AP Psychology
Unit 1: Psychology's History and Approaches
Psychology has evolved markedly since its inception as a discipline in 1879. There have been significant changes in the theories that psychologists use to explain behavior and mental processes. In addition, the methodology of psychological research has expanded to include a diversity of approaches to data gathering.
AP students in psychology should be able to do the following::
- Recognize how philosophical and physiological perspectives shaped the development of psychological thought
- Describe and compare different theoretical approaches in explaining behavior:
- structuralism, functionalism, and behaviorism in the early years;
- Gestalt, psychoanalytic/psychodynamic, and humanism emerging later;
- evolutionary, biological, cognitive, and biopsychosocial as more contemporary approaches
- Recognize the strengths and limitations of applying theories to explain behavior
- Distinguish the different domains of psychology (e.g., biological, clinical, cognitive, counseling, developmental, educational, experimental, human factors, industrial–organizational, personality, psychometric, social)
- Identify major historical gures in psychology (e.g., Mary Whiton Calkins, Charles Darwin, Dorothea Dix, Sigmund Freud, G. Stanley Hall, William James, Ivan Pavlov, Jean Piaget, Carl Rogers, B. F. Skinner, Margaret Floy Washburn, John B. Watson, Wilhelm Wundt)
Introduction
For people whose exposure to psychology comes from news stories and TV; psychologists seem to analyze personality, offer counseling, dispense child-raising advice, examine crime scenes, and testify in court. Do they? Yes, and much more. Consider some of psychology's research questions, which you will be learning more about in this text.
- Have you ever found yourself reacting to something as one of your biological parents would-perhaps in a way you vowed you never would-and then wondered how much of your personality you inherited? To what extent do genes predispose our person-to-person differences in personality? To what extent do home and community environments shape us?
- Have you ever worried about how to act among people of a different culture, race, gender, or sexual orientation? In what ways are we alike as members of the human family? How do we differ?
- Have you ever awakened from a nightmare and, with a wave of relief, wondered why you had such a crazy dream? How often, and why, do we dream?
- Have you ever played peekaboo with a 6-month-old and wondered why the baby finds the game so delightful? The infant reacts as though, when you momentarily move behind a door, you actually disappear - only to reappear out of thin air. What do babies actually perceive and think?
- Have you ever wondered what fosters school and work success? Are some people just born smarter? And does sheer intelligence explain why some people get richer, think more creatively, or relate more sensitively?
- Have you ever become depressed or anxious and wondered whether you'll ever feel "normal"? What triggers our bad moods-and our good ones? Where is the line between a normal mood swing and a psychological disorder for which someone should seek help?
- Have you ever wondered how the Internet, video games, and electronic social networks affect people? How do today's electronic media influence how we think and how we relate?
Psychology is a science that seeks to answer such questions about us all - how and why we think, feel, and act as we do.