Modern psychology was rooted in German ideological and cultural life from the 1940s to the 1950s. Compared with natural science, psychology is still in infancy, and like every baby, its early growth is equally amazing. Fifteen hundred and fifty years ago, it was possible to list the names of all psychologists in Europe and North America on the back of an envelope. Today, tens of thousands of people have degrees in psychology.
Psychology is based on the concepts and methodologies of philosophy, medicine and natural sciences. The concepts of these thinkers mentioned in the book reflect this characteristic to varying degrees. Some thinkers (such as von Helmholtz) have medical and physical backgrounds, some are neurologists (such as Sperry) and some are mathematicians (such as Luce). Some thinkers, such as Norm Chomsky, a linguist, and Conrad Lorenz, a behaviorist, never considered themselves psychologists and refused to call them that. However, their concepts and research fields are very close to psychology, and have a profound impact on the way psychologists think and interpret behavior.
Psychology in Europe and America takes some very important human psychology and behavior as the research object, including brain, perception, motivation, learning, intelligence, language, thinking, personality, development and social relations.
Psychologists believe that a person's childhood experience can affect the way he grows up, the main ideological impact on the growth of thinkers, and the critical evaluation of their research methods. Their main works are listed at the end of each chapter.