PSYCHOLOGY
‘A’
A brief
history of psychology:
Where
did psychology come from? How did thinking move from philosophies centred on religion
and the universe to the scientific objectivity of modern psychology?
Over
two and a half thousand years ago, Siddharta Gautama, an Indian prince born to
protected existence of great luxury, saw illness and death for the first time.
He subsequently renounced the world and vowed to learn the meaning and purpose
of life. After sixty years of wandering, during which time he practiced the
most extreme austerities, he came across a Bodhi tree, turned towards the East
and sat down to meditate. Tradition has it that seven days later, Siddharta
Gautama emerged from his trance as a perfect being: the Buddha. He proclaimed,
as the first of his four noble truths, that “All life is suffering”.
At
one point or another, most of us will be forced to agree with the Buddha.
Whether because of specific events, such as the death of a loved one, or a
pervasive sense of meaninglessness, life will be suffered, rather than lived.
Suffering, it would appear, is an unavoidable aspect of the human condition.
Religious
beliefs have always protected people from the harsher realities of existence.
Even death is reduced to a minor inconvenience, not more than a short sleep
that precedes everlasting life; however, of late, religion appears to have
stopped working. When people experience suffering, they no longer turn to their
God (and their God’s representatives) with the same degree of conviction that characterised
prior ages. To embark upon a journey of spiritual enlightenment requires at
least some degree of faith, and in the twentieth century, faith has been in
short supply. In fact, (occidental – western - Christian) faith has been slowly
ebbing away over a period of nearly five hundred years.
The
medieval world (the period prior to the Renaissance, c. 500-1450) was a world
of certainties. A world in which the existence of God was an undisputable
truth. The universe kindly obliged by seeming to confirm this view; it appeared
to be nothing less that an elaborate stage constructed for the benefit of
humankind. Each prop and special effect seemed to underscore the human race’s
pre-eminent position. Every morning the sun would reassuringly rise and trace an
arc around the sky. Every evening the stars would follow. Humankind was in the
middle of it all; something special.
It
was not until the sixteenth century that the earth was wretched from its
pivotal position, by of all people, a canon of the cathedral church of
Frauenberg, Nicholas Copernicus. He released his final manuscript of De Revolutionibus Orbitum Coelestium,
the work which describes the heliocentric (sun-centred) system, he distributed
an outline of his manuscript among friends and scholars within which he
outlined his new theory called ballad of
the planets. However, Copernicus decided not to publish until he was on his
deathbed. He was aware that the Church would take a dim view of his discovery.
At
first, nobody took notice of De
Revolutionibus. Resistance to the new cosmology could be explained by its
inconsistency with everyday experience, its lack of classical beauty, and its
unacceptable heresy against the Church; however, there was also perhaps a more
fundamental reason: pride. In his novel The
Information, Martin Amis suggests that ‘The history of Astronomy is the
history of increasing humiliation…Every century we get smaller’.
Copernicus
had not only succeeded in demolishing the classical universe, he had also
opened the floodgates of the Renaissance. De
Revolutionibus was based on astronomical observations, not theological
argument and received wisdom. The old truths could now be doubted, and in the
Renaissance, the search for truth shifted: from heaven to earth, from God to
human.
In
spite of Copernican revolution, the idea that humanity was divine handiwork
persisted. Irrespective of the earth’s place in the cosmos, humankind still
seemed special. In fact, all living things appear to bear the hallmarks of
design, and it was the design argument
that sustained belief in the existence of God for many years. Like the sun’s
clearly observable revolutions around the earth, the extraordinary intricacy of
living things and the near magical processes that guide their development
constitute everyday experience. Surrounded by miracles and mystery, it was
difficult to deny the existence of God; however, the design argument would
prove no more resistant to scientific scrutiny than the earth-centred universe
(Tallis, 1998).
SOURCE:
Tallis, F (1998) Changing Minds: The
History of Psychotherapy as an Answer to Human Suffering London: Cassell
Where and when
did the history of modern psychology begin? The answer to this question starts
with an understanding of how the field of psychology itself emerged. We usually
trace the earliest roots of psychology to two different approaches to
understanding the human mind: a) philosophy, which seeks to understand
the general nature of many aspects of the world, primarily through introspection, the examination of inner
ideas and experiences (from intro –
“inward – within” and “spect”, “look”);
and, b) physiology, the scientific study of life-sustaining functions
in living matter, primarily through empirical (observation-based)
methods (Sternberg, 2003).
Two Greek philosophers,
Plato (428-348 B.C.) and his student Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), have profoundly
affected modern thinking in psychology and in many other fields. Plato and
Aristotle differed in their views on the nature or reality (Robinson, 2000). Plato’s
dualistic theory of forms stated
that reality resides not in the concrete objects (tables, chairs) we perceive
through our body’s senses but in the abstract forms these objects
represent. Thus, in this view, reality is not inherent in any particular object
we see or touch but in the external abstract ideas of objects that
exist in our minds. Aristotle, in contrast, believes that reality exists only
in the concrete world of objects that our bodies sense (Sternberg, 2003).
Plato and
Aristotle likewise disagreed regarding how to investigate their ideas, each
preferring a different method of
inquiry. Thus, they disagreed not only on what was truth but also about how to
find truth. According to Plato, observations of imperfect, concrete objects and
actions would mislead us and take us away from truth. Therefore, his approach
was that of a rationalist – one who
believes that the route to knowledge is through logical analysis. In contrast,
Aristotle believed that observations of the external world are the only means
to arrive at truth. Therefore, his approach was that of an empiricist – one who believes that we acquire knowledge through
empirical evidence, obtained through experience and observation (Sternberg,
2003).
Aristotle’s view
leads directly to empirical investigations of psychology whereas Plato’s view
leads to the various uses of reasoning in theory development. We might see
Plato’s rationalist view of the world as a thesis
and Aristotle’s empirical view as an antithesis.
Most psychologists today base empirical observations on theory but in turn use
these observations to revise their theory (Sternberg, 2003). In other words
they use a synthesis of the two
ideas.
17th century: The influential thinker Rene Descartes (pronounced, daycart) (1596-1650)
agreed with Plato in viewing the introspective, reflective method as being
superior to empirical methods for finding truth. However, John Locke (1632-1704) shared Aristotle’s reverence for empirical
observation (Leahey, 2000; Manent, 1998; Smith, 1997). Descartes’ rationalist
philosophy contributed much to the modern philosophy of mind. In contrast to
Descartes, Locke’s valuing of empirical observation accompanied his view that
humans are born without knowledge – and therefore must seek knowledge through
empirical observation. Locke’s term for this view is tabula rasa
(Latin: blank slate). According
to Locke, life and experience “write” knowledge on us. He believed there are no
innate ideas whatsoever, so, the study of learning is the key to understanding
the human mind.
18th century: The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) discussed
rationalism versus empiricism and whether knowledge is innate or passively
acquired through experience, Kant firmly declared that both rationalism and
empiricism have their place. Both must work together in the quest for truth.
However, the debate continues. Scholars always will wrestle with aspects of the
rationalism versus empiricism question. Nonetheless, Kant redefined the many of
the issues with which philosophers before him had grappled (Sternberg, 2003).
Kant’s enormous impact on philosophy interacted with nineteenth-century
scientific exploration of the body and how it works to produce profound
influences on the eventual establishment of psychology as a discipline in the
1800’s and cognitive psychology many years later, in the 1950’s and early
1960’s.
19th century: Structuralism: The goal of structuralism, generally considered to
be the first major school of thought in psychology, was to understand the structure (configuration of elements) of
the mind and its perception into their constituent components. Structuralists
would take the perception of a flower, for example, and analyse the perception
in terms of the constituent colours, geometric forms, size relations, and so
on.
An
important progenitor of structuralism was German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt
(1832-1920). Wundt suggested that the optimal method by which a person could be
trained to understand the structure of the mind was to study the sensory
experiences through introspection. To Wundt, introspection meant looking inward at
pieces of information passing through consciousness, such as the sensations
experienced when looking at a flower. In effect, we analyse our own
perceptions.
Functionalism: An alternative to structuralism suggested
that psychologists should focus on the processes of thought rather than on
its contents.
Functionalists asked: “What do people do and why do they do it?” “What function does a behaviour serve?”,
whereas Structuralists had asked “What are the elements and structures of the
human mind?” Because functionalists
believed in using whichever methods best answered a given researcher’s
questions, it seems natural for functionalism to have led to pragmatism. Pragmatists believe that knowledge is
validated by its usefulness: What can you do
with it? Pragmatists are concerned not only with knowing what people do but
also what we can do with our knowledge. For example, pragmatists believe in the
importance of the ‘psychology of learning and memory’, in part, because it
could help us improve the performance of children at school.
A
leader in guiding functionalism towards pragmatism was William James
(1842-1910), whose chief functional contribution to the field of psychology was
his book Principles of Psychology (1890/1970),
which continues to influence the thinking of psychologists in the field of
attention, perception, consciousness.
John
Dewey (1859-1952) was another of the early pragmatists who has profoundly
influenced contemporary thinking in cognitive psychology. Dewey is remembered
primarily for his pragmatic approach to thinking and schooling. For example,
according to John Dewey, to learn effectively we need to see the point of our
education. Dewey influenced thinking on issues such as: “Should research be evaluated
in terms of immediate usefulness in everyday applications…or in terms of its
profoundness of insight into understanding the human condition?”
Associationism, like functionalism, was a less rigid
school of psychology. Associationism examines how events or ideas can become
associated with one another in the mind and become a form of learning. For
example, associations may result from associating things that occur at about
the same time (contiguity) or,
associating things with similar features or properties (similarity) or, associating things that seem to show polarities,
such as hot/cold, light/dark, day/night (contrast).
An
influential associationist, Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949), held that the
role of satisfaction was the key to forming associations. Thorndike termed this
principle The Law of Effect (1905): A
stimulus will tend to produce a certain response over time if an organism is
rewarded for that response. Thorndike believed that an organism learns to
behave in a given way (the effect) in
a given situation if it is rewarded repeatedly for doing so (the satisfaction, which serves as a stimulus
for future actions). Thus, a child is given treats for solving arithmetic
problems correctly learns to solve them accurately because he or she forms associations
between valid solutions and treats.
From Associationism to Behaviourism: In Russia, Nobel Prize-winning
psychologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)
studied involuntary learning. He began with an observation that dogs salivated
in response to the sight of the lab technician who fed them before the dogs
even saw whether the technician had food. To Pavlov, this response represented
a form of learning – which he termed classical
conditioning - over which the dogs had no conscious control; in the dogs’
minds, some type of involuntary learning linked the technician to the food
(Pavlov, 1955). Pavlov paved the way for the development of behaviourism.
Behaviourism,
which might be considered an extreme version of associationism, focuses
entirely on the association between the environment and an observable
behaviour. According to strict, extreme (radical) behaviourists, and hypothesis about internal thoughts and
ways of thinking are nothing more than speculation, and although they might
belong within the domain of philosophy, they certainly have no place in
psychology (Sternberg, 2003).
Proponents of Behaviourism: The man usually acknowledged as the father of radical
behaviourism is John Watson
(1878-1958). Watson had no use for internal mental content or mechanisms,
believing that psychologists should concentrate only on the study of observable
behaviour (Doyle, 2000). He dismissed thinking as no more than subvocalised
speech. Typically, Behaviourists studied animals, such as rats or pigeons
because these animals allow for greater behavioural control. The simpler the
organism’s emotional and physiological make-up, the less the researcher needs
to worry about any interference from human participants. One problem with using
animals, however, is determining whether the research can be generalised to humans (i.e. applied more
generally to humans instead of just to the kind of animals that were studied).
Since the 1960s, radical
behaviourism has seemed almost synonymous with one of the most radical
proponents, B.F. Skinner (1904-1990). For Skinner, virtually all forms of human
behaviour, not just learning, could be explained by behaviour emitted in
reaction to the environment, which could be studied effectively by observing
animal behaviour. Skinner rejected mental mechanisms and believed instead that operant conditioning – involving the
strengthening or weakening of behaviour, contingent on the presence or absence
of reinforcement (reward) or punishments – could explain all forms of human
behaviour. Skinner applied his experimental analysis of behaviour to almost
everything, from language acquisition to problem solving and even the control
of behaviour in society. Behaviourism dominated the discipline of psychology
for decades (Sternberg, 2003).
Nonetheless, some behaviourists
were becoming curious about the content of the human mind. For example, Edward Tolman (1886-1959), an early
behaviourist, thought that the behaviour of neither animals nor humans could be
understood without also taking into account the purpose of, and the plan for,
the behaviour. Tolman (1932) believed that all behaviour is directed towards
some goal, whether a rat is trying to find food in a maze or a human is trying
to escape an unpleasant situation. Tolman thus as a forefather of modern
cognitive psychology.
A more recent criticism of
behaviourism also suggests that it is too limited (Bandura, 1977b) but for yet
another reason. This criticism asserts that learning appears to result not
merely from direct rewards for behaviour; it also can be social, resulting from
observations of the rewards or punishment given to others. This view emphasises
how we observe and model our own behaviour after the behaviour of others,
learning by example. This consideration of social
learning paves the way to considering what is happening inside the mind of
the individual.
For example, consider language
acquisition. The mechanism for conditioning is simple: Children hear utterances
and associate those utterances with particular objects and events in the
environment. They then produce those utterances and are rewarded by their
parents and others for having spoken. Initially, there utterances are not
perfect, but through successive approximations children come to speak just as
well as adult speakers. The progression from babbling to one-word utterances to
more complex utterances would seen to support the notion that children begin
with simple associations, and there utterances gradually increase in complexity
and in the degree to which they approximate adult speech.
As with imitation, the
simplicity of the proposed conditioning methods does not suffice to explain all
of the complexities of actual language acquisition fully. For one thing,
parents are much more likely to respond to whether a statement is true or false
than to the relative correctness of the child’s grammatical correctness (Brown,
Cazden and Bellugi, 1996). In addition, even if parents did respond to the
grammatical correctness of children’s speech, there responses might explain why
children eventually stop overregularizing
their speech but not why they ever begin doing so. Overregularizing occurs when a young children have acquired an
understanding of how language usually works, and they then apply the general
rules of language to cases that vary from the norm. For example, instead of
imitating her parent’s sentence pattern. “The mice fell down the hole, and they
ran home” the young child might overregularize and say” The mouses falled down
the hole, and they runned home”. The fact that children say things like “mouses”
shows that conditioning could not tell the entire story of language
acquisition. This example contradicts conditioning: Children constantly employ
novel utterances, for which they have never been previously rewarded. They
constantly apply the words and language structures they already know to novel
situations and contexts for which they have never before received
reinforcement.
Gestalt Psychology: Of the many critics of behaviourism, Gestalt psychology may have
been among the most avid. According to Gestalt psychology, we best understand
psychological phenomena when we view them as organised, structured wholes and
not when we break the phenomena down into smaller parts. Actually, the Gestalt
movement was a reaction not only against the early behaviourist tendency to
understand behaviour in terms of conditioning but also against the
structuralist tendency to analyse mental processes into elementary sensations.
The maxim “The whole differs from the sum of its parts” aptly applies to the
Gestalt perspective. To understand the perception of a flower, for example, we
would have to take into account the whole of the experience. We could not
understand such a perception merely in terms of descriptions of forms, colours,
sizes and so on.
SOURCE:
Sternberg, RJ (2003) Cognitive Psychology
3rd edition Exploring Cognitive Psychology pp2-11 USA: Thomson
Wadsworth
REFERENCES:
Bandura,
A (1977b) Social Learning Theory
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall
Brown,
R Cazden, CB and Bellugi, U (1969) The
Child’s Grammar from 1 to 3 (in) J.P. Hill (Ed) Minnesota Symposium on Child Psychology 2 Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press
Doyle,
CL (2000) Psychology: Definition (in) A.E. Kazdin (Ed) Encyclopaedia of Psychology 6, 375-376 Washington D.C.: American
Psychological Association
Pavlov,
IP (1955) Selected Works Moscow:
Foreign Languages Publishing House
Sternberg,
RJ (2003) Cognitive Psychology 3rd
edition USA: Thomson Wadsworth
Tallis,
F (1998) Changing Minds: The History of
Psychotherapy as an Answer to Human Suffering London: Cassell
Thorndike,
EL (1905) The Elements of Psychology New
York: Seiler
Tolman,
EC (1932) Purposive Behaviour in Animals
and Men New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts