PSYCO104 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Wilhelm Wundt, Physiological Psychology, Baruch Spinoza

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCO104
• Professor: Geoff Hollis

Document Summary

Chapter 1 notes: psyche soul; logos to study, psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behaviour. Subjective experiences: all of our subjective experiences arise from the electrical and chemical activities of our brains. Elliot made bad decisions; lost job, wife 1 and wife 2 divorced him. Elliot had no emotions hence lost adaptive function of emotion a basic psychological process: our brain tries to balance accuracy with speed and versatility that is why we make bad choices. E. g. pilots who shut down the wrong engine! (a correctly working one instead of the faulty one): w. james found that breakdowns and errors in the mind help us understand the normal operation of mental life and behaviour. Roots of psychology: structuralists analyzed mind by breaking it down into its components, functionalists focussed on how mental abilities allow people to adapt to their environments, behaviourists limited to the scientific study of objectively observable behaviours.