SCHOOLS OF PSYCHOLOGY
TITCHENER’S STRUCTURALISM
Introduction
At the turn of the century, many advances in
science were occurring due to a fundamental concept that philosophers of
science refer to as "elementism". Elementism refers to the conception
of complex phenomena in terms of basic parts or elements. This conception of
science was leading to many important discoveries with important applications
in areas such as the biological sciences in the late 1800s. It was at this time
that, what most psychologists acknowledge as, the first "school of
psychology" began. In 1879 Wilhelm Wundt began the first psychological
laboratory in Leipzig, Germany. The school of psychology that Wundt began and
championed all his life is referred to as "structuralism". For this
reason, Wundt is often referred to as the father of structuralism.
Structuralism can be defined as psychology as
the study of the elements of consciousness. The idea is that conscious
experience can be broken down into basic conscious elements, much as a physical
phenomenon can be viewed as consisting of chemical structures, which can in
turn be broken down into basic elements. In fact, much of the research
conducted in Wundt's laboratory consisted of cataloging these basic conscious
elements. In order to reduce a normal conscious experience into basic elements,
structuralism relied on a method called introspection.
Titchener was exposed to Wundt’s conception of
psychology as a student at Leipzig. So, psychology was very much similar to
Titchener to what it was for Wundt. A major theme throughout his work is the
unity of science. It seemed self-evident to him that all sciences were erected
from the same foundation i.e. the world of human experience. When this world was
experienced/observed in different ways, different sciences evolved.
For example, Titchener believed that just as
physics evolved when man began to view the world as being a vast machine, so
did psychology evolve when he looked at it as a mind, a set of experiences
subject to psychological laws.
Titchener felt that the hallmark of scientific
method was observation, which in his view subsumed experimentation. He saw an
experiment as an observation that could be repeated, isolated and varied,
thereby ensuring clearness and accuracy. He then distinguished between the
physical science type of observation (looking at) and psychological observation
or introspection (looking within). States of consciousness were the proper
objects of this psychological study. Consciousness was defined by
Titchener as the sum total of a person’s
experiences as they are at any given time. Mind was regarded as the sum total
of the person’s experiences considered as dependent on the person, summed from
birth to death. Ideas, feelings, impulses etc. are mental processes; the whole
number of ideas, feelings, impulses etc. experienced by a person during one’s
life constitutes his mind.
He also listed three problems of psychology
that were very similar to Wundt’s.
1) To analyze concrete (actual) mental
experience into its simplest component.
2) To discover how these elements combine,
what are the laws govern their combinations.
3) To bring them into connection with their
physiological (bodily) conditions.
Titchener modified Wundt’s distinction between
psychology and physics. He could not agree with Wundt that physics studied
immediate experiences. He thought that all experience must be regarded as
immediate. The distinction, rather, was in the attitude to be taken toward the
study of the ever immediate experience. The physicist studied the experience as
independent of the experiencing person, while the psychologist studied the
experience as it dependent on the experiencing person.
Titchener’s concept of stimulus error was
related to the distinction between psychology and physics. By stimulus error,
he meant the error of paying attention to, and reporting on, the known
properties of the stimulus rather than the sensory experience itself. This is
probably the most important and the most obvious error made by untrained
introspectors. Thus, the trained introspectors are the one who learns to ignore
the objects and events as such and to concentrate instead on the pure conscious
experience.
Titchener thought psychology ought to study
experience as it seems to exist when we try to detach it from learning; i.e. we
should refuse to attribute meaning to it and thus avoid committing the stimulus
error. He exercised child psychology and animal psychology from the main body
and denied that the information from these fields would be psychological
information.
He said that psychology must be experimental (like Wundt said)
but it also must be pure (unlike Wundt). Applied science seemed to Titchener a
contradiction. The scientist, as Titchener saw him, must keep himself free of
considerations about the practical worth of what he is doing. He accordingly
never accepted the work by Cattell and others on individual differences as
making any important contributions to psychology.
CRITICISMS OF
STRUCTURALISM
The several attacks on structuralism were on
its very heart- the introspective method.
1.
Critics said that
introspection must really always be retrospective, since it takes time to
report on a state of consciousness. Forgetting is rapid, so some of the
experience will be inadvertently lost. It is also possible that the necessity
for retrospection will lead to embellishment of error, especially if the
introspectors have a vested interest in a theory that will be affected by the
experimental results.
2.
The act of introspecting
may change the experience drastically. Example if anger is attended to, it
quickly disintegrates and may even disappear completely. Thus the measuring
technique (introspection) interferes with experience.
3.
Different
psychologists relying on the introspective method at different laboratories
were not getting comparable results: rather, scientists in one laboratory
asserted things that contradicted the results of scientists elsewhere.
4.
There was growing
concern for data which seemed properly to belong to psychology but which were
not accessible to introspection. Animal psychologists were getting results,
child psychology; psychoanalysis had clearly demonstrated the importance of
unconscious influences in maladjustment.
PSYCHO ANALYSIS SIGMUND
FREUD
INTRODUCTION
Psychoanalysis has been one of the most
influential intellectual movements in twentieth-century culture. It can be
regarded as a theory of the personality, a method of investigation, a
scientific discipline, and a form of treatment. Only a small subgroup of
psychiatric patients receive formal psychoanalysis as a treatment, but the
principles derived from psychoanalytic theory are broadly applicable to most
patients seen in a general psychiatric practice. A systematic understanding of
the unconscious mental life of the patient may illuminate reasons for
noncompliance with a treatment plan, difficulties in establishing a therapeutic
alliance with a clinician, and a patient's lack of interest in being helped.
Hence an overarching psychoanalytically based framework is useful in the
practice of psychiatry regardless of which specific treatment is being
conducted.
THE ID
Id represents a reservoir ‘cauldron’ of
seething energy, wanting to come out. It is the original system of the
personality: it is the matrix within which the ego and the superego become
differentiated. The libido resides in the id. The id consists of everything
psychological that is inherited and that is present at birth, including the
instincts. It is the reservoir of psychic energy and possesses all the power
for the operation of two systems.
Freud called the id the true psychic reality
because it represents the inner world of subjective experience and has no
knowledge of objective reality. It is not subject to any laws. It is totally
irrational and illogical, no values and no concept of right or wrong.
The energies stored in the id are the unbound,
undirected and uncontrolled resources of an individual’s personality. Id
totally governs the behavior of an infant. In case of psychosis, id overshadows
the other two systems, leading to irrational behavior. The id is entirely
unconscious and therefore, at the beginning of an individual’s life, everything
is unconscious. Owing to the influence of the external world, part of
unconscious material of the id develops into preconscious and the ego emerges.
The id cannot tolerate increases of energy
that are experienced as uncomfortable states of tension. When the tension level
of the organism is raised (die to external or internal stimulation). The id functions
in such a manner as to discharge the tension immediately and return the
organism to a comfortably constant and low energy level.
The principle of tension reduction by which
the id operates is called the pleasure principle. To accomplish its aim of avoiding
pain and obtaining pleasure, the id has at its command two processes:
I) Reflex action: they are inborn and automatic reactions like blinking; they
usually reduce tension immediately.
ii) Primary processes: it attempts to discharge tension by forming an image of an
object that will remove the tension. Example a hungry person forming a mental
picture of food. When the other mental agencies, the ego and the super ego,
develop, their energies are borrowed or derived from the id.
THE EGO :( process of emergence)
ARCHAIC EGO- it refers to a thin line between
id and the ego. It is the first to emerge and is also called the primitive ego.
The first distinct response (1st object catharses) is when the neonate is able
to distinguish mother’s face from all other stimuli.
According to Freud, neonate’s mental apparatus
resembles a floating body in water. It surface is exposed to the outer world
and receives external stimuli and discharges motion. Originally, the entire apparatus
is id. Under the influence of environmental forces, acting on the surface of
id, this surface undergoes substantial changes and gradually develops into a
separate part of mental apparatus called ego.
The archaic ego only knows itself and loves
itself. It is narcissistic. It does not separate itself from the mother. At
this stage of primary narcissism (first three months of child birth), the
neonate is wrapped in the essence of omnipotence and is dimly aware of external
world.
The gratification of needs comes from outside.
In the stage craving for an object (mother’s breast) and craving for removal of
an unpleasant stimulus (like the child being wet) seem to be identical. At this
point, some inner contradictions begin to arrive between longing for objects
which gratify needs and longing for removal. As archaic ego matures by three
months, the child perceives other objects in the environment which satisfy his
needs like bottle, father etc., these are secondary objects of catharses. This
process is called identification.
Here the primary task is to ensure the
survival of organism. This is done by becoming aware of objects in the
environment and by storing experiences in the memory. The development of motor
observation takes place for running away from the threat objects. In this
process more and more energy s transferred to the ego. The better developed and
stronger the ego, the better balanced and more adjusted the individual.
EGO:
The ego comes into existence because the needs
of the organism require appropriate transactions with the objective world of
reality. This means that he has to learn to differentiate between memory image
(of food) and an actual perception (of food) as it exists in the real world.
Ego is conscious, rational and indirect contact with reality
through perceptual consciousness. The ego, thus, is a modification of id, by
the influence of the external world. The main source of energy of the ego is
the libido itself but the libido which becomes de-sensual zed die to the
demands of reality.
It evolves gradually. At first, it is purely
pleasure seeking ego incapable of objectivity. At second stage, the ego becomes
capable of repressing unpleasant ideas. The growth of ego corresponds to growth
in its sense of reality. It obeys the reality principle and to operate by means
of secondary processes.
Reality principle- the aim of reality
principle is to prevent the charge of tension until an object which is
appropriate for the satisfaction of the need has been developed. The reality
principle suspends the pleasure principle temporarily because the pleasure
principle is eventually solved when needed object is found and the tension is
reduced.
Secondary process- it refers to realistic
thinking. By means of the secondary processes the ego formulates a plan for the
satisfaction of the need and then tests this plan, usually in some kind of
action to find out whether it works or not. Ego has control over cognitive
functions to decide upon things.
The ego is the executive of personality
because it controls the gateway of actions. It controls the demands of id and
the super ego. According to Brown, ego is the adjustor between the wishes of
the id and the demands of physical reality.
THREE MAIN FUNCTIONS
I) meet the demands of the id for the
satisfaction of its blind instinctual cravings.
ii) Face reality which is uncompromising to
the demands of the id, the super ego.
iii) It has to placate the super ego by acting
as dictated by it.
Thus the ego has the most difficult task to achieve.
THE SUPER EGO :( Process of Emergence)
The new mental agency, the superego, develops
as a result of weakness of the infantile ego. At the anal stage the child faces
conflict with parents in matters of toilet training. The fear of punishment and
the need for attention and protection force him to accept the parental orders
and to internalize them. I.e. To consider them his own.
Example, the little child may develop a
dislike for playing with feces because his parents dislike him to do this.
These internalized prohibitions and self-restraints are forerunner of the
superego. They are weak and when no one is looking, they are easily disregarded
by the child. However, these forerunners contain the main elements of the
future superego, namely fear of punishment and conformity with parental
demands.
The actual development of the superego takes
place toward the end of the phallic period. The fear of punishing parents comes
to its peak in the Oedipus complex. The little boy, shocked by castration fear,
is forced to give up his mother as love object. The frustrated child of either
sex regresses from object relationship to identification by introjections.
Introjections of love object are a common phenomenon in the oral stage and
apparently oral regression takes place in the formation of the superego.
THE SUPER EGO
It is the internal representative of the
traditional values and ideas of society as interpreted to the child by his
parents and enforced by means of a system of rewards and punishments imposed
upon the child. The superego is the moral arm of personality, it represents the
ideal rather than the real and it strives for perfection rather than pleasure.
Its main concern is to decide whether
something is right or wrong so that it can act in accordance with the moral
standards authorized by the agents of society. The anti-instinctual forces of
the superego are derived from instinctual forces of id. The superego is mostly
unconscious and we composed of instinctual forces, love and hate, often with
hate predominating. The two elements of superego are:
I) Ego ideal: the ego-ideal stems from an expression of administration for
the parents, to whom the child ascribed perfection. It is the striving toward
perfection and an effort to live up to the expectation of parents. There is
always a feeling of triumph when something in the ego coincides with the ego
ideal. And sense of guilt (and inferiority) because of tension between ego and
ego ideal.
ii) Conscience: the conscious part of superego is conscience. Whatever parent
say is improper and punish him for doing tends is incorporated in child’s
conscience.
The main functions of super ego are:
a) To inhibit the impulses of the id,
particularly those of sexual or aggressive nature, since these are the impulses
whose expression is most highly condemned by society?
b) To persuade the ego to substitute
moralistic goals for realistic ones.
c) To strive for perfection.
Superego does not merely postpone instinctual
gratification; it tries to block it permanently (unlike the ego).
In well-adjusted adults the superego plays the
role of self-observer and represents conscience and moral standards. It is the
social and the moral frame of reference. As the individual grows, his superego
gradually draws away from the infantile images of the parents and becomes more impersonal
more related to the objective social and ethical standards to which he
subscribes. In well balanced adults there is no conflict between the moral
standards of the society as represented by the superego and the realistic
consideration of self-protection and survival as represented by the ego and the
reality principles.
Conclusion
The three systems are not to be thought of as
manikins which operate the personality. They are merely names for various
psychological processes which obey different principles do not collide with one
another not do they work at cross purposes on the contrary they work together
as a team under the administrative leadership of the ego. The personality
normally functions as a whole rather than as three separate segments. In a very
general way, the id may be thought of as the biological component of
personality, the ego is the psychological component, and the superego as the
social component.
J.B. WATSON BEHAVIORISM
Behaviorism
was the primary paradigm in psychology between the years 1920 to 1950 and is
based on a number of underlying assumptions regarding methodology and
behavioral analysis: Psychology should be seen as a science. Theories need to
be supported by empirical data obtained through careful and controlled
observation and measurement of behavior. Watson (1913) stated that “psychology
as a behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural
science. Its theoretical goal is … prediction and control".
Behaviorism is primarily concerned with
observable behavior, as opposed to internal events like thinking and emotion.
Observable (i.e. external) behavior can be objectively and scientifically
measured. Internal events, such as thinking should be explained through
behavioral terms (or eliminated altogether).
People
have no free will – a person’s environment determines their behavior. When born
our mind is 'tabula rasa' (a blank slate). There is little difference between
the learning that takes place in humans and that in other animals. Therefore,
research can be carried out on animals as well as humans.
Behavior
is the result of stimulus – response (i.e. all behavior, no matter how complex,
can be reduced to a simple stimulus – response association). Watson described
the purpose of psychology as: “To predict, given the stimulus, what reaction
will take place; or, given the reaction, state what the situation or stimulus
is that has caused the reaction" (1930).
All
behavior is learnt from the environment. We learn new behavior through
classical or operant conditioning.
Varieties of Behaviorism
Historically,
the most significant distinction between versions of behaviorism is that
between Watson's original classical behaviorism, and forms of behaviorism later
inspired by his work, known collectively as neo-behaviorism.
In his book, Psychology as the Behaviorist Views
It Watson (1913) outlines the principles of all behaviorists: Psychology as the behaviorist views it is
a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal
is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection forms no essential
part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the
readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of
consciousness. The behaviorist, in his efforts to get a unitary scheme of
animal response, recognizes no dividing line between man and brute. The
behavior of man, with all of its refinement and complexity, forms only a part
of the behaviorist's total scheme of investigation.
The History of Behaviorism
1. Pavlov (1897) published the results of an
experiment on conditioning after originally studying digestion in dogs.
2. Watson (1913) launches the behavioral
school of psychology (classical conditioning), publishing an article,
"Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It".
3. Watson and
Rayner (1920) conditioned
an orphan called Albert B (aka Little Albert) to fear a white rat.
5. Skinner (1936) wrote "The Behavior of
Organisms" and introduced the concepts of operant conditioning and
shaping.
6. Clark Hull’s (1943) Principles of
Behavior was published.
7. B.F. Skinner (1948) published Walden
Two, in which he described a utopian society founded upon behaviorist
principles.
8. Bandura (1963) publishes a book called the
"Social Leaning Theory and Personality development" which
combines both cognitive and behavioral frameworks.
9. Journal of the Experimental
Analysis of Behavior (begun in 1958).
10.
B.F.
Skinner (1971) published his book, Beyond Freedom and Dignity,
where he argues that free will is an illusion.
Behaviorism Summary
Key Features
1. Stimulus - Response
4. Objective Measurement
Methodology
4. Skinner box (rats & pigeons)
Basic Assumptions
1. Psychology should be seen as a science, to
be studied in a scientific manner.
2. Behaviorism is primarily concerned with
observable behavior, as opposed to internal events like thinking.
3. Behavior is the result of stimulus –
response (i.e. all behavior, no matter how complex, can be reduced to a simple
stimulus – response features).
4.
Behavior
is determined by the environment (e.g. conditioning).
Areas of Application
1. Gender Role Development
8. Relationships
9. Language
11.
Moral
Development
13.
Addiction.
Strengths
2. Highly applicable (e.g. therapy)
3. Emphasizes objective measurement
4. Many experiments to support theories
5.
Identified
comparisons between animals (Pavlov) and humans (Watson & Rayner - Little
Albert).
Limitations
1. Ignores meditational processes
2. Ignores biology (e.g. testosterone)
3. Too deterministic (little free-will)
4. Experiments – low ecological validity
5. Humanism – can’t compare animals to humans
6.
Reductionist
Critical Evaluation
An
obvious advantage of behaviorism is its ability to clearly define behavior and
to measure changes in behavior. According to the law of parsimony, the fewer
assumptions a theory makes, the better and the more credible it is.
Behaviorism, therefore, looks for simple explanations of human behavior from a
very scientific standpoint.
However, Humanism (e.g. Carl Rogers) rejects the
scientific method of using experiments to measure and control variables because
it creates an artificial environment and has low ecological validity.
Humanistic
psychology also assumes that humans have free will (personal agency) to make their own
decisions in life and do not follow the deterministic laws of science.
Humanism also rejects
the nomothetic approach of behaviorism as they view humans as
being unique and believe humans cannot be compared with animals (who aren’t
susceptible to demand characteristics). This is known as an idiographic
approach.
The psychodynamic
approach (Freud) criticizes
behaviorism as it does not take into account the mind’s influence on
behavior, and instead focuses on externally observable behavior. Freud also
rejects the idea that people are born a blank slate (tabula rasa), and states
that people are born with instincts (e.g. eros and Thanatos).
Biological
psychology states
that all behavior has a physical / organic cause. They emphasize the role of
nature over nurture. For example, chromosomes and hormones (testosterone) influence our behavior
too, in addition to the environment.
Cognitive psychology states that meditational processes
occur between stimulus and response, such as memory, thinking, problem solving etc. Despite
these criticisms behaviorism has made significant contributions to psychology.
These include insights into learning, language development, and moral and
gender development, which have all been explained in terms of conditioning.
The
contribution of behaviorism can be seen in some of its practical
applications. Behavior therapy and behavior
modification represent
one of the major approaches to the treatment of abnormal
behavior and are readily
used in clinical psychology.
ABRAHAM MASLOW’s
HUMANISM
Humanistic, humanism and humanist are terms
in psychology relating to an approach which studies the whole person, and the
uniqueness of each individual. Essentially, these terms refer the same
approach in psychology.
Humanism is a psychological perspective that emphasizes the study of the
whole person. Humanistic psychologists look at human behavior not only through
the eyes of the observer, but through the eyes of the person doing the
behaving.
Sometimes the humanistic approach is called
phenomenological. This means that personality is studied from the point of view
of the individual’s subjective experience. For Rogers the focus of psychology is not
behaviour (Skinner), the unconscious (Freud), thinking (Wundt) or the human brain but how individuals
perceive and interpret events. Rogers is therefore important because he
redirected psychology towards the study of the self.
The humanistic approach in psychology
developed as a rebellion against what some psychologists saw as the limitations
of the behaviorist and psychodynamic psychology. The humanistic approach is
thus often called the “third force” in psychology after psychoanalysis and
behaviorism (Maslow, 1968).
Humanism rejected the assumptions of the behaviorist perspective which is characterized as deterministic,
focused on reinforcement of stimulus-response behavior and heavily dependent on
animal research.
Humanistic psychology also rejected
the psychodynamic
approach because
it is also deterministic, with unconscious irrational and instinctive forces
determining human thought and behavior. Both behaviorism and
psychoanalysis are regarded as dehumanizing by humanistic psychologists.
Humanistic psychology expanded its influence throughout
the 1970s and the 1980s. Its impact can be understood in terms of three
major areas:
1.
It
offered a new set of values for approaching an understanding of human nature
and the human condition.
2.
It
offered an expanded horizon of methods of inquiry in the study of human
behavior.
3. It offered a broader range of more
effective methods in the professional practice of psychotherapy.
Humanistic Psychology Assumptions
Humanistic psychology begins with the
existential assumptions that phenomenology is central and that people have free
will. Personal agency is the humanistic term for the exercise of free
will. Personal agency refers to the choices we make in life, the paths we
go down and their consequences.
A further assumption is then added - people
are basically good, and have an innate need to make themselves and the world
better. The humanistic approach emphasizes the personal worth of the
individual, the centrality of human values, and the creative, active nature of
human beings. The approach is optimistic and focuses on noble human capacity to
overcome hardship, pain and despair.
Both Rogers and Maslow regarded personal
growth and fulfillment in life as a basic human motive. This means that each
person, in different ways, seeks to grow psychologically and continuously
enhance themselves. This has been captured by the term self-actualization,
which is about psychological growth, fulfillment and satisfaction in
life. However, Rogers and Maslow both describe different ways of how
self-actualization can be achieved.
Central to the humanistic theories of Rogers (1959) and Maslow (1943) are the subjective, conscious
experiences of the individual. Humanistic psychologists argue that
objective reality is less important than a person's subjective perception and
understanding of the world. Because of this, Rogers and Maslow placed
little value on scientific
psychology,
especially the use of the psychology laboratory to investigate both human and
animal behavior.
Humanism rejects scientific methodology
like experiments and typically uses qualitative research methods. For
example, diary accounts, open-ended
questionnaires, unstructured
interviews and
unstructured observations. Qualitative research is useful for studies at
the individual level, and to find out, in depth, the ways in which people think
or feel (e.g. case studies). The way to really understand other
people is to sit down and talk with them, share their experiences and be open
to their feelings.
Humanism rejected comparative
psychology (the
study of animals) because it does not tell us anything about the unique
properties of human beings. Humanism views human beings as fundamentally
different from other animals, mainly because humans are conscious beings
capable of thought, reason and language. For humanistic psychologists’
research on animals, such as rats, pigeons, or monkeys held little value.
Research on such animals can tell us, so they argued, very little about human
thought, behavior and experience.
Humanistic psychologists rejected a
rigorous scientific approach to psychology because they saw it as dehumanizing
and unable to capture the richness of conscious experience. In many ways
the rejection of scientific
psychology in
the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s was a backlash to the dominance of the behaviorist
approach in North American psychology.
The History of Humanistic Psychology
v Carl
Rogers (1946)
publishes significant
aspects of client-centered therapy (also called person centered therapy).
v In 1957 and 1958, at the invitation of
Abraham Maslow and Clark Moustakas, two meetings were held in Detroit among
psychologists who were interested in founding a professional association
dedicated to a more meaningful, more humanistic vision.
v In 1962, with the sponsorship of Brandeis
University, this movement was formally launched as the Association for
Humanistic Psychology.
v The first issue of the Journal of
Humanistic Psychology appeared in the spring of 1961.
Humanistic Approach Summary
Key Features
Methodology
Inter-rater/coder
reliability
Basic Assumptions
Humans
have free will; not all behavior is determined.
All
individuals are unique and have an innate (inborn) drive to achieve their
maximum potential.
A
proper understanding of human behavior can only be achieved by studying humans
- not animals.
Psychology
should study the individual case (idiographic) rather than the average
performance of groups (Nomothetic).
Areas of Application
Qualitative
Methods
Limitations
Ignores
biology (e.g. testosterone).
Unscientific
– subjective concepts.
o
E.g.
cannot objectively measure self-actualization.
Humanism
ignores the unconscious mind.
Behaviorism
– human and animal behavior can be compared.
Ethnocentric
(biased towards Western culture).
Their
belief in free will is in opposition to the deterministic laws of science.
Critical Evaluation
The humanistic approach has been applied to
relatively few areas of psychology compared to the other approaches.
Therefore, its contributions are limited to areas such as therapy, abnormality, motivation and personality.
A possible reason for this lack of impact
on academic psychology perhaps lies with the fact that humanism deliberately
adopts a non-scientific approach to studying humans. For example their
belief in free-will is in direct opposition to the
deterministic laws of science. Also, the areas investigated by humanism,
such as consciousness and emotion are very difficult to scientifically
study. The outcome of such scientific limitations means that there is a
lack of empirical evidence to support the key theories of the approach.
However, the flip side to this is that
humanism can gain a better insight into an individual's behavior through the
use of qualitative methods, such as unstructured interviews. The approach
also helped to provide a more holistic view of human behavior, in contrast to
the reductionist position of science.
GESTALT
PSYCHOLOGY
Gestalt psychology, founded by Max Wertheimer, was to some extent a
rebellion against the molecularism of Wundt’s program for psychology, in
sympathy with many others at the time, including William James. In fact,
the word Gestalt means a unified or meaningful whole, which was to be the focus
of psychological study instead.
It
had its roots in a number of older philosophers and psychologists:
Ernst Mach (1838-1916)
introduced the concepts of space forms and time forms.
We see a square as a square, whether it is large or small, red or blue, in
outline or Technicolor... This is space form. Likewise, we hear a
melody as recognizable, even if we alter the key in such a way that none of the
notes are the same.
Christian von Ehrenfels (1859-1932), who studied with Brentano in Vienna,
is the actual originator of the term Gestalt as the Gestalt
psychologists were to use it. In 1890, in fact, he wrote a book called
On Gestalt Qualities. One of his students was none other than Max
Wertheimer.
Oswald Kulpe (1862-1915)
was a student of G. E. Muller at Gottingen and received his doctorate at
Leipzig. He studied as well with Wundt, and served as Wundt’s assistant
for many years. He did most of his work while at the University of
Wurzburg, between 1894 and 1909.
He is best known for the
idea of imageless thoughts. Contrary to Wundtians, he showed
that some mental activities, such as judgments and doubts, could occur without
images. The “pieces” of the psyche that Wundt postulated - sensations,
images, and feelings -- were apparently not enough to explain all of what went
on.
MAX
WERTHEIMER
He
was born in Prague on April 15, 1880. His father was a teacher and the
director at a commercial school. Max studied law for more than two years,
but decided he preferred philosophy. He left to study in Berlin, where he
took classes from Stump, then got his doctoral degree (summa cum laude) from
Kulpe and the University of Wurzburg in 1904.
In
1910, he went to the University of Frankfurt’s Psychological Institute.
While on vacation that same year, he became interested in the perceptions he
experienced on a train. While stopped at the station, he bought a toy
stroboscope -- a spinning drum with slots to look through and pictures on the
inside, sort of a primitive movie machine or sophisticated flip book.
At Frankfurt, his former
teacher Friedrich Schumann, now there as well, gave him the use of a
tachistoscope to study the effect. His first subjects were two younger
assistants, Wolfgang Koehler and Kurt Kafka. They would become his lifelong
partners.
He
published his seminal paper in 1912: "Experimental Studies of the
Perception of Movement." That year, he was offered a lectureship at
the University of Frankfurt. In 1916, he moved to Berlin, and in 1922 was
made an assistant professor there. In 1925, he came back to Frankfurt,
this time as a professor.
In
1933, he moved to the United States to escape the troubles in Germany.
The next year, he began teaching at the New School for Social Research in New
York City. While there, he wrote his best known book, Productive
Thinking, which was published posthumously by his son, Michael Wertheimer,
a successful psychologist in his own right. He died October 12, 1943 of a
coronary embolism at his home in New York.
WOLFGANG
KOEHLER
Wolfgang
Koehler was born January 21, 1887, in Revel, Estonia. He received his PhD
in 1908 from the University of Berlin. He then became an assistant at the
Psychological Institute in Frankfurt, where he met and worked with Max
Wertheimer.
In
1913, he took advantage of an assignment to study at the Anthropoid Station at
Tenerife in the Canary Islands, and stayed there till 1920. In 1917, he
wrote his most famous book, Mentality of Apes.
In
1922, he became the chair and director of the psychology lab at the University
of Berlin, where he stayed until 1935. During that time, in 1929, he
wrote Gestalt psychology. In 1935, he moved to the U.S.,
where he taught at Swarthmore until he retired. He died June 11, 1967 in
New Hampshire.
KURT
KAFKA
Kurt
Kafka was born March 18, 1886, in Berlin. He received his PhD from the
University of Berlin in 1909, and, just like Koehler, became an assistant at
Frankfurt.
In
1911, he moved to the University of Giessen, where he taught till 1927.
While there, he wrote Growth of the Mind: an Introduction to Child
Psychology (1921). In 1922, he wrote an article for
Psychological Bulletin which introduced the Gestalt program to readers in the
U.S.
In
1927, he left for the U.S. to teach at Smith College. He published
Principles of Gestalt Psychology in 1935. He died in 1941.
The
Theory
Gestalt
psychology is based on the observation that we often experience things that are
not a part of our simple sensations. The original observation was
Wertheimer, when he noted that we perceive motion where there is nothing more
than a rapid sequence of individual sensory events. This is what he saw
in the toy stroboscope he bought at the Frankfurt train station, and what he
saw in his laboratory when he experimented with lights flashing in rapid
succession (like the Christmas lights that appear to course around the tree, or
the fancy neon signs in Las Vegas that seem to move). The effect is
called apparent motion, and it is actually the basic principle of motion
pictures.
If
we see what is not there, what is it that we are seeing? You could call
it an illusion, but it’s not a hallucination. Wertheimer explained that
you are seeing an effect of the whole event, not contained in the sum of the
parts. We see a coursing string of lights, even though only one light
lights at a time, because the whole event contains relationships among the
individual lights that we experience as well.
Furthermore,
say the Gestalt psychologists, we are built to experience the structured whole
as well as the individual sensations. And not only do we have the ability
to do so, we have a strong tendency to do so. We even add structure to
events which do not have gestalt structural qualities.
In
perception, there are many organizing principles called gestalt laws.
The most general version is called the law of pragnanz.
Pragnanz is German for pregnant, but in the sense of pregnant with meaning,
rather than pregnant with child. This law says that we are innately
driven to experience things in as good a gestalt as possible. “Good” can mean
many things here, such a regular, orderly, simplicity, symmetry, and so on,
which then refer to specific gestalt laws.
For example, a set of
dots outlining the shape of a star is likely to be perceived as a star, not as
a set of dots. We tend to complete the figure, make it the way it
“should” be, finish it. Like we somehow manage to see this as a
"B"...
The law
of closure says that, if something is missing in an otherwise complete
figure, we will tend to add it. A triangle, for example, with a small
part of its edge missing, will still be seen as a triangle. We will
“close” the gap.
The law
of similarity says that we will tend to group similar items together,
to see them as forming a gestalt, within a larger form. Here is a simple
typographic example:
OXXXXXXXXXX
XOXXXXXXXXX
XXOXXXXXXXX
XXXOXXXXXXX
XXXXOXXXXXX
XXXXXOXXXXX
XXXXXXOXXXX
XXXXXXXOXXX
XXXXXXXXOXX
XXXXXXXXXOX
XXXXXXXXXXO
XOXXXXXXXXX
XXOXXXXXXXX
XXXOXXXXXXX
XXXXOXXXXXX
XXXXXOXXXXX
XXXXXXOXXXX
XXXXXXXOXXX
XXXXXXXXOXX
XXXXXXXXXOX
XXXXXXXXXXO
It
is just natural for us to see the O’s as a line within a field of X’s.
Another
law is the law of proximity. Things those are close together as soon as
belonging together. For example;
**************
**************
**************
You
are much more likely to see three lines of close-together *’s than 14 vertical collections
of 3 *’s each.
Next,
there’s the law of symmetry. Take a look at this example:
[ ][
][ ]
Despite
the pressure of proximity to group the brackets nearest each other together,
symmetry overwhelms our perception and makes us see them as pairs of
symmetrical brackets.
Another law is the law of
continuity. When we can see a line, for example, as continuing through
another line, rather than stopping and starting, we will do so, as in this
example, which we see as composed of two lines, not as a combination of two
angles...:
Figure-ground is another Gestalt psychology principle. It
was first introduced by the Danish phenomenologist Edgar Rubin
(1886-1951). The classic example is this one...
Basically,
we seem to have an innate tendency to perceive one aspect of an event as the
figure or fore-ground and the other as the ground or back-ground. There
is only one image here, and yet, by changing nothing but our attitude, we can
see two different things. It doesn’t even seem to be possible to see them
both at the same time!
But
the gestalt principles are by no means restricted to perception -- that’s just
where they were first noticed. Take, for example, memory.
That too seems to work by these laws. If you see an irregular saw-tooth
figure, it is likely that your memory will straighten it out for you a
bit. Or, if you experience something that doesn’t quite make sense to
you; you will tend to remember it as having meaning that may not have been
there. A good example is dreams: Watch yourself the next time you
tell someone a dream and see if you don’t notice yourself modifying the dream a
little to force it to make sense!
Learning
was something the Gestalt psychologists were particularly interested in.
One thing they noticed right away is that we often learn, not the literal
things in front of us, but the relations between them.
For example, chickens can be made to peck at the lighter of two gray
swatches. When they are then presented with another two swatches, one of
which is the lighter of the two preceding swatches, and the other a swatch that
is even lighter, they will peck not at the one they pecked at before, but at
the lighter one! Even something as stupid as a chicken “understands” the
idea of relative lightness and darkness.
Gestalt
theory is well known for its concept of insight learning.
People tend to misunderstand what is being suggested here: They are not
so much talking about flashes of intuition, but rather solving a problem by
means of the recognition of a gestalt or organizing principle.
The
most famous example of insight learning involved a chimp named Sultan. He
was presented with many different practical problems (most involving getting a
hard-to-reach banana). When, for example, he had been allowed to play
with sticks that could be put together like a fishing pole, he appeared to
consider in a very human fashion the situation of the out-of-reach banana thoughtfully
-- and then rather suddenly jump up, assemble the poles, and reach the banana.
A
similar example involved a five year old girl, presented with a geometry
problem way over her head: How do you figure the area of a
parallelogram? She considered, and then excitedly asked for a pair of
scissors. She cut off a triangle from one end, and moved it around to the
other side, turning the parallelogram into a simple rectangle. Wertheimer
called this productive thinking.
The
idea behind both of these examples, and much of the gestalt explanation of
things, is that the world of our experiencing is meaningfully organized, to one
degree or another. When we learn or solve problems, we are essentially
recognizing meaning that is there, in the experience, for the “discovering.”
Most
of what we’ve just looked at has been absorbed into “mainstream” psychology --
to such a degree that many people forget to give credit to the people who
discovered these principles. There is one more part of their theory that
has had fewer acceptances: Isomorphism.
Isomorphism
suggests that there is some clear similarity in the gestalt patterning of
stimuli and of the activity in the brain while we perceive the stimuli.
There is a “map” of the experience with the same structural order as the
experience itself, albeit “constructed” of very different materials! We
are still waiting to see what an experience “looks” like in an experiencing
brain. It may take a while.
KURT
LEWIN
Gestalt
psychology, even though it no longer survives as a separate entity, has had an
enormous impact. Two people in particular lead the way in introducing it
into other aspects of psychology: Kurt Goldstein and Kurt Lewin.
Kurt
Lewin was born September 9, 1890, in Mogilno, Germany. He received his
PhD from the University of Berlin under Stump. After military service, he
returned to Berlin where he worked with Wertheimer, Kafka, and Koehler.
He
went to the U.S. as a guest lecturer at Stanford and Cornell, and took a
position at the University of Iowa in 1935. In 1944, he created and
directed the Research Center for Group Dynamics at MIT. He died in 1947,
just beginning his work there.
Lewin
created a topological theory that expressed human dynamics in
the form of a map representing a person’s life space.
The map is patterned with one’s needs, desires, and goal, and vectors or
arrows indicated the directions and strengths of these forces -- all operating
as a Gestalt.
This
theory inspired any number of psychologists in the U.S., most particularly
those in social psychology. Among the people he influenced were Muzzier
Sherif, Solomon Asch, and Leon Festinger.
KURT
GOLDSTEIN
The
other person was Kurt Goldstein. Born in 1878, he received his MD from
the University of Breslau in 1903. He went to teach at the Neurological
Institute of the University of Frankfurt, where he met the founders of Gestalt
psychology.
He went to Berlin to be a
professor there, and then went on to New York City in 1935. There, he
wrote The Organism in 1939 and later Human Nature in
the Light of Pathology in 1963. He died in 1965.
Goldstein
developed a holistic view of brain function, based on research that showed that
people with brain damage learned to use other parts of their brains in
compensation. He extended his holism to the entire organism, and
postulated that there was only one drive in human functioning, and coined the
term self-actualization. Self-preservation, the usual
postulated central motive, he said, is actually pathological!
Goldstein
and his idea of self-actualization influence quite a few young personality
theorists and therapists. Among them would be Gordon Allport, Carl Rogers, and Abraham Maslow, founders of the American humanistic
psychology movement.
WILLIAM JAMES FUNCTIONALISM
Introduction
Evolution
of psychology can be traced from late 17th century, where it was considered to
be the study of soul, then came to the notion of mind. Further studies reveal
it as the science of consciousness. Then in the mid-19thcentury,
came a school called structuralism (1846) in Germany. Their pioneer Wundt and
Titchener defined it as the analytic study of the generalized adult normal
human mind through introspection. This school was heavily criticized for
narrowing the scope of psychology as they excluded the study of children and
animals and even mentally unsound people. They were majorly criticized for
using just the methods of introspection which was a problem of objectivity.
In
1896, came a school as a result against the established organ of structuralism,
with no intention to form a school. They attempted to give an accurate and
systematic answer to the question, what do men do? And why do they do it? This
school was called functionalism. Cattell, Stanley, Hall, James Baldwin and
William James, Thorndike who laid the groundwork for the later growth of functionalism
by opening new fields of inquiry such as child and animal. The founders, John
Dewey and Angell, established functionalism as a system. Harvey Carr and Robert
S. Woodworth were responsible for the maturation and further elaboration of
this system. Functionalist gave the definition of psychology as the study of
mental activity which is the general term for adaptive behavior (Carr).
From
the definition we can infer that they derived psychology as the study of mental
operations, concerns with the utility of mind especially consciousness, as a
means of mediating between the needs of the organism and its environment. The
school also addressed to the automatic and other unconscious behavior.
Basic Unit
The
reflex arc or stimulus response sequence proposed by Dewey was the basic Unit.
The series of such events coordinated into a complex act.
Field of Study
They
studied mental activities like perception, memory, imagination, feeling,
judgment and will and all other behaviors which were adaptive and adjustive.
Habitual, automatic behaviors were recognized. Since habits are already learnt
adjustive acts, functionalist concentrated more on conscious activities.
Methods of Investigation
Functionalist’s
principal contribution to methodology was the conviction that the procedure
used to investigate a particular problem should be determined by the nature of
problem and not a vice versa. Carr used testing and research for exploring
theories. Functionalist emphasized more on experimentation and used
introspection in the field of perception and thinking.
Mind and Body Position
Functionalist
felt that psychology as an empirical and natural science did not need to
concern itself with metaphysical problems.
Antecedents of Functionalism
Darwin,
Spencer and Galton introduced the biological principles of evolution and
adjustment into psychology. In 1855, Spencer published his principles of
psychology. In which he said that evolution is a change from indefinite
coherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity through continuous
integration and differentiation.
These
changes are the result of a continuous process of adjustment to external
conditions. Each animal responds in a certain way to his environment. The
higher the place of a species in the ladder of evolution, the more complex and
differentiated are its responses. The simplest reactions are inflexible and
represent a gross adjustment to environment. The higher functions evolve from
the lower ones in the process of adjustment. Mental activities are part of this
process and thus are biologically useful. Charles Darwin (1809-1882) maintained
that life is a struggle for existence. Better equipped individuals have more
chance for survival and for reproduction.
Human
behavior is goal directed. Those who adjust better conditions have better
chance for survival. Psychology has to study the ways of human adjustments.
Francis Galton studied differences in men and related to hereditary factors. He
applied statistical method to genetics and his studies of individual differences
led to the development of mental tests and methods of correlation between
mental traits.
William James
He
was the leading American antecedent of functionalism. He grasped the
significance of the biological utilitarian approach to psychology and posed to
psychology the question- what for? His psychological theory cannot be properly
understood unless it is viewed in the larger context of his philosophical
system. His credo was my thinking is first and last and always for the sake of
my doing. James was par excellence a non-reductionist. He was a radical
empiricist and recognized the multiplicity and diversity of the universe. James
rebelled against what he considered to be the narrowness, artificiality and
pointlessness of the Wundt tradition and introspection in psychology as
exemplified in Titchener and the Cornell school.
He
stressed on the importance of the experimental method. He said that the useful
knowledge for psychology comes from a study of behavior, consciousness,
individual differences and generalized principles of emotions and non-rational
impulses and intellectual abilities. Underlying all this kind of study was the
general assumption that psychology must study functions that psychology is a
part of biological science and man must be considered in his adaptation and
re-adaptation to the environment.
He
felt that man’s behavior and especially his mind must have had some function to
have survived. James challenged the unity of personality. He believed that each
individual has more than one self. The material self is the totality of all
material possessions, including one’s own body, property, money etc. Elation
and depression etc. are the emotional responses to the respective increase or
decrease of possession.
The
social self depends on identification with various social groups such as
family, occupation etc. The spiritual self includes all mental dispositions
together. It is the center of action and adjustment. James introduced a
systematic and classified list of instincts. He strove to find in the
biological theory of evolution, the answer to the dynamics of human nature.
Instincts are inherited, common to a given species, usually useful and pleasant
patterns of behavior. James stated that consciousness represents the
experiences, or the phenomena of mental life, while the organism and
particularly the nervous system are the conditions of the mental life.
Consciousness is the product of evolution and has been evolved like all other
functions, for a use- it is to the highest degree improbable a prior that it
should have no use.
James
paid considerable attention to the acquisition of habits. Habits are acquired
by association. Contiguity is the basic law of association. James defined it as
when two elementary brain processes have been active together or in immediate
succession, one of them, on reoccurring tends to propagate its excitement into
the other.
He also introduced a systematic and
classified list of instincts. Instincts are inherited, common to a given
species, usually useful and pleasant pattern of behavior. They are the ways of
behavior. James theory of emotions was a logical outcome of the
evolutionistic-biological approach. He states that emotions are a function of
bodily changes, mainly physiological changes in muscles and viscera. James influenced
psychology by his new and fresh approach to the problem by his philosophical
idea of pragmatism and his perception of psychological function as a part in
the process of adjustment.
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