History and systems is the one psychology course where nothing can be reasoned out from a graph. It runs on positions, arguments and the people who held them, and An Introduction to the History of Psychology, 7th Edition by B. R. Hergenhahn organizes all of it around a small set of persistent questions — the mind-body relationship, nature and nurture, free will and determinism, rationalism against empiricism — traced from the Greek philosophers to the cognitive revolution. Examinations follow that structure, asking not only who said what but which question they were answering.
Why this test bank helps
Recognizing a name on a page is not the same as being able to say what that person argued, whom they were arguing against, and which of the persistent questions the dispute belonged to. The rationale attached to each item does exactly that: it places the figure or school in its argument, and explains why the other three options belong to a different position or a different century. That is the connective tissue the course is testing, and it is what makes the chronology memorable rather than arbitrary.
What’s inside
- Questions that follow the book chapter by chapter from the ancient world through to modern psychology.
- Multiple choice, true/false and matching items across schools, figures and key terms.
- A written rationale under every item that places the person or idea in its debate.
- Attention to the philosophical chapters, which carry heavy marks and are the most often skimmed.
- One organized PDF, downloadable as soon as your order completes.
Topics covered
- Persistent questions and historiography — presentism against historicism, the Zeitgeist, and great-person accounts of scientific change.
- Ancient and medieval thought — the pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, the Roman schools, Augustine and Aquinas.
- Rationalism, empiricism and the mind-body problem — Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant and the British associationists.
- Early experimental psychology — Fechner’s psychophysics, Wundt’s voluntarism, Ebbinghaus and Titchener’s structuralism.
- Evolution and functionalism — Darwin and Galton, William James, Dewey, Angell and the Chicago school.
- Behaviorism — Pavlov, Thorndike, Watson, and the neobehaviorism of Hull, Tolman and Skinner.
- Psychoanalysis and its descendants — Freud’s antecedents and system, Adler, Jung, Horney and the ego psychologists.
- Gestalt, humanistic and cognitive psychology — the Berlin school, Maslow and Rogers, and the rise of cognitive science.
Who it’s for
Students taking history of psychology or history and systems from this edition — usually upper-level psychology majors meeting a capstone or core requirement, and philosophy students taking the course as an elective.
How to use it (the right way)
Read the chapter and build a rough timeline as you go, then attempt a block of questions closed-book. Read every rationale and add whatever it tells you to the timeline, since the paper rewards being able to situate a figure rather than merely recognise the name. Treat it as a study aid, used in line with your institution’s academic-integrity policy — for revision and self-testing, never as a replacement for the reading or as material carried into a graded assessment.
Sample question (shows the format — your download contains the full set)
Q. A researcher trains observers to report only the elementary sensory contents of their conscious experience while excluding what they know the object to be. Which school does this describe, and what error was the training designed to prevent?
- A. Functionalism, avoiding the nature-nurture error
- B. Structuralism, avoiding the stimulus error
- C. Behaviorism, avoiding the anthropomorphic error
- D. Gestalt psychology, avoiding the constancy hypothesis
Answer: B. This is Titchener’s trained introspection, whose whole purpose was to reduce experience to its elements. The stimulus error is the mistake of reporting the meaningful object rather than the raw sensations it produces, which is precisely what the training forbade. A misassigns the method, since functionalists studied the purposes of mental activity, not its elements. C names a caution about attributing human motives to animals, which belongs elsewhere. D refers to a Gestalt criticism of that same elementist assumption rather than to a method for enforcing it.
Edition & format
- Matches: An Introduction to the History of Psychology, 7th Edition, by B. R. Hergenhahn (ISBN 9781133958093).
- Format: Digital PDF, delivered instantly after checkout.
- Access: Lifetime — re-download from your account whenever you need it.
Chapter organization and coverage differ between editions of this text. Please confirm the edition and ISBN above match your assigned book before you buy.
Frequently asked questions
Is this the current edition? It is prepared against the 7th Edition. Later editions of this title add material and renumber chapters, so if your course lists a different edition, use that listing instead.
How do I receive it? The file becomes available the moment checkout completes — it appears on your order confirmation page and in your account. Nothing is posted and there is no waiting period.
Do all the questions include rationales? Yes. Every item carries a written explanation of the reasoning behind the answer, which is the part that turns checking a score into actually studying.
Is using a test bank allowed? As a study aid it works like any other practice resource. Follow your institution’s academic-integrity policy, and never take the material into a graded assessment.
More titles for this course are in Psychology Test Banks.
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