Although there are many records about psychology in the history of China, domestic psychology largely stays at the cognitive level, and scientific psychology is an exotic product in China. So how did western psychology develop and evolve? What are the main schools of psychology?
The birth of scientific psychology is influenced by philosophy and physiology. Philosophy is regarded as the "father" of scientific psychology and physiology as the "mother" of scientific psychology. From 65438 to 0879, German psychologist Feng Te established the world's first psychology laboratory in Leipzig University, which marked that psychology broke away from philosophy and embarked on the road of independent development, and also marked the formal birth of scientific psychology. In the course of historical development, there have been many schools of psychology, and each school has its own research object, method and historical significance. Let's look at it one by one.
Constructivism, the earliest birth of schools of psychology, is mainly represented by Feng Te and Tieqinna. Its basic view is that psychology should study people's direct experience, that is, consciousness; Human experience is divided into three elements: feeling, image and passion, which constitute other complex psychological phenomena. Feeling is the element of perception, image is the element of concept, and passion is the element of emotion. It advocates introspection to study human psychology. Constructivism freed psychology from the shackles of speculation and embarked on the road of experimental research, making it an independent science, but the research was divorced from reality.
The second is functionalism, represented by James, Dewey and Angel. The basic view of this theory is that consciousness is not a collection of individual psychological elements, but a continuous process. Consciousness is a personal, constantly changing, continuous and selective whole, that is, "stream of consciousness". Psychology should study the psychology of individuals when they adapt to the environment, that is, the function and function of consciousness. Research method: Phenomenological method, which gives a true description of consciousness. Functionalism opposes treating psychology as a pure science and attaches importance to its practical application, which promotes the development of American psychology facing reality, including the development of educational psychology and industrial psychology. In addition, James's Principles of Psychology has also become a classic work of psychology.
Behaviorism-the third school of psychology. Representative figures: Watson, Skinner, Bandura. 19 13 Watson published Psychology in the Eyes of Behaviorists, announcing the birth of behaviorism. Watson has a famous saying in this book: "Give me a dozen healthy babies, a special environment dominated by me, and let me raise them in this environment. I can guarantee that I can train them into any kind of people-doctors, lawyers, artists, big businessmen, even beggars or robbers, regardless of their parents' talents, tendencies and hobbies, and regardless of their occupation and race. "
The basic viewpoints of this theory are: psychology should study behavior rather than consciousness, and its purpose is to find ways to predict and control behavior; Oppose the use of introspection and advocate experimental methods; Behavior is not hereditary, but environmental. The research methods advocated are experiment, observation, conditioned reflex, speech report and test. This theory is too extreme, denying the study of consciousness and limiting the healthy development of psychology, but emphasizing the objectivity of research is positive for psychology to follow the path of objective science.
The fourth is Gestalt Psychology, with wertheimer, Kohler and Kaufka as the main representatives. This basic idea: Gestalt means "whole" in German. Therefore, this school advocates the integrity of psychology and emphasizes the significance of psychology as a whole and an organization. The whole cannot be reduced to the sum of its parts and elements; The sum of parts is not equal to the whole, and the whole is greater than the sum of parts. The whole exists before the part, which restricts the nature and significance of the part. The research methods advocated are: experiment, natural observation and phenomenology. Although its theoretical basis is subjective idealism, its basic viewpoint is correct; It is of positive significance to the research results of perception, learning and thinking.
The fifth is psychoanalytic psychology. The main representatives: Freud, Jung and Adler, hold the basic view that all personal and social behaviors will be influenced by the subconscious mind, and all the subconscious minds are rooted in some desire or motivation, especially the impulse of sexual desire. Desire dominates people in a subconscious way, showing normal and abnormal behavior. The repression of desire and motivation is an important cause of mental illness. Research methods: free association, case study, dream interpretation, etc. Psychoanalysis attaches importance to the study of motivation and subconscious phenomena, but overemphasizes the role of the subconscious. The early theory has the characteristics of pan-theory, and the new psychoanalysis school revised Freud's original theory, emphasizing the influence of social factors on mental illness and personality development.
The sixth is humanistic psychology, with Maslow and Rogers as the representatives. The basic view of this theory is that psychology should take normal people as the research object, human nature is good and people have the need of free will and self-realization. As long as there is a proper environment, people will strive to achieve some positive social goals. Research methods: Oppose method-centered, and think that all methods that can solve problems can be used. Humanistic psychology downplays the pure science of psychology and is known as "the third force of psychology" (according to the History of Psychology edited by YeHaoSheng, a domestic scholar, the first force is behaviorism and the second force is psychoanalysis), but its theoretical system is not complete, many terms are not clearly defined, and the theory is difficult to be tested.
The seventh is cognitive psychology. From 65438 to 0967, Nesser published Cognitive Psychology, which marked the birth of modern cognitive psychology. The book points out that cognition is the whole process of transforming, simplifying, processing, storing, extracting and using sensory input. Representative figures: Nasser and Simon. Basic viewpoint: Man is an information processor, an active organism with abundant internal resources, which can be used to interact with the environment. Although the information provided by the environment is important, it encodes, stores and operates the information through the cognitive process that dominates external behavior, and then affects people's behavior. Corresponding research methods: experiment, reaction time recording, oral report, computer simulation, etc. Cognitive neuroscience: The combination of cognitive psychology and neuroscience produces cognitive neuroscience, whose main research objects are the brain mechanism of cognition, the relationship between cognition and nerves, the development of brain and cognitive development, which greatly promotes the development of psychology. Brain imaging techniques such as event-related potentials (ERP), functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI), positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) are commonly used. Scientists believe that understanding the brain mechanism of psychological activities, especially the neurobiological mechanism of cognitive function, can truly reveal the secrets of the brain and understand the characteristics of people's psychological functions;
2 1 century, the research of cognitive neuroscience is expected to become the mainstream of psychological development. Of course, there are many emerging schools, such as positive psychology, evolutionary psychology, transpersonal psychology and so on. But each school and theory has its own advantages and disadvantages, and it is necessary to find a suitable and desirable place to study and study in the theory.