The Question in the Origins of Psychology is What Drives Us and Why

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.

Within psychology, there are several perspectives used to describe, predict, and explain human behavior. The seven major perspectives in modern psychology are psychoanalytic, behaviorist, humanist, cognitive, neuroscientific/biopsychological, evolutionary, and sociocultural. Describe the perspectives, using two to three sentences each. Select one major figure associated with one of the perspectives and describe his or her work in two to three sentences. Type your response in the space below.

Freud attempted to examine how our society viewed the human mind by turning society’s attention inward and exploring the mind’s inner secrets. One of the large discoveries Freud popularized in society was the concept of a conscious and unconscious part of the mind. He believed the unconscious part of the mind was the primary source of human behavior because it comprised unreachable thoughts. This concept was a radical way to understand the mind, and Freud was the first to use psychology instead of sciences, such as biology, to discover where the mind hid its secrets. He believed studying psychology would help humans determine their base

Psychology is a branch of philosophy until the late 1870’s when it was developed in Germany and the United States as an independent scientific punishment. In 1879, Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory and dedicated it to psychological research in Leipzig, Germany. Wilhelm Wundt was also the first person to be referred as a psychologists. Early sponsors to the psychology field are Hermann Ebbinghaus, who is the pioneer in the study of the memory. William James, who is the father of pragmatism. Ivan Pavlolv, who had develop the procedures that is associated with classical conditioning, which is the learning process which an innate responses to a stimulus that comes to be elicited in response to a neutral stimulus. In 1890, Hugo Munsterberg began writing the application of psychology to production, law and other fields. Also in 1890 Lightner Witmer had established the first psychology clinic.

The concept of Psychology originated from philosophy and biology which are two factors used in psychology today (Eysenck 2009). Psychology represents ‘study of the mind’ (Gross 2005). Psychology is a type of science which studies the behaviour of humans and animals, psychology tries to understand why people behave in certain ways taking into consideration their thoughts and feelings (Eysenck 2009). The term psychology was founded from the Greek word, psyche which means mind, soul or spirit combined with the Latin word logos which means’ the study of’ (Gross 2005). Psychology dates back to ancient civilizations who were interested in workings of the the mind and behaviours (Payne and Walker 2003). Wilhelm Wundt opened the first psychological laboratory in 1879 (Glassman 2008). Wundt and his co workers studied the structures that make up the mind, he was the first theorist to use psychology as a self conscious experiment studying perceptions and conscious awareness (Gross 2005).

The psychodynamic approach founded by Sigmund Freud was a lot of our behavior, is determined by unconscious thoughts, memories. Freud developed the first complete theory of mind and is the founder of a series of techniques called psychoanalysis. This aims to explore the unconscious mind by using techniques, such as free association, dream interpretation etc. and then and be used treat abnormal behavior. Psychodynamic psychology ignores the aspects of science and instead focuses on trying to get inside the head of individuals to make logic of their relationships, experiences and how they see the world. (McLeod, 2007). Freud’s theories

Psychology is an applied as well as an academic field that studies both the human mind and behavior. The research in psychology attempts to explain and understand behavior, emotion and thought. The subject of psychology was created when Wilhelm Wundt opened up the very first psychology lab in Leipzig, Germany. Wilhelm Wundt believed that individuals who are appropriately trained would most likely be able to recognize the mental processes that are accompanied with feelings, thoughts and sensations (Wagner , 2009).

Psychology can be defined as the systematic study of mental processes, couple with behaviors, and experiences (Kalat, 2011). There are many ways in examining, mental processes and behaviors among people, and therefore psychologist uses different perspectives to understand how human beings, think, act, and behave. Some psychologist uses one perspective to analyze behaviors, and other uses a multidimensional approach. Carter & Seifert (2013) identified 7 major perspectives that are used to study people’s behavior, and mental processes. These perspectives are the biological, evolutionary, psychodynamic, behavioral, humanistic, cognitive, and the sociocultural perspective.

Psychology is a scientific application of behaviourism. It evolved from three key areas of research, philosophy, biology and physics. In 1879 a man named Wilhelm Wundt created the first laboratory with the sole

Freud is known for developing the use of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is based on the observation that people are often unaware of many of the things that determine their emotions and behavior. Psychoanalytic

Psychology viewed as an old discipline. Psychology can trace its roots to the 5 century BC to the Greek philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle and Socrates, because we grapple with the same questions they attempted to answer. On the other hand, we could view psychology as emerging when philosophy and physiology merged to include experimentation and empirical methods to answer those questions about 200 years ago. Thus, it also viewed as a new discipline in 1879, which the approach taken to study make psychology became a science and distinguish from the older discipline philosophy and form modem

THe Behavioral perspective believes that our behavior is the result of the environment we are in. Behaviorists believe that psychologists should rely on the stimuli in the environment and our response to the stimuli. There perspective was that our behaviors are the result of our upbringing and environment. The behavioral perspective works on the molecular level to understand an individual 's behavior. They developed research generated evidence. John Watson was the founder of American behaviorism. Watson advocated that psychology is a science and it should be limited to observable, measurable behaviors. Watson studied babies and how they learned everything from their environment. He advocated that nurture was stronger than nature. Watson was famous for his experiment with Baby Albert and a white rat. Baby Albert did not fear the white at at first but began to fear it once it was associated with a loud sound. Watson proved through his experiments that parents should take

The psychoanalytic perspective, is the outlook that behavior and personality are effected by the conflict between one’s inner dreams n and expectation of society. Most of this conflict occurs in unconscious, which is outside the knowledge of an individual. Renowned psychologist, Freud established the psychoanalytic theory as an explanation for perplexed phenomena such as the meaning behind dreams, slips of the tongue, and behavioral reflex reactions to stressful situations. The unconscious is a primary focus in psychoanalytic theory due to its typical development in childhood and the ways in which it influences nearly every detail of an individual’s life. The unconscious mind also holds unvented memories and unexpressed urges that make their process into the conscious mind through a variety of different means. However, topographical theory of the mind states that conscious, preconscious, and unconscious serve as motivating forces in human behavior. Corsin & Wedding (2011) define the conscious as mental activity which individuals are fully aware of, preconscious as thoughts and feelings that could be easily brought to mind and unconscious as thoughts, feelings, and desires of which one is unaware of.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is responsible for developing the Psychoanalytic Theoretical Perspective; Freud argued that our early life experiences are essentially the base to our subconscious mind and in turn heavily influence our current behavior. Freud believed that people could be treated and healed by articulating their dreams and childhood memories allowing an individual to gain insight into these unconscious thoughts and ultimately motivate them to resolve the repressed conflicts within. This technique was developed into a therapy used today known as Psychoanalysis, similar to hypnosis, it was founded in 1896 (“Freud's Psychoanalytic Theories.”). Just like any other psychological theory, there are many interesting concepts to Freud's Psychoanalytic Theoretical Perspective. The theory says that your personality is determined by the manner in which your behaviors have been depicted to the unconscious mind, this theory tells us that our behavior is completely

The roots of psychology date back to Egypt and the Egyptian mystery system. Psychology has evolved from philosophy, medicine, theology, and science. Psychology evolved out of coalescence of natural science, and also the branch of philosophy which is known as epistemology, which is also known in the theory of knowledge. Psychology in its early times was devote and mainly focused to understanding the mind, as well as measuring it. After this later on in time, psychology focused on understanding behavior.