Species problem

Book

°         referred to as the “mystery of mysteries” is the problem of the origin of the species addressed by enlightenment thinkers faced with increasing uncertainty over biblical accounts (origin of the Earth’s animals, plants; story of the Ark…)

Argument from Design

Book

Why is evolution important to psycholgoy?

Book

Ÿ  Idea that we’re not the center

Ÿ  making us one of the animals – compared us with the natural world

special creation

Book

Ÿ  animals don’t change through time and look like they’ve always lookedliving forms as being fixed

Naturalists

Book

Barren Couvier

Book

Frenchman who was considered the founder of paleontology

-          Dug up fossilized remains, joined by many English naturalists

-          These findings especially raised questions about special creation

what was Erasmus Darwin  primary job

Book

Ÿ  physician

Transmutation of Species

Book

all life on earth (plants and animals) is derived from a single living form;

Ÿ  \rejected the biblical account of creation and proposed that all organic life evolved from a single living filament

Erasmus Darwin

Zoonomia,

Book

Erasmus Darwin a rambling account of the medical knowledge of his era, spiced with his speculations on the origins and evolution of life

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Book

He was a famous statesman, lawyer, author, poet, very influential German intellectual who was also a naturalist

came up with his own theory of evolution

-         

Theory of Metamorphosis of Parts,

Book

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's theory of evoluation

°         Originally proposed that it occurred in plants, but later believed that it could be occurring in animals also

Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet de Lamarck

Book

Differences b/w Lamarck and Dawin

Book

-          Believed that all the species on earth could be arranged on a linear scale with reference to their complexity, an idea sometimes referred to as the chain of being

-          Furthermore, each species is constantly evolving in to a species that is more complex, and new life at the bottom of the scale is continually being created from inorganic life

Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics

Book

Ÿ  He published an article in 1865, which was after the publication of the Origin of the Species (Darwin’s book)

-          In his article, he invented the word gene

°         Talked about dominant and recessive genes, mutation of genes, combination of parental genes…

Gregor Johan Mendel 's Book

Book

The family C. Darwin married into which was his 1st cousin

Where did C. Dawin graduate from?

and what did he get a degree in?

Cambridge University

clergy

Who were C.Dawin's model and mentor?

 2 people

Ÿ  Reverend John Henslow (1796-1871), a professor of botany at Cambridge

Ÿ  Adam Sedgewick (1785-1873), a noted geologist

Ÿ  Robert Fitzroy (1805-1865)

Principles of Geology by Sir Charles Lyell

Sir Charles Lyell

-          Lyell said that the earth is probably millions of years old, which was a big change from common belief

-          the belief that geological change occurred more slowly and involved forces that are constantly at work such as volcanic action, earthquakes, erosion, and the cumulative effects of weather; based on assumption that uniform laws of nature operated to produce gradual geologic change

This is what Lyell thought

-          Darwin read his article Principles of Population  and first started getting hints about his theory of evolution

-          Found that population growth is not linear, but exponential – that type of dichotomy means that there will necessarily be a struggle for survival

-          He sent Darwin a manuscript that he wanted help getting published that held his theory of evolution which proposed a method of evolution almost exact to Darwin’s

°         They did a joint presentation at the July 1, 1858 meeting of the Linnean Society (botanist society)

About 6 months later on November 22, 1859, Darwin published his book,

In chapter 1Dawin   showed how individual differences within a species could be accentuated through deliberate breeding – an artificial selection

In chapter 2 Darwin noted the universality of individual differences within species found in nature

°         he argued that in nature, species face an inevitable struggle to survive because they produce offspring at a rate that outpaces the food supply

overproduction

struggle for survival

Random variation

Natural selection (survival of the fittest)

Inheritance of random variation

Development of new species

°         in any living form, a species can greatly overproduce itself

°         in all living forms, only some fraction of the total number would reproduce

°         his thinking was similar to Goethe; artificial selection was something that was non-controversial; he was saying that nature was doing the same thing by determining what the next generation would be like by allowing them to survive

Ÿ  The science of genetics was yet to be born at this time, so Darwin had no idea about the phenomenon of genetic mutation – he believed that some variation was spontaneous and random, and also allowed for the Lamarckian idea that characteristic acquired during one’s lifetime could be passed on to offspring

°         species are NOT fixed, but will change through time

-          the manner in which life’s struggle for existence and natural selection combine to alter species

Ÿ  there’s a continuity of development in all of the world; maybe we’re not the only creature with mind – maybe mind is also something that’s on a continuum

Ÿ  functionalists were interested in studying human behaviors and mental processes in terms of how they served to adapt the individual to an ever-changing environment

-          we studied animals to learn about our own mental states – the systematic study of animal behavior

Ÿ  has pointed out that evolution by natural selection created for the first time a reasoned argument for a reversal of the sequence proposed by the well entrenched theological argument from design

Dennett

-          the evolutionary process that produced visually oriented humans with the ability to build a watch

Ÿ  The Descent of Man , and Selection in relation to Sex (1871) and Expressions of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872)

-          The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals

and

Ÿ  Biological Sketch of an Infant”

Dawin's theory about the origins of the various emotional expressions

3 parts

Ÿ  serviceable associated habits, antithesis, and direct action of the nervous system

-          the idea that if we’re faced with some sort of emotion-evoking circumstance that we have to deal with, we think it through, engage in some kind of act, and hope that it will be serviceable/effective

-          antithesis

Ÿ  Darwin’s Theory on Disgust

-          Something that is evoked by the same sorts of things around the world, and is expressed the same around the world

-          The term disgust in its simplest sense means something sensitive to the taste as actually perceived or vividly imagined; and secondarily to anything which causes a similar feeling, through the sense of smell, touch, and even of eyesight

-          We don’t learn disgust; it’s innate

°         Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911)

Ÿ  A member of the aristocracy (rich); a first cousin of Charles Darwin, and grandchild of Erasmus; intellectually very active

-          He’s actually the reason Charles Darwin was buried at London’s Westminster Abbey

Ÿ  Biometrica

Ÿ  Believed that intelligence should have a co-relationship with sensory ability

Ÿ  Hereditary Genius (1869)

-          measurement of imminence

Galton's mesure of intellegence

measure how many times you were published.

-          Adolphe Jacques Quetelet (1796-1874)

°         The person who invented the term “statistics” and was the first to show us that the distribution (of the normal curve) is something that applies to human beings

Ÿ  basically advocating that social systems should not support the weak and that evolutionary survival of the fittest sort of processes should take place on a societal level

Ÿ  Karl Pearson

-          Known for the correlation coefficient  - aka Pearson’s r, which stands for the regression towards the mean

-          He was the guy who used Galton’s concept to come up with that formula to compute the correlation/regression coefficient

Galton invented correlation, but Pearson expanded on it and made a simpler way

°         Sir Cyril Burt (1883-1971)

Ÿ  During his lifetime, he helped to shape the educational system in Britain – did this based on his belief that intelligence is genetic or inherited – you either have it or you don’t

Ÿ  His basic finding, over and over, was that if you test the IQ of these twins that are reared in separate households, the correlation was pretty high – about 77%

he faked the data

°         Arthur Jensen

Ÿ  Jensen’s point was that Head Start was an expensive program that was doomed to fail because the populations that are served are not capable of learning – published an article on this in the late 60s

-          How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement

-          Known as the founder of modern ethology, the study of instinctive animal behavior

What three phenomena did Douglas Spalding

demonstrate?

-          instinct, imprinting, critical periods…

°         Spalding concluded that instinct played an important role in animal behavior and that the British empiricists had overstated the importance of sensory experience as a determiner of behavior

°         certain behaviors must develop within a limited time frame, if they are to develop at all

°         George John Romanes (1848-1894)

-          He was criticized for his overuse of uncritical stories about animal behavior supplied by other – people referred to his work as anecdotal method –

Ÿ  His book also tends toward anthropomorphism, the attribution of human faculties to nonhuman entities

°         C. Lloyd Morgan (1852-1936)

Ÿ  Animal Life and Intelligence (1890) Introduction to Comparative Psychology (1895)

°         argues that if evolutionary forces have been powerful enough to create the physical characteristics that make us human, then why not behavioral and mental characteristics as well?

Ÿ  Not the first American psychologist, but is the most influential of the early American psychologists

Ÿ  William’s brother

Ÿ  Famous for his short stories and was a very popular writer

·         William James got involved with Agassiz’ expedition in the Amazon.  He wanted to find that species are fixed.  This trip took a long time, and he hated the tedium of the stuff.  This contributed to the long time it took him to get his degree.  After this, he didn’t want to do biology.

·         he became familiar with Helmholtz and Muller’s student du Bois and their type of physiology.  He heard some talks in Berlin by Ramones.

·         Principles of Psychology

·         Granville Stanley Hall

·         James Rowland Angell

·         Edward Lee Thorndike

·         Robert Sessions Woodworth

·         William James

 brass instruments were finely made and were expensive; they are using high levels of precision, but they are doing nothing.

·         He was also critical of German psychology (Fechner, Wundt) and his basic opinion was that they are nerds (ivory tower; overly educated; divorced from normal human interaction)

Transitive states- James' primary characteristic of “stream of consciousness

stable states -  these aren’t elements of mind, but they are like things floating in a stream (pieces of content that are present).

-          Theory of Habit

William Jame

Habit is something that involves a physical change in the body – similar to what we saw before with Darwin

If we do something voluntarily by an act of mind over and over again, it will change the nervous system – the brain will be altered

After time, it becomes automatic

  His point is that habit is that way for us – different from the norm that animals were thought of as habitual and humans were not

Material Self

Spiritual Self

Social Self

 something that we have some control over; part of this is our physical body; you can have tattoos, pierce things, change the color of things, change clothes…

-          If something attacks your physical self, you defend it (whether it’s your body, your belongings, your family); things that are materially a part of you

W. James

William James

Ÿ  the core of what we see ourselves being and gives us a feeling of temporal continuity

-          It is the part of self that includes subjective experience, intellectual ability, memories, morality, and past experiences.

part of us that makes us feel like we are different people in different social contexts.  We have different self-identities.  Discusses the discomfort we have when we try to bring together friends from different associations.

W. James

This integration of aspects

He means that this is what we let others experience.

What W. James called habit formation in humans

Thought it was like self-idenity

Habit involves choice, someone that is healthy has developed good habits

°         William James theory of emotionality is shared with Carl Lange (called the James Lange Theory) where emotion is best characterized as a mental not a physical process.

Ÿ  The way people conceptualize emotion life is when we interact with the world and based upon the mental reactions we have a physical reaction.

believed humans have an intuitive understanding the real world exists (unlike Empiricists who were skeptical).  Argued the mind is independent in existence and composed of faculties (popular at same time as phrenology).

• did faulty psychology

·         will and emotions.

·         Elements of Intellectual Philosophy by Thomas Upham (1799-1872) (later called Elements of Mental Philosophy). 

•  Books 3 divisions: 1) intellect (cognition) 2) sensibilities (emotion) & 3) will (actions).

• gov’t gave states land to build a university; if didn’t build, took land back.
• Johns Hopkins prototype for new universities.

·         men have greater degree of variability of traits than women (including IQ) so there are smarter men than women.

·         Vassar

·         first African Amer. to earn PhD in psyc; studied w/ Hall

Adolescence

§  First to identify adolescence as a separate stage b/t childhood and adulthood

The Last Half of Life

Senescence.

·         an organism’s stages of dev’t, from cell to fully formed, can be seen as a recapitulation of the evolution of the species. (theory not popular after turn of 20^th century)

-          Hall and Psychoanalysis

·         Believed the natural expression of sexual behavior shouldn’t be inhibited

·         Fascinated w/ Freud’s theories (he had a preoccupation w/ sex and abnormal beh.)

·         Had Freud lecture at Clark w/ others in a lecture series (includes Carl Jung)

o   Established Journal of Genetic Psychology (originally Pedagogical Seminary) still published today

o   Also founded Journal of Religious Psychology – only one not around anymore.

single organism changes

thought of as nature

·         represent American introduction to key aspects of Freud’s theory.  Hall invited Freud to talk.  Hall wanted to make the 20^th celebration a big deal and Freud made that better.

·         Freud’s interest was in advancing his type of psychology.  He was an ambitious guy and he saw this as a way to conquer America and make it psychoanalytical.  Freud brought Jung so people would think his psychology was not a Jewish psychology.

·         Freud was given an honorary doctorate from Clark.  Only honorary PhD Freud ever got.

·         Her studies found recall was enhanced by 4 factors:

1) frequency  2) vividness  3) recency and  4) primacy.

·         She found frequency was the most critical factor

paired-associate

what is it?

·         self psychology-central fact of psyc must be that all consciousness contains and element of the self (believed in studying mental life)

group of men that thought of themselves as real experminters, would not allow women into the group until Titchner died

Met for 2-3 days every spring

                Rotating labs to present research- no formal papers allowed and published descriptions discouraged

                Had to be committed to lab but not necessarily titchenerian

                All men- in the English club fashion- smoking cigars was common

·         Vassar

Margaret Floy Washburn

know for textbook writing

taught at Yale

1. imagery types- respond faster w/sensory RT instuctions

2. motor types-respond faster w/motor RT instuctions

What three major things did Baldwin found?

1. Psychological Reivew

2. Psychological Index- replaced by psychological abstracts

3. Psycholgoical Bulletin

Experimental Psychology: A Manual of Laboratory Practice

Titchener's Goals for Psychology

Analysis of human conciousness into basic elements.structural components

                Synthesis- how elements combine into complex phenomena

Explanation- understand how nervous system produce various sensory perceptual and cognitive phenomena (did very little research on this one)

1. Rely on Memory-  Delaying introspective observation until process can run its course thus retrospection

 2. Break experiments into stages- Fractionism associated with kulpe

 3. Acquire introspective habit-  Mental notes without interfering with consciousness, Observers had to be highly trained in order to--Avoid stimulus error-Tendency to report events by describing stimuli rather than conscious experiences resulting from stimuli

Titchener's student

studied pain by allowing a horse to throw him back onto his head (crazy??); introspection

Structural elements of conscious experience

3 types of elementary mental processes

Titchener

Sensations: basic elements of the more complex process of perception

Images: elementary components of ideas

 Affections: feelings/ elements of emotions

Sensations:  Titchener

Quality: distinguishes one from another (red from green, cold from warm)

 Intensity: strength of stimulus (decibel level)

Duration: measurable period of time stimulus occurs

Clearness: attribute which gives the sensation its place in a consciousness

Clearer- dominant/independent

Less clear- subordinate- background

Image: Titchener

Same four attributes as sensations but

Quality- pale/faded/misty

  Intensity & duration were “markedly less” than sensations

only two qualities- pleasantness/unpleasantness

                                Have attributes of quality, intensity, and duration, but lack clearness.

Sensations

Affections

Study of Images

1. Synthesis-how elements combine and connect for complex phenomena

2. analysis of identifying the elements

3. explanation-how NS produces sensory, precept and cog phenomena.

·         using the associationism idea.  Little bits held together by association.

Titchener thought that perception depends on the associations that we have

o   Need to core experience and the    context

o   If you have a core experience  

   independent of context you would have

   a sensation but not a perception.

Influences on Darwin

o   Book by Sir Charles Lyell

o   Observations of orangutans at London zoo and comparing them with South African tribes

o   Studied variations of finches on the Galapagos Islands (typically pointed to as the primary influence)

Essay on the Principles of Population

o   Published by Thomas Malthus

o   proposed that the population was growing much faster than the economic race

o   Matlthus said the discrepancy would lead to a struggle for survival (population would one day exceed the economies ability to maintain)

o   said that when that happened things like famine, etc.. would cause the population to decrease and things would start over

o   influenced Darwin’s theory

Two parts of emotion that are inherited

o   Emotion is a behavior/reaction; there are very typical ways of reacting to specific events

o   A second part of emotion is the not observable, inner experience; the subjective feeling we get in an emotion evoking situation

Principles of Emotional Expression

o   Direct action of the  nervous system

§  Emotion is not some kind of purely mental, non-physical event; it is caused by the nervous system

o   Antithesis

§  Idea that opposite emotions are created by opposite physical processes

o   Serviceable associated habits

§  our ancestors were faced with some circumstance that we think of as emotionally evoking and when faced with that circumstance they produced some action and if it was serviceable (helped) then the next time they were faced with that circumstance they would do it again.  In that process this behavior moves from being voluntary to being automatic, a habit – it is associated with that circumstance. When it becomes a habit, it produces a physical change in the nervous system and we pass it along

Ethology

• combination of psychology and anthropology
• Darwin was the first to suggest that we inherit some of our psychological make-up

Identity of self

·         William James

·         Self is a multifaceted thing; we have many aspects to who we are; this has a practical outcome as a result

·         material self – physical aspects such as body appearance, immediate family, and possessions

·         spiritual self – our true self; subjective aspect of self that included feelings, morality, emotions, memory, and ethics; most enduring

·         social self – we are different people based on who we are around

·         empirical self – self we have constructed by integrated the other components

Instinctive human nature

·         William James

§  Humans, like animals, operate on instinct; we are not just cognitive; we don’t guide our behavior by mind; theme of comparative psychology – we can understand something about ourselves by studying the instincts of animals and animals have a mental life like we do

o   Felt that animals do things instinctively because they like to do it; it is the natural thing to do

o   Thought of a broader movement, used in business and other fields other than psychology.

o   Operations of the mind; its capabilities; not what it contains

§  Didn’t believe mind is defined by content

o   Interested in the notion of evolutionary theory and incorporating this biological paradigm in psychology.

·         Gestalt Psychology

·         Behaviorism

o   We have been unsuccessful in examining mind so lets get rid of the concept and look at the analysis of behavior.

o   Believe the goal in psychology is to be able to control and predict behavior.

o   Reacted to both functionalism and structurism, did not think they were scientific or not

o   Chicago functionalism

o   Columbia functionalism

president and biblical scholar- doctorate from Yale @ 18

                Filled the Univeristy of Chicago with quality faculty many who had left Clark because of financial    problems

U of Michigan (taught psychology; began focus on functionalism; interested in philosophy);

then went to Chicago and worked on their functionalism program.

The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology

Central concept in this article: it is not productive to think of mental events in a molecular way

Reflex arch 3 components

according to Dewey

1. Stimulus producing sensati
2.  Central processing producing ide
3.  Motor response

William James

Ebbinghaus

Watson

Carr

·         Studied at Chicago under Angell

Psychological Review

Journal of Consulting Psychology

Woodworth

if you train kids in Greek and Latin, increased skill in these will increase skill at other things

found not to be ture

Woodworth

o   training in one area will transfer if the two areas are similar.

o   The degree of transfer is related to how similar the tasks are

who was the first to say?

EXPERIMENTAL METHOD ONLY TECHNIQUE FOR CAUSAL CONCLUSION

emphasis on drives and oragnisic variables

Woodworth

Thorndike

connections made between desired beahvior and escape

§  law was made of positive outcomes (things that facilitate association formation, learning takes place) and negative outcomes (stamp out associations, learning will be inhibited). He discovered the second part wasn’t true (it can be punishment- they do learn in this situation as well).

Thorndike

2 parts: law of use and law of disuse. This law says that the more we use behaviors, the stronger they become. Rejected this law because he found that using behaviors over and over doesn’t by itself strengthen associations. Also found that not using behavior by itself didn’t make the animal forget.

Thorndike-Mills controversy:

Wesley Mills- criticized Thorndike @ 1898 APA and in an article in the psychological review for lacking respect for elders

                Suggested that puzzle boxes were artificial environments

                Led to ethology- study of animals in natural surroundings

                Lorenz- imprinting (ducks following Lorenz)

-          Argued for design in response to species problem

(complexity god exists)

-          Natural Theology 1802

-          Suggested by Thomas Aquinas

-          Watchmaker- complex design eye-maker for human eye