STRCUTURALISM CH 5 LECTURE PREPARED BY MS WILSON

STRCUTURALISM CH 5 LECTURE PREPARED BY: MS. WILSON

Swallow the Rubber Tube— A College Prank? Edward Bradford Titchener Professor of psychology at Cornell University Conducts experiments on his graduate students Asks them to participate in introspection Students asked to record feelings and sensations while participating in different experiments

Edward Bradford Titchener (1867 -1927) Titchener was a student of Wundt Claimed to have brought Wundt’s system to the U. S. Titchener’s system was radically different Structuralism: Titchener’s system of psychology that became popular in the U. S. and lasted two decades Titchener's demonstrational classroom, before being overthrown Goldwin Smith Hall, Cornell University, ca. 1905

Edward Bradford Titchener (1867 -1927) (cont’d. ) Differences between Wundt and Titchener: Wundt Recognized the elements/contents of consciousness but was concerned with their organization Believed the mind had the power to organize mental elements voluntarily Titchener Focused on mental elements Believed elements were mechanically linked through association Discarded Wundt’s doctrine of apperception

Titchener's Life Journeyed from England to Leipzig to study with Wundt Hoped to bring Wundtian psychology to England Upon returning to England, found many were skeptical of psychology Goes to U. S. and establishes his laboratory at Cornell Prolific writer and respected professor

Titchener’s Experimentalists: No Women Allowed! Titchener’s Experimentalists: Group of psychologists from Cornell, Yale, Clark, Michigan, Princeton that met regularly to discuss their work Titchener Rule: selected the topics and ran the meetings no women allowed Titchener’s reason: women too pure to smoke

Titchener’s Experimentalists: No Women Allowed! (cont’d. ) Titchener welcomed women in some situations: Accepted women into his graduate program when Harvard and Columbia did not More women completed doctoral degrees with Titchener than any other male psychologist of the time Favored hiring women faculty Margaret Floy Washburn

The Content of Conscious Experience Titchener believes the subject matter of psychology is the conscious experience Other sciences are independent of the experiencing person Eg. , Temperature of a room, as studied in physics will be different than in psychology

Muller Lyer Illusion A B

Structuralism A B Stimulus Error: Titchener warns against committing the stimulus error: confusing the mental process under study with the stimulus or 10 object being observed

Introspection Titchener’s form of self-observation that requires rigorous training Observers trained to describe the elements of their conscious state rather than report the familiar name Example: Instead of saying apple, describe it as shiny, red, and round Similar to Külpe’s system Unlike Wundt, emphasize parts and not the whole Influenced by the mechanistic spirit

The Elements of Consciousness Titchener’s three problems for psychology: Reduce conscious processes to their simplest components Determine laws by which these elements were associated Connect the elements with their physiological conditions Similar to the natural sciences

The Elements of Consciousness (cont’d. ) Three elementary states of consciousness: Sensations Images Affective states Mental elements are basic and irreducible Sensations can be characterized by the following attributes: quality intensity duration clearness

Criticisms of Structuralism Criticisms of introspection: Titchener and Külpe’s methods are subjective reports of the elements of consciousness Introspection alters the conscious experience it intends on studying Mind is not capable of studying itself Meticulously Titchener trained observers will be biased could not give an exact meaning to introspection

Criticisms of Structuralism (cont’d. ) Additional criticisms of Titchener’s system: Structuralism accused of artificiality The whole experience cannot be captured by a combination of elements Limited concept of the field: Titchener regarded animal psychology and child psychology as not psychology at all

Contributions of Structuralism Research methods: Based on observation, experimentation, and measurement Highest More traditions of science scientific approach to the method of introspection Catalyst for other schools of thought: Served as a point of criticism Scientific advances need something to oppose