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Origin of Psychology

Psychology was not always its own discipline. 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. Psychology has gone through multiple stages and notable developments both in its approaches and measuring techniques to establish itself as an esteemed scientific discipline. Let's…

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Origin of Psychology

Origin of Psychology

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Psychology was not always its own discipline. 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. Psychology has gone through multiple stages and notable developments both in its approaches and measuring techniques to establish itself as an esteemed scientific discipline. Let's explore the origin of psychology.

  • We are going to explore the origin of psychology by examining its history.
  • First, we will establish the history of psychology, working our way through the ages to see how it developed as a discipline.
  • Then, we will highlight the father of modern psychology before exploring the various views in the early days of psychology, including structuralism and functionalism.
  • We will also discuss psychoanalysis and humanism in an attempt to understand the origin and development of psychology.
  • We will, throughout our discussion, establish the founders of psychology and explore what we need to know for the origins of psychology at A Level.

History and Origin of Psychology

The word 'psychology' comes from two Greek words, psyche (meaning breath, soul, life, or spirit) and logos (meaning the study of). Wilhelm Wundt was the first to establish himself as a psychologist and opened a laboratory dedicated to the scientific study of psychology. Previously, psychology was more a subdivision of philosophy.

Fig. 1 - Depiction of psykheFig. 1 - Depiction of the psyche.

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 Psychology

Many consider Sigmund Freud to be the father of modern psychology. Wilhelm 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.

Fig. 2 - Wilhelm WundtFig. 2 - Wilhelm Wundt

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: Structuralism

With 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: Functionalism

With 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: Behaviourism

While 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: Psychoanalysis

Sigmund 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: Humanism

Abraham 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 Psychology

Being 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 Psychology

With 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

  • Psychology is the scientific discipline of understanding the mind, its functions and behaviour.
  • The field originated in philosophy, with roots going back to the sixteenth century, beginning with René Descartes’ dualism, which created the need to study the mind and body separately.
  • Wilhelm Wundt is considered the father of psychology and established the first psychology laboratory in 1879.
  • Early psychological approaches focused on breaking down consciousness into smaller parts and understanding its relation to each other (structuralism) and holistic view of the mind and understanding of its functions (functionalism).
  • Later psychological approaches highlighted stimulus-response in behaviourism, the unconscious mind in psychoanalysis, personal development in humanism, and social behaviour and higher mental processes in social and cognitive approaches, respectively.

References

  1. Fig. 2 – Wilhelm Wundt (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wilhelm_Wundt._Photogravure_by_Synnberg_Photo-gravure_Co.,_1_Wellcome_L0023076.jpg) by Wellcome Library (https://wellcomecollection.org/works/a3eqvhj9?wellcomeImagesUrl=/indexplus/image/L0023076.html) is licensed by CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

Frequently Asked Questions about Origin of Psychology

Psychology is the scientific study of the mind, its functions, and how it affects human behaviour.

The first psychologist was Wilhelm Wundt, who studied his participant's thoughts in a controlled manner in his lab in Germany. He is often regarded as the father of psychology.

The first psychologist, Wilhelm Wundt, was born in Germany in 1832.

Psychology originated in philosophy and was first formally studied in Germany in 1879.

The English word 'psychology' comes from two Latin words, psyche and logos. Psyche originally meant 'breath' but was later used as a word for the soul, which was then broadened to include 'mind'. 


Logos, on the other hand, began as the word for 'word', which then expanded to mean 'discourse' and 'science'. Together, these words roughly translate to 'science/study of the mind'.

Final Origin of Psychology Quiz

Origin of Psychology Quiz - Teste dein Wissen

Question

Who was Wilhelm Wundt?

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Answer

The founding father of psychology who established psychology as a separate, scientific discipline for the first time from philosophy and the natural sciences.

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Question

What is introspection?


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Answer

Observing and examining your own thoughts and feelings.

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What is one practice associated with mental health that uses introspection?


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Answer

Mindfulness.

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What type of therapy can benefit from the use of introspection?


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Answer

Psychodynamic

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Why was introspection considered scientific at the time?


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Answer

it uses standardized instructions and controlled conditions


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Question

Why is introspection subject to bias?


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Answer

It is a very subjective method and relies on the introspectionist’s own perception of their thoughts.

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Question

Why is introspection considered to have low internal validity?


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Answer

Introspection itself may influence our natural thought processes, meaning that the method may not measure what it sets out to; thus, it has low internal validity.

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 Why is introspection considered to have low external validity?


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Answer

The approach can only be applied to specific groups of people, meaning that results found from introspection cannot be generalised.

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Question

Where was the first psychological laboratory founded?


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Answer

Germany.

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Question

 Which philosopher first proposed the idea of introspection?


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Answer

Plato

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Question

When was Wilhelm Wundt born?


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Answer

1832

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In which university did Wundt establish the first psychology lab?

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University of Leipzig.


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What did Wundt study before psychology?


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Medicine.


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What field did psychology emerge from?

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Answer

Philosophy

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When did Wilhelm Wundt establish the first psychological laboratory?


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Answer

1879

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What is classical conditioning?


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Answer

Classical conditioning is when an individual becomes conditioned to perform a certain behaviour when presented with stimuli that have been associated with behaviour.

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 What is operant conditioning?


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Answer

Operant conditioning is the process in which an individual is conditioned to maintain or cease performing a behaviour by positive and negative reinforcement.

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How did behaviorism advance the field of psychology as a science?


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Answer

Behaviour is explicit and can be recorded and studied more objectively than thoughts.

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Who created the ‘human circulation balance’ technique of brain imaging?


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Answer

Angelo Mosso

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What did structuralist psychologists believe?


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Structuralist psychologists believed that the brain was made up of many parts, similar to the way that chemists break down chemicals into their smaller components.

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Who developed structuralism?


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Ivan Pavlov

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Who developed cerebral angriography?


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Answer

 Angelo Mosso

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What are the modern brain scans that we use today?


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MRI, fMRI and CT scans.

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Who was the first psychologist?

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Answer

Wilhelm Wundt.

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When was the first psychological lab opened?


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Answer

 1879.

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Question

What is introspection?


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Answer

Introspection is the process of someone noting down and analyzing their own thoughts and feelings.



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Why was introspection considered to be scientific (for its time)?


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Answer

Introspection in Wundt's lab was carried out under controlled conditions using standardized instructions, which made it scientific.

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What is functionalism?


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Functionalism is a psychological approach that studies the functions of thoughts and behaviour rather than the parts of the mind/consciousness.

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Who founded functionalism?


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Answer

 Willam James

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Who founded structuralism?


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Wilhelm Wundt.

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What is dualism?


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Dualism is the idea that the mind and body are separate entities.

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What is psychology?


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It studies the mind and its functions and how these affect behaviour.

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What Greek words does the word psychology come from?


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psykhe and logia.

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What is an example in the memory topic that could be considered Structuralist?


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The Multi-Store Model of Memory

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Who founded Dualism?


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René Descartes

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Where do the roots of psychology stem from?

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Philosophy. 

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Early philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle have influenced psychology, true or false?

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True.

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The idea that the mind and body are separate entities is the definition of what term?

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Dualism. 

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Is dualism still the generally accepted view in contemporary psychology? 

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No, it is now generally believed that the body and mind work together. 

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Introspection focuses on investigating                    processes.

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unconscious

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Wundt’s ‘introspections’ were conducted in...

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highly controlled experiments and the same procedure was used for each of his participants. 

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The Multi-store Model of Memory follows the structuralist approach to psychology; true or false?

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True.

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Which approach laid the groundwork for modern approaches? 

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Functionalism.

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What is the first experimental technique that is considered scientific called?

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Introspection.

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Writing diaries is a common thing that is done. How is this similar to introspection?

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Answer

Both rely on reflecting on the thoughts and feeling you are having. 

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What is an example of an informal practice that has similarities to introspection?

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Writing a diary or mindful meditation. 

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Wundt aimed to make his process of introspection... as possible.

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Answer

systematic, replicable, structured and controlled.

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Lucas recently visited his therapist, who told him to be more present when he has a panic attack. What may be the purpose of this? 

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Answer

To identify what is triggering the panic attacks. 

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The idea that we can make conclusions from observations is called what? 

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Answer

Introspection.

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What is it called when we make general laws about behaviours in specific situations?

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Answer

Predictability. 

Show question

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