introduction to psychology Essay

Submitted By bopplealex
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Wilhelm Wundt

Wilhelm Wundt was know as the “father of psychology” his area was that he explored the natures of religion; he managed to help identify mental disorders and abnormal behaviour. He was associated and studied the theoretical perspective known as structuralism, which is where you describe the structure that composes the mind. Wilhelm influenced the modern world by creating a psychology lab, which made psychology a separate field of study. Most of Wundt’s experimental methods are used today.

Sigmund Freud

Freud had studied many things in his life he studied about the conscious and unconscious mind, which is that the behaviour and personality appears from constant interaction of conflicting forces that operate at different levels. Freud also studied life and death instincts. His work has had a huge impact on psychology today because he supported the belief that not all mental illnesses have physiological causes and he also gave evidence that cultural differences have an impact on psychology and behaviour. His writings and work has helped us understand personality, human development and clinical psychology. Freud wrote and theorized about a long range of topics including religion sex culture dreams and women

Ivan Pavlov

Ivan Pavlov’s area of psychology was mainly about dogs and he studied the digestion of dogs. Whilst he was studying this area he noticed an interesting occurrence, the dog would begin to salivate when someone entered the room. He induced an experiment to test how much the dogs salivate when they are introduced with both edible and non-edible items. Pavlov soon noticed that the dogs would salivate when they see or smell food; he then realized that this process was not because of a psychological process. Pavlov then soon discovered that the dogs had associated the assistants with the white lab coats with food, which was a conditioned process. He then set up an experiment to see f he could get the dogs to associate a sound with the thought of food, he used a metronome as a sound to indicate to the dogs that the food was being presented to them. Pavlov realized that the dogs began to salivate when they heard the metronome and therefore he realized that he had used conditioning to condition the dogs. Pavlov has made a big impact on psychology today by introducing conditioning to modify behavior, mental health treatment and helps treat anxiety, phobias and panic disorders.

John Watson

John. B. Watson is most famous for the area of behaviourism he watched people and animals behaviour and their reactions to numerous different stimuli. An example of this is an experiment called “The Little Albert”. The study shows observational evidence of a classical conditioning in humans; Watson was interested in finding evidence to support his idea that whenever children hear a loud noise their immediate reaction is fear. He believed that this behaviour has either been