1.7 SUMMARY

• Philosophers have pondered and debated ideas about human nature for millennia, but they did not provide empirical evidence to support their claims.
• Some of the earliest successful efforts to develop a science linking mind and behavior came from studies showing that damage to the brain can result in impairments of behavior and mental functions.
• Helmholtz furthered the science of the mind by developing methods for measuring reaction time. His student Wundt is credited with founding psychology as a scientific discipline, and he espoused structuralism: the idea that the mind could be understood by analyzing its basic elements.
• William James applied Darwin’s theory of natural selection to the study of the mind. His functionalist approach focused on how mental processes serve to enable people to adapt to their environments.

• Psychologists have often focused on patients with psychological disorders as a way of understanding human behavior.
• Freud developed psychoanalysis, which emphasized the importance of unconscious influences and childhood experiences in shaping thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
• Humanistic psychologists suggested that people are inherently disposed toward growth and can usually reach their full potential with a little help from their friends.

• Behaviorism advocated the study of observable actions and responses and held that inner mental processes were private events that could not be studied scientifically.
• Pavlov and Watson studied the association between a stimulus and a response and emphasized the importance of the environment in shaping behavior.
• Skinner developed the concept of reinforcement, which states that animals and humans repeat behaviors that generate pleasant results and avoid performing those that generate unpleasant results.

• Cognitive psychologists study the inner workings of the mind and focus on inner mental processes such as perception, thought, memory, and reasoning.
• Cognitive neuroscience attempts to link the brain with the mind by studying individuals with and without brain damage.
• Evolutionary psychology both focuses on the adaptive function that minds and brains serve and seeks to understand the nature and origin of psychological processes in terms of natural selection.

• Social psychology recognizes that people exist as part of a network of other people and examines how individuals influence and interact with one another.
• Cultural psychology is concerned with the effects of the broader culture on individuals and with similarities and differences among people in different cultures.

• The American Psychological Association (APA) was formed in 1892 and now includes over 150,000 members working in clinical, academic, and applied settings.
• Through the efforts of pioneers such as Mary Whiton Calkins, women have come to play an increasingly important role in the field and are now as well represented as men.
• Minority involvement in psychology took longer, but the pioneering efforts of Sumner, Clark, and others have led to increased participation of minorities in psychology.
• Psychologists prepare for research careers through graduate and postdoctoral training and work in a variety of applied settings, including schools, clinics, and industry.