PSYA02H3 Lecture Notes - Wilhelm Wundt, Construct Validity
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PSYA02H3 Full Course Notes
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Document Summary
Science has always been contextualized in a larger set of societal/historical/political/ ideological/economic processes E. g. , theological/religious barriers impeded the progress of physiological sciences (and therefore psychology): Doctrines regarding human exemptionalism (i. e. , therefore, impossible to learn about human biology through animal studies) Proposed a systematic account of the body as a machine; physiological processes described in terms of mechanistic interactions, controlled by hydraulics (fluids) and mechanics (levers) Thus, human and animal bodies were complicated machines, consistent with the mechanistic zeitgeist of the time; e. g. , water statues, clocks. However, what set humans apart from animals was the mind, which was non-physical but able (somehow ) to interact with the body. Descartes believed the mind-body nexus was the pineal gland. This splitting of the mind & body still plagues us. Much of the rest of the history of psychology can be described as a struggle to answer questions that emerge from this dualism.
