Saturday, February 1, 2014

Psychology Notes: Personality

Psychology
- scientific study of behavuir and mental processes
  • behavior - anything that you do that can be observed
  • mental processes - internal experiences such as : thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions
  • systematic study - systematic collection and examination of data (empirical evidence) to support or disapprove hypotheses (predictions) rather than depending on common sense
Key Players in History of Psychology:
- can be traced back 2000 years ago to early philosophers, biologists, and physiologist of ancient Greece
  • Hippocrates: Greek physiologist that thought the mind or soul resided in the brain; believed that it was not composed of physical substance; called mind-body-dualism (seeing mind and body as two different things that interact)
  • Plato (350BC): Greek philosopher that believed that who we are and what we know are innate (inborn)
  • Aristotle: Plato's student, believed that who we are and what we know are acquired from experience
  • monism - seeing mind and body as different aspects of the same thing
  • John Locke: believed that knowledge comes from observations and what we know comes from experiences
  • tabula rasa - blank slates
  • "The mind is like a blank slate in which the environment writes upon."
  • Rene Descartes: believed that what we know is innate; "I think therefore I am."
- Nature: certain elementary ideas are innate to human mind; not gained through experiences
        -"Men are born, not made."
- Nurture: anything that we know, we have learned through experiences

  • Wilhelm Wundt - 1879, University of Leipzig
               - Psychology's first experiment, birth of science
               - established first psychology lab
               - introspection (look inward)
  • Edward Titchener
Structuralism:
        -Wundt, Titchener, Hall (founder and first president of APA)
  • uses introspection to explore the structural elements of the mind
               - break down mental processes into the most basic parts

Functionalism:
- a reaction to structuralism
  • sought to explain how our mental and behavioral processes function
               - How do they enable us to adapt, survive, and flourish?
               - focused on purpose of behavior
  • William James


conscious - things we are aware of
preconscious - things we are aware of if we think of them
unconscious - deep hidden reservoir that holds true "us"; all desires
id - exists entirely in the unconscious (not aware); hidden animalistic nature
ego - develops after the id; personality
superego - difference between right and wrong; our conscience, bot real but ideal; seek perfection, judges actions based on positive feelings or guilt

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