Evolution of Psychology Essay Example

📌Category: Psychology
📌Words: 560
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 23 January 2022

Psychology had numerous definitions to explain its range which included ‘science of the mind’, ‘science of conscious experience’, ‘a study of activities of an organism in relation to the environment’. However, all of these were discarded after tedious intellectual battles and debates thus shaping psychology as we know it today.  

Derived from two different Greek words, psyche (soul) and logos (science), Psychology’s modern and the best definition is that it is a ‘science of behaviour and cognitive processes.’ The term ‘behaviour’ includes any observable measurable action or reaction ranging from overt behaviour to subtle changes in the electrical activity occurring in the depths of our brains. Similarly, ‘cognitive processes’ refers to our mental life including memories, reasoning, mental images, decision making, etc, basically all aspects of the human mind. 

Having aspects of the subject originate in the sixteenth century renaissance, psychology as a whole is considered to have emerged over the span of the nineteenth century, most prominent in the Indian, Chinese, Hellenic, and the Arabic civilizations. It was during this time that Philosophers started asking questions such as ‘How do we perceive the world?’, ‘What is the link between our mind and body?’, ‘Do people exert free will, or are our actions determined by the external and internal events?’, etc. This is when the concepts of rationalism, dualism, and interactionism came into existence. Rationalism is the answering of philosophical questions regarding the human mind through careful reasoning. Dualism, suggested by René Descartes, is a concept that suggests that the mind and the body are distinct entities that interact through the Pineal Gland, which is found deep within the brain. Interactionism, suggested by various philosophers and contrasting dualism, suggests that the mind can influence body while the body can influence the mind.

Next came the stage where the philosophers realized the facts that questions about the mind cannot be answered solely through reasoning but it needed careful observation- thus the empirical approach developed. This raised the question of how observation can and should be made? 

Since the field of Physiology used scientific method for understanding the parts of the nervous system, the usage of this data by the philosophers provided a path for understanding the human mind with the usage of empirical methods. Thus, the idea of the possibility of a scientific field of psychology.

In the year of 1879, in Leipzig, Germany, the very first psychology lab was set up by Wilhelm Wundt- the father of psychology and the founder of experimental psychology. 

Later on, in the year 1883 a student of Wundt, G Stanley Hall who is credited as the person who introduced psychology into the United States, set up the first psychology lab at Johns Hopkins. He even helped to start the American Psychological Association in 1892 and was its very first president. Because of this effort by the year 1893, 24 different universities in the US had established psychology labs. 

The above-mentioned milestones were considered to be few of the most important milestones in the field of psychology; however, there are other events that took place which were an excellent achievement and were of great importance and worth being mentioned, it includes- 

1896- Introduction of ‘Psychoanalysis’ by Sigmund Freud. 

1905- Development of the first IQ test by Binet and Simon. 

1913- Advancement of the Behavioural school of thought by John B. Watson. 

1916- First lab of Experimental Psychology in the Calcutta University.

1920- Origin of the Gestalt school of thought in Germany.

1921- Rorschach Ink Blot Test being developed by Hermann Rorschach. 

1924- Establishment of Indian Psychological Association. 

1929- Invention of Electroencephalogram by Hans Berger.

1945- Establishment of the Psychology Wing in Defense Research of India.

1973- Removal of Homosexuality in the DSM.

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