History and Systems Study Guide 1

I’m not a stickler for exact dates unless it’s Fechner Day (Woo hoo!).  You should know the general time period as well as the progression to which these ideas occurred.

 

For people in History and Systems, you should understand why these people were notable.  You need not know every life detail but how the individual fits into the history of psychology.

 


 

Background on History of Psychology

Historiography

Issues with reconstructing history

Contextual forces in psychology

Zeitgeist

Personalistic/naturalistic theory

 

Philosophical Influences in Psychology

Mechanism

Determinism

Reductionism

Automata

Mind-Body Problem

Rene Descartes

Charles Babbage

John Locke

George Berkeley

David Hume

David Hartley

James Mill

John Stuart Mill

Automata

British Empiricists: what was their perspective?

Derived vs. innate ideas

Positivism

Materialism

Primary and secondary qualities

Mentalism

Creative synthesis

Resemblance

Contiguity

Repetition

 

Physiological Influences in Psychology

Hermann Helmholtz

Ernst Weber

Gustav Fechner

 

Why was Germany important?

Two point thresholds

Just noticeable differences

Brain mapping research (inside and outside)

Extirpation

Clinical Method

Electrical Stimulation

Franz Gall

Phrenology

Luigi Galvani

Basic idea behind Weber-Fechner law

Absolute threshold

Differential threshold

Psychophysics

Inductive vs deductive approaches

 

The New Psychology

Leipzig

Wurzburg

Wundt (and his viewpoints)

Introspection

Mental set

Herman Ebbinghaus

Nonsense syllables

Carl Stumpf

Phenomenology

Oswald Kulpe

Systematic Experimental Introspection

Cultural Psychology

Voluntarism

Mediate vs. Immediate experience

sensations vs feelings

Why was Wundt not as successful in Germany?

Act Psychology

Clever Hans

Imageless thought