Monday, November 1, 2010

From Philosophy to Psychology

Psychology ids the study of the human mind and behavior and even though psychology as we know it today has not always existed the study of the mind and behavior can be traced back to many ancient civilizations and especially to the writings of the ancient Greeks. Their writings are typically thought of as philosophy but really modern day psychology is based off of philosophy. So what is the difference between the two? It is the use of empirical data. The shift form thinking about human behavior and the human mind to the actual use of empirical means to study it marks the creation of modern psychology as we know it today.

So who is the first historical person that comes to your mind when you think of psychology? I think that most would probably say Sigmund Freud; which is a perfectly fine answer. I think that most people bring him up because he had some crazy ideas that are way out in left field. I will come back to why I think he was important but first I would like to draw some attention to Wilhelm Wundt.

Wilhelm Wundt was the first person to set up a experimental laboratory in psychology. He was the man who applied the scientific method to psychology. He ran experiments that focused mainly on the conscious experiences of people and many of the modern psychological fields sprang from his research. He used introspection and asked people how certain stimuli made them feel. He recorded his observations and provided a model of testing for others to follow him.

This is a great timeline of some of the major events in psychology and this gives a great description of a few of the key players in its early development.

So now back to Sigmund Freud. What was his greatest contribution? He was the first to try to apply what had been learned in the field of psychology to help people with mental disorders. He might have been wrong about many things but he got us going.

3 comments:

Mike Lemon said...

What a great post, Dalton! I believe Freud's biggest contribution to psychology isn't sexual undertones in dreams but the idea of word association. Through careful questions, Freud introduced us to a method to talking through repressed memories. That was and still is brilliant.

Frostbite said...

I concur, thanks for the great post. That timeline and list of key players are great resources for getting to know psychology. And thank you so much for pointing to Wundt because I think he is the true founder of MODERN psychology, while Freud is almost irrelevant.

Mike brings up a good point, though, that maybe not all of his ideas are lame. The problem with word association, though, is that a lot of scientific research has discredited the idea of that memory repression even occurs.

Margaret said...

I especially like the cartoon!

I believe that dreams mean something - I just don't think most dreams are about sex!

I think that MOST of the time, when you remember your dreams, it is because your body is trying to wake you up so you can go to the bathroom!! Think about it - weird dream?? get up & use the bathroom, then you can peacefully get back to sleep!

Since Freud & etc said that everything leads to sex, some people feel they have "permission" to explore it - leading to more discussion about it. The power of suggestion is huge, yet people tend to discount it!

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