PSY 1101 Chapter : Psychology Prologue.doc

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 1101
• Professor: Najwa Haddad

Document Summary

On the scale of outer space, we are a single grain of sand on all the oceans" beaches. There is nothing more awe inspiring and absorbing than our own brain. The brain is by far the most complex and physical object known to us. Our consciousness, mind, thinking, emotions, actions are complex. Psychology is a science that answers how and why we think, feel, and act as we do. Psychology is a science that had its beginnings with the first psychological laboratory founded by a german philosopher and physiologist wilhelm wundt in 1879 where he was seeking to measure the fastest and simplest mental processes. Early schools of psychology include structuralism and functionalism, gestalt psychology, behaviourism, and psychoanalysis. Structuralism seeks to study the structural elememnts of the mind. Introspection (looking inward) was used as a method to engage people in order to explore the structural elements of the human mind.