Foundations of Psychology

Over the course of history, people have been awed by the power and complexity of the human behavior, but it wasn’t until the 19th century that psychology became a real science. At first, it was hard to determine how psychology would interpret human behavior and the wonders of the mind. Originally it was thought to be a part of philosophy. However, after years of research, some psychologists decided they did not want to be part of philosophical world and commit themselves to full scientific psychological studies. The fact that psychology was born from the womb of philosophy is of no small consequence. Philosophical arguments have set the agenda for many issues confronting psychologists, and in our lifetimes, psychological research may shed light on questions that have seemed unanswerable for 2500 years. But because psychology had such a wide range of study material, different theories were brought up to help us understand more. These became known as the schools of Thought. They include structuralism, Psychoanalysis, functionalism, behaviorism, humanism, and cognitive.

Functionalism might have the most influence of any of the six theories. Psychological functionalism trys to describe the thought process without actually asking how it’s done. For example, if a person needs to understand a computer, they need to first figure out the software. It’s what’s inside the software, not the hardware. Psychoanalysis first surfaced with Sigmund Freud. He explained that we can look deeper by seeing into our subconscious. He further explained that the root of our human behavior to seek pleasure such sexual pleasure and other things that would pleasure us. Freud also believed that a developmental stage that children go through is pleasure finding. Starting with feeding from a mother’s breast. B. F. Skinner did experiments in the 1950’s with animals. He used Pigeons and rats to show that they repeated certain, tricks or behaviors if they were rewarded with treats. Many