How did psychology develop in the nineteenth century, and why did the questions of human mental functioning emerge as it did?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Many people saw the late nineteenth century as inherently positive in its progress and development of new sciences. Others began to reconsider humankind's place in the world and what relation humanity had to each other. Philosophers such as Nietzsche began to look at positivism and progress as perhaps less of a good thing, and specifically called on "gifted" individuals to resist mass society. Sociologists began to attempt to classify human behavior and determine patterns that predisposed success or failure in the modern world. Freud began to use the new science, specifically scientific methodology and empiricism, to explore why humans might act irrationally. In some ways this paralleled the artistic movements in painting and literature, rejecting standard perceptions in favor of individual constructs. Freud, as the pioneer of psychology, sought to analyze why people seemed to have symptoms that could not be explained by physical illness, and argued for an underlying "repression" of traumatic memories. He differentiated specific levels within the human psyche based on conscious and unconscious expressions and motivations. He felt that dreams were critical to analyzing this, because people were unrepressed in dreams, not bound by the standards of civilized society in demanding "correct" behavior.