Know a little bit about Psychology
Script Writer: Ranzie Llaneta
Editor: Jairus Bredes & Ranzie Llaneta
Graphics: Ranzie Llaneta
Narrator: Alaizha Gundran
Script:
Intro
Personality,
Dreams,
Desires,
Motivations,
The Arts, all of these are a product of “THE HUMAN MIND”. One can say that the “Human Mind” is astonishing, as it is one of the most influential forces in the universe, yet behind this feat, it is considered as enigmatic, as it struggles to define itself, due to its complicated and elusive nature. But regardless of all of this, we still try to understand the mechanism and the governing rule behind this thing, and that is where Psychology enters.
The term Psychology is derived from the Greek word Psyche and logia, which means “to study the soul”. However, psychology is more than that. In fact, the definition of psychology has undergone a lot of revision throughout history. Today, psychology is defined as “the science of behavior and mental processes”. It is NOT ABOUT READING THE MINDS OF OTHERS; rather, it aims to ponder big questions in life like: are we truly free or not; What is consciousness?; What is more important nature or nurture?; What motivates people?; and more
Though the term psychology was first coined around the 16th century, early philosophers like Aristotle already tackled different psychological concepts like perception, sensation, thinking, and more. In fact, Aristotle’s work called “De Anima” is considered as the first systematic treatise in Psychology. According to his work, the soul is the s1ource of the rational thinking of a man. Fast Forward to the 17th Century, a person who is known for his quote “Cogito ergo sum” (Rene Descartes), proposed the idea of interactive dualism. For him, the mind and the body are two separate entities, which interact with each other to produce conscious experience.
For more than a century, psychology was considered as more of philosophy; however, in the mid-19th century, a German physiologist, named Wilhelm Wundt, brought psychology into a new era. Wundt was born in a German town of Neckarau, outside of Mannheim on August 16, 1832. He studied medicine at the University of Tübingen. However, he realized that being a doctor was not his vocation, so he turns himself into physiology, at the University of Berlin, Wundt studied physiology under the guidance of Johannes Müller, also known as the “father of experimental physiology. In 1857 he became a lecturer at the University of Heidelberg, and at the same time, he worked as a lab assistant to Hermann Helmholtz.
On 1862. Wundt introduced experimental psychology in the book “Contributions to the Theory of Sensory Perception”. However, he is much more known for his groundbreaking works, “Principles of Physiological Psychology” which was published in 1874. In this work, he emphasizes the connection between physiology and psychology. He also asserts that psychology should become a distinct scientific discipline, and with this goal, he opened the very first psychology research laboratory at Leipzig University in 1879. Throughout his teaching career, Wundt attracted a lot of students from different parts of the world. For over a year, more than 17,000 students migrated to Germany to attend his class. Wundt’s hard work became a fundamental step in the creation of the different schools of thought on Psychology from structuralism, functionalism, psychodynamic, more, and with this, it is safe to say that Wilhelm Maximillian Wundt is truly the founder of Psychology.
Reference:
Hockenbury, D. H., & Hockenbury, S. E. (2014). Psychology with updates on DSM-5. Macmillan Higher Education.
Kim, A. (2006). Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt.
Leahey, T. H. (1994). A history of modern psychology. Prentice-Hall, Inc.
