Deck 2: Early Developments

Question 1

Wilhelm Wundt's Elements of Psychophysics, which is widely viewed as having founded experimental psychology, was published in 1875.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

Wilhelm Wundt and William James each had a functioning psychological laboratory in 1875.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals primarily with the distinction between the good or desirable and the bad or evil.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Animism, a widespread pre-Socratic belief, holds that souls or spirits inhabit many inanimate things.

Question 5

Plato suggested that objects emit faint copies of themselves, or "eidola," by means of which we perceive those objects.

Question 6

Aristotle claimed that people are endowed with a "common sense" that helps them to make good ethical decisions.

Question 7

In Aristotelian philosophy, God is the ultimate "form."

Question 8

The "dark" or middle ages were a time of geographic and cultural expansion and of the growth of empiricism.

Question 9

The late 19^th century founding of psychology laboratories was foreshadowed by the earlier foundation of chemistry laboratories.

Question 10

De la Mettrie's philosophy and Wöhler's synthesis of urea helped disprove the scientific materialist doctrine.

Question 11

Which of the following is often considered to be the year in which experimental psychology was founded?

A) 1860, because that is the year in which Fechner's Elements of Psychophysics was published.
B) 1900, because that is the year in which William James first had a laboratory for experimental psychology.
C) 1879, because that is the year in which the American Psychological Association was founded.
D) 1875, because that is the year in which Wundt's Elements of Psychophysics was published.

Question 12

Democritus' atomistic philosophy argued that the basic element or substance is

A) none of the following.
B) water.
C) fire.
D) relationships.

Question 13

The Greek anti-reductionists argued that

A) nature cannot be broken down into "elements."
B) mind and body are two aspects of the same substance.
C) all events are determined; there is no "free will."
D) all of nature is imbued with animistic spirits.

Question 14

Which of the following ideas were part of Plato's philosophy?

A) all of them
B) the realm of ideas
C) eidola
D) the distinction between mind and body

Question 15

Aristotle's doctrine of association

A) referred to contiguity, similarity, and contrast.
B) concerned his identification of a "common sense."
C) referred to his idea that God is the ultimate "form."
D) concerned his emphasis on empiricism and the mind as a "tabula rasa" at birth.

Question 16

Aristotle's doctrine of the "tabula rasa"

A) was his version of empirism.
B) claimed that we are born with innate ideas.
C) concerned his description of personality.
D) concerned the distinction between mind and body.

Question 17

During the Middle Ages, there was

A) none of these
B) a decline of great religions.
C) an increase in the use of empirical methods in science.
D) a decline of authoritarianism.

Question 18

Muenzinger's scientific trends leading to the founding of modern experimental psychology included

A) quantification, physiology, and founding of laboratories.
B) critical empiricism, scientific materialism, and atomism.
C) physiology, associationism, and scientific materialism.
D) biology, scientific materialism, and associationism.

Question 19

Muenzinger's philosophical trends leading to the founding of modern experimental psychology included

A) critical empiricism, associationism, and scientific materialism.
B) localization of function, atomism, and scientific materialism.
C) quantification, critical empiricism, and atomism.
D) none of these.

Question 20

Among the developments in Muenzinger's physiology trend were

A) study of reflexes, reaction time, and localization of functions.
B) evolution, psychophysics, and the synthesis of urea.
C) atomism, statistics, and quantification.
D) all of these.

Question 21

Contrast determinism and "free will."

Question 22

What did Aristotle mean by form and matter?

Question 23

What does Aristotle's doctrine of the "tabula rasa" imply?

Question 24

Contrast Epicureanism and stoicism.

Question 25

List some famous authors from the Renaissance.

Question 26

List some significant developments in physiology that contributed to early experimental psychology.

Question 27

List some significant developments in quantification that contributed to early experimental psychology.

Question 28

What biological concept was especially important in the new experimental psychology of the late 19^th century?

Question 29

List several philosophers influential in the development of critical empiricism.

Question 30

What was the central idea in the scientific materialism of scientists like De la Mettrie and Wöhler?
Viewable by instructor only
Answers to short answer questions for Chapter 2: Early developments

Question 31

What was St. Thomas Aquinas's main contribution?
$\bullet$ The attempt to reconcile Aristotle and Church doctrine

Question 32

Why were the Middle Ages sometimes called the Dark Ages?

Question 33

In what ways was the Renaissance an age of expansion?

Question 34

Distinguish between empirism and empiricism

Question 35

What role did Wöhler's synthesis of urea play in the establishment of scientific materialism?

Question 36

Describe Plato's hierarchy of Greek society.

Question 37

What were Aristotle's laws of association of ideas?

Question 38

What were Muenzinger's scientific trends?

Question 39

What were Muenzinger's philosophical trends?

Question 40

For each of the years 1860, 1875, and 1879, explain why they have been proposed as the beginning of modern psychology.