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Historyand
Systems of Psychology
PSY502
VU
Lesson
14
STRUCTURALISTSCHOOL
OF PSYCHOLOGY
Before the
arrival of the Structuralists,
psychologywas already being
considered as the study of
consciousness.
This meant that the entire scope of
psychology encompasses the study of
man's
consciousness.The
distinguishing feature of the Structuralists
was that they added further
to the definition
of
psychology being the study of
consciousness; psychology to them
wasconcerned with the study
of the
structure
of consciousness. Therefore,
Structuralistsare philosophers/psychologist
who definedpsychology
as
the study of consciousness.
Further,Structuralists also
tried to solve the enigma of a
definition of
consciousness.
It was imperative to give a definition of
consciousness in order to substantiate
the view
point
of psychology being the study of
structure of consciousness. Therefore,
Structuralists put forward
the
viewthat
consciousness has a definite
structure and it can be
defined in terms of its
structure. Theconcept
of
definite structure was given by this
school
namedStructuralists.
Thestructuralist
school hasmany followers,
but two of the very important
names who belong to
the
Structuralist school of
thoughtare Wilhelm Wundt
and Edward Bradford
Titchner.
WilhelmWundt
WilhelmWundt
was born in 1832and died in
1920. Thinking of man
evolved with the passage
of
time
as his surroundings
change.Earth shaking events
like the industrial revolution
hadcaused man to
shift
towardsempiricism.
As a result of the work of Russians,
Sechenov andPavlov on discovering
laws of
learning
by conditioning, through experimentation; the
contributions of Darwin discovering the
relationship
betweenpsychology
and physicalsciences; and
Fechnerdiscovering physical
ways to measure
psychological
experiences,psychology
was defined as the study of
consciousness. Psychologyhad
finally ceased to be a
merelyspeculative
science and wasgradually
becoming an experimental science based on
facts and logical
conclusionswhich
were drawn through carefully conducted
experiments andprofound
observations.
Butmost
of the credit goes to WilhelmWundt
who recognized
thatpsychologists must adopt
a
scientific
outlook and adopt experimentation as the
methodology, if psychology is to
expandand flourish.
As
mentioned earlier, by this time, events like the
French revolution and the
Industrial
revolutionhad
changed
the outlook of man. Man
hadbecome more logical in
hisapproach and tried to
findreasons for
everything.
Therefore, based on these
grounds,Wundt based his
propositionthat since
speculationcould
not
be the mode of scientific investigation
anymore; therefore, psychology
alsohas to adopt the
newmode
of
investigation if it has to be become a
science.
WilhelmWundt
is known forestablishing the
first psychologylaboratory at Leipzig,
Germany, in
the
year 1875. This
wasone of the greatest leaps
in the transition of speculative outlook
to the scientific
outlook,
facilitated by Wundt.
Wundtdefined
psychology as the study of consciousness.
He further argued,that if
consciousness
exist,which
actually does, then it must
have a structure. To elaborate
his viewpointfurther, he went on
to
explain
the structure of consciousness.
According to him, consciousness could be
studied by three things:
·
Experimentation:
Experimentationwas
the most important mode of scientific
investigation which according to
Wundtwas
the need of hour
forpsychology to develop. Psychologists
therefore, needed to conduct
experimentswhich
revealed the true nature of
consciousness. In this regard,
Pavlovwas known
for
hisexperiments
that he conducted on dogs to
discover the process of learning.
·
Introspection:
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Historyand
Systems of Psychology
PSY502
VU
AlthoughWundt
believed that psychologists should adopt
a scientific outlook, he didnot
reject
introspection
as a method of gaining knowledge, because he
regardedintrospection as a mean
of
lookinginto
and understanding the structure of
consciousness.
·
Looking
at the past history of
manthat has shaped
hisconsciousness:
Another
method of studying the structure of consciousness is
by looking at the past history of
man.
Darwinwas
the first one to give rise to the
nature versusnurture controversy.
According to him, it
was
the environment that shaped the
thinking of man, or the way he is
brought up. Therefore,
according
to Wundt, looking into the
past of individuals gave insight
into the consciousness of the
individuals.
Wundt
himself also conducted
someexperiments and based
upon them he proposed that consciousness
is a
processwhich
has
threecompartments:
·
Ideas
·
Feelings
·
Emotions
He
went on to say that the compartment of
feelings can be divided as
follows:
·
Pleasant/unpleasant
·
Relaxed/tense
·
Calm/excited
Wundtalso
outlined the abnormal states of
consciousness. He then went on to
elaborate hallucinations,
hypnoticstates
and dreams. According to
him, all of these abnormal
activities of the
consciousnessare
causeddue
to the break down of
attention.
Because
of his elaboration of various parts of
consciousness, he is classified as a
structuralist today. He is
regarded
as one of the greatest psychologists of
the year and holds a
highposition in the history
of
psychology.
EdwardBradford
Titchner
Edward
Bradford Titchner was born
in 1867 and died in 1927. He
was an English man
andpupil of Wundt.
He
studied in Germany, and
workedall his life in
America.
Contributions
of Titchner to psychology can be
gauged from three things
that he tried to
do,are:
·
Contents
of consciousness
This
means that Titchner explained what
consciousness is actually
composedof. He then
went
on
to elaborate the contents of
consciousness.
·
Combination
of these contents
Thesecond
contribution of Titchner is that he
described the combination of contents
of
consciousness
which means that, which
contentsget together to result in an
activity.
·
Connectionsbetween
the contents
Thethird
contribution of Titchner is that he
explained the connection between the contents
of
consciousness
which means that consciousness is a
product of contents being
relatedwith each
otherand
working together.
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Historyand
Systems of Psychology
PSY502
VU
UnlikeWundt,
who gave threemethods to
study consciousness, the subject
matter of psychology,
Titchnerargued
that since the onlyway
psychology could be studied
was introspectionwhich he
defined as
systematicand
controlled self observation.
This
is where he carried forward the
view of his teacher,although
he did notemphatically
propose
experimentation
as the way of
understandingconsciousness. Titchner went
on to saythat introspection is
a
specialmethod
of gaining knowledge andunderstanding
consciousness andnot
everyone could introspect.
This
made him train subjects to
introspect.
WilhelmWundt,
who was a teacher of
Titchner, tried to establish a scientific
outlook of
psychology.
But there was a flaw in
Titchner's ideas, which
wasthat he took psychology
back to the realm
of
speculation and moved
awayfrom the modern empirical
approach.
Wundt
is also regarded as a
Structuralistbecause he also
emphasized on psychology being the
study
of
consciousness and explained the structure
of consciousness and described the
content of consciousness.
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