Psych 408 Exam 2
Weber's Law
- the principle that, to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant amount)
Spearman's 'g'
- 'g' means a particular quantity derived from statistical operations - an underlying factor of general intelligence exists that forms the foundation out of which all intellectual abilities rise
Romanticism
- 19th century artistic movement that appealed to emotion rather than reason - rejected Christianity and looked for meaning within nature and pantheism - Germany was the country most affected by romanticism - German romantics also looked at history, religion, art, mythology and science as being bound together in any given age - both the internal world of the man and the external world of nature were ONE
HMS Beagle at Tierra del Fuego
- 5 yr trip to map the coast of S. America, Darwin studied a wide variety of plants and amimals - contact with "untamed" humans on Tierra del Fuego in December 1832 unsettled him. "How great the difference between savage & civilized man is." - the Beagle circled the globe
Samuel Wilberforce (1805 to 1873)
- Anglican Bishop who attacked Darwin's theory as incompatible with the Bible - attempted to destroy Darwin's theory through scientific arguments - aimed final point at Huxley when he asked whether it was through his Grandfather or Grandmother that Huxley claimed descent from a monkey.
Apollonian and Dionysian
- Apollonian: represents the human rational side and reflects our desire for predictability, tranquility and order - Dionysian: reflects the human irrational side with our attraction to creative chaos and passionate dynamic experiences
George Berkeley (1685-1753)
- British philosopher who argued that the real world is not the world of matter but the world of experience - his dictum "esse est percipi" (to be is to be perceived) marks him as one of the most radical of the early empiricists - advanced an early empirical approach to depth perception, attempting to demonstrate that we learn to see in depth - matter does not exist - human knowledge is based only on ideas - all things come into existence when they are perceived; therefore, reality consists of our perceptions
Uniformitarianism
- Charles Lyell's idea that geologic processes have not changed throughout Earth's history
Thomas Huxley (1825-1895)
- English biologist and anthropologist specialising in comparative anatomy - has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution
Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882)
- English naturalist known for his belief that evolution occurred by natural selection; species descend from common ancestors - wrote 'On the Origin of Species' - wrote 'The Descent of Man'
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913)
- English naturalist who proposed, independently of Charles Darwin, the concept of natural selection as a mechanism for evolution and as a way to explain the great variety of living things
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
- English philosopher who argued that in the difficult economic struggle for existence, only the "fittest" would survive
John Locke (1632-1704)
- English philosopher who wrote "The Second Treatise of Government" - viewed humans as basically rational beings who learn from experience - formulated the theory of natural rights, arguing that people are born with basic rights to "life, liberty, and property" - insisted that governments are formed to protect natural rights - stated that the governed have a right to rebel against rulers who violate natural rights
Thomas Hobbes/Hobbesian Philosophy (1588-1679)
- English political philosopher who wrote Leviathan - viewed human beings as naturally self-centered and prone to violence - feared the dangers of anarchy more than the dangers of tyranny - argued that monarchs have absolute and unlimited political authority
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
- German author who wrote near the end of the Aufklärung, the German Enlightenment - his work 'The Sorrows of Young Werther' helped fuel the Sturm und Drang movement, and his two-part 'Faust' is seen as one of the landmarks of Western literature - believed that life consisted of opposing forces such as life and death, love and hate and that one should embrace all and live life with passion and an eye toward continuous growth
Ewald Hering's Theory of Color Vision
- Helmholtz could not explain how gray was perceived so Hering accounted for gray by explaining that there are three receptors in the eye - one accounts for red-green, one accounts for yellow-blue, and one accounts for white-black - in terms of energy: red, yellow, and white have a catabolic effect, while that of green, blue, and black have an anabolic effect - if the catabolic and anabolic processes happen simultaneously, gray is perceived
Hume's Intent
- Hume's intent in writing the 'Treatise of Human Nature, Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects' was to do for moral philosophy (social sciences) what Newton had done for natural philosophy (physical sciences) - Hume wanted to create a science of human nature
Locke on Government
- Locke believed in a broad-based popular government - as a deist, he believed humans had natural rights - in his 'Two Treatises of Government' (1689), Locke detailed his view that government must uphold the natural rights conferred by the Creator, or the people will be justified in replacing the government - Locke's views will be influential in the American Revolution
sensation and reflection
- Locke's 2 sources of ideas - sensation is produced by direct sensory stimulation - reflection is the processing of prior sensory stimulation - either can produce ideas - primary qualities create in people ideas that correspond to physical attributes such as solidity, shape, quantity and motion - secondary qualities can produce ideas, but the ideas do not correspond to anything in the physical world - pleasure and pain accompany both simple and complex ideas - Locke held that emotions are derived from the feelings of pleasure and pain
Locke on Education
- Locke's work 'Some Thoughts Concerning Education' (1693) has shaped the process of education in the West. He saw education as a means for effecting change in society
Johannes Muller (1801-1858)
- Müller was a staunch vitalist - Vitalists held that life processes are mysterious and cannot be explained by physical and chemical processes alone - there was a 'life force' that was beyond human understanding which upon death would depart and allow decay - Müller's research focus was on nerve sensitivity and his students would build on his work to make additional discoveries in sensation and perception - wrote 'The Handbook of Human Physiology' which was the standard text on sensory nerves for much of the nineteenth century
The Helmholtz Oath
- No other forces than the common physical-chemical ones are active within the organism - in those cases which cannot at the time be explained by these forces one has either to find the specific way or form of their activity by means of the physical mathematical method, or to assume new forces equal in dignity to the physical-chemical forces inherent in matter, reducible to the force of attraction and repulsion
David Hume (1711-1776)
- Scottish intellectual, some hold to be the first to put psychology as an independent discipline, rather than solely a philosophy - was a skeptic and his in-your-face skepticism infuriated his contemporaries - his doubt over the existence of God precluded him from professorships at the universities in Edinburgh and Glasgow - denied innate knowledge - did not deny causality (as some might claim), but rather he denied the reasoning behind it
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)
- Spinoza was introduced to the philosophy of Descartes; however, he soon broke with Descartes's contention that God, matter, and mind were all separate. Spinoza saw all three as a unity and as this ran counter to Jewish (and Christian) images of God - Spinoza was excommunicated from his temple in 1656 for his 'evil opinions and acts.' - his excommunication was known as a cherem and meant that Spinoza was removed from the Jewish community - soon after banished from Amsterdam by Cristian authorities - wrote 'Ethics: Demonstrated in Geometrical Order', which was published posthumously
Will to Power & The Übermensch
- Will to Power: Nietzsche agreed with Schopenhauer that humans are basically irrational; however, Nietzsche believed this irrationality needs to be expressed. You need to act as you truly feel, even aggressive tendencies must be displayed. The will to power is the primary human motive out of which all human motives are derived - The Übermensch: Nietzsche argued that humans cannot have a substantial self that operates independently of their environment. Impulses, emotions, and memories shape perceptions, which in turn are shaped by socio-historical conditions. However, a rare individual can transcend this and become the übermensch. The übermensch is the man or woman who has reached his or her full potential. 'All gods are dead: now we want the übermensch to live.' In Nietzsche's view, modern humanity is on the rope between animals and the übermensch .
Nietzsche and Nazism
- With the rise of Hitler, his sister, Elisabeth Nietzsche, convinced the Nazis that her brother was their philosopher. To an extent, she succeeded. Her brother would have found Hitler abhorrent. Nietzsche emphasized the individual, whereas Hitler emphasized racial-nationalism
Wissenschaft
- a body of knowledge organized according to principles, this would include history as well as physics
utilitarianism
- a collection of ethical theories which aim at creating the greatest good for the greatest number of people
Bildung
- a sense that within the individual every part of education contributes to the good, the true, and the beautiful
Johann Friedrich Herbart
- agreed with Kant that psychology could never be an experimental science- the mind was an integrated whole and could not be divided up - but did believe that the activities of the mind could be expressed mathematically, and in that sense, psychology could be a science - insisted that psychology be regarded as a mathematical science, a view which would encourage the development of experimental psychology
David Hartley and Impressions
- agreed with Newton that sensory experience causes a vibration in the nerves - these vibrations are called impressions - in the brain, the impressions caused vibrations which are experienced as sensations - moderate vibrations = pleasure - violent vibrations = pain
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
- an academic prodigy who earned his MA degree by age 18 years - was a proponent of utilitarianism - drew from hedonism to define human happiness in terms of the ability to obtain pleasure and avoid pain - his view influenced several of the political and social reforms instituted in Britain in his time
The Social Contract (Rousseau)
- argued that mankind is good, but the institutions of society have made us bad; only the people have the right to rule; we need to return to the values of the noble savage - promoted the development of democracy; helped inspire political reforms and revolutions in Europe - saw society as an artificial creation which denied basic human nature - believed humans must give up their freedom and independence to bend to the General Will- The General Will was an ambiguous term that referred to what was 'best' within a community; it was distinguished from the Private Will, the desires of the individual - believed that humans are born good and the ideal human was the Noble Savage, a human unsullied by civilization
Apperceptive Mass (Herbart)
- at any given moment, compatible ideas gather in the consciousness and form an apperceptive mass. The mass is what we are paying attention to at the moment. If an idea is compatible with the apperceptive mass, it will be admitted. But if it is not, repression on the part of the mass will keep it out. The repressed idea will continue to exist and look for an opportunity to join the apperceptive mass
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
- believed life is characterized by a cycle of needs and need satisfaction, and need satisfaction simply postpones death - believed he was the only philosopher who understood Kant and the ancient philosophies of India and Persia - believed that primary human motivation was the will to survive - believed human desire was futile, illogical, directionless, and, by extension, so was all human action in the world - believed inner essence of everything was WILL - was one of the first modern philosophers to deal openly with sexuality - believed sex is the ultimate goal of almost all human effort' and 'The genitals are the focus of the will.' It is the will that drives people to reproduce, and it is a force that takes precedence over reason - Schopenhauer has also been noted in Freud's concepts of the libido and the unconscious mind, and in the foundation of evolutionary psychology
The Doctrine of Specific Nerve Energies
- believed that he had found that there are different types of sensory nerves, each containing a characteristic energy - when stimulated, the nerves convey a particular sensation to the brain - each sense organ is maximally sensitive to a particular type of stimulation (the eye is most stimulated by light energy, the skin by pressure, and so forth)
Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
- believed that religion had become too rational and mechanical - believed that a relationship with God should be an intensely personal and a highly emotional experience, like a love affair. - his desire for freedom proved to be the foundation for existentialism - his failed relationship with Regine Olsen influenced his views on marriage, love, commitment, authenticity, and perhaps above all, faith and relationship to God - his work 'Either/Or', Kierkegaard offers three stages by which one can reach personal freedom - the aesthetic stage: people seek out excitement, but do not recognize their ability to choose. Ultimately their life choices lead to boredom and despair - the ethical stage: people accept the responsibility for making choices, but use as their guide ethical principles established by others. People acting at this level do not accept their freedom to choose - the religious stage: people recognize and embrace their freedom. They can now enter into a unique and personal relationship with God - addressed a concern that materialism and conformity were crushing the human spirit - emphasis on the idea of freedom exercised through choice influenced Humanistic and Existentialist Psychology
The Law of Three Stages
- believed that societies pass through three stages by which they identify natural events - first stage: theological - explanations are based on superstition and mysticism - second stage: metaphysical - explanations are based on unseen essences, principles, causes, or laws - third stage: scientific - description is emphasized over explanation, and the prediction and control of natural phenomena becomes important
David Weschler (1896-1981)
- best known for his intelligence tests - first to publish intelligence test for adults - the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) was developed first in 1939 - from the test, he derived the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) in 1949 and the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI) in 1967
Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
- coined the term sociology - believed that we can only be certain of what is publicly observable - scientific laws can be derived from observations - wrote 'The Course of Positive Philosophy' which defined positivism - The Law of Three Stages
Darwin & Galapagos Finches
- concluded that several birds from one species of finch had probably been blown by storm or otherwise separated to each of the islands from one island or from the mainland - the finches had to adapt to their new environments and food sources (evolution of beak sizes) and gradually evolved into different species
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
- considered a rationalist, but in many respects Kant covered the middle ground between the empiricists and the rationalists - believed in the categorical imperative, a rational principle which governs moral behavior - was wary of psychology as he believed it could never be a science - there was no way to scientifically study the subjective experience of the mind - noumenal world: the world as it exists - phenomenal world: the world as we each experience it, keeping in mind, the phenomenal world is NOT the world as it really is - argued that there are the a priori categories of thought: ways of thought that are not reliant on experience
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
- considered an existentialist - prized freedom and the human potential to choose meaning in life - believed that there were two sides to the human mind: the Apollonian and the Dionysian - believed the best art and literature comes from a mixing of the two, and the ideal life represents controlled passion - believed one of the goals of life should be the rekindling of Dionysian passion - announced that God was dead and that humanity had killed Him: humans had relied on God for meaning and morality, but the scientists and philosophers of the nineteenth century had discredited that notion of a deity - believed there are no truths, only perspectives; hence Nietzsche's philosophy is also known as perspectivism - his philosophy will influence Humanistic Psychology
David Hartley and Behavior
- considered human behavior involuntary as it is reflexive, it happens in response to sensory stimulation
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
- considered the father of romanticism - French enlightened thinker best known for writing 'The Social Contract' and 'Emile' - early critic of modern society - argued against the idea of inherent freedom and equality (which put him at odds with the Enlightenment) as he believed the result was alienation and selfishness - believed that society makes the person; that free-will is unnecessary in the pursuit of happiness
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829)
- developed the first cohesive theory of evolution after his studies of biology - he proposed that by selective use or disuse of organs, organisms could acquire or lose certain traits which are then passed on to their children and future generations, eventually changing the species
Baruch Spinoza's Philosophy
- differed from Descartes in that he believed everything was part of one great eternal unity - believed in pantheism: the belief that God is everywhere and in everything, all is one with God - did not believe in miracles (violations of the rules), evil spirits, revelation or that God commanded, judged, or made covenants with people - argued that 'true religion' had nothing to do with liturgy, sectarian dogma, or theology; 'true religion' consisted of just one moral rule: love your neighbor
Ewald Hering (1834-1918)
- disliked Helmholtz - challenged him on his theory of color vision.
Alfred Binet (1857-1911)
- early foray into intelligence testing was sloppy, but he learned from his mistakes - he and colleague Theodore Simon crafted a test to determine mental retardation and out of this work came the Binet-Simon Scale of Intelligence - the scale was considered an improvement over Galton's methods - believed that inheritance set an upper limit on intellectual ability, but that all children could grow intellectually if they received the proper attention from the school
Existentialism
- existentialists prized free will and encouraged others to embrace their personal freedom as a way of finding meaning in the here and now - also held that personal experience and feelings are the most valid guides for behavior - believed the goal of life should be personal achievement and fulfillment- to do so, all components of experience, the good and the bad, should be embraced
David Hartley (1705-1757)
- founder of modern associationism - wrote 'Observations on Man, His Frame, His Duty, and His Expectations' - his work drew heavily on that of Isaac Newton and John Locke
Franz Joseph Gall
- founder of phrenology - believed in faculty psychology and argued that different regions of the brain were responsible for different emotional, intellectual, and behavioral functions
Kant's Legacy
- he contributed to the ongoing debate over the existence of innate processing abilities - he also opened to consideration the idea that the dynamic mind creates the experience of the world for each individual - this view would prove foundational to Phenomenology and Gestalt Psychology
Hume and the Associationism
- he posited that there were three principles of connections among ideas: 1) Resemblance 2) Contiguity in time or place 3) Cause and Effect. - the roots of all three are in Aristotle's Laws of Association - taken all together, the three principles give us our conscious view - he focused on causality and argued that a sequence of events assumes the existence of causality
Francis Galton (1822-1911)
- he was the first to apply statistical methods to the study of human differences and inheritance of intelligence, and introduced the use of questionnaires and surveys for collecting data on human communities, which he needed for genealogical and biographical works and for his anthropometric studies - he was a pioneer of eugenics, coining the term itself in 1883, and also coined the phrase "nature versus nurture" - his book Hereditary Genius (1869) was the first social scientific attempt to study genius and greatness - the Father of Fingerprinting
James Mill (1773-1836)
- he wrote 'The History of British India' which led to a career with the East India Company - also wrote 'Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind' - believed that the mind consisted only of sensations and ideas held together by contiguity - his 'Analysis' is considered the most comprehensive explanation of associationism
James McKeen Cattell (1860-1944)
- heavily influenced by Darwin and evolution - he was also in favor of eugenics like Galton: he promised his 7 children that he would pay them each $1,000 if they would marry sons or daughters of college professors - scientific approach did much to establish the discipline of psychology - saw psychology as a tool by which people and their abilities could be assessed
Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887)
- his interests changed from physics to philosophy - he wrote of what he called the 'night view' (materialism), and contrasted it with what he called the 'day view' (mind, spirit, and consciousness) - he accepted Spinoza's double-aspect view of the mind and body, and thereby believed that consciousness was as prevalent in the universe as matter - wrote 'Elements of Psychophysics' - wrote several articles attempting to quantify reactions to works of art - was a pioneer in the field of experimental psychology and the field of psychophysics
Psychic Mechanics (Herbart)
- ideas compete to find expression in the consciousness and in doing so expend energy - ideas in the consciousness are bright and clear, while those ideas in the unconsciousness are dark and obscure - each idea struggles to become clear, what Herbart called self-preservation
William Stern (1871-1938)
- introduced the term 'mental age' and developed the methods to determine an intelligence quotient (IQ)
characteristics of empiricism
- knowledge is obtained through experience- the focus is on sensory experience. - sensory experience constitutes the primary data of all knowledge- there is no innate knowledge, the mind is passive. - knowledge cannot exist until sensory evidence has first been gathered. - emphasizes induction - all subsequent intellectual processes must focus on sensory experience in formulating propositions about the world - many of the early empiricists and associationists were British
Julien Offray de la Mettrie (1709-1751)
- known as a sensationalist (put an emphasis on sensory information) - believed the mind and body were more closely linked than Descartes believed. If the two were separate, how could the experience of intoxicants be explained - there is nothing in the universe other than matter and motion - sensations and thoughts are only the movement of particles in the brain - believed that through proper training an ape could be rendered human - wrote 'The Natural History of a Soul' and 'Man a Machine'
Fechner's Law
- larger and larger increases in physical energy are required to produce equal increases in perception - Fechner's Law was flawed, but as with Weber's Law, it represented an attempt to quantify perception
materialism
- less interested in mind-body dualism or ideas that the mind and body are subject to separate laws - interest will be in the material of the body and how it might account for the phenomenal world of the individual
Charles Spearman (1863-1945)
- made contributions to statistics, especially in the field of factor analysis, but is best known for general intelligence (g), also known as Spearman's 'g' - felt that levels of general intelligence could predict levels of specific abilities - emphasized the unitary nature of intelligence. This will remain controversial into the present. - viewed intelligence as largely inherited. Improvement of intellectual abilities would be difficult. - his view of intelligence will be embraced by the testing movement in the US
Georg Fredrich Wilhelm Hegel
- most influential work was Phenomenology of the Mind - saw the universe as one seamless unity which he called the Absolute - prized the dialectic process whereby thesis generates antithesis and through synthesis creates a new thesis- this process continues until the knowledge of the Absolute is reached - did much to encourage the view that everything was interconnected, thereby stimulating the study of art, religion, and history within the context of the min - the idea of the Id, Ego, and Super-ego in Freud's model of the personality owes much to Hegel's dialectic process
Lewis Terman (1877-1956)
- noted uneven results when Binet's tests were administered to American children and revised the test which became known in 1916 as the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales - believed that intellectual abilities were largely inherited - to support his view, he ran a longitudinal study of a group of highly intelligent children and these kids became known as the "Quiz Kids" - his work did much to dispel the idea that kids with high IQs were socially inept and given to early burn-out - he found that the gifted child often becomes a gifted adult
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716)
- one of the great universalists, he (independently from Newton) discovered the foundations of calculus - Leibniz published his work and Newton believed that Leibniz had stolen his work - he was also a gifted linguist (famed for his translations of Sanskrit), philosopher, lawyer and diplomat
Christine Ladd-Franklin (1847-1930)
- proposed a theory of color vision based on evolutionary principles - noted that some animals see only in monochrome (black and white) and assumed that this form of chromatic vision appeared first in evolution, color vision came later
Herbart's Dynamic View of the Mind
- psychic mechanics - apperceptive mass - limen
Helmholtz and the Laboratory
- rate of nerve conduction: Helmholtz found that Müller's was wrong about instantaneous nerve conduction - theory of color vision: Helmholtz believed there were three types of color receptors in the retina which corresponded to red, green, and blue. This is known as the Trichromatic Theory of Color Vision, or the Young-Helmholtz Theory of Color Vision and does not account for gray - theory of auditory perception: Resonance Place Theory of Auditory Perception (sound waves have a particular frequency)
characteristics of rationalism
- rationalists believed in an active mind, the mind adds something to sensory data rather than passively organizing it and storing it in memory - rationalists believed in innate mental processing ability and the necessity of understanding this processing ability, emphasized deductive reasoning. - rationalists believed that there are truths about the world which cannot be grasped from experience and that these truths must be discovered through such processes as logical deduction, analysis, and argumentation - many of the rationalists were continental Europeans, especially German
Spinoza and Emotions
- rejected mind-body dualism. He held to double aspectism, the idea that mind and body are one and the same but display different facets, like the two sides to the same coin - denied the existence of free will. In his cosmology, God=Nature=Humans; therefore human thoughts and behavior are lawful - divided passions (not tied to thoughts) from emotions (tied to thoughts)
Leibniz's Philosophy
- saw the universe as composed of three different types of monads: - rational monads (closest to God and corresponding to the rational souls of humans, these monads are key to the process of apperception by which an object is focused on and understood) - sentient monads (which make up the souls of living but non-human beings, they possess capacities for conscious pleasure and pain and the voluntary focusing of attention) - simple monads (which make up the body of all organic and inorganic matter; they have little if any conscious perception) - monads can be arranged hierarchically - believed in what is called psychophysical parallelism: all monads have an innate purpose and go about it without influencing each other and all answer only to God or the 'Supreme Apperceiver'
Robert Yerkes (1876-1956)
- served as American Psychological Association president in 1917 - While working at Boston Psychopathic Hospital, he used the Binet-Simon Scale to aid in diagnoses - during WWI, he and others developed tests to assess Army recruits- out of this effort came the 'alpha' and 'beta' tests - his work established a place in the military for the psychological assessment of recruits
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
- son of James Mill - known for his work in politics, political philosophy, and applications of psychology which pushed the discipline in the direction of a science - upheld his father's associationism and utilitarianism - his most important work was 'A System of Logi' - added a law of association related to intensity - added the idea of mental chemistry to psychology
Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894)
- studied human reaction time; estimated the length of nerve impulse - was a materialist and an empiricist - invented the ophthalmoscope to study the retina - wrote 'Handbook of Physiological Optics' and 'The Theory of the Sensation of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music'
Positivism
- the belief that the world can best be understood through scientific inquiry
The Development of the German University
- the modern university is a German foundation - the University of Berlin was established between 1807 and 1810 and became the model for other universities developed throughout Germany and influenced how the university developed in the United States - previously, the university existed to educate physicians, lawyers, and clergy - the focus then shifted to two-fold education: Wissenschaft and Bildung - the intent was the development of the well-rounded person
mental chemistry
- the notion of what might appear to be a simple idea is actually a complex idea, the compounding of several ideas being so complete that they cannot be separated
Binet-Simon Scale of Intelligence
- the scale consisted of thirty tests ranging in difficulty from simple eye movements to abstract definitions - tests were arranged in ascending order of difficulty, and were given to normal children and children considered to have mental retardation- all of the children were between the ages of two and twelve years - Binet continued to work on his scale and expand the age range - his methods allowed for expressing a child's ability in terms of 'intellectual age'
Limen (Herbart)
- the threshold between conscious and unconscious - originally Leibniz's idea
Catastrophism
- theory that states that natural disasters such as floods and volcanic eruptions shaped Earth's landforms and caused extinction of some species
Phrenology (Franz Gall)
- theory that the bumps on the skull could reveal our mental abilities and character traits
Henry Herbert Goddard (1866-1957)
- translated Binet's intelligence test into English and used it to test and classify students with mental retardation - an advocate for eugenics - an extreme nativist who recommended that those with mental deficiencies be sterilized or institutionalized - as a result of his efforts, the number of immigrants allowed into the United States was greatly reduced - best known for his work 'The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness'
Adolphe Quetelet (1796-1874)
- used probability theory to create an "average person" from social data matched to geographical areas - using French crime statistics showed that certain types of individuals were more likely to commit crime. - he was the first to develop the concept of the average man
Ernst Weber (1795-1878)
- was interested in the sense of touch and especially in kinesthesis (muscle sense) - found that the sense of touch was not one but several senses which led to his research in the two-point threshold and the just noticeable difference (jnd) - developed Weber's Law, the first quantitative law in psychology.
Thomas Malthus (1766-1834)
- wrote "Essay on the Principle of Population" - Malthus's principle of population is basically the law of supply and demand applied to the relationships between food production and population growth, as the food supply increases, food becomes cheaper, and more children are brought into the world
