PS101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Observer-Expectancy Effect, Abraham Maslow, Naturalistic Observation
Document Summary
Psychology is a study of behaviour and mental processes such as thought and emotion. Psychology (leaves), comes from the questions posed by philosophies and the methods borrowed from the physical sciences. Philosophers were arguing about what it was to be human , alive , and to. Wilhelm wundt -founder of psychology by conducting the first documented psychological study (1879, leipzig, germany) Conducted studies, but not like the present: Goal: to understand how the simplest elements of structures of conscious experience combine to create more complex perceptions and behaviours. Perception of visual stimuli, touch and hearing. Two schools of thought (before the battle ): structuralism (titchener-wundt"s student-continues this tradition): Belief that all experience could be reduced to basic elements. Could identify the structures (e. g. , chemistry water = h2o) Problem: lots of criticism not objective (stimulus stays the same but reported experience could change, both within and across people: functionalisms. Focus not on structure of consciousness but with how mental processes function.
