1879 Wilhelm Wundt founds a laboratory in Leipzig, Germany, dedicated to psychological research,

marking the start of formal experimental psychology

mid-1880s Wundt trains Hugo Münsterberg and James McKeen Cattell, who sow the seeds of I/O (industrial/organizational) psychology (pp.176–187)

1890–1920 Methods of teaching in schools are changed with the advent of educational psychology (pp.166–175)

1896 Clinical psychology begins with the first psychological clinic at the University of Pennsylvania

1909 onward

Developmental psychology (pp.146–153) emerges prompted by Freud’s emphasis on the importance of childhood experiences

1900 Sigmund Freud introduces his theory of psychoanalysis in

The Interpretation of Dreams (pp.14–15)

PSYCHOANALYTICAL

What is it?

Founded by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud in the early 20th century, psychoanalytical theory proposed that personality and behavior are the outcome of continual conflicts in the mind. The individual is not usually aware

of the discord because it takes place at a subconscious level. Freud suggested conflict occurs between three parts of the mind: the id, superego, and ego (below, right).

Freud believed that personality develops from birth in five stages, which he called psychosexual

because they involve both sexuality and mental processes. At each stage a person’s mind focuses on

a different aspect of sexuality, such as oral pleasure when they suck their thumb as a baby. Freud believed that the psychosexual stages trigger a battle between

Topographical model

Freud divided the mind into three levels of consciousness. The conscious mind forms only a small part of the whole. Although it is completely unaware of the thoughts in the unconscious mind, the latter still affect behavior.

Dreams

Dreams are seen as a channel for unconscious thoughts that people cannot usually access because many of them are too disturbing for the conscious mind to cope with.

Psychoanalysis

In this therapy (p.119), the client tells the analyst about their childhood memories and dreams in order to unlock the unconscious mind and reveal how it is controlling or triggering undesirable behavior.

Conscious mind

This contains the ideas and emotions that people are aware of.

Preconscious mind

This stores information such as childhood memories, which can be accessed through psychoanalysis.

Unconscious mind

This hides most of a person’s impulses,

desires, and thoughts.

biology and social expectations, and the mind must resolve this conflict before a person can move on to healthy mental development.

Evaluation

Although Freud’s model has been hugely influential in highlighting the role of the subconscious (psychoanalysis, p.119), it has proved controversial because it focuses on sexuality as the driver of personality. Many critics view his model as too subjective and too simplistic to explain the complex nature of the mind and behavior.

DEFENSE MECHANISM

Structural model

The conscious mind is just the tip of the iceberg, a small part of a hidden whole. Psychoanalytical theory is based on the concept that the unconscious mind is structured in three parts—the id, ego, and superego—which

“talk” to one another to try to resolve conflicting emotions and impulses.

NEED TO KNOW

Inferiority complex When self-esteem is so low that a person cannot function normally. The idea was developed by neo-Freudian Alfred Adler.

Pleasure principle What drives the id—the desire to obtain pleasure and avoid pain.

Neo-Freudians Theorists who built on Freud’s psychoanalytic theories, such as Carl Jung, Erik Erikson, and Alfred Adler.

What is it?

The starting point for behavioral psychology is a focus on only observable human behavior, leaving out thought and emotion. This approach rests on three main assumptions. First, people learn their behavior from the world around them, and not from innate or inherited factors. Second, because psychology is a science, measurable data from controlled experiments and observation should support its theories. Third, all behavior is the result of a

stimulus that triggers a particular response. Once the behavioral psychologist has identified a person’s stimulus-response association, they can predict it,

a method known as classical conditioning (below). In therapy (pp.122–129), the therapist uses this prediction to help the client change their behavior.

Evaluation

The strength of the behaviorist approach—that it can be scientifically proven, unlike Freud’s

psychoanalytic approach (pp.14–15), for example—has also been seen as its weakness. Many of the behavioral experiments were carried out on rats and dogs, and humanists (pp.18–19) in particular rejected the assumption that people in the world acted in the same way as animals in laboratory conditions.

Behavioral psychology also takes little account of free will or biological factors such as

testosterone and other hormones, reducing human experience to a set of conditioned behaviors.

Themes of behaviorism

John Watson developed behavioral psychology in 1913. His theory agreed with the early 20th-century trend toward data-backed science rather than concentrating on the subjective workings of the mind, and the behaviorist approach was influential for decades. Later psychologists interpreted behavioral theory along more flexible lines, but objective evidence remains a cornerstone of research.

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

Pavlov noted that his dogs salivated at the sight of food and started ringing a bell at the same time as feeding them. Soon, the dogs salivated merely at the sound of the bell, which they now associated with food.

METHODOLOGICAL BEHAVIORISM

Watson’s theory became known as methodological behaviorism because of its focus on scientific methods:

He viewed psychology as a science, its goals being the prediction and control of behavior.

It is the most extreme theory of behaviorism because it rules out any influence from a person’s DNA or internal mental state.

Positive reinforcement Giving a reward encourages good behavior. For example, the dog receives a treat for sitting on command. It quickly learns that repeating that behavior will earn it another treat.

Negative reinforcement The owner removes something bad to encourage good behavior. The lead goes slack when the dog walks close to its owner. The dog learns to walk to heel without pulling and so avoid the choking sensation.

Positive punishment The owner does something unpleasant to discourage bad behavior. When the dog pulls ahead on the lead, its collar feels uncomfortably tight around its throat.

Negative punishment Taking away something that the dog enjoys is used to discourage undesired behaviors. For example, the owner turns their back on the dog to deprive it of attention if it jumps up. The dog learns not to jump up.

Conceived by Arthur W. Staats, psychological behaviorism gained dominance over four decades.

It informs current practice in psychology, especially in education:

A person’s personality is shaped by learned behaviors, genetics, their emotional state, how their brain processes information, and the world around them.

Staats researched the importance of parenting in child development.

He showed that early linguistic and cognitive training resulted in advanced language development and higher performance in intelligence tests when children were older.

What is it?

Whereas behavioral psychology is concerned with observing external actions and psychoanalysis delves into the subconscious, humanism is holistic, focusing on how a person perceives their own behavior and interprets events. It centers on a person’s subjective view of themselves and who they would like to be, rather than the objective view of an observer.

Pioneered by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow in the 1950s, humanism offers an alternative way of trying to fathom human nature. It assumes that personal growth and fulfillment are primary goals in life, and that emotional and mental

GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY

Influenced by humanism, gestalt psychology examines in detail how the mind takes small pieces of information and builds them into a meaningful whole. It emphasizes the importance of perception—the laws that govern how each person perceives the world.

Part of gestalt assessment involves showing clients a series of images to discover how their eye perceives each one. The Rubin Vase illusion is the best known

of these, and illustrates the law of “figure” and “ground”: a person’s mind always works to distinguish a figure (words, for example) from its background (a white page), and in doing so, makes a decision about priority and what to focus on.