Modern psychology originated from philosophy, with early schools including structuralism, functionalism, and behaviorism. Structuralism studied the mind objectively in laboratories. Functionalism linked past experiences to habit. Behaviorism focused only on observable behaviors and discounted internal mental processes. Later approaches included psychoanalysis, gestalt psychology, existentialism, and humanistic and cognitive psychology. Modern psychology uses various perspectives and scientific methods including observation, surveys, and experimentation to understand stability versus change, nature versus nurture, and rational versus irrational aspects of human thought and behavior.

1. General Psychology 211 Chapter One