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William James

founder of psychology and functionalism; studied the purpose of mental processes in allowing people to adapt to their environment. scientific study.


Greek. Pondered how the mind works


French philosopher. Mind and body fundamentally different.


Mind and body are the same

Paul Broca

Surgeon, mind associated with the brain. Broca's area.

Herman von Helmholtz

Measured the speed of nerve impulses.

Wilhelm Wundt

Structuralism, the analysis of the basic elements that constitute the mind. Founded first psych school.

Charles Darwin

Natural Selection. Evolutionist

G. Stanley Hall

Children develop as they pass through stages that repeat evolutionary history of humanity. Founded school in US.

Gestalt psychology

psychological approach that emphasizes that we often perceive the whole rather than the sum of the parts.

Sigmund Frued

psychoanalytic theory, bringing unconscious material into conscious awareness

Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow

pioneers of humanistic psychology, an approach to understanding human nature that emphasizes the positive potential of human beings

John Watson

founder of behaviorism, an approach that advocates the study of observable behavior. study of what people do. little albert

Ivan Pavlov

classical conditioning

B.F. Skinner

Behaviorist with emphasis on learning. Operant or instrumental conditioning

Jean Piaget

Cognitive psychologist. Child development in mental stages.

Noam Chomsky

Linguist and pioneer of cognitive psychology. Devastating critique of Skinner's book. Language acquisition device.

Sir Fredric Bartlett and Kurt Lewin

Cognitive psychologists

Benjamin Whorf

Linguistic relativity hypothesis. The language we speak shapes our perception of the world.


Law of effect

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