Structuralism Flashcards
What was Wilhelm Wundt’s experiment?
-In 1862, he conducted an experiment that led him to believe that the discipline of psychology was possible.
-Experiment: it took 1/10 of a second to shift attention from the sound of the bell to the position of the pendulum or vice versa (how do you change attention from hearing/seeing something?)
-His conclusion from the experiment: the experimental study of psychology was feasible (he looked into the mind by seeing what happened during his experiment)
-He suggested a new field of experimental psychology that would uncover facts of human consciousness
What is consciousness?
-awareness of the mind (if we’re aware of it, we might be able to observe it).
Who is Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)?
-German scientist to be first referred to as a psychologist
-Psychology as a scientific study of conscious experience
-he used introspection - examine your own conscious experience as objectively as possible
-makes the mind observable
-because it was observable, it could be repeated(research)
What was Wundt’s role in structuralism?
-his attempt to understand the structure or characteristics of the mind was known as structuralism
-students travelled from all over the world to be trained by Wundt
-his laboratories were being established throughout the world:
–labs focused on introspection
–had multiple labs and was training multiple students around the world, which spread structuralism
What was Wundt’s goal?
-to understand consciousness - understand mental laws that govern the dynamics of consciousness
–mental laws: what are you aware of; we can think
-experimental psychology was used to understand immediate consciousness but limiting in understanding higher mental processes (creating a periodic table for the structure of the mind, but freewill limited understanding)
–ex immediate consciousness: can only talk about what’s happening right now, what I observe right now
-all sciences are based on experience including scientific psychology
-subject matter of psychology was to be human consciousness as it occurred
What was an important concept according to Wundt?
-important concept was the concept of the will
-first school of thought - Voluntarism: emphasis on will [power], choice, and purpose
–Will: higher mental processes (he wasn’t able to look at it too much)
–Choice: the idea that because of the laws we have, they are governing our choices
–Purpose: what is the meaning of life? (motivation behind behaviour)
What is Introspection?
-Introspection - used to study mental processes involved in immediate experience
-Pure introspection - unstructured self-observation (earlier philosophers)
-Experimental introspection - scientifically respectable (Wundt’s interest)
–he controlled the space and asked participants how they were feeling; they tended to give an interpretation of why they felt the way they did (I’m sweating)
What are the elements of thought?
-two basic types of mental experience: sensations and feelings
-sensations: when a sense organ is stimulated and resulting impulse reaches the brain
-all sensations are accompanied by feelings [according to Wundt]
-tridimensional theory of feelings - feelings described in terms of the degree in which they possess three attributes:
–pleasantness – unpleasantness
–excitement – calm
–strain – relaxation
-these are things we actually see, we feel all these things
What is perception?
-passive process of interpretation (not something we actively do)
What did Wundt believe and what was his school of thought?
-Wundt was a determinist - no freewill
–his idea that we are just behaving based on what we are aware of, there isn’t really freewill
-Wundt’s school was voluntarism and not structuralism
-he trained over 100 doctoral students
-he was the founder of scientific psychology for his work on establishing it as an independent academic discipline
–he did this through his experiments on attention (we can take what’s happening in the mind and observe it through an experiment)
–this is why we hear a lot about him in structuralism
Who is Edward Bradford Titchener?
-he studied for 2 years under Wundt
-psychology was an experimental psychology
-anything that was not his psychology was not psychology
-psychology was a science, science does not deal with values but with facts (objective vs subjective)
-agreed with Wundt - psychology should study immediate experience - consciousness
Did Titchener include women?
-experimentalists - he excluded women [from meetings] - revised after his death
-cigar smoke at the meetings was his justification (he said the smoke would impact women, they wouldn’t be able to stand the smoke
-Christine Ladd-Franklin - most outraged by the policy
-Margaret Floy Washburn - first doctoral student and elected president of the APA in 1921 (first female doctoral student to be included/elected)
What did Titchener believe was the goal of psychology?
-goal of psychology is to determine the what, how, and why of mental life
–what: careful introspection
–how: answer to the question of how [mental] elements combine
–why: neurological correlates of mental events (what parts of the brain are figuring out what’s going on)
What was Titchener’s influence on psychology?
-only described mental experience
-he named his version of psychology Structuralism
-sought a type of periodic table for mental elements like what chemists had for physical elements (observe objectively; allowed us to study it more)
-use of introspection (different; looked at what was triggered, need to explain objectively)
What are mental elements, law of combination, and context theory of meaning?
-Mental elements:
–sensations –> perception
–images –> ideas
–affections –> emotions
-Law of combination: the idea that things that are happening one after the other; even when we are focusing on one thing we are taking in other things, so when it comes to remembering just seeing one thing can help you remember 3 things
-Context Theory of meaning (similar to law of combination): the idea that I learn things in context
-neurological correlates of mental events
