operationally defined.
Nonhuman animals should be used as research subjects for two
reasons:

Relevant variables are easier to control in animals than when using

human subjects.
Perceptual and learning processes in nonhuman animals differ only in
degree from those processes in humans the information gained from
research with nonhuman animals can be generalized to humans.

Learning processes are of prime importance because learning is

the primary mechanism by which organisms adjust to a changing
environment.

Key Figures in Neobehaviorism

Edward C. Tolman
Clark L Hull
Edwin R. Guthrie
B. F. Skinner

Status of Behaviorism Today

Skinner remains the most influential of all the

behaviorists

As evidence of his influence, in a survey (in 1991) of historians

of psychology and chairpersons of graduate programs in
psychology were asked to rank the most important
psychologists of all time and the 10 most important
contemporary psychologists.

On the all time list historians ranked Wundt first and Skinner
eighth, chairpersons ranked Skinner first and Wundt sixth.
On the contemporary list, Skinner was ranked first by both
groups.

While there are not as many strict behaviorists in

psychology today, the behavioristic perspective has not
been entirely abandoned

And it would be silly to do so

Gestalt Psychology
Antecedents of Gestalt psychology
Several German psychologists took issue with
Wundts elementism arguing that consciousness
could not be reduced to elements without distorting
the true meaning of conscious experience.

Which of course wasnt really his view at all

People experience things in meaningful, intact

configurations (Gestalt)
They advocated an approach which concentrates on
phenomenological experience mental experience
as it occurred to the nave observer, without further
analysis (experience as it appears in consciousness).

Gestalt Psychology

Philosophers/antecedent views
Immanuel Kant believed that consciousness cannot be reduced to sensory
stimulation, and conscious experience is different from the elements that
compose it.
Ernst Mach postulated that two perceptions, space form and time form,
appeared to be independent of the particular elements that composed them.
Christian von Ehrenfels influenced Wertheimer as an instructor of several of
his courses.

William James postulated a stream of consciousness in contrast to the mind

being composed of isolated mental elements.

Ehrenfels (and Mach) proposed that form is something that emerges from the
elements of sensation.

The stream should be the focus of psychological inquiry, any attempt to break it
up for more detailed analysis must be avoided.

Act psychology proposed by Brentano and Stumpf, which focused on the

acts of perceiving, sensing, or problem solving had an influence on the
Gestaltists.

The act psychologists and the Gestaltists were both phenomenologists.

Also, all three individuals who are seen as the founders of Gestalt psychology
studied under Stumpf.

Key Figures in Gestalt Psychology

Founding of Gestalt psychology
Max Wertheimer proposed that our perceptions are different
than the sensations that comprise them

The phi phenomenon, a perception of apparent movement when the

elements of the experience are, in fact, stationary

Kurt Koffka

wrote several books and articles regarding Gestalt psychology and

was essentially the spokesman for the school.

Wolfgang Kohler

The paper describing this phenomenon is customarily taken as the

formal beginning of Gestalt psychology.

Did research regarding aspects of learning which greatly influenced

Gestalt ideas.

These three individuals are considered the cofounders of

Gestalt psychology.

Basic principles of Gestalt psychology

Field theory

Gestaltists propose that the brain contains structural fields of

electrochemical forces.
Upon entering a field, sensory data both modify the structure of the field and
are modified by the field.
Our experience results from the interaction of the sensory data and the force
fields in the brain.

Psychophysical isomorphism

Comes from the Greek meaning similar shape.

The force fields in the brain transform incoming sensory data and that is the
transformed data that we experience consciously.
The patterns of brain activity and the patterns of conscious experience are
structurally equivalent.

Top down analysis

Organized brain activity dominates our perception, not the stimuli that enter
into that activity.
Therefore, the whole is more important than the parts, thus reversing one of
psychologys oldest traditions.

Basic principles of Gestalt psychology

Law of Prgnanz

the psychological organization will always be as good as

conditions allow because fields of brain activity will always
distribute themselves in the simplest way possible under the
prevailing conditions.
The law assets that all cognitive experiences will tend to be as
organized, symmetrical, simple, and regular as they can be,
given the pattern of brain activity at any given moment.

This is what as good as conditions allow means.

Perceptual constancy

the way we respond to objects as if they are the same, even

though the actual stimulation our senses receive may vary
greatly.
This phenomenon is not a function of learning but is a function
of the ongoing brain activity and the fields activity.

Basic principles of Gestalt psychology

Principles of perceptual organization

Figure-ground the perceptual field can be divided into two

parts, the figure and the ground.
Continuity stimuli that have continuity with one another
(intrinsic togetherness, seem to go together) will be
experienced as a perceptual unit to make a whole.
Proximity stimuli, which are close together, tend to be
grouped together as a perceptual unit.
Inclusiveness when there is more than one figure, we are
most likely to see the figure that contains the greatest number
of stimuli.
Similarity objects that are similar in some way tend to form
perceptual units.
Closure incomplete figures in the physical world are
perceived as complete ones.

Psychoanalysis
Antecedent ideas

A case can be made that all components of the theory existed prior
to the theory

Leibnizs monadology proposed levels of awareness from clear

to unaware
Herbart suggested that there was a threshold above which an
idea is conscious and below which an idea is unconscious
Goethe described human existence as consisting of a constant
struggle between conflicting emotions and tendencies, which no
doubt influenced Freud (Goethe was one of Freuds favorite
authors)
Schopenhauer believed that humans were governed more by
irrational desires than by reason

He also anticipated Freuds concepts of repression and sublimation

Antecedents of Psychoanalysis
Nietzsche

also saw humans as engaged in a

perpetual battle between the irrational and the
rational.
Helmholtzs concept of the conservation of
energy within humans influenced Freud to
postulate a use of psychic energy to be
distributed in various ways.
It may be said that Freuds theory was a
synthesizing of his philosophical heritage and a
product of the zeitgeist of his time.

Early direct influences on the

development of psychoanalysis

Josef Breuer

Jean-Martin Charcot

Freud worked with Breuer with the famous case of Anna O.

Using hypnosis as his therapeutic method Breuer found that discovering the
origin of physical symptoms, which were usually a traumatic experience, resulted
in the symptom being relieved.
He called this the cathartic method.
The phenomena which were to be called transference and countertransference
were also observed during this case.
Freud studied with Charcot for a while during which he learned several lessons
which later influenced him in his work.

Development of free association

Freud found hypnosis to be ineffective in several cases and thus attempted to

find another method.
He eventually found that simply encouraging the patient to speak freely about
whatever comes to mind seemed to work just as well as hypnosis at uncovering
memories once you can get past the resistance displayed by the patient.

Key Figures in Psychoanalysis

That

one dude
Theory of Personality and Consciousness

Id, Ego Superego

Defense

mechanisms

Sublimation, reaction formation etc.

Dream

interpretation
Psychosexual stage theory of development

Oral, anal etc.

Contributions of Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis

(obviously) created a new,

unique way to deal with mental disorders
Expansion of psychologys domain

Much of psychology today could be said to be a reaction

to the theory or some aspect of it

Understanding

of normal behavior

Provided information about normal behavior as well as

abnormal behavior

Generalization

of psychology to other fields

expanded psychologys relevance to all sectors
of human existence

Common criticisms of Psychoanalysis

Method of data collection no control
Definition of terms not clear, not operationally defined
Dogmatism no toleration for conflicting ideas
Overemphasis on sex many of his followers broke with him
just for that reason
Self-fulfilling prophesy he found what he was looking for
because he was looking for it.
Length, cost, and limited effectiveness of psychoanalysis
takes too long and too costly for most people.
Lack of falsifiability - a good theory must have this
characteristic.

Well lets just say it wasnt scientific in general before getting into
grand assumptions of how science progresses.

Humanistic (Third-force) Psychology

Antecedents to humanistic psychology
History by the mid-20th century structuralism,
functionalism, and Gestalt psychology had lost their
distinctiveness as schools of thought.

Only behaviorism and psychoanalysis remained

influential.

In the 1960s the views of humans provided by

behaviorism and psychoanalysis were viewed by
many as incomplete, distorted, or both.
Many were looking for a new view, one that
emphasized the human spirit rather than strictly the
mind or body.

Humanistic psychology
In

the early 1960s, led by Abraham Maslow a

group of psychologists started a movement
referred to as third-force psychology.
This was a reaction to the shortcomings (as they
saw them) of behaviorism and psychoanalysis to
deal fully with the human condition.
What was needed was a model of humans that
emphasized their uniqueness and their positive
aspects.
This third force combines the philosophies of
romanticism and existentialism

Humanistic psychology

Antecedents to humanistic psychology

Phenomenology - focuses on cognitive experience as it occurs, in

intact form not reduced to component parts.

Brentano focused on psychological acts such as judging, recollecting,

expecting, doubting, fearing, hoping, or loving and including the concept
of intentionality within the acts.
Husserl believed that phenomenology could create an objective bridge
between the outer, physical world and the inner, subjective world. He
developed what he called pure phenomenology with the purpose of
discovering the essence of conscious experience the person inward.

This pure phenomenology soon expanded into modern

existentialism.
However, the existentialists were interested in the nature of human
existence
Existentialism concerned with two ontological questions, what is
the nature of human nature? What dose it mean to be a particular
individual?

Heidegger on

Key Figures in Humanistic Psychology

Abraham Maslow
Tenets of humanistic psychology

Little of value can be learned about humans by studying animals.

Subjective reality is the primary guide for human behavior.
Studying individuals is more informative than studying what groups of
individuals have in common.
A major effort should be made to discover those things that expand
and enrich human experience.
Research should seek information that will help solve human
problems.
The goal of psychology should be to formulate a complete description
of what it means to be a human being.

Hierarchy of needs
Self-actualization

Key Figures in Humanistic Psychology

Carl Rogers
Theory of personality

Postulated an innate human drive toward self-actualization, if people

use this actualizing tendency as a frame of reference in living their lives
they are said to be living according to the organismic valuing process.
A problem usually arises because in childhood we have a need for
positive regard but we receive this only if we act or think in certain ways,
this sets up conditions of worth.

This stunts the organismic valuing process.

The only way to avoid imposing conditions of worth on people is to give

them unconditional positive regard.
Only people who receive unconditional positive regard can become a
fully functioning person.

Rogers person-centered psychology has been applied to such

diverse areas as religion, medicine, law enforcement, ethnic and
cultural relations, politics, and organizational development.

Criticisms and contributions of humanistic

psychology
Contributions include

Expansion of psychologys domain

Development of positive psychology explores positive
human attributes.

Criticisms include:

Criticizes behaviorism, psychoanalysis, and scientific

psychology in general, but all three have made significant
contributions to the betterment of the human condition.
Rejects traditional scientific methodology but offers nothing
to replace it of any substance.
By rejecting animal research turning their backs on a
valuable source of knowledge about humans.
Many terms and concepts that humanistic psychologists use
defy clear definitions and verification.

Psychobiology
The

physiological roots of psychology are very

old as weve discussed

Hippocrates etc.

Biological

psychology attempts to explain

psychological phenomena in terms of their
physiological underpinnings
While obviously has contributed a great deal to
our understanding, many are wary of the
materialistic viewpoint to which such a
perspective often speaks

Key Figures in Psychobiology

Karl Lashley used the ablation method with
learning paradigms.

Mass action - loss of ability to perform a particular learned

behavior following destruction of parts of the cortex is related
more to the amount of destruction than to the location, the
cortex appeared to work as a unified whole.
Equipotentiality - any part of a functional area of the brain
can perform the function associated with that area.

Lashley spent decades searching for the engram

the neurophysiological locus of memory and learning.

He eventually conceded that it was not possible to locate the

engram.

Key Figures in Psychobiology

Donald

Hebb

Neural interconnections develop with experience.

When an axon of cell A is near enough to excite cell B

and repeatedly or persistently takes part in firing it,
some growth process or metabolic change takes place
in one or both cells such that A's efficiency, as one of
the cells firing B, is increased

Roger

Sperry

Split-brains and hemispheric specialization

The disunity of consciousness

Psychobiology
Behavioral genetics

The study of genetic influence on cognition and behavior.

Ethology the study of instinctive animal behavior.

Of major importance to ethologists is species-specific

behavior how members of a species typically behave
under specific environmental conditions.

Sociobiology attempts to explain complex social

behavior in terms of evolutionary theory.
Noam Chomsky argues that the human brain is
genetically programmed to generate language.

Each child is born with brain structures that make it

relatively easy to learn the rules of language.

Bouchard

Heritability of intelligence and IQ

Cognitive psychology
Historically, psychology has always been (a few
exceptions) cognitively oriented.

From Neisser 1967

A brief period 1930s to 1950s was a time when

behaviorism was highly influential and interests in cognitive
topics were relatively low.
Cognition refers to all the processes by which the sensory
input is transformed, elaborated, stored, recovered, and
used sensation, perception, imagery, retention, recall,
problem-solving and thinking, among many others, refer to
hypothetical stages or aspects of cognition

Cognitive Psychology is the domain of psychology

involved in the scientific analysis of mental processes
in order to better understand behavior

Development before 1950

Throughout psychologys history human cognitive abilities have been

studied philosophically, and later experimentally.
The work of Jean Piaget demonstrated that the childs interactions
with the environment become more complex and adaptive as its
cognitive structure becomes more articulated through maturation and
experience.
The behavioral theorists Tolman and Hull postulated intervening
variables in their theories,

For Hull, these variables were mainly physiological, but for Tolman they
were mainly cognitive.

Hebb was a critic of the behavioral views and contributed to the rise
of cognitive interests with his book The Organization of Behavior
which encouraged an interest both biological explanations and
cognitive processes.
Claude Shannon

Information Theory influenced many who were to be associated with the

cognitive revolution

Development during the 1950s

George Miller argues that a symposium on
information theory sponsored by the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) marked the beginning of
modern cognitive psychology.

Allen Newell and Herbert Simon presented papers on

computer logic, Noam Chomsky presented his views on
language, and Miller presented his research on short-term
memory.

With the advent of computing technology, a ready

analogy was available to help understand how
humans deal with and interact with their environment

Broadbent, Perception and Communication, (1958)

Development after 1960

Hebbs APA Presidential address urged the use of the scientific
rigor of the behavioral researchers to study cognitive
processes.

Miller and his colleagues continued to move the interest in

cognitive psychology along with several contributions.

He noted the work of Festinger, Miller, Galanter, and Pribram as

good starts toward this rigorous cognitive psychology.
He was also encouraged by the possibility of using computer
models for studying cognitive processes.

Miller, Gilanter and Prebram argued that cybernetic concepts (such

as information feedback) explain goal-directed human behavior
better than S-R concepts do.
Miller and Bruner founded a center for cognitive studies through
which Piagets ideas were popularized in the U.S.

Neisser publishes Cognitive Psychology 1967

Artificial intelligence

Special branch of computer science that investigates

the extent to which the mental powers of human
beings can be captured by means of machines.
Information-processing psychology
Approach to studying cognition, which uses the
computer as a model for human information
processing. It follows the rationalist tradition, and has
a strong nativistic component.
Information processing marks a return to faculty
psychology and the recent discovery that the brain is
organized into many modules (groups of cells)
each associated with some specific function also
contributes to this return to faculty psychology.

Connectionism

Neural networks - a model of a complex system of artificial neurons.

As in the brain the associations among neurons in the network change
as a function of experience.
In the networks synaptic changes (which occur in the brain as
associations are made) are simulated by modifiable mathematical
weights, or loadings among units in the network.
Strengths of the connections among units that are active together are
increased by mathematically increasing their weights.
Within new connectionism, learning is explained in terms of changing
patterns of excitation and inhibition (represented by mathematical
weights) within the neural network.

Contemporary psychology
Diversity

of contemporary psychology
Historically there was hostility among the
different schools of thought.
Today there is a relatively peaceful co-existence
among the various differing views in psychology.
The American Psychological Association was
founded in 1892 with a handful of charter
members.
Today there are 53 divisions representing
diverse areas of interests and specialties.

And still nothing gets done jk

Contemporary psychology
Uneasy relationship between scientific and applied
psychology
From psychologys inception as a science there was
tension between those wanting psychology to be a
pure science (such as Wundt) and those wanting
psychological principles to be applied to practical
matters (such as Hall, Cattell, and Munsterberg).
The founding of the APA did not decrease this
tension.

The tension resulted in Titchener refusing to participate in

any of its activities and he created his own organization, The
Experimentalists.

Now known as The Society of Experimental Psychologists

Training of clinical psychologists

Lightner Witmer established the tradition that
clinical psychology would be closely aligned
with scientific psychology
Years later a new professional degree, the
doctor of Psychology (PsyD) was instituted
for those who were trained as applied
clinicians without the research training

One may ask though- how can you apply a science

you are not familiar with?

The rift
As

APA continued to evolve the applied

members began to outnumber the research
oriented psychologists
In 1960 a group of scientific psychologists left
the APA and formed their own organization
Psychonomic Society
Later, another group was organized to form the
American Psychological Society (APS)

Now the Association for Psychological Science

Postmodernism

As we have noted throughout the course, postmodernism is

ancient
Postmodernism, also called social constructionism, began its
attack on enlightenment ideals of experience and reasonin the
mid-1960s
In essence, postmodernism believes that reality is created by
individuals and groups within various personal, historical and
cultural contexts
What postmodernism shares with the Sophists, skeptics,
romantics, existentialists, and humanist psychologists, is the
belief that truth is always relative to cultural, group, and
personal perspectives
Fortunately they dont act that way in their daily lives, otherwise
cars, medicine, the internet etc. might pose problems

Psychologys status as a science

There is no clear unifying principle, a group of

facts with different interpretations
A question is: can psychology ever be
unified?
The answer is based on the individuals view
of whether it even should it be
Most would agree that psychology is still a
collection of different facts, theories,
assumptions, methodologies, and goals

Psychological Science
Whatever

psychologys status as a science, it

continues on though its unclear at this time what
direction it may be heading
While its diversity is a mainstay and to be
highlighted as a strength, perhaps a new
paradigm is needed to push us forward
In any event, knowing psychologys past will
help us better understand its present, and
prepare for its future