A History of Psychology

1
A History of Psychology

Chapter 5 Structuralism
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Introduction

• Wundt
• (experimental psychology)
• 1. organization of elements
• 2. through Apperception
• 3. Mind has the power to organize mental elements
  voluntarily

• Titchener
• (structuralism)
• 1. focused on elements
• 2. through Association
• 3. Analyze consciousness into its component parts
  and determine its structure.

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford
Titchener(1867-1927)

• A. His life
• 1. Born in England
• 2. Attended at Oxford U.
• a. philosophy and the classics
• b. research assistant in physiology
• c. interested in Wundts psychology

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford
Titchener(1867-1927)

• 2. 1892, studied with Wundt and earned Ph.D at
  Leipzig
• 3. Back to Oxford U. and wished to become the
  English pioneer of Wundts psychology.
• 4. However, his colleagues were skeptical of
  scientific approach to philosophical issues.
  Thus, he left England to Cornell U.

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford
Titchener(1867-1927)

• 5. Cornell University (1893-1927)
• a. 1893-1900 established lab, did research, and
  wrote articles.
• b. supervised more than 50 doctoral candidates
• c. directed students research topics
• d. built his system of structuralism
• e. translated Wundts books such as Principles of
  Physiological Psychology

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford
Titchener(1867-1927)

• B. His work
• 1. His books
• a. 1896 An Outline of Psychology
• b. 1898 Primer of Psychology
• c. 1901-1905 Experimental Psychology A Manual
  of Lab Practice
• 1) stimulated growth of lab work in US
• 2) influenced a generation of experimental
  psychology
• 3) popular text, translated in to 5 languages

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford
Titchener(1867-1927)

• 2. 1904 Titchener Experimentalists organized
  men only.
• 3. Accepted women in psychology graduate programs
• a. one-third of his doctoral students were women
• b. Margaret F. Washburn
• 1) first woman Ph.D in psychology
• 2) wrote important book on comparative psychology
  (The Animal Mind, 1908)
• 3) first woman psychologist elected to National
  Academy of Sciences
• 4) president of the APA

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford
Titchener(1867-1927)

• C. the content of conscious experience
• 1. Subject matter of psychology
• a. conscious experience
• b. as that experience is dependent on the person
  who is actually experiencing it.
• 2. Dependent on the experiencing individual
• Other sciences independent of experiencing
  persons (e.g., temperature)

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford
Titchener(1867-1927)

• 3. Consider phenomena in terms of how human
  observe and experience these phenomena, e.g.,
  light and sound.
• 4. Stimulus error
• Confusing the mental process with the object we
  are observing.
• See an apple and describe that object as an apple
  instead of reporting the elements of color,
  brightness, and shape they are experiencing.

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford
Titchener(1867-1927)

• 5. Immediate versus mediate experience
• Color, brightness, or shape (immediate
  experience)
• Other than color, brightness, or shape (mediate
  experience interpreting the object)

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford
Titchener(1867-1927)

• 6. Consciousness the sum of our experiences as
  they exist at a given time
• 7. Mind the sum of our experiences accumulated
  over a lifetime

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford
Titchener(1867-1927)

• 8. Pure science
• a. only legitimate purpose to discover the facts
  (structure) of the mind
• b. no applied aspects
• c. only normal adult humans

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford
Titchener(1867-1927)

• D. Introspection
• 1. Self-observation
• 2. Relied on trained observers
• reporting the elements of their conscious state
• 3. Adopted Kulpes label, systematic
  experimental introspection
• Used detailed, qualitative, subjective report of
  mental activities during the act of introspecting

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford
Titchener(1867-1927)

• 4. Opposed Wundts approach
• Wundt synthesis (Whole)
• Titchener component parts (Parts)
• 5. Goal analysis to discover the atoms of the
  mind

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford
Titchener(1867-1927)

• 6. Mechanist
• subjects were reagents and were like mechanical
  recording instruments
• 7. Proposed an experimental approach to
  introspective observation in psychology
• an experiment is an observations that can be
  repeated, isolated, and varied

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford
Titchener(1867-1927)

• E. Elements of consciousness
• 1. Defined three essential problems for
  psychology
• a. reduce conscious processes to simplest
  components
• b. determine laws by which elements were
  associated
• c. connect the elements with their physiological
  conditions

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford
Titchener(1867-1927)

• 2. Aims the same as those of the natural
  sciences
• 3. Proposed three elementary states of
  consciousness
• a. sensations
• basic element of perception, e.g., sound or smell
  
• b. images
• the element of idea, e.g., memory of past
  experiences
• c. affective states
• the element of emotion, e.g., love, hate, and
  sadness

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford
Titchener(1867-1927)

• 4. Discovered 44,500 basic elements of sensation
• a. each is conscious
• b. each is distinct from all others
• c. each could combine with others to form
  perceptions and ideas

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford
Titchener(1867-1927)

• 5. characteristics of mental elements
• A. quality
• B. intensity
• C. duration
• D. clearness
• 6. Rejected Wundts tridimensional theory,
  suggested only pleasure/displeasure

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford
Titchener(1867-1927)

• 7. 1918
• a. dropped concept of mental elements
• b. suggested study of dimensions instead of basic
  elements
• 8. Early 1920s
• a. questioned term structural psychology
• b. called his approach as existential
  psychology
• c. considered replacement of introspection with
  phenomenological approach (i.e., examining
  experience just as it occurs, without trying to
  break it down into elements)

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford
Titchener(1867-1927)

• III. Criticisms of Structuralism
• A. Introspection
• 1. Method of introspection
• If the mind were capable of observing its own
  activities, it needs to have two parts.
• 2. Definition of introspection
• Difficulty defining exactly what he meant

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford
Titchener(1867-1927)

• 3. Definition of psychology
• Animal psychology and child psychology (not
  psychology)
• 4. Precise task of trained observer is
  unclear/unknown
• a. unreliability within and between subjects
• b. special vocabulary

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford
Titchener(1867-1927)

• 5. Introspection is retrospection
• Artificial
• 6. Could not explore the unconscious mind

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford Titchener
(1867-1927)

• IV. Contributions of Structuralism
• 1. Subject matter clearly defined
• 2. Research methods good science
• Observation, experimentation, or measurement
• The most appropriate method for studying
  conscious experience was self-observation

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Structuralism---- Edward Bradford Titchener
(1867-1927)

• 3. Introspection method is still used in many
  areas of psychology
• Clinical reports from patients on personality
  tests are introspective in nature
• 4. Impact on cognitive psychology
• Introspective reports involving cognitive
  processes such as reasoning
• 5. Strong base against which others could rebel