PSYC 1010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Wilhelm Wundt, Behaviorism

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1010
• Professor: Myriam Mongrain

Document Summary

Chapter 1: the evolution of psychology, before class. Psychology"s story is of people working toward a better understanding of themselves. Psychology: psyche meaning the soul and logos to the study of a subject. 1879 was the birth of psychology as its own discipline without philosophy and physiology being its intellectual parents. Wilhelm wundt is the founder of psychology. Consciousness was the subject matter of psychology, the awareness of immediate experience. Psychology became the scientific study of conscious experience. Structuralism and functionalism are the first two major schools of thought. Structuralism: reaffirmed that the task of psychology is to analyze consciousness into its basic elements and investigate how they are related. The structuralists wanted to identify the components of conscious experience, such as sensations, feeling, and images. Introspection: required training to make the person being studied more objective and more aware. Functionalism: the belief that psychology should focus on the function or purpose of consciousness, rather than its structure.