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Questions and Answers
What is psychology?
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior.
What are the Greek words that form the term 'psychology'?
Psyche and logos.
In which year is the beginning of scientific psychology dated?
Which of the following were great thinkers that influenced the origins of psychology?
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What was Wilhelm Wundt's significant contribution to psychology?
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What did Edward Bradford Titchener introduce to psychology?
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What does the psychological symbol (psi) represent?
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Study Notes
What is Psychology?
- Psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behavior.
- The word "psychology" originates from the Greek words "psyche" (life) and "logos" (explanation or study).
- Psychology is a wide-ranging field encompassing various subfields like human development, sports psychology, health psychology, clinical psychology, social behavior, and cognitive processes.
History of Psychology
- The origins of psychology can be traced back to ancient Greece (400-500 BC), where great thinkers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle philosophized about psychology.
- Early philosophers explored topics such as memory, free will, and attraction, laying the groundwork for modern psychology.
- While humans have always contemplated their thoughts and behavior, scientific psychology emerged in 1879.
Introspection
- Wilhelm Wundt, considered the "father of psychology," established the first psychology laboratory in 1879 at the University of Leipzig.
- Wundt's experiments focused on measuring the time it took for people to react to stimuli, utilizing introspection (looking inward) to record cognitive responses.
- Wundt's student, Edward Bradford Titchener, introduced structuralism to psychology, aiming to identify the fundamental building blocks of the mind through introspection.
Other Early Psychology
- William James (1842-1910) was a philosopher and psychologist who emphasized the functionalism perspective, focusing on the purposes of mental processes.
- Functionalism, unlike structuralism, looked at how mental processes helped individuals adapt to their environment.
- Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) introduced psychoanalysis, which emphasized the unconscious mind and childhood experiences as influencing behavior.
- John B. Watson (1878-1958) is credited with founding behaviorism, which focused on observable behavior and rejected the study of the unconscious mind.
- B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) further developed behaviorism, emphasizing the role of reinforcement and punishment in shaping behavior using operant conditioning.
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Description
This quiz provides an overview of psychology, its history, and key concepts. It covers the development of the field from ancient Greece to the establishment of scientific psychology by Wilhelm Wundt in 1879. Test your knowledge on the origins and various subfields of psychology.
