Introduction
Socrates’s famous statement “know thyself” gives an explanation for history and connecting with cognitive psychology and all of its’ different areas of study. “The single most important reason to study history is that the present time we are living in cannot be understood without knowing something about the past-how the present came to be” (Goodwin, 2008). We have to understand the first theories and concepts where psychology came to being. How did psychologies’ first pioneers approach and solve the main concerns of their time? People have to recognize psychologies’ “evolving history” (Goodwin, 2008). Knowing psychologies’ history and origins helps us to be aware of complications in the future. To “know thyself” in psychology is to understand psychologies beginnings, strengths, weaknesses, achievement, down falls, disciplines and so much more. This essay will take a look at four key milestones in the development of cognitive psychology. The four key milestones that will be viewed are behaviorism, psychoanalysis, humanism and cognitive psychology. Along with the four key milestones this document will also go over the major importance of behavioral observation.
Behaviorism
Behavior is defined as a way in which on functions in “response to stimulation” (Merriam-Webster, 2012). Founder of behaviorism John B. Watson is well known for his statement “Give me a dozen healthy infants well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select” (Cherry, 2012). John Watson was an American psychologist, who believed that psychology was not just the study of the human mind and but also behavior and its functions. Behaviorism is known as behavioral psychology based on a method of learning called conditioning. Conditioning is a form of