Lecture 6 - Early Schools of American Psychology

Question 1

Which of the following was NOT a goal of Titchener’s Psychoogy?

A. Identify the elements of consciousness

B. discover how these elements are grouped

C. determine the causes of the element groupings

D. Discover the purposes of the various elements

Answer 1

FIND

Question 2

Who is edward titchner?

Answer 2

Edward Titchener 1867-1927

• British; studied for 2 years with Wundt
• Professor at Cornell at 25
• Firm stance on what constituted
  experimental psychology
• Method: a strict form of introspection
• Structuralism
• Authoritarian style, but a general intellectual
• Member of the APA, but founded his own
  organization, The Experimentalists
• Professional relationship to women
• Discuss: Is it valuable to consider the gender
  politics (or racial, or…) of historical figures?
  To what end?

Question 3

Why did Wundt’s work “stall”?

Answer 3

• Reaction time experiments were inconsistent despite Wundt’s
  assumption that all normal human adults’ minds are the same
• James Mark Baldwin (first Canadian psych lab!) replicated this inconsistency
  and suggested that psychologists seek out different types of minds
  (children, “primitive people,” “the insane”)
• The Leipzigers were criticized for circular logic of using highly trained
  “expert subjects” and excluding inconsistent data

Question 4

Functionalism … in the wake of the stagnation of the Wundtian program,
constituted a radical attempt to start over by establishing a new scientific basis for
psychology.
It did this, first, by abandoning key elements of Wundt’s effort to model scientific
psychology on the physiological successes of the mid-19th century and, instead,
attempting to model psychology on evolutionary theory.

Question 5

Who is John Dewey?

Answer 5

John Dewey 1859-1952

• Often considered the founder of functionalism
• Inspired by both James’ (1842-1910) writing and Wundt’s (1832-1920)
  voluntarism; Chicago
• Critique of the reflex arc

Stream of behaviour: “There is simply a continuously
ordered sequence of acts, all adapted in themselves and in
the order of their sequence, to reach a certain objective
end, the reproduction of the species, the preservation of
life, locomotion to a certain place” – Dewey, 1896

• Advocated for an educational
  model where students “learn
  by doing”
• Liberal causes

Question 6

Discussion:

Dewey argued education was not only a place to gain content knowledge, but
also as a place to learn how to live.
In his eyes, the purpose of education should not revolve around the acquisition
of a pre-determined set of skills, but rather the realization of one’s full
potential and the ability to use those skills for the greater good.
He believed it was more important for teachers to be intellectually curious than
to be high-class scholars in every subject. However, “some parents in Chicago
claimed that after a morning of chaotic play in the Dewey school, they had to
teach their children how to read and write.”
Do you agree with Dewey’s view of education? Is the job of a
teacher different for children of different ages?

Question 7

James Angell identified 3 conceptions of a functional psychology. Which of the following was not one of them?

A. functionalism studies mental operations

B. Functionalism studies mental elements

C. functionalism seeks to identify the fundamental utilities of consciousness

D. functionalism is a psychophysical psychology

Question 8

Who is James Rowland Angell

Answer 8

James Rowland Angell 1869-1949

• Dewey’s student, later James, Ebbinghaus
• Terminal MA
• Taught at the University of Chicago alongside Dewey,
  working together on functionalism
• APA president 1906
• Angell’s functionalism:
• Interested in mental operations (rather than conscious elements) in
  the context of the environment
• Mental processes help the organism to survive in the face of the
  unfamiliar
• Mind and body cannot be separated
• Functionalism broadens the field of psychology

Question 9

Robert Woodworth’s dynamic psychology was especially focused on what leads people to feel and act as they do. Consequently, his psychology emphasized the study of:

A. perception

B. Sensation

C. Learning

D. Motivation

Question 10

Who is Robert Sessions Woodworth?

Answer 10

Robert Sessions Woodworth 1869-1962

• Masters with James; PhD with Cattell; studied
  with Charles Sherrington
• Taught at Columbia (with Cattell, Thorndike)
• Dynamic psychology: focused on the internal
  variables that motivate organisms to act
• SOR vs SR
• Authored 1938 Experimental Psychology, “the
  Bible” in research methods for decades
• Mostly a functionalist

Working in groups…
How do structuralism and functionalism compare in terms of their
definitions of psychology, their methods of research, and the subjects
they studied?
And in what ways does the structuralism/functionalism distinction still
apply to psychology today?

Question 11

Discussion:

We talked about the early days of APA and The Experimentalists as a spin-off
group.
Woodworth says that even in his time, most psychologists would not have fallen firmly into one “school.”
Share some of your experiences.
Have you been to large or small meetings?
Do you align with a particular theory or group?
Are you a “lumper”