Historical Reference Of Social Psychology

As a result to concluding the chapter “How to Think Straight about Psychology” by Keith E. Stanovich, the infinite doors into Psychology have opened. I was immediately engaged into the history and conflicts between the continuity of previous and modern day psychology. It was astounding to find the amount of distaste, backed by modern psychologists, on the workings of Sigmund Freud, who I had recently thought to be the foundation to all psychology. However, after reading on about the diversity of psychology, it became apparent that the extensive amounts of subjects within the realm of this study, make it difficult for scientist and the overall population to agree on one unified idea. Psychology has criteria that is ever changing, but limited to the time period of discovery.

Social psychology has existed for about 100 years, before which psychology was a branch of philosophy.

Throughout the span of history, psychology has always existed. Humans have always pondered why we think, act, and see the world as we do. Most information we have on the very foundations of psychology come from philosophers and physicists such as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Gustav Fechner. Today I’ll be comparing two very different psychologists: John B. Watson and Carl Rogers. Although these two display different feelings and approaches to their field, they share the same roots. Keeping this in mind, I believe it’s important to understand that evaluating the likeness of contrasting branches

All sciences originally descended from philosophy and over the centuries the special sciences gradually became independent of this discipline, with Psychology being one of the last of the special sciences to separate from the parent during the 19th century (Banyard, Davies, Normal & Winder, 2010). The questions and ideas in Psychology have been of interest since the time of the ancient Greeks, where philosophers inquired into how human beings know the world. Plato asked questions about human motivation (“Why do we act as we do?”) and Aristotle attempted to structure the human soul according to the five senses, imagination, common sense and memory (Leahey, 2004), which loosely reflect the study of perception and cognition in present day psychology. Although the conceptual foundations of psychology are to be found in philosophy, the inspiration for the creation of an independent science of psychology came from biology. The founders of psychology took a path to the mind through physiology, while a bigger influence came from a younger branch of biology- evolution- which through a shift in focus from the contents of the mind to the function of the mind, eventually gave rise to the different fields existing in psychology today such as psychobiology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology and more recently evolutionary psychology.

Before long, this new science of psychology became organized into different branches, or schools of thought, each promoted by pioneering thinkers. Two early schools were structuralism and functionalism. As physicists and chemists discerned the structure of matter, so Wundt’s student Edward Bradford Titchener aimed to discover the mind’s structure. He engaged people in self

The history of psychology is in infancy at the present time. Many philosophers can be credited to the development of this science. Starting in the early 18th and 19th centuries philosophers such as Rene’ Descartes and John Locke opened the world of what we know as psychology today. The British empiricists also contributed to psychology. Some of these men include David Hume and David Hartley.

William James’ book was entitled: Principles of Psychology which was published in 1890 and also established him as one of the greatest thinkers of his time.

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One of the most influential psychologists of all times is Burrhus Frederic Skinner, also known as B. F. Skinner, who was born on March 20, 1904 in a small town called Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. B. F. Skinner was raised in a warm and wealthy home. His father was a lawyer and his mother was a stay at home mom. In Skinner’s early childhood, it was noted that he and his younger brother, Edward James, liked to build things such as arrows and shack in the woods, to name a few ( ). These construction skills would enable an older Skinner to build the equipment invented for his psychology research. As he grew up, he went through all twelve grades at the same school, graduating with less than eight students. Within these years, he developed an interest in art and literature through drawing and later reading Shakespeare (Dews, 1970).

As Hermann Ebbinghaus, a German psychologist, explains, “psychology has a long past but only a short history.” Despite the interest shown in early Egyptians and Greek philosophers, the formal history of psychology dates back to 1879 when Wundt made the first psychology lab in Leipzig, Germany (Cite what is psychology). Wundt is responsible for creating structuralism, a focus on the structure of the mind and the belief that there is a connection between sensation, emotion, and behavior (cite hslibguides.islipufsd.org). This played a significant role in psychology’s history, creating debate and theories leading to several schools of

According to Heider and Skowronski (2007), human beings have a tendency of behaving in certain ways under certain conditions and, more importantly, in the presence of others. To explain the phenomenon, psychologists explore the science of social psychology which was traditionally designed to address the gap between sociology and psychology. It follows, therefore, that social psychology is a discipline that employs empirical investigations towards understanding and explaining the way the implied, actual or imagined presence of other humans influences the behavior, emotions and thoughts of other individuals (Simmons, Nelson & Simonsohn, 2011). Socially, psychologists opine that humans tend to behave in a manner designed

As far back as the time when man first discovered ways to communicate with one another he has attempted to understand and explain the course of historical events. In considering the historical development of scientific psychology two main views of the historical progress the field of science have emerged: personalistic theory and naturalistic theory.

Dating back 65000 years, Aborigines have had the longest continuous culture. The Aborigines believed and lived in the ‘Dreamtime’. The ‘dreamtime’ refers to the time when land and humans were created, and when ancestors and spirits came to earth and created everything. Every tribe had their own dreamtime and was passed down through storytelling. The Aborigines connection was either through the Wandjina or the rainbow serpent depending on the tribe. For the Aboriginals the world is sacred and has to be honoured. For the Aborigines everything is related to everything else therefore man was related to fellow man, animals, stars and the cosmos (Bowles, 2010). Even the men and women were equal because they were equally divine. The Aborigines

The History of Psychology In order to discuss Psychology's history, it is important to understand that psychology still does not have one unifying approach unlike the natural sciences; even the definition of Psychology and what it truly means is still undecided. However I shall attempt to review chronologically its philosophical origins, include how the science of Physics and Biology were placed in history and how they influenced research and determined the development of Psychology as its recognised today. Beginning with the philosophers Plato and Aristotle (between 428- 347) in ancient Greece, they began to ask

Social psychology is the understanding of an individual’s behavior in a social context. It is the scientific field that focuses on the nature and causes of that individual’s behavior in social situations. It looks at the human behavior that has been influenced by others and in the social context with which it occurred. Social psychology pays attention to how feelings, thoughts, beliefs, intentions, and goals are constructed and how these factors influence our behavior and interactions with others. This paper will examine the principles of social psychology and help us to