CHAPTER - I : INTRODUCTION TO EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

CHAPTER-I

INTRODUCTION TO EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

INTRODUCTION

Psychology is the scientific study of human and animal behavior with the object of understanding why living beings behave as they do. As almost any science, its discoveries have practical applications. As it is a rather new science, applications are sometimes confused with the science itself. It is easier to distinguish what is 'pure' and 'applied' in older disciplines: everybody can separate physics and mathematics from engineering, or anatomy and physiology from medicine. People often confound psychology with psychiatry, which is a branch of medicine dedicated to the cure of mental disorders.

Some topics that 'pure' psychologists may study are: how behavior changes with development, when a behavior is instinctive or learned, how persons differ, and how people get into trouble. 'Applied' psychologists may use scientific knowledge to find better ways to deal with adolescents, to teach, to match persons with jobs, and to get people out of their troubles. Accordingly, several branches exist of psychology: developmental psychology, animal psychology, educational psychology, psychotherapy, industrial psychology, psychology of personality, social psychology, are but some of them.

Physiological psychology is a field akin to neurophysiology that studies the relation between behavior and body systems like the nervous system and the endocrine system. It studies which brain regions are involved in psychic functions like memory, and activities like learning. It also studies the complex interaction between brain and hormones that gives rise to emotions.

Animal behavior is studied by psychologists mainly in laboratory. The study of animal behavior in their natural habitats is undertaken by the science of ethnology. The comparative study of human and animal behavior is one of the sources of evolutionary psychology, which tries to understand how evolution has shaped the way we think and feel.

Educational psychology concentrates on those aspects of the psychic activity that have to do with learning. Experimenting with animals and people, it tries to understand how they learn, and to devise better ways of teaching. A psychological school, known as behaviorism, maintains that every human behavior is a learned response to a stimulus, and consequently tried to establish learning as the central topic of psychology.

The area of cognitive psychology concerns with the ways we perceive and we express how we store our perceptions and later recall them, and the way we think. Perception, memory, speech, and thinking are the main subjects of this branch. The study of decision making is a topic that has a great practical importance.

The study of emotion and the study of personality are two related fields that delve into the profound question of why we are different and why we feel how we feel. While some scientists propose genetic traits as the reason, others look to the social environment as the cause of our differences.

MEANING AND DEFINITION OF PSYCHOLOGY

The word, ‘Psychology’ is derived from two Greek words, ‘Psyche’ and ‘Logos’. Psyche means ‘soul’ and ‘Logos’ means ‘science’. Thus psychology was first defined as the ‘science of soul”.

According to earlier psychologists, the function of psychology was to study the nature, origin and destiny of the human soul. But soul is something metaphysical. It cannot be seen, observed and touched and we cannot make scientific experiments on soul.

In the 18^th century, psychology was understood as the ‘Science of Mind’. William James (1892) defined psychology as the science of mental processes. But the word ‘mind ‘ is also quite ambiguous as there was confusion regarding the nature and functions of mind.

Modern psychologists defined psychology as the “Science of Consciousness”. James Sully (1884) defined psychology as the “Science of the Inner World”. Wilhelm Wundt (1892) defined psychology as the science which studies the “internal experiences’. But there are three levels of consciousness-conscious, subconscious and the unconscious and so this definition also was not accepted by some.

Thus psychology first lost its soul, then its mind and then its consciousness. At present only its behaviour exists. William McDougall (1905) defined psychology as the “Science of Behaviour”, W.B. Pillsbury (1911) and J.B. Watson (1912) also defined psychology as the science of behavior.

Behaviour generally means overt activities which can observe and measured scientifically. But one’s behaviour is always influenced by his experiences. So when we study one’s behaviour we must also study his experiences.

Psychology should, therefore, be defined as a “science of behaviour and experiences on human beings” (B.F. Skinner)

According to Crow and Crow, “Psychology is the study of human behaviour and human relationship’”.

BRANCHES OF PSYCHOLOGY

Various fields of specialization in psychology have emerged over the years. Some of these are discussed in this section.

Cognitive Psychology:

It investigates mental processes involved in acquisition, storage, manipulation, and transformation of information received from the environment along with its use and communication. The major cognitive processes are attention, perception, memory, reasoning, problem solving, decision-making and language. You will be studying these topics later in this textbook. In order to study these cognitive processes, psychologists conduct experiments in laboratory settings. Some of them also follow an ecological approach, i.e. an approach which focuses on the environmental factors, to study cognitive processes in a natural setting. Cognitive psychologists often collaborate with neuroscientists and computer scientists.

Biological Psychology:

It focuses on the relationship between behavior and the physical system, including the brain and the rest of the nervous system, the immune system, and genetics. Biological psychologists often collaborate with neuroscientists, zoologists, and anthropologists.

Neuropsychology:

It has emerged as a field of research where psychologists and neuroscientists are working together. Researchers are studying the role of neurotransmitters or chemical substances which are responsible for neural communication in different areas of the brain and therefore in associated mental functions. They do their research on people with normal functioning brain as well as on people with damaged brain by following advanced technologies like EEG, PET and MRI, etc. about which you will study later.

Developmental Psychology:

It studies the physical, social and psychological changes that occur at different ages and stages over a life-span, from conception to old age. The primary concern of developmental psychologists is how we become what we are. For many years the major emphasis was on child and adolescent development.

However today increasing number of developmental psychologists show strong interest in adult development and ageing. They focus on the biological, socio-cultural and environmental factors that influence psychological characteristics such as intelligence, cognition, emotion, temperament, morality, and social relationship. Developmental psychologists collaborate with anthropologists, educationists, neurologists, social workers, counselors and almost every branch of knowledge where there is a concern for growth and development of a human being.

Social Psychology:

It explores how people are affected by their social environments, how people think about and influence others. Social psychologists are interested in such topics as attitudes, conformity and obedience to authority, interpersonal attraction, helpful behavior, prejudice, aggression, social motivation, inter-group relations and so on.

Cross-cultural and Cultural Psychology:

It examines the role of culture in understanding behavior, thought, and emotion. It assumes that human behavior is not only a reflection of human-biological potential but also a product of culture. Therefore behavior should be studied in its socio-cultural context. As you will be studying in different chapters of this book, culture influences human behavior in many ways and in varying degrees.

Environmental Psychology:

It studies the interaction of physical factors such as temperature, humidity, pollution, and natural disasters on human behavior. The influence of physical arrangement of the workplace on health, the emotional state, and interpersonal relations are also investigated. Current topics of research in this field are the extent to which, disposal of waste, population explosion, conservation of energy, efficient use of community resources are associated with and are functions of human behavior.

Health Psychology:

It focuses on the role of psychological factors (for example, stress, and anxiety) in the development, prevention and treatment of illness. Areas of interest for a health psychologist are stress and coping, the relationship between psychological factors and health, patient-doctor relationship and ways of promoting health enhancing factors.

Clinical and Counseling Psychology:

It deals with causes, treatment and prevention of different types of psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders and chronic substance abuse. A related area is counseling, which aims to improve everyday functioning by helping people solve problems in daily living and cope more effectively with challenging situations. The work of clinical psychologists does not differ from that of counseling psychologists although a counseling psychologist sometimes deals with people who have less serious problems.

In many instances, counseling psychologists work with students, advising them about personal problems and career planning. Like clinical psychologists, psychiatrists also study the causes, treatment, and prevention of psychological disorders. How are clinical psychologists and psychiatrists different? A clinical psychologist has a degree in psychology, which includes intensive training in treating people with psychological disorders. In contrast, a psychiatrist has a medical degree with years of specialized training in the treatment of psychological disorders. One important distinction is that psychiatrists can prescribe medications and give electroshock treatments whereas clinical psychologist cannot.

Industrial/Organizational Psychology:

It deals with workplace behavior, focusing on both the workers and the organizations that employ them. Industrial/organizational psychologists are concerned with training employees, improving work conditions, and developing criteria for selecting employees. For example, an organizational psychologist might recommend that a company may adopt a new management structure that would increase communication between managers and staff. The background of industrial and organizational psychologists often includes training in cognitive and social psychology.

Educational Psychology:

It studies how people of all ages learn. Educational psychologists primarily help develop instructional methods and materials used to train people in both educational and work settings. They are also concerned with research on issues of relevance for education, counseling and learning problems. A related field, school psychology, focuses on designing programs that promote intellectual, social, and emotional development of children, including those with special needs. They try to apply knowledge of psychology in a school setting.

Sports Psychology:

It applies psychological principles to improve sports performance by enhancing their motivation. Sports psychology is a relatively new field but is gaining acceptance worldwide.

Other Emerging Branches of Psychology:

The interdisciplinary focus on research and application of psychology has led to the emergence of varied areas like aviation psychology, space psychology, military psychology, forensic psychology, rural psychology, engineering psychology, managerial psychology, community psychology, psychology of women, and political psychology, to name a few.

METHODS OF STUDYING PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING

Introduction

Dear students in the preceding section, you have analyzed the nature, definition, scope and function of psychology of learning. We have also discussed the psychological concept of learning. In this chapter, we will describe the important methods of studying psychology of learning. Students all the method to study psychology of learning are basically methods of general psychology.

A brief review of the development of methods will be helpful for you to understand the important of the subject in greater perspective. The first effort of conducting systematic experimental studies in psychology was started in 1879 in Germany with the establishment of first laboratory of psychology by William Wundt. The next important method of collecting data was evolved with the development of psychoanalysis an independent system of psychology by Sigmund Freud who emphasized importance of unconscious in understanding the behavior. In the second decade of 20th century, psychology developed as an objective science of behavior by the efforts of Pavlov Watson and Guthrie.

Experimental and observation methods were developed to collect data to study behavior. Simultaneously testing movement started with the introduction of statistics in psychology. Students here we will study only the following methods of studying psychology of learning. They are:

A.   Introspection method

B.   Case Study method

B.  Observation method

C.  Experimental method

INTROSPECTION METHOD

Students at many times, when you have experienced an emotion like anger or fear you begin to think reasons for the state of yours. You say, “Why have I been annoyed over this or that? Why been afraid of such things” The analysis of your emotional state may take place simultaneously with the emotion or it may be done after the emotional state is over. In whatever manner it is done, it gives you an understanding, though rudimentary of your mind.

This method of probing into your mental processes is a method of introduction utilized by psychologists in a much-refined manner. Let us see in detail what do we mean by Introduction and its merits and demerits. What we mean by introspection is a method of self-observation. The word ‘Introspection is made up of two Latin words. “Intro” meaning ‘within’ and “Aspection” meaning ‘looking’. Hence it is a method where an individual is looking within one self.

Angel considered it as “looking inward”. In Introduction the individual peeps into his own mental state and observes his own mental processes. Stout considers that ‘to introspect is to attend to the working of one’s own mind in a systematic way’. Introspection method is one of the oldest methods to collect data about the conscious experiences of the subject. It is a process of self-examination where one perceives, analyses and reports one’s own feelings. Let us learn this process with the help of an example, suppose you are happy and in the state of happiness you look within yourself. It is said you are introspecting your own mental feelings and examining what is going on in your mental process in the state of happiness. Similarly, you may introspect in state of anger or fear; etc. Introspection is also defined as the notice, which the mind takes of itself.

Let us see the stages distinguished in introspection. Students there are three clear stages in introspection.

1.     During the observation of external object, the person beings to ponder over his own mental states. For example While listening to the music, which is to him pleasant or unpleasant he starts thinking about his own mental state.

2.     The person begins to question the working of the own mind. He thinks and analyses: Why has he said such and such thing? Why as he talked in a particular manner? And so on.

3.     He tries to frame the laws and conditions of mental processes: He thinks in terms of improvement of his reasoning or the control of his emotional stages. This stages of that the scientific methods for the advancement of our scientific knowledge.

Characteristics of Introspection:

Introspection being self- observation has the following characteristics:

1. The subject gets direct, immediate and intuitive knowledge about the mind.

2. The subject has actually to observe his own mental processes. He cannot speculate about them. Students, Introduction Method were widely used in the past. Its use in modern time is being questioned. It is considered unscientific and not in keeping with psychology which has recently emerged out as a positive science however we may say that it is still being used by psychologists and though its supremacy is undetermined, yet it is not totally discarded.

Merits of Introspection Method:

·        It is the cheapest and most economical method. We do not need any apparatus or laboratory for its use.

·        This method can be used anytime and anywhere you can introspect while walking, traveling, and sitting on a bed and so on.

·        It is the easiest method and is readily available to the individual.

·        The introspection data are first hand as the person himself examines his own activities.

·        Introspection has generated research which gradually led to the development of more objective methods.

·        It is still used in all experimental investigation.

·        It is the only method with the help of which and individual can know his emotions and feelings.

William James has pointed out the importance of this method in these words. “Introspective observation is what we have to rely on first and foremost and always. The word introspection can hardly be defined-it means, of course, looking into our own minds and reporting what we there discover. Everyone agrees that we there discover states of consciousness. So far as I know, the existence of such states has never been doubled by my critic, however skeptical in other respects we may have been.”

Limitations of Introspection Methods:

·        In introspection, one needs to observe or examine one’s mental processes carefully in the form of thoughts, feeling and sensation. The state of one’s mental processes is continuously changing therefore when one concentrates on introspecting a particular phase of one’s mental activity that phases passes off.

(For example when you get angry at something and afterwards sit down to introspect calmly the state of anger is sure to have passed off and so what you try to observe is not what is happening at that time with yourself but what had happened sometime before.)

·        The data collected by introspection cannot be verified. An individual may not pass through the same mental state again. There is no independent way of checking the data.

·        The data collected by introspection lacks validity and reliability. It is impossible to acquire validity and exactness in self-observation of one’s own mental processes.

·        The data collected by introspection in highly subjective. It has danger of being biased and influenced by preconceptions of the individual.

·        The observer and the observed are the same. Hence there is ample scope from the individual to lie deliberately and hide the facts to mislead.

·        Introspection cannot be applied to children, animal and abnormal people. It requires highly trained and skilled workers to introspect.

·        Introspection us logically defective because one and the same person is the experience and observer. It is not possible for the same individual to act as an experienced as well as an observer. There introspection is logically defective.

CASE STUDY METHOD

Case studies are in-depth investigations of a single person, group, event or community. Typically, data are gathered from a variety of sources and by using several different methods (e.g. observations & interviews). The research may also continue for an extended period of time, so processes and developments can be studied as they happen.

The case study method often involves simply observing what happens to, or reconstructing ‘the case history’ of a single participant or group of individuals (such as a school class or a specific social group), i.e. the idiographic approach. Case studies allow a researcher to investigate a topic in far more detail than might be possible if they were trying to deal with a large number of research participants (Nomothetic approach) with the aim of ‘averaging’.

The case study is not itself a research method, but researchers select methods of data collection and analysis that will generate material suitable for case studies. Amongst the sources of data the psychologist is likely to turn to when carrying out a case study are observations of a person’s daily routine, unstructured interviews with the participant herself (and with people who know her), diaries, personal notes (e.g. letters, photographs, notes) or official document (e.g. case notes, clinical notes, appraisal reports). Most of this information is likely to be qualitative (i.e. verbal description rather than measurement) but the psychologist might collect numerical data as well.

The data collected can be analyzed using different theories (e.g. grounded theory, interpretative phenomenological analysis, text interpretation, e.g. thematic coding) etc. All the approaches mentioned here use preconceived categories in the analysis and they are ideographic in their approach, i.e. they focus on the individual case without reference to a comparison group.

Case studies are widely used in psychology and amongst the best known were the ones carried out by Sigmund Freud. He conducted very detailed investigations into the private lives of his patients in an attempt to both understand and help them overcome their illnesses. 

Case studies are often conducted in clinical medicine and involve collecting and reporting descriptive information about a particular person or specific environment, such as a school. In psychology, case studies are often confined to the study of a particular individual. The information is mainly biographical and relates to events in the individual's past (i.e. retrospective), as well as to significant events which are currently occurring in his or her everyday life.

In order to produce a fairly detailed and comprehensive profile of the person, the psychologist may use various types of accessible data, such as medical records, employer's reports, school reports or psychological test results. The interview is also an extremely effective procedure for obtaining information about an individual, and it may be used to collect comments from the person's friends, parents, employer, work mates and others who have a good knowledge of the person, as well as to obtain facts from the person him or herself.

This makes it clear that the case study is a method that should only be used by a psychologist, therapist or psychiatrist, i.e. someone with a professional qualification. There is an ethical issue of competence. Only someone qualified to diagnose and treat a person can conduct a formal case study relating to atypical (i.e. abnormal) behavior or atypical development.

The procedure used in a case study means that the researcher provides a description of the behavior. This comes from interviews and other sources, such as observation. The client also reports detail of events from his or her point of view. The researcher then writes up the information from both sources above as the case study, and interprets the information.

Interpreting the information means the researcher decides what to include or leave out. A good case study should always make clear which information is factual description and which is an inference or the opinion of the researcher.

Strengths of Case Studies

·         Provides detailed (rich qualitative) information.

·         Provides insight for further research.

·         Permitting investigation of otherwise impractical (or unethical) situations.

Because of their in-depth, multi-sided approach case studies often shed light on aspects of human thinking and behaviour that would be unethical or impractical to study in other ways. Research which only looks into the measurable aspects of human behaviour is not likely to give us insights into the subjective dimension to experience which is so important to psychoanalytic and humanistic psychologists.

Case studies are often used in exploratory research. They can help us generate new ideas (that might be tested by other methods). They are an important way of illustrating theories and can help show how different aspects of a person's life are related to each other. The method is therefore important for psychologists who adopt a holistic point of view (i.e. humanistic psychologists).

Limitations of Case Studies

·         Can’t generalize the results to the wider population.

·         Researchers' own subjective feeling may influence the case study (researcher bias).

·         Difficult to replicate.

·         Time consuming.

Because a case study deals with only one person/event/group we can never be sure whether the conclusions drawn from this particular case apply elsewhere. The results of the study are not generalizable because we can never know whether the case we have investigated is representative of the wider body of "similar" instances

Because they are based on the analysis of qualitative (i.e. descriptive) data a lot depends on the interpretation the psychologist places on the information she has acquired. This means that there is a lot of scope for observer bias and it could be that the subjective opinions of the psychologist intrude in the assessment of what the data means.

For example, Freud has been criticized for producing case studies in which the information was sometimes distorted to fit the particular theories about behavior (e.g. Little Hans). This is also true of Money’s interpretation of the Bruce/Brenda case study (Diamond, 1997) when he ignored evidence that went against his theory.

OBSERVATION METHOD

Student we observe so many things in nature. We also observe the action and behavior of others and form our own notions about these people. We look at other persons, listen to their talks and try to infer what they mean. We try to infer the characteristics, motivations, feelings and intentions of others on the basis of these observations. So let us study about Observation method employed by psychologists in detail. With the development of psychology as an objective science of learning behavior, the method of introspection was replaced by careful observation of human and animal behavior to collect data by research workers.

In introspection we can observe the mental process of ourselves only, but in observation, we observe the mental processes of others. Hence Observation is the most commonly used for the study of human behavior.

Meaning of Observation

Observation literally means looking outside oneself. Facts are collected by observing overt behavior of the individual in order to locate underlying problem and to study developmental trends of different types.

The overt behavior is the manifestation of court conditions within the individual. The study of overt behavior gives indirectly the clue to the mental condition of the individual. Observation means ‘perceiving the behavior as it is” In the words of Goods, “Observation deals with the overt behavior of persons in appropriate situations.” Observation has been defined as “Measurements without instruments.”

For example students in classroom have been labeled as good, fair or poor in achievement and lazy or diligent in study etc. on the basis of observation, observation is indirect approach to study the mental processes of others through observing their external behavior. For example if someone frowns, howls, grinds his teeth, closes his fists, you would say that the person is angry by only observing these external signs of his behavior. Students in the process of observation, following four steps are generally required:

1. Observation of behavior:

The first step involved in the method of observation is directly perceiving or observing the behavior of individuals under study. For example, if we want to observe the social behavior of children we can observe it when they assemble and play.

2. Recording the behavior observed:

The observation should be carefully and immediately noted and recorded. Minimum time should be allowed to pass between happening and recording. It will make the observation more objective.

3. Analysis and Interpretation of behavior:

When the notes of behavior observed are completed, they are analyzed objectively and scientifically in order to interpret the behavior patterns.

4. Generalization:

On the basis of analysis and interpretation of the data collected with the help of observation method, it is possible to make certain generalization. Social development and behavior of children have been described by child Psychologists on the basis of generalization based upon analysis and interpretation of the data gathered through the observation method.

Types of Observation:

Students you have just seen what observation is and how it is conducted. Do you know there are different ways in which observation can be done, so let us see the different types of observation?

1. Natural Observation:

In natural observation we observe the specific behavioral characteristics of children in natural setting. Subject does not become conscious of the fact that their behavior is being observed by someone.

2. Participant – Observation:

Here the observer becomes the part of the group, which he wants to observe. It discloses the minute and hidden facts.

3. Non-Participant Observation:

Here the observer observes in such a position, which is least disturbing to the subject under study, the specific behavior is observed in natural setting without subjects getting conscious that they are observed by someone. Non-participant observation permits the use of recording instruments.

4. Structured Observation:

Here the observer in relevance sets up a form and categories in terms of which he wishes to analyze the problem. The observer always keeps in view

A] A frame of reference

b] Time Units.

c] Limits of an act

5. Unstructured Observation:

This is also called as uncontrolled or free observation. It is mainly associated with participant observation in which the observer assumes the role of a member of the group to be observed. Here the individual is observed when he is in his class, playground or when he is moving about with his friends and class follows without knowing that he is being observed. Observation is very useful method to study child and his behavior. Student’s observation method, being commonly used method psychology has following merits:

Merits of Observation Method

1.     Being a record of actual behavior of the child, it is more reliable and objective.

2.     It is an excellent source of information about what actually happens in classroom.

3.     It is a study of an individual in a natural situation and is therefore more useful than the restricted study in a test situation.

4.     The method can be used with children of all ages. Younger the child, the easiest it is to observe him. This method has been found very useful with shy children.

5.     It can be used in every situation, physical- activities, and workshop and classroom situations as well.

6.     It is adaptable both to the individuals and the groups. Although observation is regarded as an efficient method for psychological studies, students yet it suffers from the following drawbacks limitations:

Limitations:

1.     There is great scope for personal prejudices and bias observed. There is some time lag of the observer. The observer’s interest, values can distort observation.

2.     Records may not be written with hundred percent accuracy as the observations are recorded after the actions are

3.     The observer may get only a small sample of study behavior. It is very difficult to observe everything that the student does or says. As far as possible observation should be made from several events.

4.     It reveals the overt behavior only- behavior that is expressed and not that is within.

5.     It lacks reliability as each natural situation can occur only once.

Students looking at the drawbacks an observation method have psychologists have suggested various guidelines to be followed for making good observation. So let us find out which are these essential guidelines for making good observation.

Essential guidelines for making good observation

1.     Observe one individual at a time. It is desirable to focus attention on just one individual at a time in order to collect comprehensive data.

2.     Have a specific criterion for making observations. The purpose of making observation should be clear to the observer before he or she begins to observe so that the essential characteristics or the behavior of the person fulfilling the purpose can be noted.

3.     Observations should be made over a period of time. To have a real estimate of the true behavior of a person it should be observed as frequently as possible. A single observation will not be sufficient to tell us that this is the characteristic of the individual.

4.     The observations should be made in differing and natural situations in natural settings to increase its validity. For example, a pupil’s behavior in the classroom may not be typical of him; therefore he should be observed in variety of settings to know the behavior most typical of the person.

5.     Observe the pupil in the context of the total situation.

6.     The observed facts must be recorded instantly, that is just at the time of their occurrence otherwise the observer may forget some of the facts and the recording may not be accurate.

7.     It is better to have two or more observers.

8.     Observations should be made under favorable conditions. The observer should be in position to clearly observe what he or she is observing. There should not be any undue distraction or disturbances. One should also have an attitude free from any biases or prejudices against the individual being observed.

9.     Data from observations should be integrated with other data. While arriving at the final conclusion about the individual, one should put together all that we know about the individual from the other sources then we can give an integrated and comprehensive picture of the individual. These precautions must be borne in mind in order to have reliable observations.

EXPERIMENTAL METHODS

Students till now, we saw introspection method and observation method used in psychology of learning. But these methods lack scientific objectivity and validity. Experimental method is the most scientific and objective method of studying behavior. It is the method, which is responsible for assigning the status of Science to psychology. So let us learn more about this Experimental method.

In 1879, William Wundt established the first psychological laboratory at Leipzig in Germany. Since then experimental method in psychology has become popular, Experimental method consists of actions of actions performed under prearranged or rigidly controlled conditions. Here the emphasis is on experimentation. Experimentation is where the investigator controls the educative factors to which a group of children are subjected during the period of inquiry and observes the resulting achievement.

J. W. Best describes, “Experimental research is the description and analysis of what will be, or what will occur under carefully controlled conditions.”

Basic concepts /essentials of experimental method

a. Experiments are always conducted in laboratory. Hence the laboratory is essential.

b. Psychological experiments performed in this method essentially require two people; the experiment or group of experimenters who perform experiment and the other is the subject or subjects on whom the experiment is performed.

c. The key factor in this method is the controlling of conditions or variables. The term ’Variable’ means that which can be varied or changed by controlling. The variables we can eliminate the irrelevant conditions and isolate the relevant ones. We thus become able to observe the causal relationship between the phenomena keeping all other conditions almost constant. Let us understand this by an example.

If we try to study the effect of intelligence on academic by the experimental method, we will need to determine the causative relation between the two phenomena (variables) - i.e. intelligence and academic achievement. One of these variables, the effect of which we want to study will be called the independent Variable and the other the dependent variable. Thus the independent variable stands for cause and the dependent variable is the effect of the cause. Other conditions like study-habits, sex, socio-eco conditions, parental education, home environment, health past learning, memory etc. which exercise a good impact upon one’s achievement besides one’s intelligence are termed “interviewing variables”. In Experimentation, all such interviewing variables are to be controlled, i.e. they are to be made constant or equalized and the effect of only one independent variable e.g. intelligence in present case, on one or more dependent variable is studied. The interviewing variables made constant, are hence called as controlled variables.

Steps in the experimental method

Students we have describe above, the basic concepts of experimental method. Here we will describe different steps, which are to be followed in conducting a typical experiment. These steps are as follows.

1. Raising a problem:

In any experiment the first steps is to identify a problem. For example it has been observed that the students cheat in the examinations. To stop it many recommend strict supervision.

But it has also been seen that even when there is strict supervision there is cheating, hence their crops up the problem of cheating under strict supervision or relaxed supervision. This problem may lead to experimentation.

2. Formulation of a hypothesis:

The next step in experimental method is the formulation of hypothesis that “Strict supervision may lead to less copying in the examination as compared to the relaxed supervision. “This hypothesis is now to be tested by experiment.

3. Making a distinction between Independent and dependent variables:

In the example given above the cheating behavior of the students will be dependent variable while the nature of supervision will be the independent variable. It is because by changing the supervision the cheating behavior is expected change. In the present experiment we manipulate the conditions of supervision in order to discover the ways in which they determine the dependent variable that is the cheating behavior. We may observe the effect of supervision in the experimental situation and also the effect of relaxed supervision under similar conditions and with the same group of students.

4. Controlling the situational variables:

The experiment will not give valid results unless the situational variables are controlled. If the experiment is conducted with different set of students who have been trained in a different manner of have a different value system then the results will be different in comparison to those who have been subjected to experiment earlier. Similarly the other conditions like the person who is supervising the place of supervision etc. have to be controlled. This means that all those conditions, which might affect the dependent variable, are to be controlled. Since in any experiment there are numerous conditions which are needed to be controlled it is many a time difficult to do so. Hence we take recourse to various types of experimental designs, which we have described earlier.

5. Analysis of the Results:

Once the experiment is concluded the results are analyzed. In our example we may apply simple percentages to find out in which type of supervision a higher percentage of students have copied. Many a times we apply more sophisticated statistics to analyze the results.

6. Verification of Hypothesis:

The last step in the experimental method is the verification of the hypothesis, which we have earlier framed. The result of the experiment exhibits whether the hypothesis which we have earlier framed. The result of the experiment exhibits whether the hypothesis is accepted of refuted. We may find that strict supervision leads to less copying. In that case we may conclude that our hypothesis is accepted. If the results are otherwise then our conclusion will be that the hypothesis is refuted.

Experimental Designs:

Students Experimental method is the most precise, planed, systematic and controlled method. It uses a systematic procedure called as experimental design. The term experimental design has two different meanings one is the experimental design which represents the six basic steps we have referred above? Followed in an experiment, the second meaning of experimental design and selecting an appropriate statistical procedure. Experimental design provides important guidelines to the researcher to carry out his research study. Experimental design ensures adequate controls by avoiding irrelevant causes of variability. The layout of a design depends on the type of the problem the investigator wants to investigate. Students you should know that, no one design solves all the problems of a research study. A variety of experimental designs have been developed by researchers in recent years. These designs differ as these are dependent upon:

a) The nature of problem

b) The situation

c) The subjects and their availability.

Let us study some of the experimental designs used while employing Experiment method. Following are the samples of experimental designs.

(A) One Group Design

1. One group posttest design: This type of design is the simple stones. It is commonly called pre-experimental design. Students in such type of experiment no formal comparison is possible for there is no second group with comparison can be made. Let us illustrate with an example: suppose a teacher treats 10 students who are addicted to smoking in a period of three months. At the end of the period six students give up smoking. Such type of designs does not control any of the sources of invalidity.

2. One group pretest-posttest design: This is also simple design and is considered to be a rather poor design though better than one group posttest design. In this design the experimenter first tests a group on some aspects of behavior and then gives special treatment. He statistically analyses the data and calculates the difference between the pretest and posttest scores of the group.

The paradigm of the design is as follows: Pretest Independent variable PosttestT1 X T2Example, Suppose in the beginning of the semester, we administer test of educational psychology to students of MA education and then we teach them the subject throughout the semester. At the end of the semester we administer posttest (T2), and find out the difference between the scores on the initial and final tests.

(B) Two Group Designs

Researches in education and psychology have often been criticized of being loosely controlled. In recent year more rigorous designs have been evolved by using statistics to make researches more scientific more scientific and objective. Generally researchers use two parallel group techniques to see the effects of an independent variable on some dependent variable. Two groups are equated on the basis of significant variable. One group called experimental and the other is called control group. The experimental group is subjected to a certain experience or to a specific treatment whereas the control group is not given any type of special treatment. After providing special treatment to the experimental group, both the groups are administered the same final test. The scores are statistically compared and conclusions are drawn as regards the effect of special treatment on the experimental group.

1. Randomized Control Group Pretest Posttest Design: The researcher in this design follows the procedure as given below.

v He selects subject by random method.

v Assigns subjects to groups and X (Treatment) to groups by random method.

v Tests the Ss on the dependent variable.

v Keep all conditions the same for both the groups except for exposing the experimental but not the control group to the independent variable for a specific time.

v Test the ‘Ss’ on the dependent variable.

v Finds the difference between the two.

v Compares the results to see whether the application of ‘X’ (treatment) caused a change in the experimental group.

v Applies an appropriate statistical procedure.

2. Matched two group designs. A matched two group design is a modification of the totally randomized two group design described above. In this design, both groups are matched in terms of some variable, the experimenter feels he would influence the dependent variable. Suppose we want to test the retention of two types of words closely associated and disassociated. We believe that I. Q. Will influence how well a person can retain words so we match the two groups on I. Q. Let us be more concrete to understand this point.

(C) Multi group Design with one Independent Variable (ANOVA)

Two group paradigms are most common in education and psychology but events in nature do not always conveniently order into two groups. Sometimes the investigator has to compare the effect of different values of some variable or has to see the effect of several alternative variables on more than two groups. The procedure for carrying out one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) is the same as for two group design. The distinguishing feature between the two types of investigation is the type of statistical analysis used.

(D) Factorial Design

Factorial design is employed more than one independent variables are involved in the investigation. Factorial designs may involve several factors.

(E) Small N Design

We have briefly mentioned various experimental designs which are termed as large N group designs. In all large N group designs, the number of subject in classroom situation. In many instances, the psychologist or teacher is faced with situations in which large N is not possible, for example delinquency, problem of indiscipline etc. with the introduction of statistics in psychology, it is possible to conduct scientific research on small N group.

Merits of experimental method

Experimental method being most precise and scientific has following merits:

1.     Experimental method is the most systematic method or getting reliable data.

2.     Experimental method enables accurate observations due to controlled conditions.

3.     It allows us to establish cause effect relationship between different phenomena.

4.     The results obtained are valid and reliable.

5.     The findings of the experimental method are verifiable by other experiments under identical conditions.

6.     It helps to protect from the subjective opinions. Hence it provides objective information about the problem.

7.     It provides adequate information about the problem.

8.     In experimental method experiments are conducted under vigorously controlled conditions. The experimenter can control the application and withdrawal of independent variables.

9.     Experimental method increases ones knowledge or psychological facts in child psychology, social and abnormal psychology. It is rightly said the experimental method has made psychology a science.

Demerits of the method

Experimental method suffers from various following demerits:

1.     Experimental method is costly and time consuming method as it requires a laboratory and apparatus to conduct it properly.

2.     Experiments are conducted in artificially determined pattern of behavior. In real life situation it is quite different.

3.     It needs specialized knowledge and therefore every teacher cannot be expected to conduct the experiment.

4.     The scope is limited. All problems of psychology cannot be studied by this method as we cannot perform experiments for all the problems that may come up in the diverse subject matter of psychology.

5.     Accurate measurements in case of human beings are never possible.

6.     It is difficult to always control the independent variable therefore it is not possible to create desired conditions in laboratory.

7.     It is not possible to reach certainty in matters of social science s including educational psychology.

Conclusion:

Students we have learnt in the above chapter the four methods of studying psychology of learning. But which of the above discussed methods is the best among other four is a difficult question to be answered. All the four methods have their strengths and weakness and possess some unique characteristics, which make them highly specific for use in a particular situation. A wise psychologist should have a keen insight into the nature of his subjects as well as the conditions affecting his work and accordingly select a proper method or methods for the objectives. Study of the behavior of his subjects much depends upon the sincerity, honesty, ability and experience of the investigator, who should always try to keep himself as scientific and objective as possible and leave no stone unturned for the overall analysis for the behavior of the subject or nature of the phenomena of the study.

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.

4.     Thorndike (1905) formalized the "Law of Effect".

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

2.     Classical Conditioning & Operant Conditioning

3.     Reinforcement & Punishment (Skinner)

4.     Objective Measurement

5.     Social Learning Theory (Bandura)

6.     Nomothetic.

7.     Reductionism

Methodology

1.     Lab Experiments

2.     Little Albert

3.     Edward Thorndike (the cat in a puzzle box)

4.     Skinner box (rats & pigeons)

5.     Pavlov’s Dogs

6.     Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment

7.     Ethical Considerations.

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

2.     Behavioral Therapy (e.g. Flooding)

3.     Phobias

4.     Education

5.     Behavior-Modification

6.     Aversion Therapy

7.     Scientific Methods

8.     Relationships

9.     Language

10.            Psychopathology (e.g. Depression)

11.            Moral Development

12.            Aggression

13.            Addiction.

Strengths

1.     Scientific

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 Maslow (1943) developed a hierarchical theory of human motivation.

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

       Qualitative Research

       Idiographic Approach

       Congruence

       Self Concept (e.g. self-worth, self-image, self actualization)

       Holism (e.g. study to whole person)

       Hierarchy of needs

       Free Will

Methodology

       Qualitative Methods

       Case Study

       Informal Interviews

       Q-Sort Method (Stephenson, 1953)

       Open-ended Questionnaires

       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

       Person Centered Therapy

       Qualitative Methods

       Abnormal behavior, incongruence & low self-worth (e.g. depression)

       Education

       Motivation

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.

       Qualitative data is difficult to compare.

       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

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-19^thcentury, 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.

MEANING AND DEFINITION OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

Educational Psychology consists of two words Psychology and Education. While general Psychology is prescience. Educational Psychology is its application in the field of education with the aim of socializing man and modifying his behavior.

According to Crow and Crow Educational Psychology describes and explains the learning experiences of an individual from birth through old age.

Skinner defines Educational Psychology as “that branch of Psychology which deals with teaching and learning”

Stephen – “Educational Psychology is the systematic study of the educational growth and development of a child.”

Judd – “Educational Psychology is the Science which explains the changes that take place in the individuals as they pass-through the various stages of development.”

Peel- “Educational Psychology is the science of Education.”

Educational psychology is one of the branches of applied psychology concerned with the application of the principles, techniques and other resource of psychology to the solution of the problems confronting the teacher attempting to direct the growth of children toward defined objectives.

More specifically, we can say educational psychology is concerned with an understanding of:

• The child, his development, his need and his potentialities.

• The learning situation including group dynamics as the affect learning.

• The learning processes its nature and the ways to make ineffective. Stated differently, the Central theme of Educational Psychology is Psychology of learning.

NATURE OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

Following are the important characteristics of the nature of educational psychology:

• It is an applied branch of fundamental Psychology.

• It combines two fields i.e. education and psychology.

• It is the scientific study of human behavior in educational situation.

• It is concerned with these factors, principles and techniques which relate to the various aspects of child’s growth and development.

• It is concerned with learning situation and process by which learning can be more efficient and effective.

• Educational Psychology draws heavily from various branches of psychology, biology sociology and anthropology

• Educational Psychology is not as exact as natural sciences since the human behavior cannot be predicated exactly, because it is dynamic.

• Educational Psychology is a science of education dealing primarily with how, when and what of education.

• It is not a normative a science as it is not concerned with the value of educational and doesn’t concern itself with and ‘What ought to be.” It only describes what it is; it is an applied positive science.

• While psychology deals with the behavior of all individuals in all walks of life. Educational Psychology limits its dealing with the behavior of the pupil in relation to Educational environment.

• It does not concern with what and why of education it gives the necessary knowledge and skill (Technical Guidance) forgiving education the pupil in a satisfactory way.

SCOPE OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

Five major areas covered by Educational Psychology are:

• The Learner

• The learning Process

• The learning Situation

• The Teaching Situation

• Evaluation of Learning Performance

• The Teacher

The Learner

Educational Psychology acquaints us with need of knowing the leaves and deals with the techniques of knowing him well. Following are the topics studied included in it: the innate abilities and capabilities of the individual differences and their measurements, the overt, convert, conscious as well as unconscious behavior of the learner, the characteristics of his growth and development at each stage beginning from childhood to adulthood.

The Learning Process

After knowing the learner and deciding what learning experiences are to be provided, the emerging problem is to help learner in acquiring these learning experiences with ease and confidence. Hence, it deals with the nature of learning and how it take place and contains the topics such as laws, principles and theories of learning; remembering and forgetting, perceiving, concept formation, thinking, reasoning process, problem solving, transfer of training, ways and means of effective learning etc.

Learning Situation

It also deals with the environment factors and learning situation which come midway between the learner and the teacher. Topics like classroom climate and group dynamics techniques and aids which facilitate learning, evaluation techniques, and practices, guidance and counseling etc. which help in the smooth functioning of the teaching learning process.

Teaching Situation

It suggests the techniques of teaching. It also helps in deciding what learning situation should be provided by teacher to learner according to his mental and physical age, his previous knowledge and interest level. By describing the learner’s characteristics, what teaching aids are appropriate for the particular subject?

Evaluation of Learning Performance

Main objective of education is all-round development of the learner. It includes cognitive, affective and psychomotor aspects of personality. Educational Psychology suggests various tool and techniques for assessment and evaluation such as performance test, oral test and written test. It does not stop at measurement only, after the testing results of the test are analyzed causes for poor performance, backwardness in any aspect of development is corrected by maladjustment are helped by guidance and counseling study habit, examination techniques and learning styles are analyzed and helped the learner so that he can overcome the difficulties.

The Teacher

Educational Psychology emphasizes the need of knowing the self for a teacher to play his role properly in the process of education. It throws light on the essential personality traits, interests, aptitudes, the characteristics of effective teaching etc., soaps to inspire, help teacher handle the stress, conflict and anxiety by giving insight in their own personality.

QUESTIONS FOR PRACTICE

1.     What is Psychology?

2.     Write down branches of Psychology.

3.     Define Educational Psychology.

4.     What is meant by Case Study?

5.     Define-Gestalt.

6.     List out types of observation method.

7.     Explain Scope of Educational Psychology.

8.     Write brief note on Experimental method.

9.     What is meant by Behaviorism? Explain it.

10.            Briefly explain Psycho analytic theory.

11.            Narrate Functionalism.

12.            Give brief account on Gestalt school of Psychology.

13.            Explain Humanistic Psychology.