History of Psychology

HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY The history of psychology as a scholarly study of the mind and behavior dates back to the Ancient Greeks. There is also evidence of psychological thought in ancient Egypt. Psychology was a branch of philosophy until the 1870s, when psychology developed as an independent scientific discipline in Germany and the United States. Psychology borders on various other fields including physiology,neuroscience, artificial intelligence, sociology, anthropology, as well as philosophy and other components of the humanities. Many of the Ancients' writings would have been lost had it not been for the efforts of the Christian, Jewish and Persian translators in theHouse of Wisdom, the House of Knowledge, and other such institutions, whose glosses and commentaries were later translated intoLatin in the 12th century. However, it is not clear how these sources first came to be used during the Renaissance, and their influence on what would later emerge as the discipline of psychology is a topic of scholarly debate.[13] APPROACHES IN PSYCHOLOGY Biological explanations are based on knowledge of living cells and organic systems. Brain scanning technologies have revolutionized research of this type. Scientists have increasingly detailed knowledge of cell interactions, chemical influences on the nervous system, and brain/behavior relationships. Behavioral explanations emphasize relationships between the organism and its environment plus the organism's history of learning. The "environment" is conceived as stimulation that can be measured. The organism responds with behaviors that also can be measured. Behaviorists once confined their attention to exterior, observable behavior. Now most consider thoughts and emotions as "hidden behavior" which can be measured and manipulated almost like observable behavior. Cognitive approaches stress information processing. Cognitive psychologists study the mental representation of thoughts, images, knowledge, and emotions. The

word "representation" refers to the brain's storage of memories, images, perceptions, thoughts, and other mental contents. Subjective approaches to psychology describe unique thoughts, feelings, and experiences of individuals. Subjective approaches include phenomenology (pheNOM-in-OL-o-gy), which takes the individual's experience as a starting point. If we ask you to report how it feels to be reading this text, for example, that is an investigation of phenomenology.

GOALS OF PSYCHOLOGY Psychology seeks to describe, explain, predict, and control the events it studies. The five basic goals of psychology aredescribe, explain, predict, control, and improve. the four main goals of psychology 1. observe and describe. 2. understand and explain 3. predict 4. influence and control.