PsychNut: Non-Credit Psychology Courses » People In Psych

Great Minds, Great Ideas

Dr. Ken Tangen — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 08:45:21 +0000

ALPHABETICAL LIST.

Theories come out of people’s lives. You can’t separate the theory from the person. To understand the theories of psychology, you have to look closely at the those who generated those theories, and the people who infludenced them. The more you know about the person behind the theory, the better you’ll understand the theory.

Similarly, your theory will come from your background. You may never formalize your theory but since you have ideas and make assumptions about why people act the way they do, I believe everyone has an internal theory.

If you decide to formalize your theory, you’ll need to take a closer look at youself. Your theory will be better, the more you know your beliefs, your assumptions, and yourself.

Don’t worry. Other people have thought about the major issues you’ll want to address. You don’t have to start from nothing. You can, and should, steal from others (giving complete credit where due, of course). In generating a theory, it’s not stealing to agree with great thinkers who have gone before. It’s building on the shoulders of giants. Highly recommended.

Alfred Adler

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 23:50:17 +0000

Adler, Alfred (1870-1937) Born in Vienna, the 2nd of six kids, Alfred Adler has an unhappy childhood. Suffering from rickets, and having been injured in two accidents, Adler was frail and unathletic. Although he was pampered by his parents (a wealthy grain merchant), he resented Alfred resented his older brother (his mother’s favorite).

Adler stressed the inherently social nature of man, and the importance of future goals. Like Freud, Adler stressed the importance of birth order, and a child’s early environment. He did not stress the unconscious but maintained that it was not a problem until thoughts became conscious. Adler thought Freud overemphasized sex as a motivating force, so he stressed compensation, individuality, masculine protest, the striving for power, superiority, and social interest.

Adler suggested that people compensate for their feelings of inferiority. He believed that a person’s style of life was set by the age of 5, and that early childhood memories are the best indicators of which style has been selected.

For more on the subject, here is video I made about Adler.

Key Words: birth order, compensation, individualtiy, social interest, masculine protest, superiority, inferiority, style of life

David Hartley

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:43:00 +0000

Hartley, David (1705-1757) Hartley studied at Cambridge and was prepared to follow his father’s footsteps (minister) but his interest in biology led him to seek a medical degree. He is considered to be one of the first physiological psychologists. In 1749, Hartley published a combination of psychological and theological insights entitled Observations on Man, His Frame, His Duty and His Expectations. Like Newton, Hartley dismissed Descartes’ contention that nerves are hollow. He maintained that sensations cause vibrations in the nerves which in turn cause vibrations in the brain. These vibratuncles result in ideas (faint vibrations) and memory (reactivating the original vibrations).

Gorgius

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:42:01 +0000

Gorgius (385-380 BC) Born in Sicily, Gorgias is credited with introducing cadence in prose and using everyday examples and locations in arguments. Best known as the title character of a dialogue by Plato, Gorgias answers “what is reality?” by suggesting that nothing exits. Or if it exists it can’t be known or communicated. Ironically, Gorgias made a living by teaching rhetoric (how to communicate effectively).

Luigi Galvani

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:39:06 +0000

Galvani, Luigi (1737-1798) Born and educated in Bolgna, Italy, Galvani is less known as a professor of anatomy than for his conclusion that animal tissue is capable of generating electricity. Using an electrically-charged scalpel, he accidentally touched the probe to the leg of a frog, causing it to twitch. Galvani did not conclude that tissue conducts electricity but that animals actually generate it themselves.

Fritsch & Hitzig

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:38:06 +0000

Fritsch, Gustav (1838-1927) & Hitzig, Edward (1838-1907)

Working in their own laboratory, two German physicians, Gustav Fritsch (1838-1927) and Edward Hitzig (1838-1907), discovered the motor cortex of the brain. Specifically, they found that electrical stimulation of particular areas resulted in muscle movement. If they stimulated a particular spot on the left side of a dog’s brain, its right leg would move.

Democritus

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:36:09 +0000

Democritus (460-370 BC) According to Democritus, nature is composed of tiny particles which are in constant motion. He called these particles atoms and classified them in terms of their size, shape, and angularity. Taste was the result of small, angular winding atoms. Sight was the result of atoms flying through the air, hitting the eye, and making a copy of the original object. Thinking was caused by the fastest, smallest atoms. For Democritus, there is no soul or will; life is reducible to patterns of atomic matter.

Thomas Brown

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:32:59 +0000

Brown, Thomas (1778-1820) Like Reid and Stewart, Brown’s rationalism was a reaction against Hume’s empiricism. Brown re-proposed Artistotle’s three laws of suggestion: contiguity, resemeblans, and contrast.

Alexander Bain

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 14:58:36 +0000

Bain Alexander (1818-1903)

The son of a weaver, Bain was born, raised and educated in Aberdeen, Scotland. Indeed, except for several years in London, he lived whole life in Aberdeen. In 1876, Bain wrote the first journal devoted exclusively to psychology (Mind). He also provided the first books on psychology as such. Until William James wrote Principles of Psychology (1890), Bain’s books (The Senses and Emotions) were widely used as textbooks of psychology. A friend of JS Mill (who he met during his London years), Bain was an empiricist and a utilitarianist. He emphasized the law of contiguity, but differentiated between voluntary and reflexive behavior, held that people are capable of spontaneous activity which becomes increasingly purposive as it is rewarded by pleasure, and was a mind-body parallelist. He held that every sensation has both a physiological and a mental reaction. Bain is sometimes called the first modern physiological psychologist because of his detailed descriptions of sense organs and how they worked. He is best known for his description of the reflex arc.

Averroës

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 14:57:45 +0000

Averroës

His full name was Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Rushd. Born in Cordoba, Spain, Averroës was the son a judge. He studied medicine, philosophy and Muslim law (which has both moral and legal aspects). His commentaries on Aristotle were translated into Latin and Hebrew and influenced both Hellenistic Judism and scholastic philosophy. Averroes became a judge, chief physician for the caliph of Morocco and believed that the world has no beginning and no miraculous creation. God is “prime mover” of the universe and the human soul comes from Him. Averroes emphasized both reason and revelation so much so that his opponents referred to it as “double truth.”