Psychology: Early versus Contemporary

During the early centuries, there was no distinction between philosophy and science. However, soon after, a clear difference had been set; every area of man’s thought and behavior could be scientifically investigated. Auguste Comte, one of the founding fathers of sociology, wrote a book that demonstrated the necessity of a scientific approach to social behavior. The need for a scientific approach threatened the study of the social sciences, such as psychology, sociology, and other philosophical studies (Robert & Donn, 2003).

Psychology was a social science that was widely established at the beginning of the 19th century. Many theorists like Wundt, Dollard, Miller, Roger, and Pavlov played a crucial role in bringing psychology into the experimental world, proving that it is not only a philosophical approach but also a scientific one. The field of psychology grew significantly in many areas, including cognitive development, human behavior, learning, observational learning, and more (Koen & Robert, 2005).

The psychologists began analyzing human behavior, which later helped the emergence of behaviorism. Behaviorists like Thorndike and Ivan Pavlov believed in stimulus-response, in which behavior can be trained and conditioned to specific stimuli. Modern behaviorism was born in the early 20th century by John Broadus Watson, who rejected the Freudian perspective on the unconscious and emphasized that humans learn from rewards and punishments, with positive responses being reinforced (Sankar, 2003). Then it became famous with B. F. Skinner's approach. At the end of the 20th century, behaviorism began to decline because of its lack of scientific evidence and its simplicity.

The controversies among psychologists, in one way, led emerging psychologists to open their minds and adopt a useful approach that is working tremendously in current psychology. Since Watson’s behaviorism strongly opposed the cognitive approach, a traditional antagonism persisted among contemporary psychologists and their research. Tolman’s notion of purposive behaviorism sought to integrate these two aspects of behaviorism and cognitivism.

The emergence of cognition helped to elucidate human thought processes, mental images, memory, metacognition, and the mind-body relation. North American psychologists developed theories of mental imagery during the 1960s, which were strongly opposed by Watson because they were not considered observable behavior (Koen & Robert, 2005). As behaviorism started losing its popularity, mental imagery was rediscovered. Mental imagery helps solve spatial problems or work on tasks that require creativity (Schultz & Schultz, 2006).

A cognitive map was defined as a mental representation of the external environment, which falls under special cognition and has been widely studied. It studied the mental functions involved in remembering, navigating, and keeping track of objects, landmarks, and destinations, including geographic structures. Cognitive psychology helps to explain aspects such as memory, language, schemas, attention, problem-solving, and creativity. The tests in these areas help an individual to recognize their capabilities and inner potential to achieve their goal.

Thus, psychology offers many ways of expressing the mind-body relationship, with behaviorism and the cognitive approach among them.

Schultz, D. P., & Schultz, S. E. (2006). Theories of Personality. Cengage Learning.

Robert, A. B., & Donn, B. (2003). Social Psychology. Prentice Hall, Inc.

Koen, L., & Robert. L. G. (2005). The Handbook of Cognition. Sage Publications.

Sankar Rao, C. N. (2003). Sociology: Primary Principle of Sociology. Chand & Company Ltd.