A Brief History of Psychology: From Antiquity to the Present Day

Have you heard of Sigmund Freud? Surely yes. Someone will even be able to show off a quote from the famous psychoanalyst. But psychological science does not live on Freud alone! It has developed over many centuries and is rich in people who have thought and drawn conclusions about the nature of the soul, mind, and psyche.

We invite you to expand your horizons and get acquainted with the ideas of outstanding thinkers, as well as learn how psychology has turned from a speculative discipline into a real science.

Psychology in the Ancient World

The history of psychology begins with Ancient Egypt. It was there around 1550 BC. e. The Ebers Papyrus was created - a collection of medical texts, one of the oldest works containing medical knowledge. It mentions mental health conditions such as dementia and depression for the first time.

But the earliest psychological experience is considered to be the experiment of Pharaoh Psammetichus I, described by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus in the book “History”. In order to determine which race was the most ancient - the Egyptians or the Phrygians, the pharaoh did the following: he gave two newborn children to the shepherd and ordered them to be raised in a remote hut. The main condition of the experiment was complete silence, i.e. the shepherd was forbidden to talk in the presence of babies. In this way, Psammetichus I wanted to find out in what language the very first word would be uttered by the children, and in accordance with this, draw a conclusion about the most ancient race.

After 2 years, the long-awaited “bekos” came from the children’s lips. It turned out that this is a Phrygian word meaning “bread.” So the Egyptians decided that the Phrygians were a more ancient race than themselves [Waterfield R., Dewald C., 1998].

If we consider psychology as a discipline that studies the mind, then the philosophers of Ancient Greece were certainly the first to contribute to its development. For them, understanding the structure of the soul and mind was an important part of intellectual research. The theories of the ancient Greeks were closely related to ethical, physical and metaphysical concepts. Let's see how their thought developed.

Thales and Anaximenes

Thales and Anaximenes were Greek thinkers who were more interested in cosmogony and cosmology than in the study of man. Thales of Miletus believed that the whole world has a soul. He viewed it as a source of life and movement.

Thales's compatriot Anaximenes fleshed out this concept by drawing an analogy between the human soul and the matter that, in his opinion, surrounded the cosmos. He identified both with air or breath. This comparison meant that the human soul performs a vital function.

The idea of the unified nature of outer space and the human soul belongs to that set of ideas that gave rise to belief in the soul as an element of God in man.

Heraclitus

Heraclitus of Ephesus was a philosopher who developed the concepts listed above. Unlike Anaximenes, he believed that the main material of the soul is fire. By fire, he most likely understood something similar to energy, and not fire as a material element.

Heraclitus believed that feelings are the first source of information about the world, but they can be misleading when misinterpreted. If the soul interprets feelings correctly, then a person is able to cognize the Logos - the principle of organization of everything in the world or the truth.

Here you can trace a number of fundamentally new ideas for that time. Firstly, the psyche (soul) began to be perceived as the recipient of sensory impressions. Secondly, by interpreting them, a person could understand the principle of the structure of the world, which does not lend itself to strictly empirical research. Thirdly, psyche and Logos became identical concepts. Thus, Heraclitus wanted to say that the soul (psyche) has depths that cannot be comprehended.

Empedocles

The philosopher and physician Empedocles gave a slightly more detailed description of the process of sensory perception and thinking. In his opinion, the Universe was a mixture of four elements: fire, water, earth and air, and it was controlled by two polar forces: love and struggle.

The model of perception, according to Empedocles, looked like this: each object continuously emitted tiny particles, and a person absorbed them through the pores in the senses. For example, fiery and watery secretions from external objects entered the fiery and watery pores of the eyes.

Speaking about thinking, the philosopher argued that the blood around the heart is the center of human thought, and temperament depends on how balanced the four elements of existence are in it. Today, such conclusions seem naive, but the ideas of Empedocles and other ancient philosophers were an important stage in the history of the formation of psychology as a science.

Anaxagoras and Democritus

Unlike Empedocles, Anaxagoras viewed perception as the result of the interaction of opposites, believing that a person is able to recognize external heat thanks to the cold inside himself.

In the philosophical system of Anaxagoras, the dominant position was occupied by the concept of Reason, which was a controlling force that created the cosmos from chaos by rotating previously motionless masses. According to Anaxagoras, Reason is unique, original, eternal, autonomous, unlimited and self-sufficient, and is also part of the human being and acts as the leading force of the soul, which dominates the body and completely tunes its functions.

According to the philosopher Democritus, the soul was a network of spherical and mobile atoms that permeated the entire structure of the body. He also supported the previously formed idea that it was similar in substance to the cosmos.

Socrates

As one of the greatest thinkers of antiquity, Socrates saw value not in the celestial bodies, but in the vast universe of the human soul, and was the first to use the word "psyche" as the focus of reason and character. He defined knowledge as belief supported by rational explanation, and also believed that truth lies within each person and cannot be imposed by outside authority.

Using dialectics as his primary method of seeking knowledge, Socrates argued that the best way to understand one's inner world is to ask oneself questions and consciously reflect on the answers. It is easy to see that such an approach is the basis of modern introspection and an integral part of any psychotherapy.

Plato

Plato was a student of Socrates. Based on the philosophy of the teacher, he believed that all knowledge is given to a person from birth, and its comprehension is possible through introspective study of one’s inner experience. Plato was the founder of dualism in psychology, dividing man into two independent and antagonistic elements: a material, imperfect body and a soul containing pure knowledge.

Aristotle

Plato's dualism was to some extent overcome by his student Aristotle, who adhered to the idea of the inseparability of soul and body.

He assumed that the mind is the result of mental activity, and assigned a large role to understanding the mental processes occurring within the individual, including the work of the senses, through which a person perceives the environment.

Aristotle made an important point about the purposes that our actions serve, thus anticipating ideas put forward in the 20th century by the eminent psychologists Alfred Adler and Edward Tolman. The ancient Greek philosopher argued that human actions are not meaningless, but always pursue some goal, so it is not easy to understand behavior without reference to this intention.

Aristotle also believed that every person strives to realize his or her potential. This thought has overtones of self-actualization, a concept later explored by psychiatrist Kurt Goldstein and psychologist Abraham Maslow.

As you can see, ancient philosophers made significant contributions to our understanding of the world and ourselves. Some of their ideas may seem strange today, but they formed the basis of many fields of knowledge, including psychology.

If after learning about these ideas you remain interested and continue to read, then you most likely have an inquisitive mind and love to learn. The need to gain knowledge is laudable! To make this process easier, we invite you to the online program “Best Self-Education Techniques”. There you will learn special techniques that will help you better assimilate any material you read, activate your thinking, and learn more productively and with interest.

Yu.B. Gippenreiter. Psychology as a science of behavior Added by Psychology OnLine.Net 01/28/2010 We are moving to the next major stage in the development of psychology. It was marked by the fact that completely new facts were introduced into psychology - facts of behavior

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What do they mean when they talk about facts of behavior, and how do they differ from the phenomena of consciousness already known to us? In what sense can we say that these are different areas of facts (and some psychologists even opposed them)? According to the established tradition in psychology, behavior is understood as the external manifestations of a person’s mental activity. And in this respect, behavior is contrasted with consciousness as a set of internal, subjectively experienced processes. In other words, facts of behavior and facts of consciousness are separated according to the method of their identification. Behavior occurs in the external world and is detected through external observation, while the processes of consciousness occur within the subject and are detected through introspection. We now need to take a closer look at what is called human behavior. This needs to be done for several reasons. First, to test our intuitive belief that behavior should be the object of study in psychology. Secondly, to cover the widest possible range of phenomena related to behavior and give their preliminary classification. Thirdly, in order to give a psychological description of the facts of behavior. Let's do the same as when we first became acquainted with the phenomena of consciousness - let's turn to the analysis of specific examples. I will analyze with you two excerpts from the works of L. N. Tolstoy and F. M. Dostoevsky, great masters of artistic description and behavior of people and their psychological world as a whole. The first excerpt is taken from the novel War and Peace. It describes Natasha Rostova's first ball. You probably remember that mixed feeling of timidity and happiness with which Natasha arrives at her first ball. Frankly, I was going to use this passage earlier when I was looking for descriptions of states of consciousness. However, there was something more to it. “Natasha felt that she remained with her mother and Sonya among the minority of ladies who were pushed to the wall and not taken into Polish. She stood with her thin arms hanging down, and with her slightly defined chest rising steadily, holding her breath, she looked ahead with shining, frightened eyes, with an expression of readiness for the greatest joy and the greatest sorrow. She was not interested in the sovereign or all the important persons <...> she had one thought: “Will no one really come up to me, won’t I dance among the first, won’t all these men notice me” <...> Pierre approached to Prince Andrei and grabbed his hand. - You always dance. There is my protegee here, young Rostova, invite her,” he said. - Where? - Bolkonsky asked <...> Natasha’s desperate, frozen face rushed into Prince Andrei’s face. He recognized her, guessed her feeling, realized that she was a beginner, remembered her conversation at the window and with a cheerful expression on his face approached Countess Rostova. “Let me introduce you to my daughter,” said the countess, blushing. “I have the pleasure of being an acquaintance <...>,” said Prince Andrei with a courteous and low bow <...> approaching Natasha and raising his hand to hug her waist even before he finished the invitation to dance. He offered her a waltz tour. That frozen expression on Natasha’s face, ready for despair and delight, suddenly lit up with a happy, grateful, childish smile” [112, vol. V, p. 209-211]. So, here we are really faced with Natasha’s inner experiences: she is looking forward to an invitation to dance, at the same time despair begins to take hold of her;
She has already imagined in her imagination how good and fun it will be to dance with her, and this further intensifies her feelings of annoyance and resentment, she feels lonely and useless, and after being invited to dance, she is overwhelmed with happiness. But what else do we find in this short passage, besides descriptions of Natasha’s internal states of thoughts and feelings? And we also read that Natasha stood with her thin arms hanging down, holding her breath, looking in front of her with frightened, shining eyes. We further discover that Prince Andrei approaches with a cheerful smile. That the countess blushes when she imagines her daughter. The prince follows with a courteous low bow. So, we are faced with breathing, gestures, movements, smiles, etc. When J. Watson (whom we will talk about in more detail later) stated that psychology should not deal with the phenomena of consciousness, but with the facts of behavior, i.e., those which has external expression, and therefore, ultimately, through the movements of muscles and the activity of glands, the first who objected to him was E. Titchener. He said: “Whatever cannot be expressed in terms of consciousness is not psychological.” For example, bodily reactions belong not to psychology, but to physiology. We will discuss how right J. Watson was a little later. Now let’s look at how right E. Titchener (and in his person the entire psychology of consciousness) was right in this reproach of his to Watson. Of course, breathing is a physiological process, and the shine of the eyes is determined by vegetative processes, and “ready tears” are the result of increased activity of the lacrimal glands, and Prince Andrei’s gait is nothing more than the “locomotor function” of his body. But look how all these physiological reactions, processes, functions “speak” in psychological language! Contained breathing, looking straight ahead, reveals not only Natasha’s excitement, but also her attempt to control herself, not to reveal her condition, as required by the rules of good manners. Moreover, we learn that both Natasha’s worries and the fight against them were read by Prince Andrei based on the same external signs. And this, excuse me, is not physiology at all. And what about Prince Andrei himself? A few meager but precise strokes tell us a lot about him. With a “cheerful expression on his face” he heads towards the Rostovs. Note, not with a tense gait and not with weak legs, but with a “cheerful expression on your face”! This touch immediately shows us the prince’s confidence, the ease with which he feels in the world, his benevolent readiness to help Natasha. In his polite and low bow one can see a mixture of gallantry and, perhaps, an easy game, however, noticeable only to him. And finally, this last gesture of the prince - he raises his hand before finishing the invitation - also speaks volumes. Let us ask ourselves again: do all these external manifestations have important psychological significance? Without a doubt! They are at the same time an integral part of the internal state; and a direct expression of a person's character, his experiences and his relationships; and subject to own control; and a means of communication between people - a language that often says much more than can be communicated with words. Let's imagine for a moment that people have completely lost their intonation, facial expressions, and gestures. That they began to speak in “wooden” voices, move like robots, stopped smiling, blushing, and frowning. A psychologist in a world of such people would lose most of his facts. But let's look at the second example. This is an excerpt from F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Gambler”. The case takes place abroad on the waters, in Switzerland, where a Russian landowner, a rich Moscow lady of 75 years old, arrives. Her relatives are also there, eagerly awaiting a telegram about her death in order to receive their inheritance. Instead of a telegram, she arrives herself, full of life and energy. True, she is paralyzed, and she has been pushed around in a stroller for several years, but she is not going to die, but has come to see for herself what is happening in her noisy family. By the way, the grandmother, or “la baboulinka” as she is called in the French manner, becomes interested in roulette and asks to take her to the gambling house. There she watches the game for a while and asks to explain the system of bets and winnings. In particular, they explain to her that if they bet on zero and it comes out zero, then they pay thirty-five times more. - Like thirty-five times, and it comes out often? Why don't they bet, fools? - Thirty-six chances against, grandmother. - This is nonsense!.. She took a tightly stuffed wallet out of her pocket and took a friedrichsdor from it. - Here, put it on zero now. - Grandma, zero just came out <...> so now it won’t be out for a long time. You will bet a lot; wait a little. - Well, you’re lying, bet! - If you please, but he may not come out until the evening, you will put down up to a thousand, it happened. - Well, nonsense, nonsense! If you're afraid of wolves, don't go into the forest. What? lost? Bet more! The second Friedrichsdor also lost; put the third one. Grandma could barely sit still; she stared with burning eyes at the bouncing... ball. We lost the third one too. The grandmother lost her temper, she couldn’t sit still, she even slammed her fist on the table when the croupier proclaimed “trente six” instead of the expected zero. - Eck, that’s him! - the grandmother was angry, - will this damned little Zerishka come out soon? I don’t want to be alive, but I’ll wait until ze’ro <…> Alexey Ivanovich, bet two gold pieces at a time! <…> - Grandma! - Place it, place it! Not yours. I placed two Friedrichsdor. The ball flew around the wheel for a long time, and finally began to jump along the notches. Grandma froze and squeezed my hand, and suddenly - bang! “Zero,” the dealer announced. - See, see! - Grandma quickly turned to me, all beaming and pleased. “I told you, I told you!” <…> Well, how much will I get now? What are they not giving out?... - Place your bet, gentlemen - <...> the croupier exclaimed... - Lord! We're late! They'll wrap it up now! Place it, place it! - the grandmother fussed, “don’t hesitate, hurry up,” she lost her temper, pushing me with all her might. - Where should I put it, grandma? - To zero, to zero! Again at zero! Bet as much as possible! <…> More! more! more! put more! - the grandmother shouted. I no longer contradicted and, shrugging my shoulders, bet another twelve Friedrichsdors. The wheel turned for a long time. Grandma was simply trembling, watching the wheel. “Does she really really think about winning zero again?” — I thought, looking at her in surprise. A decisive conviction of winning shone on her face... - Zero! - shouted the croupier. - What!!! - Grandma turned to me with frantic triumph. I was a player myself; I felt it at that very moment. My arms and legs were trembling, it hit my head <…> This time my grandmother no longer called Potapych <…> She didn’t even push or tremble outside. She, so to speak, was trembling from the inside. She was all focused on something and took aim. "[35, vol. 5, p. 263 - 265].

In this striking passage there is no longer a single word about states of consciousness.
The rich, psychologically rich image of the grandmother is revealed by F. M. Dostoevsky by showing exclusively her behavior. Here are the already familiar “burning eyes” with which the grandmother glares at the bouncing ball, and individual gestures and movements: she squeezes the hand of her fellow traveler, pushes him with all her might, hits the table with her fist. But the main thing is the actions of the grandmother. They are the ones who reveal her character to us. We see a headstrong, and at the same time, childishly naive old woman: “Why don’t they bet, fools?” - she reacts directly to the explanation, and then no advice or arguments have any effect on her. This is an emotional, bright nature, easily ignited, stubborn in her desires: “I don’t want to be alive, but I’ll make it to zero!” She easily falls into risky excitement, remember: “She didn’t even... tremble on the outside. She... was trembling from the inside.” Starting with one coin, she bets thousands at the end of the game. In general, the image of the grandmother leaves the impression of a broad Russian nature, sincere, direct, and very emotional. This image both captivates and invigorates the reader. And the author achieves all this by showing only one thing - the behavior of his heroine. So, let’s answer one of the questions posed earlier: what are facts of behavior? These are, firstly, all external manifestations of physiological processes associated with the state, activity, communication of people - posture, facial expressions, intonation, glances, eye shine, redness, paleness, trembling, intermittent or restrained breathing, muscle tension, etc.; secondly, individual movements and gestures, such as bowing, nodding, nudging, squeezing a hand, knocking with a fist, etc.; thirdly, actions as larger acts of behavior that have a certain meaning, in our examples - Pierre’s request, the prince’s invitation to dance, the grandmother’s orders: “Bet on zero.” Finally, these are actions - even larger acts of behavior that, as a rule, have a social, or social, sound and are associated with norms of behavior, relationships, self-esteem, etc. In the last example, the grandmother commits an act by starting to play roulette, and play recklessly. By the way, the next day she commits another act: she returns to the gambling hall and loses her entire fortune, depriving both herself and her impatient heirs of the means to live. So, external bodily reactions, gestures, movements, actions, deeds - this is a list of phenomena related to behavior. All of them are objects of psychological interest, since they directly reflect the subjective states of the content of consciousness, the properties of the individual. These are the conclusions that a consideration of the factual side of the matter leads to. Now let's get back to the development of science. In the second decade of our century, a very important event occurred in psychology, called the “revolution in psychology.” It was commensurate with the beginning of that very new psychology of V. Wundt. The American psychologist J. Watson spoke in the scientific press and said that the question of the subject of psychology needs to be reconsidered. Psychology should deal not with the phenomena of consciousness, but with behavior. The direction was called “behaviorism” (from the English behavior - behavior). J. Watson's publication “Psychology from a Behaviorist's Point of View” dates back to 1913, which marks the beginning of a new era in psychology. What grounds did J. Watson have for his statement? The first reason is common sense considerations, the same ones that led us to the conclusion that a psychologist should deal with human behavior. The second basis is the needs of practice. By this time, the psychology of consciousness had discredited itself. Laboratory psychology dealt with problems that were of no use or interest to anyone except the psychologists themselves. At the same time, life was making itself known, especially in the USA. It was an era of rapid economic development. “The urban population is growing every year <...>,” wrote J. Watson. “Life is becoming more and more complex <…> If we ever want to learn to live together <…> then we must <…> study modern psychology” [114, p. XVIII]. And the third reason: Watson believed that psychology should become a natural science discipline and should introduce a scientific objective method. The question of the method was one of the main ones for the new direction, I would say even the main one: it was precisely because of the inconsistency of the introspection method that the idea of studying consciousness in general was rejected. The subject of science can only be that which is accessible to external observation, i.e., facts of behavior. They can be observed from an external position, and several observers can agree on them. At the same time, the facts of consciousness are accessible only to the experiencing subject himself, and it is impossible to prove their reliability. So, the third reason for changing the orientation of psychology was the requirement for a natural scientific, objective method. What was the attitude of the behaviorists towards consciousness! In practice, this is already clear, although this question can be answered in the words of J. Watson: “The behaviorist... does not find evidence in anything for the existence of a stream of consciousness, so convincingly described by James, he considers only the existence of an ever-expanding stream of behavior to be proven” [115, p. 437]. How to understand these words of Watson? Did he really believe that there is no consciousness? After all, in his own words, W. James “convincingly described” the stream of consciousness. The answer can be this: J. Watson denied the existence of consciousness as a representative of scientific psychology. He argued that consciousness does not exist for psychology. As a psychological scientist, he did not allow himself to think otherwise. What psychology is supposed to do requires proof of existence, and only that which is accessible to external observation receives such proof. New ideas often appear in science in a tense and somewhat crude form. This is natural, since they must force their way through the ideas that dominate at the moment. J. Watson's denial of the existence of consciousness expressed the “brute force” of the ideas that he defended. It should be noted that the denial of consciousness was the main meaning of behaviorism, and at this point it did not stand up to criticism in the future. So, so far we have talked about statements and denials. What was the positive theoretical program
of the behaviorists and how did they implement it?
After all, they were supposed to show how behavior should be studied. Today we asked ourselves the question: “What is behavior?” - and answered it in a worldly way. J. Watson answers it in scientific terms: “This is a system of reactions.” Thus, he introduces the very important concept of "reaction". Where did it come from and what was its meaning? The point is that the natural scientific materialist tradition, which behaviorism introduced into psychology, required causal explanations. What does it mean to causally explain any human action? For J. Watson, the answer was clear: it means finding the external influence that caused it. There is not a single human action that does not have a reason behind it in the form of an external agent. To denote the latter, he uses the concept of stimulus and proposes the following famous formula: S-R (stimulus-response). “... The behaviorist cannot admit for one minute that any of the human reactions cannot be described in these terms,” writes J. Watson [115, p. 436]. Then he takes the next step: he declares the S - R relationship to be a unit of behavior
and sets the following immediate tasks for psychology: - identify and describe the types of reactions;
— explore the process of their formation; - study the laws of their combinations, i.e. the formation of complex behavior. As the general final tasks of psychology,
he outlines the following two: to come to the point of predicting a person’s behavior (reaction) based on the situation (stimulus) and, conversely, to conclude from the reaction about the stimulus that caused it, i.e., from S to predict R, and from R to conclude about S. By the way, a parallel with W. Wundt suggests itself here.
After all, he also began with the identification of units (consciousness), set the task of describing the properties of these units, giving their classification, studying the laws of their connection and formation into complexes. J. Watson follows the same path. Only he singles out units of behavior, not consciousness, and intends to collect from these units the whole picture of a person’s behavior, and not his inner world. As examples, J. Watson first gives truly elementary reactions: quickly bring your hand to your eyes and you will get a blinking reaction; sprinkle crushed pepper in the air and sneezing will follow. But then he takes a bold step and suggests imagining as an incentive a new law that is introduced by the government and which, let's say, prohibits something. And so, the behaviorist, according to Watson, should be able to answer what the public reaction to this law will be. He admits that behaviorists will have to work for many, many years to be able to answer such questions. It must be said that each theory has different components. For example, there are postulates - something like axioms; there are more or less proven provisions; finally, there are statements based on faith alone. The latter usually includes the belief that a given theory can extend to a wide sphere of reality. Just such elements of faith are contained in J. Watson's statement that behaviorists will be able to explain with the help of the S - R connective all human behavior and even society. Let us first consider how the program was implemented in its theoretical part. J. Watson begins by describing the types of reactions. He distinguishes primarily between congenital and acquired reactions. Turning to the study of newborn children, Watson compiles a list of innate reactions. Among them are such as sneezing, hiccups, sucking, smiling, crying, movements of the torso, limbs, head and various others. How does the flow of activity expand, according to what laws are new, non-innate reactions acquired? Here Watson turns to the works of I. P. Pavlov and B. M. Bekhterev, published just recently. They contained a description of the mechanisms of the emergence of conditioned, or, as they were called at that time, “combinative” reflexes. J. Watson accepts the concept of conditioned reflexes as the natural science basis of psychological theory. He says that all new responses are acquired through conditioning. Let us recall the scheme for the formation of a conditioned reflex. An unconditioned stimulus (Sb) causes an unconditioned response (Rb). If an unconditional stimulus is preceded by the action of a neutral conditioned stimulus (Sу), then after a certain number of combinations of neutral and unconditional stimuli, the action of the unconditional stimulus turns out to be unnecessary: the conditioned stimulus begins to evoke an unconditional reaction (Fig. 1). For example, a mother strokes a child and a smile appears on his face. Touching the skin is an unconditioned stimulus, smiling at the touch is an unconditioned response. Every time before the touch, the mother's face appears. Now the sight of the mother is enough to make the child smile. How are complex reactions formed? According to Watson - through the formation of complexes of unconditional reactions. Suppose there is such a situation: the first unconditioned stimulus caused the first unconditioned reaction, the second - the second, the third - the third. And then all the unconditioned stimuli were replaced by one conditioned stimulus (A). As a result, the conditioned stimulus causes a complex set of reactions (Fig. 2). All human actions, according to J. Watson, are complex chains, or complexes, of reactions. If you think about this statement of his, it becomes clear that it is absolutely false. In fact, from the above diagram it is impossible to understand how new human actions appear: after all, according to J. Watson’s concept, the body has only an arsenal of unconditional reactions. One modern cybernetician mathematician, M. M. Bongardt, notes in this regard that no stimuli and no combinations of them would ever lead, according to the scheme of formation of conditioned reactions, for example, to a dog learning to walk on its hind legs. And in fact, an unconditional reaction to light can be blinking, to sound - flinching, to a food stimulus - salivation. But no combination (chain or complex) of such unconditioned reactions will result in walking on its hind legs. This scheme does not stand up to criticism. Now about the experimental program of
J. Watson. He believed that a psychologist should be able to trace a person’s life from cradle to death. Apparently, behaviorists have not traced the life of a single person “until death,” but J. Watson turned to the “cradle.” He set up his laboratory in an orphanage and studied, as I already said, newborn children and infants. One of the questions that interested him was the following: which emotional reactions are innate in humans and which are not? For example, what causes fear in a newborn child? This question was of particular interest to J. Watson, since, according to his remark, the lives of adults are full of fears. I don’t know whether it was really scary to live in America in those years, but J. Watson gives a whole list of examples in this regard: a man he knows who turns pale at the sight of a gun; a woman who becomes hysterical when a bat flies into the room; a child who is literally paralyzed with fear at the sight of a mechanical toy. “What are all these fears: are they innate or not?” Watson asks himself. To answer this, he conducts the following experiments in the baby's house.

The child is lying on a mattress, and Watson suddenly pulls the mattress out from under him. The child is irritated by screaming, despite the fact that the comforter pacifier is in his mouth. So, loss of support is the first stimulus that causes an unconditioned fear response. Next test: an iron bar is hung near the crib, which the experimenter, Watson, hits with all his might with a hammer. The child's breathing stops, he sobs sharply and then bursts into screaming. Thus, a loud, unexpected sound is followed by the same fear reaction. Here are two unconditional stimuli that cause a reaction of fear, but Watson does not find any other such stimuli. He goes through different “stimuli”, for example, making a fire in front of the child on an iron tray - no fear! The child is shown a rabbit - he reaches out to it with his hands. But maybe there is an innate fear of mice? They let a white mouse near a child - he is not afraid. Maybe a child is not afraid of a rabbit and a mouse because they are fluffy and cuddly? They give him a frog - he explores it with pleasure! Many animals have an innate fear of snakes. They give a child a baby snake (non-poisonous, of course) - no fear; again interest and pleasure! They bring in a large dog, whose head is almost the size of an entire child, and he very good-naturedly reaches out to it. So, no fears. But J. Watson continues his experiments in order to show how all these fears that overcome adults are formed. A child is sitting, playing with blocks. The experimenter places a steel bar behind it. First, they show the child a rabbit - it reaches out to it. As soon as the child touches the rabbit, Watson sharply hits the block with a hammer. The child shudders and begins to cry. The rabbit is removed, cubes are given, and the child calms down. The rabbit is taken out again. The child extends his hand to him, but not immediately, but with some caution. As soon as he touches the rabbit, the experimenter hits the block with the hammer again. Crying again, calming down again. The rabbit is taken out again - and then something interesting happens: the child becomes anxious at the sight of the rabbit; he hastily crawls away from him. According to Watson, a conditioned fear reaction has appeared. In conclusion, J. Watson shows how a child can be cured of acquired fear. He sits a hungry child, who is already very afraid of the rabbit, at the table and gives him something to eat. As soon as the child touches the food, he is shown a rabbit, but only from a very distance, through an open door from another room - the child continues to eat. The next time they show the rabbit, also while eating, a little closer. A few days later the child is already eating with a rabbit on his lap. [116].

It must be said that behaviorists experimented mainly on animals. They did this not because they were interested in animals in themselves, but because animals, from their point of view, have a great advantage: they are “pure” objects, since consciousness is not mixed into their behavior. They boldly transferred the results they obtained to humans. For example, when discussing the problems of sex education for a child, J. Watson refers to experiments on rats.

These experiments consisted of the following. A long box was taken; The male sat at one end, the female at the other, and in the middle on the floor were wires with current. To get to the female, the male had to run along the wires. In experiments they measured how much current he would withstand and run, and how much he would retreat. And then they did the opposite: they set the female aside and began to see how much current she could overcome. It turned out that the females ran with a stronger current. Based on this little “biology lesson,” J. Watson warns mothers against the mistaken belief that their girls are not interested in boys [116].

I will say a few words about
the further development of behaviorism
.
Quite soon, the extreme limitations of the S-R scheme for explaining behavior began to be revealed: as a rule, “5” and “R” are in such complex and diverse relationships that a direct connection between them cannot be traced. One of the representatives of late behaviorism, E. Tolman, introduced a significant amendment to this scheme. He proposed placing a middle link, or “intermediate variables” (V), between S and R, as a result of which the diagram took the form: S—V — R. By “intermediate variables,” E. Tolman understood internal processes that mediate the action of a stimulus, i.e. i.e. influence external behavior. These included such formations as “goals”, “intentions”, “hypotheses”, “cognitive maps” (images of situations), etc. Although the intermediate variables were functional equivalents of consciousness, they were introduced as “constructs”, which should be discussed judge solely by the properties of behavior. For example, according to E. Tolman, an animal has a goal if the animal: firstly, exhibits search activity until it receives a specific object; secondly, upon receiving the object, it stops activity; thirdly, with repeated trials it finds the path to the object faster. So, based on the listed signs, we can say that obtaining this object was the intention, or goal, of the animal. These signs are nothing more than properties of behavior, and there is no need to turn to consciousness. A new step in the development of behaviorism was the study of a special type of conditioned reactions (along with “classical”, i.e. Pavlovian), which were called instrumental (E. Thorndike, 1898) or operant (B. Skinner, 1938). The phenomenon of instrumental, or operant, conditioning is that if any action of an individual is reinforced, it is fixed and then reproduced with great ease and consistency. For example, if a dog’s barking is regularly reinforced with a piece of sausage, then very soon it begins to bark, “begging” for sausage. This technique has long been familiar to trainers, and has also been practically mastered by educators. In neobehaviorism, it first became the subject of experimental and theoretical research. According to behaviorism theory, classical and operant conditioning are universal learning mechanisms common to animals and humans. At the same time, the learning process was presented as occurring quite automatically: reinforcement literally leads to the “consolidation” of connections and successful reactions in the nervous system, regardless of the will, desire or any other activity of the subject. From here, behaviorists made far-reaching conclusions that with the help of incentives and reinforcements it is possible to “mould” any human behavior, to “manipulate” it, that a person’s behavior is strictly determined, that he is to some extent a slave of external circumstances and his own past experience. All these conclusions were ultimately the consequences of ignoring consciousness. “Intouchability” of consciousness remained the main requirement of behaviorism at all stages of its development. It must be said that this requirement collapsed under the influence of life. American psychologist R. Holt in the 60s. our century, published an article entitled “Images: Return from Exile,” in which, considering the possibility of the appearance of illusions of perception in space flight, he wrote: “...practical people are unlikely to be impressed by the judgment that images are not worth studying, since these are “mentalistic phenomena” and cannot be experimentally studied in animals... now our national prestige may also depend on our knowledge of the conditions that cause hallucinations”[127, p. 59]. Thus, even in American psychology, that is, in the birthplace of behaviorism, in recent decades the need for a return to consciousness was understood, and this return took place. A few final words about behaviorism. The important merits
of behaviorism were the following.
Firstly, he introduced a strong materialistic spirit into psychology, thanks to him psychology was turned towards the natural-scientific path of development. Secondly, he introduced an objective method - a method based on the registration and analysis of externally observable facts, processes, and events. Thanks to this innovation, instrumental methods for studying mental processes have rapidly developed in psychology. Further, the class of objects under study has expanded enormously; the behavior of animals, pre-verbal infants, etc. began to be intensively studied. Finally, in the works of the behaviorist direction, certain sections of psychology were significantly advanced, in particular the problems of learning, the formation of skills, etc. But the main drawback
of behaviorism, as I have already emphasized, was the underestimation of complexity human mental activity, bringing the psyche of animals and humans closer together, ignoring the processes of consciousness, higher forms of learning, creativity, personal self-determination, etc.

Description	Chapter 4 of the textbook Yu.B. Gippenreiter "Introduction to general psychology." The problem of the objective method in psychology and the category of behavior from the standpoint of behaviorism are discussed.
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Psychology in the Middle Ages

The Middle Ages period is often associated with witch hunts, superstition and demonic possession. In many ways this is true, but this is not the whole truth. Let's find out how things were in those days with the study of the mind and the development of psychological science.

In the Middle Ages, researchers sought to understand the connection between man and God, so theological views extended to psychology. Western European theologians held the idea that God was the creator, towering above all beings, and humans, being the pinnacle of his creation, possessed a soul that connected them with the divine. According to Christian beliefs, man was endowed with an inner spirit that was separate from the soul and body, reflecting the belief in the tripartite nature of God.

The most prominent representative of psychological thought of that time was Aurelius Augustine, who became the first philosopher who suggested that a person has an “inner self”: if he is one with it, then he is healthy, but internal disunity leads to the development of illnesses.

Augustine came to the following conclusions from various areas of psychology:

Babies are self-centered and socially unaware. Fear of punishment is a barrier to learning because it inhibits curiosity.
Memory is the most important aspect of the mind and the command point of mental functioning; all skills and habits depend on its state.
Thoughts and impulses suppressed during wakefulness can manifest themselves in sleep. At the same time, a Christian should not experience pangs of conscience, since it is impossible to sin in dreams.
All people experience an internal struggle between self and God. This conflict leads to chaos in the outside world.
Love is the basis of happiness, and the desire to possess what a person cannot have is the source of suffering. It is necessary to develop the ability for unconditional love, which changes the nature of thinking for the better.

Augustine also coined the term “original sin” and believed that all people are born sinners. This view influenced the church for several centuries and did much to hinder the study of reason until the Renaissance.

R. Gocklenius

Rudolf Gocklenius is an important link in psychology, despite the fact that he was a doctor of physical, mathematical and medical sciences. The scientist lived in the 16th and 17th centuries and during his long life he created many important works. Like Otto Kasmann, Goklenius began to use the word “psychology” in everyday life.

An interesting fact, but Goklenius was Kasman’s personal teacher. After receiving his doctorate, Rudolf began to study philosophy and psychology in detail. That is why today we are familiar with the name of Goclenius, because he was a representative of neo-scholasticism, which combined both religion and philosophical teachings. Well, since the scientist lived and worked in Europe, he spoke on behalf of the Catholic Church, which created a new direction of scholasticism - neo-scholasticism.

Psychology in the Renaissance

The development of psychology as a science was greatly influenced by the progressive ideas of humanism that appeared during the Renaissance. His followers rejected belief in divinity as the source of human consciousness, arguing that humans were self-aware and self-determining. This concept stimulated scientific interest in anatomical and psychological research: inventor Leonardo da Vinci and others began conducting experiments to understand how people reason.

During the Renaissance there were many scientists who contributed to the development of modern psychological science, but the key figures were:

Rene Descartes

The French mathematician and philosopher Descartes believed that the body and mind are two separate entities that mutually influence each other. This concept is called "Cartesian dualism". Descartes considered the body to be a physical structure, like a machine, that can be studied and measured, while the mind is an entity that does not belong to the material world, but is the source of ideas and thoughts.

The philosopher was both a nativist and a rationalist: he believed that some human knowledge is innate, and that truth can be known through experience and the activity of the mind. He owns the saying: “I think, therefore I exist.”

Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes can be called the first social psychologist because he believed that understanding the psychology of people is necessary for effective government. Hobbes concluded that self-interest determines human behavior, for example, the desire for pleasure stimulates movement towards a desired object, and the fear of pain or disgust leads to avoidance of the object. Hobbes's doctrine is now known as psychological hedonism.

John Locke

Unlike Descartes, the philosopher Locke was of the opinion that the mind is a blank slate, devoid of any ideas, and all knowledge is a consequence of experience. He distinguished only two of its sources: sensation and reflection. By sensing, a person turns his senses to the world and passively receives information in the form of images, sounds, smells and touches. This leads to the birth of ideas such as “yellow”, “sour” or “soft”. In the second case, while thinking, a person turns his mind to himself and again passively receives such ideas as “thought”, “faith”, “doubt”, “will”.

George Berkeley

In part, the views of the British philosopher Berkeley coincided with Locke's idea that knowledge is the result of sensory experience. However, as Berkeley developed his theory, he came to a breathtaking conclusion: there is no world of physical objects, only a world of ideas. Those. the idea that material objects exist, and that by interacting with them, a person experiences certain sensations, is just an act of faith, a game of the mind.

David Hume

Being an ardent empiricist, the Scottish philosopher Hume believed that all knowledge comes from sensory experience, therefore the idea of innate knowledge, as well as metaphysical concepts, are just sophisms. He questioned scientific, religious, and moral theses because they all relied on assumptions beyond experience and were therefore likely to be erroneous. Hume's skepticism led him to the conclusion that since the self cannot be observed, it is a kind of psychological chimera.

Well, we say “thank you” to the Renaissance, which became an important milestone in the history of the formation of psychology, and move on to the next stage.

Techniques used by science

All stages of the development of psychology as a science are associated with great minds, thinkers and philosophers, who developed an absolutely unique field that studies the behavior, character and skills of people. History confirms that the founders of the doctrine were Hippocrates, Plato and Aristotle - authors and researchers of antiquity. It was they who suggested (of course, at different periods of time) that there are several types of temperament that are reflected in behavior and goals.

Psychology, before becoming a full-fledged science, has come a long way and affected almost every famous philosopher, doctor and biologist. One of these representatives is Thomas Aquinas and Avicenna. Later, at the end of the 16th century, Rene Descartes participated in the development of psychology. In his opinion, the soul is a substance within a substance. It was Descartes who first introduced the word “dualism” into use, which means the presence of spiritual energy inside the physical body, which cooperate very closely with each other. Reason, as the philosopher established, is the manifestation of our soul. Despite the fact that many of the scientist’s theories were ridiculed and refuted several centuries later, he became the main founder of psychology as a science.

Immediately after the works of Rene Descartes, new treatises and teachings began to appear, written by Otto Kasman, Rudolf Gocklenius, Sergei Rubinshein, and William James. They went further and began to promulgate new theories. For example, W. James at the end of the 19th century proved the existence of a stream of consciousness through clinical research. The main task of the philosopher and psychologist was to discover not only the soul, but also its structure. James proposed that we are a dual being, inhabited by both subject and object. Let's look at the contributions of other equally significant scientists, such as Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt and Carl Gustav Jung, etc.

Psychology as an independent discipline

The German physician Wilhelm Wundt is considered to be the father of psychology. He wrote the first textbook in the discipline, entitled Fundamentals of Physiological Psychology, which outlined the key connections between physiology, thinking and behavior, and in 1879 he founded the world's first experimental psychology laboratory.

Wundt's main research method was introspection, or self-observation, in which subjects focused on their own mental processes and reported these experiences to scientists. This approach is still used in neuroscience, although many experts criticize introspection for its lack of objectivity.

Thousands of students attended Wundt's lectures, hundreds received degrees in psychology, and Wundt's student Edward Titchener became the founder of structuralism.

O. Kasman

Otto Kasmann played a significant role in psychology, despite the fact that for a long period he was the main pastor and theologian in the German city of Stade. It was this public religious figure who called all psychic phenomena scientific objects. There is practically no information about this founder, since quite a lot of events happened over four centuries. However, Otto Kasmann left us valuable works called Psychologia anthropologica and Angelographia.

The theologian and activist made adjustments to the term “anthropology” and explained that the biological nature of man is directly related to the abstract world. Despite the fact that Kasman made an invaluable contribution to psychology, the pastor himself carefully studied anthropology and tried to draw a parallel between this teaching and philosophy.

Structuralism

Structuralists believed that the best way to understand how the mind functions was to break it down into its basic elements and examine each of them. Titchener concluded that there are three groups of mental components that form conscious experience:

Feel.
Images.
Attachments (feelings, emotions).

He used introspection (self-analysis) as the only method for studying these elements, believing that those processes that cannot be studied using this technique do not belong to the field of psychology. As a result, the structuralists' over-reliance on dubious and rigorous methodology led them to a fruitless dead end. Essentially, structuralism died with Titchener, and was replaced by an alternative approach known as functionalism.

S. Rubinstein

Sergei Leonidovich Rubinstein is one of the founders of a new school in psychology. He worked at the beginning of the 20th century at Moscow State University, was a teacher and at the same time conducted research. Sergei Leonidovich Rubinstein's main contribution was made to educational psychology, logic and history. He studied in detail personality types, their temperament and emotions. It was Rubinstein who created the well-known principle of determinism, which meant that all human actions and actions are directly related to the external (surrounding) world. Thanks to his research, he was awarded numerous medals, orders and prizes.

Sergei Leonidovich described his theories in detail in books, which were subsequently put into circulation. These include “The Principle of Creative Amateur Performance” and “Problems of Psychology in the Works of Karl Marx.” In his second work, Rubinstein considered society as a single whole that follows a single path. To do this, the scientist had to conduct a deep analysis of the Soviet people and compare them with foreign psychology.

Sergei Leonidovich also became the founder of the study of personalities, but, unfortunately, he was unable to complete the work. However, his contribution significantly advanced the development of Russian psychology and strengthened its status as a science.

Functionalism

Unlike structuralists, who sought to discover the components of consciousness and understand how they are organized, functionalists were more interested in how the mind works, what mental processes take place in it, and what role consciousness plays in human behavior.

One of the main representatives of functionalism was the outstanding psychologist and philosopher William James. He promoted the idea that reason and self-awareness served some practical purpose. Those. Functionalists viewed thinking and behavior in terms of how they help a person adapt to the environment, function successfully in the world, and achieve success. This approach to psychology was formed under the influence of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

Because the functionalist James had difficulty reconciling the objective nature of psychology with its focus on consciousness, which is not directly observable, over time he moved away from the scientific-experimental approach and delved into philosophical speculation. His works were written in an accessible, non-trivial, sometimes humorous and even colloquial language, for which Wundt criticized them. “This is literature. It’s beautiful, but it’s not psychology,” he said about James’s book “Principles of Psychology” [Fancher RE, Rutherford A. Pioneers of Psychology: A History., 2017].

Eventually, functionalism lost its dominance and was replaced by other psychological theories.

Who is a psychologist today?

Today, a psychologist, unlike a philosopher, must obtain at least a bachelor's degree from a university in order to practice and research. He is a representative of his science and is called upon not only to provide psychological assistance, but also to contribute to the development of his activities. What does a professional psychologist do:

Reveals archetypes and establishes the character and temperament of the individual.
Analyzes the behavior of his patient, identifies the root cause and eradicates it if necessary. This allows you to change your lifestyle, get rid of negative thoughts and help you find motivation and purpose.
Helps to get out of a depressed state, get rid of apathy, discover the meaning of life and start looking for it.
Struggling with psychological trauma that occurred either in childhood or throughout life.
Analyzes the patient's behavior in society and also finds the root cause. As a rule, in many cases, the family situation, relationships with peers, relatives and just strangers play an important role.

A psychologist should not be confused with a psychiatrist. The second is a scientist who has received a medical degree and has the right to engage in diagnosis and treatment. It identifies, analyzes and examines mental disorders from the most minor and subtle to the most aggressive. The psychiatrist's task is to determine whether a person is sick or not. If a deviation is detected, the doctor develops a unique technique that can help the patient, relieve his symptoms or completely cure him. Despite widespread controversy, it has been concluded that a psychiatrist is not a medical specialist, although he works directly with patients and various medications.

Psychology is relevant and important in the life of each of us. This science is a vivid example of human evolution, when, asking ourselves countless questions, we developed and each time stepped to a new stage. She studies the type of people, the phenomena when in different situations they unite in groups, disperse and lead a lonely lifestyle, show aggression, or, conversely, experience emotional overexcitation and happiness. Motivation, goals, depression and apathy, values and experiences - this is only a small part that is studied by such a unique science as psychology.

The emergence of psychoanalysis

As you may have noticed, early psychology was focused on the study of the conscious mind. But in the late 19th century, the Austrian physician Sigmund Freud theorized about the importance of the unconscious, thereby undermining faith in the rational nature of the mind.

According to Freud, behavior is largely determined by past experiences (including early childhood memories) and internal impulses that a person is not even aware of. The unconscious is formed through repression, a process in which anxious experiences and repressed feelings move from the conscious mind into a reservoir, becoming part of the unconscious. To explore its contents, the father of psychoanalysis relied on hypnosis and dreams in an attempt to decipher the hidden meanings within them.

Although Freud's theory caused an avalanche of criticism in its time and is still perceived with skepticism, its influence on psychology is undeniable. We don’t know whether Freud was right, but we are sure that understanding the basics of psychology is simply necessary. What motivates us? Why do we act this way and not otherwise? How to understand the motives of other people's behavior? Our free online course “Human Psychology” will help clarify the situation. Read and be amazed at how beautiful this science is and how deep the human psyche is.

Briefly about the history of Russian psychology

In our country, psychology as an independent discipline began to develop in the 19th century. Among the many talented scientists, we will highlight only a few key figures:

Lev Semenovich Vygotsky

Vygotsky believed that the formation of habits and behavior occurs as a result of sociocultural interaction. He assigned an important role in the process of human learning to play, believing that it helps the child learn cultural norms and social skills, as well as control his own behavior.

Vygotsky's most famous theory in the field of psychology is the zone of proximal development. It illustrates the child's learning process and suggests that children learn to solve more complex problems with the help of knowledgeable adults, mastering new things under their guidance.

Alexander Romanovich Luria

Luria argued that mental processes and conscious activity of a person occur thanks to the work of three units of the brain:

wake-up control unit;
block for receiving, analyzing and storing information;
programming, regulation and activity testing unit.

Interesting fact: if you analyze the work of the Soviet scientist, you can find similarities between his theory and the popular (later) hypothesis of the triune brain of neurophysiologist Paul MacLean.

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov

In 1904, Pavlov received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He conducted experiments on dogs and is famous for the discovery of classical conditioning. The scientist discovered that a conditioned stimulus (bell), which was associated in dogs with the type of food, can itself cause a conditioned reflex (salivation).

Pavlov was not a psychologist, but he suggested that conditioning could cause certain behaviors not only in dogs, but also in humans. He turned out to be right. His discovery had a significant impact on the development of the psychological school of behaviorism.

Behaviorism

At the beginning of the 20th century, scientists' approach to psychology changed dramatically. They abandoned the emphasis on the conscious and unconscious, directing their attention to the study of behavior. This is how behaviorism appeared. The goal of its proponents was to study only completely objective and observable processes: no introspection and no discussion of mental concepts.

One of the most ardent proponents of behaviorism was the American psychologist John Watson, who, adhering to a purely scientific approach, sought to study behavior without making any assumptions beyond the scope of experience available to the senses.

Watson was of the opinion that the context and environment in which a person finds himself completely determines his behavior. This idea was later developed by Berres psychologist Frederick Skinner. He introduced the concept of operant conditioning and demonstrated in rats how punishment and reinforcement affect behavior.

K. Jung

Carl Gustav Jung is perhaps one of the most popular and ambitious scientists who devoted his life to psychology and psychiatry. Moreover, the figure not only tried to understand psychological phenomena, he also opened a new direction - analytical psychology.

Jung carefully worked out the archetypes or structures (patterns of behavior) that come into being with a person. The scientist carefully studied each character and temperament, connected them with one link and supplemented them with new information by observing his patients. Jung also proved that several people, being in a single team, can unconsciously perform similar actions. And it was thanks to these works that the scientist began to analyze the individuality of each person, to study whether it exists at all.

It was this figure who suggested that all archetypes are innate, but their main feature is that they develop over hundreds of years and are passed on from generation to generation. Subsequently, all types directly influence our choices, actions, feelings and emotions.

Humanistic psychology

Behaviorism and psychoanalysis remained dominant until the second half of the 20th century, when a new school of thought emerged known as humanistic psychology. And it was born thanks to the American psychologist Carl Rogers, who firmly believed in the power of free will and self-determination. Humanists, led by Rogers , argued that:

A person’s behavior is primarily influenced by his perception of the world around him;
free will and conscious choice exist;
the need to realize one’s potential (self-actualization) is natural for every person;
Every experience is unique, so psychologists must take an individual approach to each client.

American psychologist Abraham Maslow made an important contribution to the development of humanistic psychology. He believed that Freud's psychoanalytic theory and Skinner's behaviorist theory were too focused on the pathological aspects of behavior. Therefore, Maslow delved into the study of what brings people happiness: motivation, satisfaction of needs and leads to self-realization.

The result of his research was a theory called the “Hierarchy of Needs,” which proposed that human behavior is determined by five categories of needs. Once basic needs are satisfied, motivation to achieve higher-level needs appears.

Behavioral psychology maintained its monopoly until the cognitive revolution occurred in the late 1950s.

Q: What kind of testing can be done for false memories?

Read Elizabeth Loftus, it's very cool.
For everyone: a false memory is an event that you think happened to you, you are sure that you remember it, but in fact it did not happen. Elizabeth Loftus is a psychologist, memory researcher, and the person who has contributed most to the development of the study of false memories; It is very interesting to read about her, even if you are not interested in psychology.

The story with false memories goes like this: when you find yourself, for example, witnessing an accident, the way you are asked a question will influence what answer you give and in what way. If you ask different people how fast the car was SPEAKING and how fast the car was DRIVING before the accident, then, statistically, those people who were asked with the word “rushed” will give higher estimates of speed than the second group. Elizabeth Loftus worked a lot (and works, it seems to me) with the system of prisoners and people in pretrial detention, and this influenced the change in interrogation protocols in the United States.

Cognitive psychology

The main ideas of the cognitive revolution were that the human mind works like a computer and can be studied as a self-sufficient logical system, regardless of social, cultural, situational factors, and without reference to its physical basis.

The birth date of cognitive psychology is considered to be September 11, 1956. On that day, prominent scientists George Miller, Noam Chomsky, Allen Newell and Herbert Simon gave presentations at a symposium on information theory held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge).

Linguistics professor Noam Chomsky argued that the mental structure of language is based on universal, innate principles that are transmitted genetically, and the ability to learn it cannot be explained by reinforcement alone, thereby criticizing Skinner's behavioral theory.

American psychologist George Miller also studied language; his book “Language and Communication” became the starting point in the emergence of psycholinguistics. In addition, Miller studied human memory abilities, putting forward the theory that most people can remember no more than 7 ± 2 pieces of information using their short-term memory. Miller also found that information is remembered better when it is broken down into chunks.

In 1956, cognitive psychologist Allen Newell, together with political scientist, economist and sociologist Herbert Simon, developed the first working computer program that simulated human ability to solve complex problems. She could prove theorems just like a talented mathematician.

Since then, cognitive psychology has developed rapidly. Thanks to brain imaging tools such as functional magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography, researchers are now able to study its inner workings. And with the help of genetics, modern psychologists seek to understand how physiology and heredity influence a person’s psychological state.

Modern cognitive psychology studies mental processes related to memory, intelligence, language, attention, perception, imagination, problem solving, and learning ability. By the way, you can read more about the history of the development of educational psychology in our article. And if you want to understand the peculiarities of your thinking, learn to solve complex life problems without fuss and stress, improve your analytical skills, memory and logic, we invite you to the online program “Cognitive Science”.

In ancient times, psychology was a kind of mixture of magic and religion. Early, seemingly absurd, attempts to understand the structure of the human soul and the motives of human behavior eventually grew into a scientific discipline. The history of psychology does not end here; it continues to evolve, helping people answer the most important question: “Who am I?”

Friends, we wish you to be at peace with yourself and, if necessary, not to neglect the help of such a magnificent science as psychology. Good luck!

By the way:

We also recommend reading:

Storytelling
Materialism and idealism in philosophy
Where to start studying psychology
“Have you seen it” or Where does the deja vu effect come from?
Empiricism in modern philosophy in simple words
Psycholinguistics as a tool for in-depth study of speech and language
The problem of demarcation of scientific knowledge
Wundt's method of studying psychology
Cognitive psychology and cognitive psychotherapy
Agnosticism as freedom of knowledge
7 Great Philosophy Books

Key words: 1LLL, 1Cognitive science

Why do some people think that psychology is not a science?

We have seen that psychology uses the same methods and that it has the same validity and reliability as other sciences. But why do so many people doubt whether it is science or not? Next we will look at three main reasons why this happens.

First of all, the concept of science still confuses many people. Most of the population is very poorly defined.

This, along with people's ignorance of the instruments used to measure behavior and mental processes, leads people to classify psychology as subjective and unscientific.

The second reason is the pseudoscientific methods that stem from psychology.

Unfortunately, many people use the term "psychology" to refer to practices that do not use the scientific method. Consequently, a large portion of the population mistakenly associates pseudoscience with psychology. However, in reality they have nothing to do with each other.

Finally, psychology studies people.

In physics, chemistry or other sciences, the results hardly “engage” people, and they are accepted without any resistance. However, studying people is different. When results conflict with our intuitive beliefs, we quickly try to resolve the conflict. It is easier to ignore the evidence presented than to restructure our thinking about it.

Important!
If someone asks you if psychology is a science, the answer is YES. This is a very important discipline that allows us to understand ourselves both individually and as a group.

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