Origins of Psychology

The term psychology was coined in the sixteenth century from the Greek word “psych” which means “mind” or “soul” and “logos” means “study”. The initial meaning of Psychology was thus, “the study of the soul”, and in the earlier period Psychology was the branch of Philosophy. By late 19th century, when Psychology emerged as a science, it had become the “science of mind”. Beginning in the second decade of the twentieth century, many psychologists abandoned the study of mind in favour of the study of behaviour. Consequently, by 1920, Psychology became “the scientific study of behaviour”. However, by 1960s, there was a revival of interest in studying the mind. Thus it became, “the science of behaviour and mental processes”.

The philosophical Roots of Psychology:

This can be traced back to more than 2000 years ago, when Buddha and Confucius focused on the powers and origin of ideas. In other parts of the world, Socrates, his student Plato and Plato’s student Aristotle pondered whether mind and body are connected or distinct. These ancient philosophers set the stage for the development of the science of Psychology through their reliance on observation as a mean of knowing about people.

It is during seventeenth century, philosophers introduced the idea of dualism – the world is divided into two elements (here, mind and matter). The mind accounted for our thoughts and feelings, Matter referred to our physical being, our bodies. Mind and matter were believed to be completely independent of each other. Mind was believed to be the part of God’s domain. Therefore, it was only studied by theologians, while matter was studied by other scholars in universities.

In contrast there were other philosophers who suggested that mind can influence body and body can influence mind. This view is known as Interactionism.

Rene Descartes, a French philosopher suggested that there was a link between mind and body, and perceptions. He said that mind and body interact through the Pineal gland, which is found deep within the brain. His approach to understand human behaviour was based on the assumption that the mind and body influence each other to create a person’s experience.

Toward the end of seventeenth century, the British Philosopher John Locke contributed yet another important concept to the foundation for modern psychology. He said that infants come to this world with blank minds, with no experience (tabula rasa or blank tablet). Later, whatever experiences a person has in life are written into this blank tablet. Knowledge, thus, is the result of a building up of experiences.

The Scientific Roots of Psychology:

By the nineteenth century, scientists were making progress in answering questions about the nature of Psychological processes that Philosophers are having difficult with. One such remarkable name was of Johannes Muller who described how electrical signals were conducted by nerves within the body.

Herman Von Helmholtz, a German Physiologist, showed how receptors in the eyes and ears receive and interpret sensations from the outside world. Gustav Fechner demonstrated that our perceptions of physical stimuli like the loudness of a sound or brightness of a light are related in lawful, predictable ways to the physical energies of these stimuli. He used the technique called Psychophysics to quantify the relationship between physical stimulation and mental experiences.

Psychology as we know it today was born in a laboratory in Germany in the late 1800s, when Wilhelm Wundt ran the first true experiments in psychology’s first lab. By 1879, he founded the first formal laboratory for research in psychology at the University of Leipzig. Because of this and many other contributions, Wundt is described as the founder of experimental psychology. Alexander Bain, another philosopher founded the influential journal Mind in 1876. G. Stanley Hall took psychology to America. He founded the first laboratory of psychology at Johns Hopkins in 1883. He started the American Psychology Association in 1892 and then became its first president.