History and Systems of Psychology - Research Paper Example

In the 17th century Rene Descartes, a French philosopher observed that human body and mind were two distinct entities whose interaction forms human experience (Portolano & Evans, 2005). It this observation that informs issues being debated to date on nurture versus nature. Whereas philosophers employ logic and observation methods in their studies, psychologists use scientific methodologies to explain human thoughts and behavior. Similarly, psychology draws much from physiology, particularly on brain and behavior, thus the use of scientific methodologies in studying human thoughts and behavior.

In the mid 19th century, Wilhelm Wundt, a German physiologist applied scientific research methods in the investigation of reaction times. The physiologist was later in 1874 to publish a book on physiological psychology and opened the maiden psychology laboratory at Leipzig University in 1879. Researchers generally consider this as the beginning of distinction of psychology from the other scientific disciplines (Benjamin, 2007). Wundt perceived psychology as the study of the consciousness of humans and therefore sought to use experimental methods to investigate the internal mental processes.

The physiologist would be largely remembered among scholars in psychology for his process referred to as introspection. Though largely considered as an unscientific and unreliable method by modern psychologists, it still remains a basis for subsequent and future scientific experimental methods. Wundt had about 17,000 students attend his lectures and many more graduates conducted studies from his psychology laboratory, though his influence in subsequent years dwindled (Pickren & Dewsbury, 2002).

Among Wundt’s students, Edward Titchener went on to discover the initial major psychology’s school of thought referred to as structuralism. Proponents of this school of thought argued that human consciousness could be made up of several smaller parts (Pickren & Dewsbury, 2002). Using the introspection process, pre-trained subjects would be engaged in breaking down their reactions and responses into the most primary perceptions and sensations. Despite its scientific emphasis, the unreliability, subjectivity and limitation of its methods caused the death of the school of thoughts with Titchener in 1927 (Benjamin, 2007).

In the late 19th century, Gestalt psychology keenly opposed breaking down thoughts and emphasized on considering human experience as a whole. William James, an American psychologist gave rise to functionalism school of thought in the mid 1800s which tried to explain how behavior enabled people interact with their environments. It employed direct observation and unlike structuralism, it was a changing and continuous process. The emphasis up to this moment was on human consciousness. Sigmund Freud proposed the personality theory that considered human unconscious mind claiming that unconscious impulses and childhood experiences guided human personality and behavior (Benjamin, 2007).

Freud’s psychoanalytic theory had major influence on the 20th century art, literature, culture and mental health. In the early 20th century, behaviorism emerged as a new school of thought. This marked a great shift as the theory opposed both the unconscious and conscious mind ideologies and instead emphasized on observable behavior. Among the major contributors was Ian Pavlov, a Russian physiologist who