Charles Darwins Contribution to the Field of Psychology - Essay Example

Charles Darwin- Biography and Contributions to the field of psychology Biography Popularly referred to as the father of evolution, Charles Darwin was the fifth child of Robert Darwin and Susannah Wedgewood born the same year and day as Abraham Lincoln- a historical icon, February 12, 1809. He had four sisters, three older than him and one younger while his brother was older than he was and they belonged to a privileged, wealthy and well-known family. He held his father, Robert Waring Darwin, in high regard and he was a renowned physician with connections among the local gentry and new industrialists. Notably also, his grandfather- Erasmus Darwin, was a physician and poet with a liking to natural philosophy where his patients were from affluent backgrounds one of them being Josiah Wedgewood. Erasmus Darwin put forward a natural explanation for the origin and development of life where in his book Zoonomia, published in 1974, he looked into the domestication of animals, cross-fertilization of plants along with movement of climbing plants. Various works of his discussed the mechanism of inheritance and made observations on sexual selection. It is important to acknowledge the intellectual atmosphere that Charles and his father grew up in (Berra, 2009). He was born in Shrewsbury, England during the period of King George the third and Jane Austen and being from the upper class households, this meant that his family’s social life was centered on conversations regarding politics and literature, dinner with neighbors, correspondence and books. Because of the fact that Josiah Wedgewood was a close friend of the family, the Darwins and Wedgewoods maintained a mutual respect for each other and both participated in the anti-slavery movement. He suffered the loss of his mother at the early age of eight years but luckily, his three older sisters filled the emotional void. On the hand, his father became overbearing and autocratic in the absence of his mother. Following his mother’s demise, he was sent to boarding school though it was merely a mile away and this allowed him to walk home over the weekends. He spent his evenings carrying out chemistry experiments and collecting beetles with his older brother Erasmus, with whom they shared a close bond even throughout his adulthood. This hobby of carrying out chemistry experiments got him the nickname ‘Gas’ in school. The school he attended offered classical education where Latin and Greek were primarily taught with a bit of ancient geography and history and he was an average student that disgruntled his father. After a while, chemistry experiments bored him and so he took up hunting which also did not play well with his father. Robert Darwin proceeded to allow his son to take up a position as an assistant at his practice and this prepared him for Edinburg University in 1825 where he was among the third generation of Darwins to study medicine (Berra, 2009). Contribution to the field of psychology The concept of evolution brought about by Charles Darwin shifted the center of attention of new psychology to its functions where previously it was based on its structures. Because of this, a functionalist perspective came to being. Looking into how the mind of an organism helps it to adapt to its environment and how the mind works generally, functionalism raised the practical issue of what exactly the mental processes achieve. Darwin’s concept of evolution made functionalists study the mind from the outlook of its accumulation of processes and functions rather than its structure. The concept is because living things change with time and Darwin was not the origin of this concept, it can be traced back to the Fifth Century BC. Nonetheless, it was not til the Eighteenth Century that the theory of evolution was discussed systematically (Schultz& Schultz, 2011). William James, an American professor, was responsible for introduction of experimental psychology to college students and his works led to the concept of functionalism. His perspective leading to the term functionalism was centered on looking into how specific human behaviors help an organism adapt to its environment and consequently maximize its chances of reproducing and surviving. This adaptive value of human behavior was further expounded by Darwin’s theory of evolution (Pastorino& Doyle-Partillo, 2011). In one of his notebooks titled M, Darwin wrote about his perspective of human psychology where he said that the mind of man was no different from the instincts of animals. He went on to state that the fall of man was the origin of man’s evil passions. Further on, he ventured into evolution after reading the Essay on the Principles of Population written by Thomas Maltus after which he deduced that the strongest, the most adapted human beings are the ones who survive, and that evolution came about because of this process of natural selection. This contrasted with Malthus’ findings, which suggested that sexual restraint, wars, disease and famine were the inhibiting factors of human population referring to these aspects as means of subsistence (Smith, 2006). While undertaking an intensive study of emotional expressions in humans and animals, Darwin established that the changes in postures and gestures characteristic in human beings during different emotional states could be interpreted using evolutionary terms. He suggested that emotional expressions were traces of movements that had once served practical functions, in his 1872 book The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals. He went on to explain that emotional expressions evolved over time and those that demonstrated functionality, have survived. In the same way, he disputed that body language and facial expressions were inborn and irrepressible manifestations of internal emotional states where he gave the example of the feeling of pleasure being followed by a smile. Darwin asserted that these expressions, in human beings and some animals, stemmed from the evolutionary process where his biographer documented Darwin’s belief that emotions passing across human beings’ faces revealed animal ancestry. Of importance as well, Darwin made contribution to child psychology where he documented his own child’s development in a short publication done in 1877 and established that children undergo stages of development parallel to the evolutionary process (Schultz& Schultz, 2011). Darwin sought to understand the inborn forms of human communication when he was documenting his child’s developmental stages. He set the field of psychology on a different path by establishing theories based on actual observation of his own child as he was developing, in contrast to earlier theorists such as Rosseau and Locke who had philosophical and anecdotal assumptions. His theory of evolution led to continued emphasis that changes occurring in human beings were because of time over the large scale of evolution and over the span of an individual’s life (Burghardt, 2009). Darwin influenced the concept of functionalism where his study of birds, which he had collected in the Galapagos Island, led him to discover that their species known as finches, all had a unique relation o a specific island and that these species had formed from a small number of common ancestors. Besides that, he established that the birds had different beaks owing to the fact that they had to adapt to different supplies of food in each of the islands they came from. William James, the initiator of functionalism, then sought to draw a comparison of human behavior to the finches’ species of birds where he stated that human behavior underwent the same kind of natural selection (Pastorino& Doyle-Partillo, 2011). Conclusion It is evident that Darwin made significant contribution to the field of psychology particularly through the actual observation of his own son. This shed light into the subject of developmental psychology where he likened the stages that children go through to the stages of the evolutionary process. Notably also, he brought focus into the emotional expressions of human beings and some animals by suggesting that they were traces of movements that had a practical function earlier on. His findings and observations have provided a new basis for the field of psychology where scholars and researchers began to look into emotional aspects of human beings from the perspective of evolution. In his short publication based on observing his son stated that certain emotions experienced by children, being unaffected by experience, were inherited effects of real dangers and hopeless superstitions during ancient, primitive times. References Berra, T. (2009). Charles Darwin: The Concise Story of an Extraordinary Man. Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Schultz, D. and Schultz, S. (2011). A History of Modern Psychology. Wadsworth Cengage Learning: California Pastorino, E. and Doyle-Partillo, S. (2011). What is Psychology? California: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Smith, R. (2006). From passions to emotions: The creation of a secular psychological category. British Journal for the History of Science, 39(140), 137-138. Burghardt, G. M. (2009). Darwins legacy to comparative psychology and ethology. The American Psychologist, 64(2), 102. Read More