history of psychology and overview of schools
Psychology is the study of behaviour and mental processes and hopes to decipher human behaviour and the complexity of people's actions. In order to study behaviour and mental processes, psychologists are interested in things such as the way we think, what our responses are to certain situations, how humans interact with others. Psychology is a branch of philosophy that dates back to 322 BC, but psychology as a field of its own is only 100 years old. The word Psychology is of Greek origin with the term'psyche' meaning mind or soul and 'logus' meaning study or teaching. Psychology is structured by the use of schools, these are a collection of psychologists who hold the same set of beliefs about how the mind should be considered.It is the intention of this composition to depict the behaviourist, cognitive and gestalt schools of psychology One of the founders of psychology was Wilhelm Wundt(1879).Wundt set up the first experimental laboratory in Leipzig, Germany. He was a doctor who was interested in the links between psychology and physiology, his main interest in this field was the study of human consciousness, the mind. Wundt's belief was that human consciousness could be studied by the observation of human experience, that cons
Most of Skinner's research was on animals and solely on observable behaviour, which psychologists in today's society do not think is viable for humans. (Foundations of Psychology, 1994, p5) Another psychologist who believed in the behaviourist point of view was B. Gestalt psychology originated in Austria and Germany in 1920-30's, this school was opposed to behaviourism and structuralism and focused on perception, they studied aspects of human experience that were intact and could not be reduced to component parts. The first American laboratory was set up by James at Harvard University in 1879, he also founded the function!alist school of thought. (1994)Foundation of Psychology, An Introductory TextRoutledge. " The cognitive approach guides psychologists to study the rapid series of mental events - including those taking place outside of awareness - that accompany overt behaviour". Classical conditioning involves an unconditional stimulus with response to Pavlov's experiment the stimulus would be the food, this in turn would produce an automatic unconditional response, the salivation, which allows conditioning! to occur as the food is associated with the bell. Watson was an American psychologist who did not have any faith in Wundt's introspection method, Watson believed that behaviour should be studied, so behaviourism was born. The gestalt school believes that to gain an insight into the way we perceive certain things or problems could not be expressed using stimulus and response but should epitomise something more integral in human psychology. His most famous experiment consisted of having dogs in his laboratory that his assistant would come and feed at the same time each day and before the assistant was allowed entry in to the laboratory they would have to ring a bell.
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