Naturalism In Psychology

Mechanization, naturalism, and humanitarian reform are also considered modern intellectual developments that paved the way for psychology as a system of ideas (King et al., 2009). Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) produced the first map of the mind which became to be known as phrenology. This was the first attempt to map brain functions, although modern brain imaging technology has debunked his theories as being inaccurate and overly simplified. Naturalism asserts that all phenomenon are understandable by a set of laws or procedures. Furthermore, identifiable forces cause events, and unidentifiable forces, such as demons, do not. Building on this perspective, Charles Darwin (1809-1882) developed his theory of evolution through natural selection, …show more content…
Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard (1775-1838) made a significant contribution to this kind of reform when he taught a mentally deficient abandoned boy how to learn basic social skills. Subsequently, Edouard Seguin (1812-1880) developed a program to educate those with mental deficiencies. Such reform ushered in a new era in psychology; the formal founding of psychology had begun.
Formal founding of psychology
Formal psychology is characterized by several developments; psychophysics, functionalism, behaviorism, gestalt psychology, psychoanalysis, and humanistic psychology (King et al., 2009). Psychophysics is the study of stimuli and its physical properties and its psychological impressions. Furthermore, psychophysics is used to determine the manifestation of stimuli as psychological phenomenon. Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) was instrumental to the advancement of psychophysics, which was in part due to his discovery that the conservation of energy applied to humans and not just physical phenomena. Functionalism is the application of methodologies to problems of behavior and experience. While functionalism …show more content…
Historical truth is something that happened in the past, furthermore, it is true because it happened (Spence, 1984). Narrative truth relies on the account of an individual, furthermore, it is true because I have experienced it to be so. Furthermore, historical truth is an objective account of the truth, while narrative truth is a subjective account of the truth. Uncovering what kind of truth is being referred to is critical for questions regarding the nature of the truth being sought out. For example, it could be historically true that cooties do not exist as a real disease. With that being said, it can be narratively true that cooties do exist because the experience of children avoiding contact with other children, out of fear of contracting the fictitious disease, has likely prevented the spread of illness amongst the cootie fearing children. There is certainly a distinct difference between historical truth and narrative truth and it is important to understand the distinction when referring to truth in broad