Alabama Social Studies SS24.P.1b
The Standard
- SS24.P.1
- Trace the development of psychology as a scientific discipline, including its evolution from other fields of study.*
Differentiate among various schools of thought and perspectives that have developed in psychology since 1879.*
2024 Alabama Course of Study: Social Studies · Introduction to Psychology
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students compare how psychologists have explained behavior and mental processes over time. They identify what each approach studies and what evidence its researchers use.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Given test anxiety, a student can explain how a behaviorist and a cognitive psychologist would study it differently. They can place early introspection before behaviorism and explain how the methods differ.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think Freud's ideas represent all of psychology. They may confuse behaviorism, which focuses on observable actions, with cognitive psychology, which studies thinking and memory. Some assume psychologists have always used brain scans.
How to Assess It
- Ask: “A student keeps checking their phone during homework. How would a behaviorist, a cognitive psychologist, and a biological psychologist each explain it? What evidence would each seek?”
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give groups dated Wundt, James, Freud, Watson, and Neisser cards to place on a paper timeline with each person's research question.
Ask students to write how a behaviorist and a cognitive psychologist might disagree about why a student skips homework.
Read five explanations of test anxiety and have teams hold up labeled behaviorist, cognitive, biological, humanistic, or psychoanalytic cards.
Show an early bus schedule and ask how biological and sociocultural psychologists might explain a teen's morning fatigue.
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Related Standards
- SS24.P.1a
Investigate and describe the history of psychology from its beginning to the modern era, including key contributors to the field.*
- SS24.S.5c
Investigate and explain the impact of psychological theories that influence sociology, including Erikson’s Psychosocial Development, Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral ...
- SS24.P.1c
Describe how modern psychologists utilize multiple perspectives to understand behavior and mental processes, citing examples.*
- SS24.P.1
Trace the development of psychology as a scientific discipline, including its evolution from other fields of study.*
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