Do you agree that you must look at the past to understand the present? When it comes to the origin of psychology, it helps to dig deeper to see how it has evolved and become the modern scientific discipline it is today. Show
History and Origin of PsychologyIn understanding the origin of psychology, looking at the origin of the word itself is important. Where did the field of study known as psychology get its name? The English word 'psychology' comes from two Greek words, psyche (meaning breath, soul, life, or spirit) and logia (meaning the study of).
The word psychology appeared in literature as early as the 16th and 17th centuries. In the sixteenth century, a theologian named Philip Melanchthon, whom many believe, was the first to mention psychology through Latinised forms of the original Greek words. Later psychology began to take on a new meaning, as popularised by Christian Wolff in his Psychologia Empirica. His work acknowledged that psychology is the science that examines mental phenomena, which is psychology's early attempt to disconnect from philosophy and religion. However, many scholars still attach philosophy to their study of the mind during this time. But what does the origin of psychology have to do with philosophy? Psychology originated in the ancient study of philosophy, the discipline of great historical minds such as Hippocrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Early philosophers spent their time theorising about how the world works, why we are here, and why people behave as they do. Renowned French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) laid the foundation for studying the mind with his proposed dualism. The idea of dualism is that the mind and body are separate entities that can explain how we experience human life. Descartes suggested that the mind was non-physical, a state of consciousness and self-awareness that is not purely biological. In contrast, the body is a mechanical system that requires research and investigation. Separating the concepts of mind and body clarified that a study of the mind was needed. Another important antecedent to psychology is Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828), who introduced phrenology, the study of bumps and indentations in the skull. He believed that feeling the skull can reveal certain traits associated with a specific function and region in the brain. It wasn't until around the 19th century that psychology became more widely embraced, which developed into its modern meaning it is now as the study of mind and behaviour. In the next section, we will see psychology's development and how it became a scientific discipline. Father of Modern PsychologyWilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) was the first to establish a psychology laboratory in 1879 in Leipzig, Germany, later earning him the title “father of psychology,” alongside his work entitled, Principles of Physiological Psychology, published in 1873. Wundt attempted to study the mind objectively through a process that he called introspection. Introspection is a technique in psychology involving observing one's thoughts and feelings objectively.
Although many credit Wundt for founding psychology in 1879, some researchers believe that Gustav Fechner was as qualified for the title given the important connection he made in 1850 between the mind and the body, later creating Fechner's law. Fechner's law states that stimulus perception is related to stimulus intensity. His techniques opened doors for measuring behaviours in psychology. Wundt's attempts at the objective study of the mind involved training individuals in introspection and repeating tests to produce similar results. In this way, Wundt believed that he could identify the components that make up our mind and how these lead to a conscious experience, later forming one of psychology's early approaches, structuralism. Origin and Development of Psychology: StructuralismWith the need to study the mind came new ideas, methods, and practices that helped shape psychology into what it is today. The very first psychological approach was called structuralism. Structuralism created a foundation on which early psychologists based their work. Edward Titchener (a student of Wundt) was a structuralist psychologist who assumed that human consciousness could be broken down into smaller parts and used Wundt's process of introspection to understand these parts. Aside from Wundt and Titchener, Granville Stanley Hall also contributed to the growth of psychology through their expansion of structuralism. G. Stanley Hall also set up a psychology laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, applying introspection, and was elected the American Psychological Association's first president. Origin and Development of Psychology: FunctionalismWith the rise of structuralism in psychology came an opposing view: Functionalism. Functionalism emphasises the function of thoughts and presents the mind as an entity to be examined holistically rather than broken into smaller components. William James (1842-1910) looked at how humans are actively involved in their behaviour by studying the relationship between body processes (e.g., sensations) and psychology (e.g., behaviour). James Cattell and John Dewey were functionalists who focused on mental tests and assessments of human abilities. Functionalism emphasises practical applications of psychology and how the mind adapts to the environment. The approach laid the groundwork for more modern approaches such as behaviourism and impacted how we approach education and applied psychology today. Origin and Development of Psychology: BehaviourismWhile structuralism and functionalism focused on mental processes, behaviourism rejected studying the mind because of the belief that consciousness is unobservable. Instead, behaviourism emphasises observable behaviour in which the environment determines one's actions. A person learns certain behaviours in response to a stimulus in the environment. Important figures in Behaviourism included Edward Thorndike, Ivan Pavlov, Burrhus Frederic Skinner and John Watson. Edward Thorndike's experiment on cats using puzzle boxes showed that one could learn behaviour in response to a stimulus if a reward follows it. Ivan Pavlov further expanded this idea by teaching dogs to salivate with the sound of a bell using his technique, classical conditioning. Later, Skinner introduced his version of conditioning using rewards and punishment called operant conditioning. He experimented on mice and pigeons using the Skinner box. The experiment demonstrated that behaviour can be modified using positive and negative reinforcements. John Watson, the father of behaviourism, mentioned that behaviour should be the subject of psychology. To Watson, psychology is about understanding how the environment shapes behaviour. Origin and Development of Psychology: PsychoanalysisSigmund Freud (1856-1939) rejected behaviourism and developed psychoanalysis to understand and treat mental disorders. Freud's approach assumes that we all have an unconscious 'layer' to our minds that controls most of our thoughts and behaviours. He also emphasised the role of early childhood experiences in shaping personality. To Freud, allowing his clients to speak freely about their lives and feelings could help uncover unconscious 'repressed' memories from early childhood trauma causing behavioural symptoms. Other researchers questioned its scientific validity, as it is hard to prove or disprove the existence of an unconscious part of the brain. Origin and Development of Psychology: HumanismAbraham Maslow and Carl Rogers disagreed with Behaviourism and psychoanalysis. To them, actions and thoughts are governed by the individual's free will and capacity for development. Humanists value emotion and think people are basically good. The premise of this approach is that humans have an innate desire to reach self-actualisation, the best version of themself. According to humanists reaching this level is quite difficult, and there are several other factors that the individual must achieve before reaching self-actualisation, such as physiological needs. Indeed, the origin of psychology and its development showed how the need to study the mind led to an objective study from the early to late approaches of psychology, making it truly a scientific discipline. Origin of Social PsychologyBeing the social beings that we are, psychology also began investigating individual behaviour in the presence of others. Social psychology is the scientific discipline that looks at how people interact with and are influenced by those in their social environments. In 1924, Floyd Allport proposed in his text that social groups are one of the many stimuli an individual responds to in their environment. He also highlighted experimental research in this new psychology subfield. Following the Great Depression in the 1930s and the impact of the First and Second World Wars, social psychologists aimed at social issues, which brought about ethics and values into social research. This opened doors for expanding social psychology and included areas such as intergroup relations, propaganda, voting, and organisational behaviour. The 1940s to 1960s showed a rapid expansion of social psychology as evidenced by new research on authoritarian personality, obedience, persuasion, cognitive dissonance, aggression, prejudice and interpersonal attraction. By the 1970s and 1980s, social psychology faced a crisis, such as accusations of racial and gender biases, that made psychologists in this field reassess their methods. Additionally, during this time, the cognitive revolution renewed interest in understanding the self among social psychologists. New ideas also arose from multicultural research, where there was an exchange of ideas among researchers. With the dominance of social cognitive influences in the 1990s, some social psychologists considered emotions and motives to balance out both social and cognitive perspectives in social psychology. Until now, social psychology continues expanding as social psychologists innovate ways of measuring social behaviours. Origin of Cognitive PsychologyWith some psychologists rejecting behaviourism came another subfield of psychology, cognitive psychology, which aims to study higher mental processes. Cognitive psychology investigates how the mind processes and influences behaviour. In 1925, a German psychologist, Wolfgang Kohler, published his findings on The Mentality of Apes, showing that chimpanzees can learn insights and solve problems. In this experiment, the chimpanzee reached for the banana using a bamboo stick. Come 1948, Norbert Weiner, a mathematician, introduced the terms input, output, and feedback in his work Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. Around the same time, Edward Tolman proposed the term cognitive maps, which are mental representations formed from environmental cues. He demonstrated cognitive maps by training rats to navigate a maze. Between the 1950s and 1960s, George Miller and Jerome Bruner established the Center for Cognitive Studies at Harvard University. Additionally, Miller popularised the concept that the mind can store up to seven objects in its short-term memory. At this time, Ulric Neisser, the father of cognitive psychology, published Cognitive Psychology, signifying the beginning of the cognitive approach. These concepts have shaped the popular cognitive psychology we know today. Origin of Psychology - Key takeaways
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Who is considered founder of psychology?Two men, working in the 19th century, are generally credited as being the founders of psychology as a science and academic discipline that was distinct from philosophy. Their names were Wilhelm Wundt and William James.
Who is considered the founder of psychology and why?Though Sigmund Freud is certainly one of the most famous psychologists in history, it is actually Wilhelm Wundt who is considered the “father of psychology.” Wundt established the very first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Austria, and it is because of him that psychology became accepted as a scientific discipline.
Why is Wilhelm Wundt considered the founder of psychology?Wilhelm Wundt opened the Institute for Experimental Psychology at the University of Leipzig in Germany in 1879. This was the first laboratory dedicated to psychology, and its opening is usually thought of as the beginning of modern psychology. Indeed, Wundt is often regarded as the father of psychology.
How was psychology founded?Psychology as a field of experimental study began in 1854 in Leipzig, Germany when Gustav Fechner created the first theory of how judgments about sensory experiences are made and how to experiment on them.
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