Early development

The first use of the term "psychology" is attributed to the German scholastic philosopher Rudolf Goeckel (Latinized Rudolph Goclenius), published in 1590.^[1] More than six decades earlier, however, the Croatian humanist Marko Marulić used the term in the title of a work which was subsequently lost.^[2] This, of course, may not have been the very first usage, but it is the earliest documented use at present.

The term did not fall into popular usage until the German idealist philosopher, Christian Wolff (1679-1754) used it in his Psychologia empirica and Psychologia rationalis (1732-1734). This distinction between empirical and rational psychology was picked up in Diderot's Encyclopedie and was popularized in France by Maine de Biran.

The root psyche is very roughly equivalent to "soul" in Greek, and ology equivalent to "study". Psychology came to be considered a study of the soul (in a religious sense of this term) much later, in Christian times. Psychology as a medical discipline can be seen in Thomas Willis' reference to psychology (the "Doctrine of the Soul") in terms of brain function, as part of his 1672 anatomical treatise "De Anima Brutorum" ("Two Discourses on the Souls of Brutes"). Until about the end of the 19th century, psychology was regarded as a branch of philosophy.

[edit] Early modern era

This section needs additional references or sources to facilitate its verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references
Any material not supported by sources may be challenged and removed at any time.
This article has been tagged since May 2007.

In 1879, Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920), known as "the father of psychology", founded a laboratory for the study of psychology at Leipzig University in Germany. The American philosopher William James published his seminal book, Principles of Psychology, in 1890, laying the foundations for many of the questions that psychologists would focus on for years to come. Other important early contributors to the field include Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909), a pioneer in the experimental study of memory at the University of Berlin; and the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), who investigated the learning process now referred to as classical conditioning.

Auguste Rodin's The Thinker, bronze cast by Alexis Rudier, Laeken Cemetery, Brussels, Belgium.

Meanwhile, during the 1890s, the Austrian physician Sigmund Freud, who was trained as a neurologist and had no formal training in experimental psychology, had developed a method of psychotherapy known as psychoanalysis. Freud's understanding of the mind was largely based on interpretive methods and introspection, and was focused in particular on resolving mental distress and psychopathology. Freud's theories became very well-known, largely because they tackled subjects such as sexuality and repression as general aspects of psychological development. These were largely considered taboo subjects at the time, and Freud provided a catalyst for them to be openly discussed in polite society. Although Freud's theories are only of limited interest in modern academic psychology departments, his application of psychology to clinical work has been very influential. Followers of Freud who accepted the basic ideas of psychoanalysis but altered it in some way are called neo-Freudians.

Partly in reaction to the subjective and introspective nature of Freudian psychology, and its focus on the recollection of childhood experiences, during the early decades of the 20th century, behaviorism gained popularity as a guiding psychological theory. Founded by John B. Watson and embraced and extended by Edward Thorndike, Hull, Clark, Tolman, and later B.F. Skinner), behaviorism was grounded in studies of animal behavior. Behaviorists argued that psychology should be a science of behavior, not the mind, and rejected the idea that internal mental states such as beliefs, desires, or goals could be studied scientifically. In his paper "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It" (1913)^[3], Watson argued that psychology "is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science," that "introspection forms no essential part of its methods", and that "the behaviorist recognizes no dividing line between man and brute."

Behaviorism reigned as the dominant model in psychology throughout the first half of the 20th century, largely due to the creation of conditioning theories as scientific models of human behavior, and their successful application in the workplace and in fields such as advertising and military science.

Faculty Research

Faculty Research Interests
Bill Altermatt Ellen Altermatt Stephen Dine Young John Krantz

Bill Altermatt

In my research, I examine a cultural script that I have labeled "chivalry," characterized by themes of men protecting and providing for women. The evidence I have collected so far indicates that chivalry is related to two gender stereotypes: the belief that women are more morally virtuous than men and the belief that women are less agentic (competent and suited to positions of authority) than men. Some of the questions I would like to explore in future research are: 1) what are people's reactions when gender roles are reversed in the chivalry script? and 2) what are the positive and negative consequences of being the recipient of chivalrous treatment? My broader research interests include gender, stereotypes, emotion, and implicit (unconscious) processes.

Ellen Altermatt

I am interested in children’s peer relationships and achievement motivation. Most recently, I’ve combined these interests to examine how children’s everyday interactions with peers help them cope with academic challenges (e.g., getting a bad grade on a test). I am currently working on two projects to address this issue. The first project is laboratory-based. Here, children are asked to work on very difficult puzzles, to discuss these puzzles with a friend, and to complete questionnaires assessing their attitudes toward the puzzles. The second project is a “daily diary” study. In this study, children are asked to keep a journal for two weeks in which they record whether they performed well or poorly in school that day, whether they talked with peers about their performance, why they did so, and how their peers reacted. My other research interests include parent-child relationships, social comparison, and gender.

Stephen Dine Young

My long term research interest is in the area of audience response to narrative fiction films. I am interested in the cognitive and symbolic processes that underlie viewers' emotional and behavioral reactions. I am particularly interested in those instances where viewers integrate some aspect of their movie viewing experience into the larger fabric of their lives; I call this phenomenon "movies as equipment for living."

My recent research has also considered the intersection between psychology and film, but I have been focused on the analysis of the content of movies, particularly on the portrayal of mental health professionals in movies. While these representations are often inaccurate and sometimes negative, some insights about the nature of mental health treatment can be gathered from considering Hollywood therapists.

In Fall '03, I intend to return to my focus on the audience. One future project will focus on audience response to representations of mental health professionals in film. Another future project will use open-ended questionnaire and interview data to begin to develop a typology of the ways that people use film as equipment for living.

John Krantz

I have several research projects going on at various levels of activity:

1. My main project is developing a Sensation and Perception text. While normally this would not count as research, I am developing an extensive web-based media much of which includes experiments. Thus there will be work collecting data, evaluating media, as well as doing literature research and editing text.

2. Development of a computer based model of the retinal ganglion cells. Here, the work will include doing library research to identify they way these cells should behave as well as trying to incorporate these behaviors into the model. A description of the model is here and if you look at Sarah Blythe's senior project from 2003 you will see how a student helped advance the model.

3. Studying how the visual illusion that causes Greek Doric Columns look like they tilt when they are vertical. I am trying to collect the data over the web at the moment.

Bill Altermatt Ellen Altermatt Stephen Dine Young John Krantz

Class Web Resources

General	Basic Principles	Research Design and Statistics
	Advanced Research	Research Seminar
Experimental	Neuropsychology	Sensation and Perception	Cognitive Psychology
	Learning	Human Factors
Developmental	Childhood and Adolescence	Adulthood and Aging	Friendships

What's New

* learning-theories.com

Artificial Intelligence

*

Eliza. (Author Unknown) This is the classic program, with a web interface, that attempts to use basic AI to imitate certain aspects of a therapeutic conversation.

Biopsychology/Physiopsychology

* A collection of General Biopsychology Animations and Tutorials (This covers concepts as well as content.) by John H. Krantz, Hanover College
* Neural IconBasic Neural Functioning. by John H. Krantz, Hanover College.
*

Biopsychological Concepts by John C. Hay
Scroll down to find activities about:
o

Sleep and Dreams
o

Split Brain
o

Feature Detecting Neuron
* Digital Anatomist. University of Washington
* Introductory Biopsychology Tutorials. by Sandra Nagel Randall of Saginaw Valley State University and Lyle K. Grant of Athabasca University. Review the structures of our nervous system with reviews of some of the basic functions.
* Neuroanatomy Tutorial
* Neurophysiology. A collection of flash tutorials by Tutis Vilis at University of Western Ontario
* Neuroscience Tutorial. By Diana Weedman Molavi of Washington University School of Medicine
* Serendip Brain and Behavior by Faculty and Staff at Bryn Mawr. A wonderful collection of tutorials and activities related broadly to issues in brain and behavior.

Clinical Psychology

* Eliza. (Author Unknown) This is the classic program, with a web interface, that attempts to use basic AI to imitate certain aspects of a therapeutic conversation.

Cognitive Psychology

* Change/Inattentional Blindness Videos. A collection of quicktime videos from the from studies on these topics by Daniel J. Simons
* Cognition Laboratory Experiments by John H. Krantz, Hanover College
* DualTask.org. by Hal Pasher, UCSD. Demonstrations of the limits of cognitive processing in multitask environmnets.
* Mathematical Models of Memory. by Dennis, S., Nobel, P., Butterworth, P., Chalmers, K., White, J., Huber, D. & Diller, D. (1996). Mathematical Models of Human Memory: Tutorials. Noetica: Open Forum, 1(6), http://psy.uq.edu.au/CogPsych/Noetica.
* Signal Detection Theory Tutorial: by John H. Krantz, Hanover College
o Java Version
o Microsoft Office Web Components Version

Return to index.
Critical Thinking

* Critical Thinking in Psychology by Nancy Digdon, Grant MacEwan Community College

Developmental Psychology

* Educational Psychology Tutorials. by Margaret Anderson. SUNY Cortland. While the tutorials are aimed at a class in educational psychology the cover several developmental topics.
* The Visible Embryo. This site has images for most of the stages of prenatal development.

General Collections

* Educational Psychology Tutorials. by Margaret Anderson. SUNY Cortland. While the tutorials are aimed at a class in educational psychology the cover several psychological topics.
* e.psych. by Gary Bradshaw at Mississippi State University. This site is an educational web site that teaches visitors about psychological concepts, through interactive animations, video, experiment and demonstrations.
* Online Psychology Laboratory. Hosted by the APA and sponsored by the APA, NSF and National Science Digital Library (NSDL)
* POSbase. A database of powerpoint presentations that describe both classic and recent research in psychology useful for high school and undergraduate teaching.
* PsychExperiments. Ken McGraw, Mark D. Tew, and John E. Williams, University of Mississippi. A nice collection of psychological experiments, both for labs and actual studies, that your students can run in. It is possible to register your class so that you can segregate your data for your class for download in and Excel file.
* PsychLabOnline. A nice collection of interactive demonstrations of many basic concepts. by John C. Hay

Return to index.
Learning

*

Basic Concepts in Learning by John C. Hay
o

Classical Conditioning
o

Operant Conditioning
o

Operant Conditioning 2
* Educational Psychology Tutorials. by Margaret Anderson. SUNY Cortland. While the tutorials are aimed at a class in educational psychology the cover several learning topics.
* learning-theories.com. Descriptions of many different learning theories.
* Operant Conditioning. University of Wisconsin Colleges - Psychology Department
* Positive Reinforcement: A Self-Instructional Exercise. by Lyle Grant. Uses examples from research, real life, and clinical practice.
* Rescorla-Wagner Model of Classical Conditioning. by John H. Krantz, Hanover College

Research Methods and Statistics

* Internal Validity Tutorial but Dr. David Polson, University of Victoria
* Research Randomizer. A web site is designed to assist researchers and students who want an easy way to perform random sampling or assign participants to experimental conditions.

Return to index.
Sensation and Perception

* Ambiguous Figures by Michel Bellot
* Akos Feher, University of Rutgers, Vision Science Demo Programs
o The Brick Illusion
o Biological Motion
o The Hidden Bird
* Animations of Processes within the Ear. An collection of animations and illustrations of many basic auditory processes. Taken from the "Audtory Tour" by John Brugge and associates.
* Art of Vision. Application of some vision principles to artistic techniques and perception. by Nicolas Meier and Professor Mark Dubin at Colorado University
* Biological Motion Analyzer. A wonderful interactive animation of biological motion by Nikolaus F. Troje, Ruhr-Universit�t
* BRISSWEB (Eye Movement Visualization) Run a Java visualization of actual eye movement data. Robert Steinman, University of Maryland
* Demonstratons by Stuart Anstis. A nice collection by one of the major players in the field
* Eyetricks.com. A collection of visual illusions.
* Illusions Gallery. A collection of visual illusions with demonstrations and tutorials. by David Landrigan, University of Massachussetts Lowell.
* IllusionWorks. A classic collection of interactive illusions.
* Introduction to Color by Eugene Vishnevsky, Rochester Institute of Technology. This is a collection of applets to illustrate color and color mixing. The emphasis is on how it applies to graphics but most of the material is fairly general.
* Lightness Perception and Lightness Illusions. by Edward Adelson
* Magni-Phi and Related Phenomena by Filip J. Pizlo at Purdue University. A wonder explanation and demonstration of the Phi phenomenon.
* Motion Aftereffect by Mark Newbold. A real nice online version of this classic aftereffect.
* Motion Perception by George Mather, University of Sussex. A nice collection of motion demonstrations with clear explanations.
* Noh Mask Facial Expression Illusion. Michael Lyons and others; ATR Media Integration & Communications Research Laboratories.



* Optical Illusions and Visual Phenomena by Michael Bach
* Perceptual Demonstrations at the Exploratorium
o The Bronx Cheer Bulb. A nice demonstration of a visual effect due to flicker.
o Cafe Wall Illusion Requires Shockwave plug-in.
o Fading Dot
o Mona. Just try it.
o Postcard Exhibits of Illusions and Other Surprises
o Shimmer
o Trapezoidal Window
* The Physiology of the Senses Transformations for Perception and Action. A collection of flash tutorials by Tutis Vilis at University of Western Ontario
* ProjectLite. by Kenneth Brecher and Scott Gorlin. A collection of illustrations of visual phenomena
* S&P IconSensation and Perception Tutorials. by John H. Krantz, Hanover College.
* Simulation of Models of Backward Masking by Gregory Francis, Purdue University
* Some Visual Phenomena and Optical Illusions by Michael Bach. A very nice collection
* The Soundry this is a site that has many interactive demontrations about sound. It emphasizes the physics of sound but many of the demonstrations have a strong psychological component.
* ViperLib. Online Collection of Image for the study of vision.
* Visionary: A Dictionary for the Study of Vision
* Visual Demonstrations. Here is a collection of some visual demonstrations.
* Visual Demonstrations II. A collection, with text, of a variety of visual phenomena.
* Visual Perception Laboratory by Greg Francis. A collection of demonstrations and experiments.
* Visual Physiology by GeorgeMather, University of Sussex. An nice introduction with an online quiz.

Return to index.
Social Psychology

* The Concept of Intentional Action. An explanation of what the average english speaker means by using the word intentional. This site is grouped around some demonstration experiments (that do not collect data). by Joshua Knobe, Princeton University
* NetLabs. A collection of interactive exercises to accompany Brehm/Kassin/Fein's text Social Psychology, 5/e. However, the collection is general enough to work for most people.
* Online Social Facilitation Demonstration. By Gary McClelland at Colorado University
* The Prisoner's Dilemma
o At Serendip at Bryn Mawr
* Social Psychology Tutorials by Advanced Social Psychology Students of Richard Sherman at Miami University, Ohio.
* The Stanford Prison Experiment A slideshow with textual narration covering the details of this classic and troubling study. It is put together by Philip Zimbardo.

BASIC ACADEMIC PSYCHOLOGY

BASIC ACADEMIC PSYCHOLOGY

What's New
Artificial Intelligence Biopsychology/Physiopsychology Clinical Psychology Cognitive Psychology
Critical Thinking Developmental Psychology General Collections Learning
Research Methods and Statistics Sensation and Perception Social Psychology

Most Ten Powerful Psychologists

1. B. F. Skinner:

In the 2002 study ranking the 99 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century, B.F. Skinner topped the list. Skinner’s staunch behaviorism made him a dominating force in psychology and therapy techniques based on his theories are still used extensively today, including behavior modification and token economies.

2. Sigmund Freud:

When people think of psychology, many tend to think of Freud. His work supported the belief that not all mental illnesses have physiological causes and he also offered evidence that cultural differences have an impact on psychology and behavior. His work and writings contributed to our understanding of personality, clinical psychology, human development, and abnormal psychology.

3. Albert Bandura :

Bandura’s work is considered part of the cognitive revolution in psychology that began in the late 1960s. His social learning theory stressed the importance of observational learning, imitation, and modeling. "Learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous, if people had to rely solely on the effects of their own actions to inform them what to do,” Bandura explained in his 1977 book Social Learning Theory.

4. Jean Piaget:

Jean Piaget's work had a profound influence on psychology, especially our understanding children's intellectual development. His research contributed to the growth of developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, genetic epistemology, and education reform. Albert Einstein once described Piaget's observations on children's intellectual growth and thought processes as a discovery "so simple that only a genius could have thought of it."

5. Carl Rogers:

Carl Rogers’s emphasis on human potential had an enormous influence on both psychology and education. He became one of the major humanist thinkers and an eponymous influence in therapy with his ‘Rogerian therapy.’ As described by his daughter Natalie Rogers, he was “a model for compassion and democratic ideals in his own life, and in his work as an educator, writer, and therapist.”

6. William James:

Psychologist and philosopher William James is often referred to as the father of American psychology. His 1200-page text, The Principles of Psychology, became a classic on the subject and his teachings and writings helped establish psychology as a science. In addition, James contributed to functionalism, pragmatism, and influenced many students of psychology during his 35-year teaching career.

7. Erik Erikson:
Erik Erikson's stage theory of psychosocial development helped create interest and research on human development through the lifespan. An ego psychologist who studied with Anna Freud, Erikson expanded psychoanalytic theory by exploring development throughout the life, including events of childhood, adulthood, and old age.

8. Ivan Pavlov:
Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physiologist whose research on conditioned reflexes influenced the rise of behaviorism in psychology. Pavlov's experimental methods helped move psychology away from introspection and subjective assessments to objective measurement of behavior.

9. Kurt Lewin:
Lewin is known as the father of modern social psychology because of his pioneering work that utilized scientific methods and experimentation to look as social behavior. Lewin was a seminal theorist whose enduring impact on psychology makes him one of the preeminent psychologists of the 20th-century.

10. Reader’s Choice:
Following the examples of Eugene Garfield’s 1977 ranking list and Haggbloom’s 2002 ranking, the final position on this list has been left blank in order to allow “the reader’s best case for a psychologist who should have made the list”

Abnormal psychology

Abnormal psychology is the scientific study of abnormal behavior in order to describe, predict, explain, and change abnormal patterns of functioning. Abnormal psychology in clinical psychology studies the nature of psychopathology, its causes, and its treatments. Of course, the definition of what constitutes 'abnormal' has varied across time and across cultures. Individuals also vary in what they regard as normal or abnormal behavior. In general, abnormal psychology can be described as an area of psychology that studies people who are consistently unable to adapt and function effectively in a variety of conditions. The four main contributing factors to how well an individual is able to adapt include their genetic makeup, physical condition, learning and reasoning, and socialization.