Lecture 4 - Germany and the Birth of a New Science Flashcards
(19 cards)
A 19th
-century philosophy of education that changed the nature of
universities in Germany, ushering in a new freedom of teaching and
research, was called
A. Wissenschaft
C. Gesellschaft
B. Grundzüge
D. Weltanschauung
A. Wissenschaft
What do we know about German universities in the 1800s?
German universities in the 1800s
- Germany was a set of independent states until 1871 when it became
the unified German Empire after the defeat of Napoleon (the
Emperor of the French) - University professors around this time were appointed by the
government and had quite a bit of intellectual freedom
(Wissenschaft) and did not need to apply for funding - Socialists and Jews faced discrimination, and women could not attend
Who is Wilhelm Wundt?
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)
- Medical degree 1855 (Heidelberg)
- Assistant to Müller and Helmholtz
- 1874: authored Principles of Physiological
Psychology - 1879: opened first psychological
laboratory as a professor of philosophy in
Leipzig - Prolific writer (53,735 pages)
- Prolific mentor (180 students)
Often portrayed as a structuralist and focused
on introspection as a method (rather than
experimental methods)
Somewhat of a misperception, due to
- Titchener, his student and English
mouthpiece - American dismissal of German work coming
out of 1920s - His very long and varied career
Discussion:
It might be tempting to believe that a person’s choice of career is solely driven by
their passion for a particular subject, and that the location where they work is
entirely within their control.
Many factors influenced Wundt’s decision to study physiological psychology and his
recruitment by Leipzig University. What were some of those factors? Are they still
in play today? Are there parallels in your life?
Experimental psychology often relies on the labour of a large number of trainees,
with variation across subdisciplines. How does this shape the field?
What are some key Wundt ideas?
Some key Wundt ideas
- Mediate and immediate experience
- Voluntarism (Wundt) vs Structuralism (Titchener)
- Apperception
Discussion: Does the process of apperception recall any modern psychological
ideas?
What are Wundt’s methods?
Wundt’s methods
* Experimental self-observation
* Reaction time method
Wundt’s 10-volume work, entitled Völkerpsychologie, covered a vast number of topics
including
A. sensation, perception, memory
B. learning, cognition, emotion
C. thinking, reasoning, problem solving
D. culture, language, art
FIND ANSWER
Wundt’s first American doctoral student in psychology was
A. William James
C. Edward Bradford Titchener
B. James McKeen Cattell
D. Harry Kirke Wolfe
FIND ANSWER
Discussion:
“He never was much excited about anything other than his work. Even
his wife and family receive no more than one paragraph in his entire
autobiography. His dedication went so far that he analyzed his
psychological experiences when he was very seriously ill and near
death; at one point in his life he was rather intrigued with the idea of
experiencing the process of dying.”
Wertheimer, 1987
Why do you think that Wundt’s work and legacy is often still mispresented to this
day in textbooks? What does this tell you about how this type of information is
shared and maintained?
In studying the curve of forgetting, Ebbinghaus found that most forgetting occurs
A. at a steady rate for the first 24 hours, then declines sharply
B. in the first few hours after learning
C. a week or more after the learning takes place
D. more than a month after the initial learning trials
FIND ANSWER
Who is Hermann Ebbinghaus?
Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909)
- Berlin psychologist inspired by Fechner’s work
- Worked alone memorizing “nonsense syllables”
- Pioneer in experimental control
Who is Franz Brentano?
Franz Brentano (1838-1917)
- Austrian philosophy and advocate for a form of molar (=holistic)
psychology called act psychology
Carl Stumpf’s research contributed to the psychology of
A. learning
C. perception
B. education
D. music
Discussion:
- What are the lessons of Clever Hans for modern experimental methods?
- Audiences interpreted Clever Hans’ behaviour as something more sophisticated
than it was. They did not realize their own role in shaping and interpreting what
they were seeing. Are there any modern day analogues of this phenomenon?
Georg Müller’s work on memory pioneered studies of forgetting
including an understanding of the role of
A. disuse
C. decay
B. relearning
D. interference
Who is G.E. Muller?
G. E. Müller 1850-1934
- Extended Ebbinghaus’ work on memory
- Documented a number of memory
strategies - Proactive and retroactive interference
- Standardized stimulus presentations
with the memory drum
Who is Oswald Kulpe?
Oswald Külpe 1862-1915
- Headed a group of psychologists at
Würzburg in using retrospection as a
method - Described imageless thoughts
- Distinguished between the contents of
thought (stable, easy to report) and the
process of thinking (unstable, difficult to
observe)
Discussion:
- Why do you think that Wundt’s establishment of a laboratory in 1879
was the key event that historians have selected as the time when the
science of Psychology was born? - Compared to psychology today, to what extent are the psychological
questions that were initially pursued in Germany similar to those that
are studied today? How are they different from today? - What do these similarities and differences tell us about research in
psychology?
