History of Psychology 2006

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History of Psychology 2006 Lecture
11 Structuralism, Behaviourism Gestalt
Psychology
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Structuralism This school follows directly from
the work of Wundt and the Leipzig School in
Germany. It refers to The analytic study of the
generalized adult mind through introspection. The
school was represented in the United States by
Edward Titchener (1867-1927). He distinguished
between the structuralist and functionalist
positions and launched the school in 1898 at
Cornell University. He had an autocratic
personality and lectured in traditional academic
robes.
He stressed the significant role of psychological
experience and the idea that observation could be
isolated, varied and repeated thereby ensuring
clarity and accuracy.
Titchener
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In physical sciences there is the notion of
looking at. In psychological observation the
Wundtians adopted introspection as a process of
looking within. It is crucial not to make a
stimulus error which involves paying attention to
known properties of the stimulus rather than to
the sensory experience. Titchener was not
interested in the meaning of words and influence
in and of itself. He felt that applied science
was a contradiction and was not concerned with
the practical worth of this work. The basic
question in structuralism is What is there and
in what quantity, not what it is there for.
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Basic Propositions Derived From Associationism 1.
Three basic elements - sensations, images and
feelings. i. Images are elements of ideas. ii.
Sensations are elements of perception. 2.
Attention makes it possible to select elements in
consciousness. 3. Other attributes of these
elements are intensity and quantity. Recall
Titcheners conflict with the Wurzburg School
regarding imageless thought which he said were
unanalyzed kinaesthetic sensations and images.
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Positive Contribution of Structuralism to
Science Freed it from metaphysics and gave it an
experimental method and empirical facts. But it
was severely criticized. 1. The method of
introspection was seen as actually a method of
retrospection since it takes time to report about
a state of consciousness. Retrospection may
result in embellishment or error, especially if
the person engaging in introspection has a vested
interest in a theory being tested. This problem
is only partly eliminated by having well-trained
observers working in short time intervals. 2.
The act of introspection may change the
experience drastically - introspect on anger and
it dissipates. 3. Absence of replication or
comparable results.
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4. There was a growing concern for data that
properly belongs to psychology but is not
accessible to introspection. These include
unconscious meanings and imageless thoughts. 5.
The narrowness of this approach was attacked
because it was not interested in child or animal
psychology. This approach died of narrow
dogmatism.
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Behaviourism Behaviourism attempted to apply the
techniques and principles of animal psychology to
human beings. Behaviour was considered to be the
primary source of data in place of introspection.
The radical form of behaviourism denied the
existence of mind. The movement attempted to
replace
subjective (from introspection) with
objective data based on the observation of
behaviour.
One important antecedent was Auguste Comtes
(1798-1857) emphasis on positive (i.e., not
debatable) knowledge based on objective and
shared observation. Only objectively observable
behaviour could be valid. Since introspection
depended on private consciousness, it could not
provide valid knowledge.
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Human critical thinking passed through three
stages (1) theological, (2) metaphysical and (3)
positivist or scientific thought. Another
important antecedent was animal psychology or
comparative psychology which explored continuity
between animals and humans in their adaptation to
the environment.
In America, Thorndike and Yerkes established labs
(1890-1900) to study animal behaviour and
learning. The official founder of the School of
Behaviourism as J.B. Watson (1878-1958) who
stated his position in 1913. Watsons strong
appeal during the 1920s depended on his
environmentalism and confidence that a
well-developed science of behaviour would modify
the social world.
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Watson opposed heredity (of mental traits) and
rejected the notion of instincts. He provided
fresh hope for young idealists. 1. Behaviourism
views psychology as a purely objective branch of
the natural sciences. 2. Its goal was the
prediction and control of behaviour. 3.
Introspection is irrelevant and we should discard
all reference of consciousness. 4. There are no
differences between humans and animals. With no
mention of psychic life or consciousness, the
doings and sayings of humans constitute its
subject matter. The two main objectives are 1.
Predict the response, knowing the stimulus. 2.
Posdict the stimulus, knowing the response.
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Stimulus 1. Any object in the natural
environment 2. Any change in tissues due to the
physical condition of the animal (e.g., hunger).
Response Anything an animal does. So behaviour
is 1. Composed of elements that can be
objectively (i.e., quantitatively) analyzed into
stimulus-response units. 2. Composed of glandular
secretions and muscular movements (i.e.,
reducible to physiochemical processes). 3. Strict
cause and effect determinism in behaviour
(Stimulus causes the Response). 4. Conscious
processes cannot be scientifically studied.
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E.C. Tolman (1886-1961) Watson had cast any
notion of purpose aside as introspective
superstition of no interest to behaviourists.
Tolman developed the concept of purposive
behaviourism by looking for objective purpose in
behaviour. He distinguished between two
approaches to behaviour. (1) Molecular - define
behaviour in terms of strict underlying physical
and physiological details. (2) Molar - behaviour
is more than and different from the sum of its
physiological parts. Behaviour has descriptive
and defining properties of its own. It takes on
meaning partly from the stimulus situation within
which it occurs.
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Tolman analyzes a behavioural act If you clutch
your hat when the wind threatens to blow it
off (1) it has a great number of physiological
components (molecular) (2) but as behaviour it
has a start and finish. It starts from a certain
situation (gust of wind) and ends with a change
made in response to the situation. (This sounds
very much like a functionalist analysis). S-O-R
What goes on in Organism between stimulus and
response? The intervening process is called an
intervening variable. But this variable is not
directly observable and must be tied to an
experimental variable. For example, the state of
hunger can be tied to an experimental variable -
the amount of time since the animal last ate.
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There are two kinds of intervening variables (1)
Demands or motives (sex, hunger, safety
needs) (2) Cognitive or know-how variables
related to perception of objects, recognition of
previously explored places, motor skills. VALUE X
EXPECTANCY Cognitive Learning In Thorndikes
Law of Effect a response which leads to a
reinforcement that reduces a need is
strengthened. Tolman applied this idea so that
by exploring his environment the animal gets to
know about it. He comes to expect to find
food in a certain place. If food is found
there, the expectation is confirmed and
confirmation becomes a kind of reinforcement.
This led to the notion of field maps.
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Clark L. Hull (1884-1952) He sought to construct
a system for deducing laws of behaviour that
would be testable and to show that learning and
motivation were biological in nature. He opposed
Tolmans expectancy theory arguing that
responses, such as turning of the head, were part
of a series of conditioned responses. He broke
things down into fractional anticipatory goal
responses. DRIVE X HABIT Jack Atkinson combined
these two models Behaviour Value x Expectancy
x Habit x Drive
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Gestalt Psychology The term Gestalt means shape
or form. According to the Gestalt viewpoint,
the basis data of consciousness are grasped
immediately and spontaneously in organized,
structured and dynamic wholes. This is precisely
opposite to the atomism of Associationism and
Structuralism which emphasized the use of
analytical introspectionism to distinguish the
sensory and feeling contents of
experience. Gestalt psychology deals with the
organization of parts (i.e., elements) into
wholes and the laws of such organization. The
principle that the whole is greater than the sum
of the parts relates to the idea of hierarchy
that is implicit in Gestalt theory.
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Antecedents of Gestalt theory can be seen in 1.
J.S. Mills mental chemistry 2. Wundts notion
of creative synthesis 3. Holistic ideas in
German Romanticism 4. Brentanos idea that
psychology should concentrate upon the process of
sensing rather than upon the sensation as an
isolated content of consciousness. His use of
phenomenological introspection anticipated the
Gestalt method. Early ideas were expressed in
Machs sensation of spatial form (e.g., a circle)
or the sensation of time form (e.g., a melody).
The forms are independent of their elements
(e.g., circles can be red or blue, large or small
but retain the property of circularity). This
sounds like Platos notion of the forms. Also,
notes in a melody can be played in another key
without any alteration of their temporal form.
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The Founding of the School It began with the
study (1910) of the apparent motion phenomenon
which is applied today in the concept of
films. Problem How to explain the perception of
movement resulting from a series of still
stimuli. Max Wertheimer worked with two slits,
one vertical and the other inclined 20 to 30
degrees from the vertical. According to the phi
phenomenon, when the lights were directed through
one slit and then through the other, the slit of
light appeared to move from one position to the
other if the time between the presentations was
in the proper range (optimally at 60 msec). At
200 msec the light was seen at one and then at
the other position. The phenomenon could not
result from the summation of the two independent
images in the sense that the sensation of two
stationary images could not yield the sensation
of movement. The overall situation was critical
in determining what could be perceived. So the
perception of movement is a given whole in
experiences and cannot be reduced to compounded
sensory elements.
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Contrary to Wundt, apparent movement could not be
reduced to compounded sensory elements because
analysis would destroy the phenomenon. It was a
revolutionary idea to regard experience as having
an existence of its own. The primary data of
experience are typically Gestalten or whole
structures. This contradicted the Wundtian and
Structuralist ideas that such structures could be
broken down into elements which were primary. The
Gestalt psychologists believed that a
relationship existed between experiences and
physiological events in the brain. This was
called isomorphism. So structural properties of
brain fields and experiences are assumed to be
topographically related. They de-emphasized past
experience and focused on the physiological
field.
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The Principles of the Organization of Experience
(Wertheimer, 1923) 1. Figure/Ground organization
of experience. Figure is central and ground is
peripheral. 2. Proximity - elements close
together in time or space tend to be perceived
together. 3. Similarity - like elements tend to
be seen together in the same structure. 4.
Direction - We see figures such that direction
continues smoothly. 5. Objective Set - If you see
a certain type of organization, you continue to
do so even if stimulus factors that led to the
original organization are now absent (we fill in
the gaps).
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The Principles of the Organization of Experience
6. Common Fate - Elements shifted in a similar
manner from a larger group tend to be grouped
together. 7. Prägnanz - Elements are seen in as
good a way as it is possible under stimulus
conditions. A good figure is a stable figure.
This relates to the principle of Closure. Köhler
showed that animals do not respond to isolated
stimuli but react in terms of perceived relations
among objects. In sum Gestalt psychology
emphasized relations of antecedents and
perception rather than perception and response of
behaviour as they did in Behaviourist psychology.
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Psychoanalysis The stage was set by late 18th
century reform of (dungeon-like) madhouses and
decent treatment of mentally ill people
simultaneously in England and France. Pinel set
the stage for this development in 1793 when he
took over an asylum in Paris and removed the
chains of his patients. He gave them freedom and
good living conditions. An improvement was found
in the patients. He assumed that patients were
sick people. He studied them regularly and
methodically. These were the first case
histories. He related mental disorders to (1)
environmental (i.e., upbringing) and (2) physical
(head injury) factors. He examined disturbances
of emotional reactions related to extreme rage or
fear and excessive grief or remorse. Insanity was
therefore related to medicine and not to prisons.

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J. M. Charcot (1825-1895) was a neurologist who
isolated hysteria as a paralysis or convulsion
not related to organic disease. Psychiatry
expanded from the study of psychosis, insanity
requiring hospital care, to neurosis. Pierre
Janet (1859-1947) found that hypnosis helped
patients recall memories of repressed
experiences. If the physician suggested that
recall would also occur in waking states, the
neurotic symptoms disappeared catharsis. He
therefore distinguished a neurotic mechanism
whereby memory of unpleasant consequences or
events became dissociated from normal
consciousness. There were a variety of types
of neurotic reactions hysteria, depression,
compulsive reactions, obsession, phobias. But
he regarded these as a product of a lack of
energy, fatigue or exhaustion. The degeneration
of the total bodily system explains why people
could not carry out normal adaptive behaviour.
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Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) He lived most of his
life in Vienna until driven out by the Nazis in
1938 and died of cancer in London in 1939. He
was influenced by the ideas of Brentano who
taught the dynamic ideas of Leibniz and he was
also influenced by Goethe who sought a deep
understanding of nature through science. He
adopted a mechanistic view through the influence
of Helmholtz. He adopted an anti-vitalistic view
based on the idea that there were no forces in
living bodies not found in non-living bodies.
There was no unique energy unaccounted for within
the organism (this refers to psychic
energy). Freud came to view dreams and
fantasies, wit and errors, as determined (or
overdetermined) and not accidental. His notion of
determinism came from reading Darwin. So he was
influenced by both the Romantic and mechanistic
traditions.
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Freud studied the role of hypnotism for treating
hysterics (with Charcot in 1885). He modified the
technique where hypnosis could not be used and
developed free association as a means to finding
the origins of symptoms. He came to stress the
sexual origins of symptoms but discovered that
they were unreliable. He also emphasized the
importance of unconscious processes in the
etiology of neuroses since symptoms reflected
unremembered events. This led to an account of
the unconscious and repression as a defence
mechanism. Accordingly, undesirable impulses and
memories are pushed in the unconscious and are
forgotten and unavailable to the conscious mind.
This material would have to uncovered and
resolved in order for a cure to take place. In a
quest for the origins of symptoms, he went
further back into childhood. He also developed
the notion of transference whereby the patient
transfers to the therapist feelings originally
attached to other people, especially parents.
Transference permits people to express these
feelings.
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