Monday, December 6, 2010

History and Perspectives of Psychology

Definitions:


psychology: the scientific study of mind and behavior


mind: our private inner experience of perceptions, thoughts, memories, and feelings


behavior: observable actions of human beings and nonhuman animals


brain: the organ of thought


structuralism: the analysis of the basic elements that constitute the mind


functionalism: the study of the purpose mental processes serve in enabling people to adapt to their environment


Learning Objectives:



Compare/contrast functionalism and structuralism:

Structuralism, founded by Wundt and his students, is an approach, which deal with the idea of breaking down consciousness into elemental sensations and feelings.
Functionalism, on the other hand, focuses more on trying to understand the functions that mental processes serve.

Identify ways in which Canada has shaped different areas in psychology.

There have been many great Canadian psychologists, each contributing to the field of psychology in their own unique ways.  
Examples…


Wilder Penfield
-stimulated parts of the brain and linked them to bodily functions

Brenda Milner
-Known for her studies on the cognitive function of the frontal lobes,
temporal lobes, and hippocampus.
-She received and award in Neuroscience
-studied a man named HM who could not form new memories and lived in the present, so to speak

Donald O. Hebb
-he pioneered the idea that everything in our nervous system was connected, through neurons and synapses

Ronald Melzack
-Extensive studies on the gate control theory of pain

J. Philippe Rushton
-infamous evolutionary psychologist studying racial differences (and comparing penile lengths)


John MacEachran
-infamous Wundt student who practiced negative eugenics on what he deemed bad genes (which, for the record, did not pass on through sexual reproduction). He sterilized disabled people, whether they were disabled physically or mentally.

Douglas Wahlsten
-Mouse Genome Project
-Studied the role of the corpus callosum



Fergus Craik 
-the more effort you put into learning, the more likely it will be encoded (levels of processing)

Endel Tulving
-Work with Encoding vs. Retrieval in terms of memory

Ewen Cameron
-psychiatrist gone mad. Part of a CIA-funded brainwashing research program, and drugged depressed women. Got away with a lot of things, as he was the president of the APA (American Psychiatric Association) in 1953.

Thought Question
My high school history teacher always said, “If you don’t read history, you relive it.” Why do we care about the history of psychology?

Without studying and considering the history of psychology, we would not be able to understand how far we have come. Solving a puzzle takes time, and every mistake teaches you something. Taken all together, the mistakes and the truths, we can more easily identify that progress that psychology has made in the world today. It’s all about learning from your mistakes. =)

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