EVOLUTION/SCHOOLS OF PSYCHOLOGY:

At first, both psychology and philosophy were studied as the same subject. Both are concerned with how the human mind develops from birth to adulthood. For example, Plato, a Greek philosopher of the 4th century BC, believed that humans are born with certain innate skills, mental abilities, and knowledge while, John Locke, a 17th-century English philosopher thought that the human mind was a tabula rasa or “blank slate” on which experiences make impressions.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, psychology started becoming independent from philosophy. Other sciences like physics, chemistry, biology, etc. helped the study of psychology. Physics and chemistry provided a lot of concerns for sensation and perception while chemistry studies led to the use of drugs in the treatment of behavioral problems. Biology provided much information on heredity, genetics, physiological structures, and mental processes which were used to study innate factors affecting behavior. Earlier when people showed abnormal behavior they were considered possessed by evil spirits but after the 1800s these abnormalities were classified as mental illnesses and were treated accordingly.

Early psychologists formed many schools of psychology to explain their theories of psychology:

Structuralism

Wilhelm Wundt was also known as the founder and Father of Modern Psychology. He is the one who distinguished psychology from philosophy and established the first experimental lab of psychology at Leipzig, Germany in 1879. He is also known as the Father of Experimental Psychology

It was developed by Wundt and later expanded by his student, Edward B. Titchener. Psychologists during Wundt’s time analyzed the structure of the mind and its elements or units through introspection(questions) and therefore were called structuralists. Introspection was a procedure in which individuals or subjects in psychological experiments were asked to describe their mental processes or experiences in detail. Structuralism established psychology as a scientific endeavor and stressed appropriate scientific methodology.

Functionalism

An American psychologist, William James, who had set up a psychological laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts soon after the setting up of the Leipzig laboratory, developed what was called a functionalist approach to the study of the human mind. In his book, 'Principles of Psychology', William James explained that instead of focusing on the structure of the mind, psychology should instead study what the mind does and how behavior functions in making people deal with their environment. Hence focus shifted from the structure of the mind to the purpose of behavior. According to them mind and behavior are adaptive and they enable an individual to adjust to a changing environment.

For example, functionalists focused on how behavior enabled people to satisfy their needs. According to William James, consciousness is an ongoing stream of mental processes interacting with the environment forming the core of psychology. A very influential educational thinker of the time, John Dewey, used functionalism to argue that human beings seek to function effectively by adapting to their environment. This resulted in the study of many new areas of study like motivation, emotion, child psychology, etc. As various areas of applied psychology.

Gestalt psychology

In the early 20th century, a new perspective called Gestalt psychology emerged in Germany. The word 'gestalt' means form or configuration. It focused on the organization of perceptual experiences. Instead of looking at the components of the mind, the Gestalt psychologists argued that when we look at the world our perceptual experience is more than the sum of the components of the perception. Thus, our perceptual experience is more than the elements. Experience is holistic; it is a Gestalt and “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Gestalt psychologists believed that the mind is best understood in terms of the ways its elements are organized.

Behaviorism

Around 1910, John B. Watson rejected the ideas of mind and consciousness as subject matters of psychology. He was greatly influenced by the work of physiologists like Ivan Pavlov on classical conditioning. For Watson, the mind is not observable and introspection is subjective because it cannot be verified by another observer. According to him, scientific psychology must focus on what is observable and verifiable. Their focus was on 3 aspects of observable behavior- conditioned responses, learned behavior, and animal behavior. For example, a behaviorist would not describe a person as happy but would describe a person’s smile or laugh which is the observable part of happiness. Skinner applied behaviorism to a wide range of situations and popularised the approach.

Psychodynamic psychology

One person who shook the world with his radical view of human nature was Sigmund Freud. Freud viewed human behavior as a dynamic manifestation of unconscious desires, motivation, and conflicts. He founded psychoanalysis as a system to understand and cure psychological disorders. Freudian psychoanalysis viewed human beings as motivated by an unconscious desire for gratification of pleasure-seeking (and often, sexual) desires,

Humanistic approach

The humanistic perspective in psychology took a more positive view of human nature. Humanists, such as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, emphasized the free will of human beings and their natural striving to grow and unfold their inner potential. They argued that behaviorism with its emphasis on behavior as determined by environmental conditions undermines human freedom and dignity and takes a mechanistic view of human nature.

Cognitive psychology

Aspects of the Gestalt approach and structuralism were combined and led to the development of the cognitive perspective which focuses on how we know about the world. Cognition is the process of knowing. It involves thinking, understanding, perceiving, memorizing, problem-solving, and a host of other mental processes by which our knowledge of the world develops, making us able to deal with the environment in specific ways. Some cognitive psychologists view the human mind as an information-processing system like the computer. Mind, according to this view is like a computer and it receives, processes, transforms, stores, and retrieves information. Modern cognitive psychology views human beings as actively constructing their minds through their exploration of the physical and the social world. This view is sometimes called constructivism. While according to Piaget, children actively construct their minds, Vygotsky was of the view that the mind is a joint cultural construction and emerges as a result of interaction between children and adults.

TABLE SHOWING VARIOUS BRANCHES OF PSYCHOLOGY WITH THEIR MAIN VIEWS

BRANCH OF PSYCHOLOGY	IMPORTANT PSYCHOLOGISTS	VIEWS
STRUCTURALISM	WILHELM WUNDT, EDWARD B. TITCHENER	STRUCTURE OF MIND AND SCIENTIFIC METHODOLOGY
FUNCTIONALISM	WILLIAM JAMES, JOHN DEWEY	REASONS OF BEHAVIOR
GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY	KURT KOFFKA, W. KOHLER	HOLISTIC EXPERIENCES
BEHAVIORISM	JOHN WATSON, SKINNER	OBSERVABLE BEHAVIOR
PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACH	SIGMUND FREUD	UNCONSCIOUS DESIRES
HUMANISTIC APPROACH	CARL ROGERS, ABRAHAM MASLOW	FREE WILL OF HUMANS
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY	PIAGET	COGNITIVE PROCESSES

QUESTIONS:

1. Which school of psychology focuses on the idea that behavior is learned through associations and reinforcement? a) Structuralism b) Functionalism c) Behaviorism d) Psychoanalysis

2. Who is considered the founder of psychoanalysis, a school of psychology that emphasizes the role of the unconscious mind? a) B.F. Skinner b) John Watson c) Sigmund Freud d) Ivan Pavlov

3. The school of psychology that emphasizes the study of mental processes such as perception, memory, and problem-solving is called: a) Behaviorism b) Structuralism c) Functionalism d) Gestalt psychology

4. Which school of psychology is associated with the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and focuses on the organization of perceptions? a) Psychoanalysis b) Behaviorism c) Gestalt psychology d) Cognitive psychology

5. Humanistic psychology, which emphasizes personal growth and self-actualization, was developed by: a) Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow b) B.F. Skinner c) John Watson d) Ivan Pavlov

6. Who is known for his work on classical conditioning, where a neutral stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus to produce a conditioned response? a) Carl Rogers b) John Watson c) Ivan Pavlov d) Sigmund Freud

7. The school of psychology that focuses on how behavior and mental processes help individuals adapt to their environment is: a) Behaviorism b) Evolutionary psychology c) Psychoanalysis d) Structuralism

8. Cognitive psychology is primarily concerned with the study of: a) Observable behavior b) Unconscious desires c) Mental processes such as thinking, memory, and problem-solving d) Reflexes and instincts

9. Which school of psychology believes that human behavior is shaped by unconscious conflicts and desires, often rooted in childhood experiences? a) Cognitive psychology b) Behaviorism c) Humanistic psychology d) Psychoanalysis

10. Who is associated with the development of the concept of "self-actualization" and the hierarchy of needs in humanistic psychology? a) John Watson b) Carl Rogers c) Abraham Maslow d) Ivan Pavlov

Answers:

1. c) Behaviorism

2. c) Sigmund Freud

3. d) Gestalt psychology

4. c) Gestalt psychology

5. a) Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow

6. c) Ivan Pavlov

7. b) Evolutionary psychology

8. c) Mental processes such as thinking, memory, and problem-solving

9. d) Psychoanalysis

10. c) Abraham Maslow

REFERENCES:

• NCERT CLASS 11 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK

• CLIFFORD T. MORGAN (1993). INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY (SEVENTH EDITION). TATA McGRAW-HILL EDITION

• BARON, ROBERT A. & MISRA G. (2014). PSYCHOLOGY: SOUTH ASIAN EDITION. PEARSON, DELHI