The Psychology Book

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any of the issues that are examined in modern psychology had been the subject of philosophical debate long before the development of science as we know it today. The very earliest philosophers of ancient Greece sought answers to questions about the world around us, and the way we think and behave. Since then we have wrestled with ideas of consciousness and self, mind and body, knowledge and perception, how to structure society, and how to live a “good life.” The various branches of science evolved from philosophy, gaining momentum from the 16th century onward, until finally exploding into a “scientific revolution,” which ushered in the Age of Reason in the 18th century. While these advances in scientific knowledge answered This is a book that very few people will read cover to cover. You would most likely fall asleep. I found it most satisfying to read topics I thought might relate to me. I also skimmed through some of the chapters with a title that made no sense. Like, the "Dormez!" chapter is about hypnosis. There were also a lot of concepts that had nothing to do with the title. naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness….” James’s famous description of the “stream... of consciousness” is one that almost everyone can identify with, because we all experience it. Yet, at the same time, James points out that it is very hard to actually define: “When I say every thought is part of a personal consciousness, ‘personal consciousness’ is one of the terms in question… to give an accurate account of it is the most difficult of philosophic tasks.” In 1873, James returned to Harvard, where he became a professor of both philosophy and psychology. He set up the first experimental psychology courses in the US, playing a key role in establishing psychology as a truly scientific discipline. He retired in 1907, and died peacefully at his home in New Hampshire in 1910. Key works 1890 The Principles of Psychology 1892 Psychology 1897 The Will to Believe The Psychology Book is the perfect introduction to the science, aimed at adults with an interest in the subject and students wanting to gain more of an overview. Here you'll discover key concepts by psychologists who have significantly enhanced our understanding of the human mind and behaviour. Learn about everyone who's contributed to the big ideas in psychology, incorporating the ideas of today's scientists as well those of the ancient philosophers and pioneers. erman physician Emil Kraepelin believed that the origins of most mental illnesses are biological, and he is often regarded as the founder of modern medical psychiatry. In his Textbook of Psychiatry, published in 1883, Kraepelin offered a detailed classification of mental illnesses, including “dementia praecox,” meaning “early dementia,” to distinguish it from late-onset dementia, such as Alzheimer’s.

ohann Herbart was a German philosopher who wanted to investigate how the mind works—in particular, how it manages ideas or concepts. Given that we each have a huge number of ideas over the course of our lifetime, how do we not become increasingly confused? It seemed to Herbart that What I found to be the most interesting part of this chapter was the section on 'Who teaches a child to hate and fear a member of another race?' Here, Kenneth Clark made very important discoveries on how society teaches kids to form prejudices at an early age. As a business psychologist, Voula Grand consults for international corporations on leadership and executive performance. Her first novel is Honor’s Shadow. She is currently writing the sequel, Honor’s Ghost. However, if two ideas are unalike, they may continue to exist without association. This causes them to weaken over time, so that they eventually sink below the “threshold of consciousness.” Should two ideas directly contradict one another, “resistance occurs” and “concepts become forces when they resist one another.” They repel one another with an energy that propels one of them beyond consciousness, into a place that Herbart referred to as “a state of tendency;” and we now know as “the unconscious.” Herbart saw the unconscious as simply a kind of storage place for weak or opposed ideas. In positing a two-part consciousness, split by a distinct threshold, he was attempting to deliver a structural solution for the management of ideas in a healthy mind. But Sigmund Freud was to see it as a much more complex and revealing mechanism. He combined Herbart’s concepts with his own theories of unconscious drives to form the basis of the 20th-century’s most important therapeutic approach: psychoanalysis. ■

A lecturer in philosophy and psychology, Nigel Benson has written several bestselling books on the subject of psychology, including Psychology for Beginners and Introducing Psychiatry. Galton’s study of twins looked for resemblances in many ways, including height, weight, hair and eye color, and disposition. Handwriting was the only aspect in which twins always differed.

Consciousness… does not appear to itself chopped up in bits… It is nothing jointed; it flows. William James Even in its earliest days, psychology meant different things to different people. In the US, its roots lay in philosophy, so the approach taken was speculative and theoretical, dealing with concepts such as consciousness and the self. Behaviour partly created the environment, and the resultant environment, in turn, influenced the behaviour." Albert Bandura century BCE Greek philosopher Aristotle says that the soul and body are inseparable: the soul is the actuality of the body. AFTER 1710 In A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley claims that the body is merely the perception of the mind. 1904 In Does Consciousness Exist? William James asserts that consciousness is not a separate entity but a function of particular experiences. surgeon James Braid, from the Greek hypnos, meaning “sleep” and osis meaning “condition.” Braid concluded that hypnosis is not a type of sleep but a concentration on a single idea, resulting in heightened suggestibility. After his death, interest in hypnosis largely waned until the French neurologist

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Book Genre: Academic, Education, Health, History, Mental Health, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Psychology, Reference, Science, Self Help DK was founded in London in 1974 and is nowthe world leading illustrated reference publisher and a member of the Penguin Random House division of Bertelsmann. DK publishes highly visual, photographic non-fiction for adults and children. DK produces content for consumers in over 100 countries and over 60 languages,withoffices in theUK, India, US, Germany, China, Canada, Spain and Australia.