PSYC 308 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Edwin Boring, Thomas Kuhn, Normal Science

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 308
• Professor: Timothy Racine

Document Summary

Crim 308 - lecture 1 - history & systems of modern psychology. Historiography - study of various ways in which historians have written history. Like other subdisciplines in psychology (e. g. social, developmental, biopsych), the history of psychology is a research area. Edwin boring (1886-1968) was first american historian of psychology (boring, Boring explained history w/ what he called a great person & zeitgeist approach. Zeitgeist: spirit of the times which means time was right for someone. History often written in certain perspectives to discover/invent it. Boring uses traditional history approach that sees psychology as a progressive & cumulative science that builds on (much) earlier knowledge. According to new history perspective, traditional history view of scientist as objective fact-finder & neutral observer is misleading & incomplete. New history sees disciplinary history as primarily shaped by extra-scientific factors . Extra-scientific just means factors outside of science that influence the history of a field. Kuhn"s (1962/2012) the structure of scientific revolutions.