History of Psychology (Psyx 400)

Presentation Topics and Dates

Choose one of the following presentation topics. Note that you will have to consider three things: 1) What are my preferred dates? 2) Do I want to work alone (mini-lecture) or with others (issue debate or discipline history)? 3) What topic(s) do I prefer?

Week	Date	Topic	Mini-lecture	Issue Debate	Discipline History
3	1/28/11	Early Psychophysics	1. Helmholtz’s theory of color vision. 2. Broca’s localization of language in the brain.	None	None
4	2/4/11	Germany and the Birth of a New Science	3. Ebbinghaus’ demonstration of the forgetting curve. 4. Kulpe on the nature of “imageless thought.”	None	None
5	2/11/11	Darwin to Instinct to Individual Differences	5. Darwin on the evolution of facial expressions in man and animals.	1. Which has been more important to human survival, instinct or intelligence?
6	2/18/11	Early Psychology in America: James, Hall, etc.	6. Wundt on the development of mental communities. 7. Münsterberg on equipping the Harvard laboratory.	2. Whose views were most correct with regard to the nature-nurture issue, John Locke or Gottfried Leibniz?
7	2/25/11	Early Schools of Psychology: Structuralism and Functionalism	None	3. Is the true nature of “consciousness” better describe by Edward Titchner or William James?	1. Educational Psychology
8	3/4/11	Birth of the New Applied Psychology in America	None	4. Is “intelligence” a genetically determined unitary trait as Goddard suggested or a hierarchy of abilities as Binet argued?	None

9	3/11/11	Gestalt Psychology and behaviorism's beginnings: Pavlov and Watson.	None	5. Is problem-solving an incremental process of learning (as Thorndike proposed) or due a sudden awareness of the structure of the problem, sometimes call “insight” (as Kohler suggested)?	2. Sensation & Perception
			SPRING BREAK
10	3/25/11	Later Behaviorism: Positivism, Tolman & Skinner	8. Harlow on the motivation for physical contact and love	None	3. Motivational Psychology
11	4/1/11	Early Clinical Psych: Pinel, Freud, Witmer	9. Dorothea Dix on what’s wrong with mental institutions	None	4. Psychology of Personality
12	4/8/11	Modern Psych Practice: Eysenck, Rogers (Third Force), Hawthorn studies, etc.	10. Rogers on why we need a client centered approach to therapy	None	5. Industrial/Organizational Psychology
13	4/15/11	PsychologyPost WWII: Cognitive, Neuroscience, Social Action & Social Change, etc.	None	6. Was there a “cognitive revolution” in psychology in the 1960s: Yes or No?	6. Cognitive Psychology
			UNIVERSITY DAY
14	4/29/11	Approaching 2000: Diversity and other modern trends	None	None	7. Psychology of Gender