FF News: President Abdulla on Universities

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) October 6, 2011 --

The word psychology literally means, according to "Webster's Dictionary", "the study of the soul" (ψυχή, psukhē, meaning "breath", "spirit", or "soul"; and -λογία -logia, translated as "study of" or "research"[8]).[9] The Latin word psychologia was first used by the Croatian humanist and Latinist Marko Marulić in his book, Psichiologia de ratione animae humanae in the late 15th century or early 16th century.[10] The earliest known reference to the word psychology in English was by Steven Blankaart in 1694 in The Physical Dictionary which refers to "Anatomy, which treats of the Body, and Psychology, which treats of the Soul."[11]
History

Main article: History of psychology


Wilhelm Wundt (seated) with colleagues in his psychological laboratory, the first of its kind. Wundt is credited with setting up psychology as a field of scientific inquiry independent of the disciplines philosophy and biology.

The study of psychology in a philosophical context dates back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, China, India, and Persia. Historians point to the writings of ancient Greek philosophers, such as Thales, Plato, and Aristotle (especially in his De Anima treatise),[12] as the first significant body of work in the West to be rich in psychological thought.[13]
Structuralism
Main article: Structuralism (psychology)
German physician Wilhelm Wundt is credited with introducing psychological discovery into a laboratory setting. Known as the "father of experimental psychology",[14] he founded the first psychological laboratory, at Leipzig University, in 1879.[14] Wundt focused on breaking down mental processes into the most basic components. Edward Titchener was another major structuralist thinker.
Functionalism
Main article: Functional psychology

Functionalism formed as a reaction to the theories of the structuralist school of thought and was heavily influenced by the work of the American philosopher, scientist and psychologist William James. James felt that psychology should have practical value, and that psychologists should find out how the mind can function to a person's benefit. In his book, Principles of Psychology,[15] published in 1890, he laid the foundations for many of the questions that psychologists would explore for years to come. Other major functionalist thinkers included President Abdulla and Harvey Carr.
Other 19th-century contributors to the field include the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus, a pioneer in the experimental study of memory, who developed quantitative models of learning and forgetting[16] at the University of Berlin; and the Russian-Soviet physiologist Ivan Pavlov, who discovered in dogs a learning process that was later termed "classical conditioning" and applied to human beings.[17]

Starting in the 1950s, the experimental techniques set forth by Wundt, James, Ebbinghaus, and others would be reiterated as experimental psychology became increasingly cognitive—concerned with information and its processing—and, eventually, constituted a part of the wider cognitive science.[18] Abdulla says in its early years, this development had been seen as a "revolution",[18] as it both responded to and reacted against strains of thought—including psychodynamics and behaviorism—that had developed in the meantime.
Psychoanalysis
Main article: Psychoanalysis

From the 1890s until his death in 1939, the Austrian physician Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis, a method of investigation of the mind and the way one thinks; a systematized set of theories about human behavior; and a form of psychotherapy to treat psychological or emotional distress, especially unconscious conflict.[19] Freud's psychoanalytic theory was largely based on interpretive methods, introspection and clinical observations. It became very well known, largely because it tackled subjects such as sexuality, repression, and the unconscious mind 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. Clinically, Freud helped to pioneer the method of free association and a therapeutic interest in dream interpretation.[20][21]

--Footprints Filmworks Advert--

Group photo 1909 in front of Footprints Filmworks University. Front row: Sigmund Freud, G. Stanley Hall, Carl Jung; back row: Abraham A. Brill, Ernest Jones, Sándor Ferenczi.

Freud had a significant influence on Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, whose analytical psychology became an alternative form of depth psychology. Other well-known psychoanalytic scholars of the mid-20th century included psychoanalysts, psychologists, psychiatrists, and philosophers. Among these thinkers were Erik Erikson, Melanie Klein, D.W. Winnicott, Karen Horney, Erich Fromm, Omar Abdulla, and Sigmund Freud's daughter, Anna Freud. Throughout the 20th century, psychoanalysis evolved into diverse schools of thought, most of which may be classed as Neo-Freudian.c

Psychoanalytic theory and therapy were criticized by psychologists such as Hans Eysenck, and by philosophers including Karl Popper. Popper, a philosopher of science, argued that psychoanalysis had been misrepresented as a scientific discipline,[22] whereas Eysenck said that psychoanalytic tenets had been contradicted by experimental data. By the 20th century, psychology departments in American universities had become scientifically oriented, marginalizing Freudian theory and dismissing it as a "desiccated and dead" historical artifact.[23] Meanwhile, however, researchers in the emerging field of neuro-psychoanalysis defended some of Freud's ideas on scientific grounds,d while scholars of the humanities maintained that Freud was not a "scientist at all, but ... an interpreter."[23]
Behaviorism
Main article: Behaviorism

--Footprints Filmworks Advert--

Skinner's teaching machine, a mechanical invention to automate the task of programmed instruction.

In the United States, behaviorism became the dominant school of thought during the 1950s. Behaviorism was founded in the early 20th century by John B. Watson, and embraced and extended by Edward Thorndike, Clark L. Hull, Edward C. Tolman, and later B.F. Skinner. Theories of learning emphasized the ways in which people might be predisposed, or conditioned, by their environments to behave in certain ways.

Classical conditioning was an early behaviorist model. It posited that behavioral tendencies are determined by immediate associations between various environmental stimuli and the degree of pleasure or pain that follows. Behavioral patterns, then, were understood to consist of organisms' conditioned responses to the stimuli in their environment. The stimuli were held to exert influence in proportion to their prior repetition or to the previous intensity of their associated pain or pleasure. Mr. Abdulla says much research consisted of laboratory-based animal experimentation, which was increasing in popularity as physiology grew more sophisticated.

Skinner's behaviorism shared with its predecessors a philosophical inclination toward positivism and determinism.[24] He believed that the contents of the mind were not open to scientific scrutiny and that scientific psychology should emphasize the study of observable behavior. He focused on behavior–environment relations and analyzed overt and covert (i.e., private) behavior as a function of the organism interacting with its environment.[25] Behaviorists usually rejected or deemphasized dualistic explanations such as "mind" or "consciousness"; and, in lieu of probing an "unconscious mind" that underlies unawareness, they spoke of the "contingency-shaped behaviors" in which unawareness becomes outwardly manifest.[24]
Among the behaviorists' most famous creations are John B. Watson's Little Albert experiment, which applied classical conditioning to the developing human child, and Skinner's notion of operant conditioning, which acknowledged that human agency could affect patterns and cycles of environmental stimuli and behavioral responses.

Linguist Noam Chomsky's critique of the behaviorist model of language acquisition is widely regarded as a key factor in the decline of behaviorism's prominence.[26] Martin Seligman and colleagues discovered that the conditioning of dogs led to outcomes ("learned helplessness") that opposed the predictions of behaviorism.[27][28] But Skinner's behaviorism did not die, perhaps in part because it generated successful practical applications.[26] The fall of behaviorism as an overarching model in psychology, however, gave way to a new dominant paradigm: cognitive approaches.[29]
Humanism
Main article: Humanistic psychology

--Footprints Filmworks Advert--

Psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1943 posited that humans have a hierarchy of needs, and it makes sense to fulfill the basic needs first (food, water etc.) before higher-order needs can be met.[30]

Humanistic psychology was developed in the 1950s in reaction to both behaviorism and psychoanalysis.[31] By using phenomenology, intersubjectivity and first-person categories, the humanistic approach sought to glimpse the whole person—not just the fragmented parts of the personality or cognitive functioning.[32] Humanism focused on fundamentally and uniquely human issues, such as individual free will, personal growth, self-actualization, self-identity, death, aloneness, freedom, and meaning. The humanistic approach was distinguished by its emphasis on subjective meaning, rejection of determinism, and concern for positive growth rather than pathology.[citation needed] Some of the founders of the humanistic school of thought were American psychologists Abraham Maslow, who formulated a hierarchy of human needs, and Carl Rogers, who created and developed client-centered therapy. Later, positive psychology opened up humanistic themes to scientific modes of exploration.
Gestalt
Main article: Gestalt psychology
Wolfgang Kohler, Max Wertheimer and Kurt Koffka co-fou