The German Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) developed a "Thought-meter" to test the assumed assumption that, when two different stimuli reach our senses at the same moment (for example, when we hear someone speak and at the same time see his lips moving), we also become aware of both stimuli at the same time. On page 174 is his 'thought-meter' with an explanation. When Wundt tested himself, he concluded that he had not consciously experienced visual and visual stimuli at the same time, despite the fact that they took place simultaneously. Instead separate moments of attention were needed. Wundt acknowledged that, like Herman Helmholtz and Gustav Fechner, that he now had a clear psychological process subject to experimentally study, while Kant had implied that this was impossible. Wundt therefore suggested that there was sufficient ground for setting up a new field of experimental psychology. This possibility he introduced in his book from 1862, ‘Contributions to the Theory of Sensory Perception’. He is still seen as the father of modern academic and experimental psychology today.
Wundt was born in a small village in Germany, where his father was a pastor. The family had good academic connections. As a child, Wilhelm got malaria, after which his parents decided to move to Heidelberg, with a healthier climate. He grew up as an only child and was often picked on. Wilhelm was a real daydreamer, and his first year in high school became a complete failure. Wundt's parents sent him to Heidelberg to live with his aunt and brother Ludwig. Here he found more connection with peers. However, he did not receive a scholarship to the University. Under the supervision of his uncle Arnold, professor of anatomy and physiology he did, however, have academic success.
Wundt's first experiment was led by the German chemist Robbert Bunsen (1811- 1899), and in 1854 he won a gold medal from the university for examining the effect of the nervus vagus on the breathing. Years later, Wundt worked as an assistant to Helmholtz. The 'thought-meter' was very similar to Helmholtz's work on the speed of nerve impulses. Astronomers had problems with the reaction speed for years. According to Helmholtz personal comparisons and differences arise because there are individual differences in the length of a person's sensory and motor nerves, or in the speed in which the nerves send impulses. It is also possible that the differences arise due to the speed of the central processing in the brain. He could demonstrate this with his thought-meter.
Wundt believed that his discovery, that stimuli are first registered in consciousness responded to it, supported the general philosophical tradition of Leibniz. This is a psychology that explains the receptive and creative qualities of the mind itself, beyond the influence of external stimuli in creating 'ideas'. He also believed that the speed of other central processes could be examined by refinements of the reaction time experiments. He called this the study of mental chrono metrics: once the speed of information processing was measured, conclusions about the basal elements of it awareness and other central processes could be made.
He published this idea in 1862 in his book 'Contributions to the Theory of Sensory Perception'. Yet Wundt did not believe that this was the only method for psychology as a whole. The experimental methods should be limited to the examination of the individual consciousness, because they could not easily be applied to mental processes and because they were originally collective and social in nature. In particular, language as a collective human process seemed to be crucial for all 'higher' mental functions such as thinking and reasoning. Wundt saw these functions as immune to experimental investigation. Therefore he proposed a second and additional branch of psychology, which used comparative and historical methods instead of experiments. This he called the Völker psychology. With this he tried to indicate a kind of non-experimental psychology that engaged in the community and cultural properties of human nature, such as religion, mythology, customs, language and the derived higher processes thereof.
The three books that Wundt had written so far, were all highly specialized and sold badly. Wundt decided that he had to write to make money, after which he published three popular books that helped him to establish his name in the philosophy field. In 1867, he wrote a response to a recent work on visual spatial perception and mental chronometry and he promised a later work in which he would make a link between physiology and psychology. Among others, William James (1842-1910) became convinced by this. As promised, in his book from 1867, Principles of Physiological Psychology, Wundt described this link between physiology and psychology. Wundt saw that the field of physiology investigates living organisms through external sensations, while psychology investigates phenomena that arises 'from within’ and tries to explain this. To combine this and to investigate processes who are simultaneously accessible to both ways of observation, Wundt proposed a field on 'physiological psychology'. In 1874 he won a professorship in philosophy at the University from Zurich. A year later he got the same position in Leipzig, where he developed the first full study program in experimental psychology.
Wundt started working in Leipzig, where he had a disagreement with Johann Zöllner (1834- 1882). Zollner had also done some research on optical illusions and was a good friend of Fechner. Zöllner became estranged from Wundt after a visit to American spiritualist and medium Henry Slade in 1877. At this time, people believed in the reality of paranormal and dark forces. Zöllner became enthusiastic about the genius of Slade, while Wundt proclaimed that the observed effects only occurred when Slade had the opportunity to cheat. Then they wrote mean articles about each other.
Despite earlier problems, Wundt established himself well in Leipzig. In 1881, Wundt founded the journal Philosophische Studien. Two years later he threatened with a departure for Breslau, but to keep him, the university of Leipzig gave him a 40% salary increase and a four times larger laboratory. Just for his organizational performance Wundt, could have been given the title of father of experimental psychology but he also played a major role as a developer, supervisor and sometimes as subject in the experiments of his laboratory.
All early experimental research at Leipzig fell into one of three general areas: physics, examining the sense of time and mental chronometry. The studies into mental chronometry were Wundt’s best subjects. Most of these studies used the subtractive method, a technique originally developed in 1868 by the Dutchman F.C. Donders (1818- 1889). Donders had measured the simple reaction time, in a study where a test subject was to respond as fast as possible to a few visual stimuli. He made this experimental task then more difficult by showing two types of visual stimuli, but the subject is to concentrate on one of the stimuli in particular. This made the reaction time longer, probably because the test subject needed extra time to distinguish one stimulus from the other. This difference, about a tenth of a second, is the time required for a mental action of ‘differentiation’.
James McKeen Cattell was one of the many who built on the work of Donders. He showed great ingenuity in device design. He developed the instrument on page 187 with which various types of visual stimuli can be presented in reaction time studies. This allowed him to determine the response time very accurately and in a broader range more interesting variety of situations than ever before. When a subject had to produce a separate response to a stimulus, for example the moving of the left or right hand, the response time was increased by a further tenth of one second. Wundt thought that this was because the person had to make a voluntary decision to, for example, use the left or right hand and called this 'will-time'. Cattell preferred to the term 'motor time'. He stated that when reading a word, we do not separate the letters we observe, but that we get the word as a whole. Based on other research he suggested that some people generally have faster association times than others. These people would not only think faster, but also experience more ideas in the same time period and possibly also be more intelligent.
In simple perception, someone responds automatically, mechanically and without thinking on one stimuli. In apperception, a person's full attention is focused on the stimulus and is actively recognized, interpreted and thought about. In 1888, Ludwig Lange (1863-1936) compared the simple response times that arise when someone's attention is focused on the expected stimulus, with the response times that are obtained when the attention is focused on the requested response. The reaction times in the first case were about a tenth of a second longer than in the second case. Wundt believed that someone who was only focussed on the stimulus of the condition and gave the expected reaction, was also simple perception. Although this process is very fast, there is also more chance of errors and it can happen that the response is provoked by inappropriate stimuli. Wundt then turned to both theoretical and experimental focus apprehension and finally confirmed Cattell's conclusion.
Based on experience, Wundt stated that a maximum of six ideas can be observed at any time in a direct attention, while many other ideas may be sideways and vaguely obtained. In this way, just like the visual focus, attention can also quickly be drawn from one small group and move to another group of ideas. In addition, he also believed that observed ideas and ideas that one obtains through previous experiences are dependent on different kinds of organization and combination rules. Observed ideas organize themselves mechanically and are automatically recorded according to associations that someone has made in the past. Obtained ideas that are based on experience can be combined and organized in many ways. These can also be ways that are not based on previous experiences at all. In the terminology of Wundt, there is a creative synthesis that takes place in the focus of the brain. Wundt pointed out all allegations that suggested that at least some central mental processes that are closely connected to ask for a different way of analysis with consciousness and 'will', such as Descartes and Helmholtz did. For this he used the concept of clairvoyant causality. He stated that a reaction cannot be predicted. He did not deny the power and usefulness of mechanistic physiology for explaining events that occur at the boundaries of consciousness, but he did think that something more was needed to be able to give a full explanation about that experience yourself. He believed that this 'something' is closely involved in consciously experiencing the 'will' and 'voluntary effort'. He also called this approach the voluntary psychology.
Wundt believed that the most essential characteristics of higher and central mental processes never could be measured by experimental analyses and thus must be studied in a natural way, using historical methods. Wundt tried to do that himself with the Völker psychology. He also suggested that words and thoughts are not exactly the same, because people often have to think about their words. He stated that the most basic unit of thoughts are not the word or another linguistic characteristic, but rather a 'general impression' or a "general idea" that is independent of words. The process of speaking begins with it forming a general idea, followed by an analysis that converts this into linguistic structures that represents the idea more or less adequately. The most fundamental linguistic unit is then not the word, but the sentence (which is the overall structure that somehow 'contains' a general idea). A sentence is therefore a structure that is both 'simultaneous' and 'sequential'.
To investigate the complex and central functions (those that are furthest away from easy to observe senses and motor interactions with the physical world), Wundt trusted on non-experimental techniques and assumed a non-mechanistic clairvoyant causality. Not everyone agreed with this conception of psychology, which led to a debate, in particular on the role of introspection, (observing and reporting one's own subjective inner experiences) in psychological experiments. Wundt saw introspection as the most direct source of much psychological information. He concluded that the contents of consciousness could be conveniently described as ‘composed of combinations of specifiable sensations and feelings’, which in turn can be classified according to basal dimensions. So, he believed that sensations can be categorized in modes (visual, auditory, tactile etc.), qualities (colours and shapes), intensities and duration. He classified feelings according to the three basic dimensions of pleasant-unpleasant, tension-relaxation and active- passive.
But while Wundt saw introspective analysis of consciousness as a useful descriptive tool, he did have two important reservations about it. Firstly, he warned that the introspectively revealed measures of consciousness seemingly are not the same as the chemical elements of consciousness. By this he means the ultimate units that have the opportunity to complex psychological states in the same way that chemical elements are capable of making physical compositions. Edward Bradford Titchener (1867-1927) did not agree and proposed an experimental psychology whose main goal is the atomistic analysis of the elements of consciousness. The second concern about introspective psychology came from the private and not controlled nature of subjective reports and the fact that our memory often tricks the memory of psychological states. Wundt believed that it was not possible for the higher mental processes to be accurate tested. Oswald Külpe (1862-1915) led a number of experiments in which several higher processes were actually approached introspectively. Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909 used in Berlin a non-introspective but experimental approach to investigate the memory. Because psychology has recently started to focus a lot on the central cognitive processes, they speak of a return to "Wundtian" ideas. With the current cognitive psychologists who focus on dimensional studies of feeling, emotions and attitude, the language psychology and theories about schizophrenia, he would still feel at home.
Edward Bradford Titchener (1867-1927) was a British psychologist who was Wundt’s student for years. However, he only adopted part of Wundt's theories and rejected everything that was essential for Wundt's theories. He founded structuralism. He tried to discover the structure of the spirit. He believed that if the basic components of the mind could be defined and categorized, that the higher complex processes could be better investigated as well. He tried to examine what parts the spirit possessed, how they interacted with each other, and why they did what they did. He regarded sensations and thoughts as structures of the ghost. Sensations are characterized on the basis of intensity, quality, duration and size. Each of this characteristic corresponds to a certain characteristic of the stimulus, even though some of the stimuli were not strong enough to bring the property forward. He also placed different types of sensations in multiple categories. For example, he distinguished auditory sensations in 'tones' and 'noises'.
Ideas and perceptions would also be the result of sensations. He regarded introspection as a rigorous procedure that had to be carefully trained to be able to be executed. ‘Introspectors’ had to break up all their mental processes into the most basic elements. This meant that they were not allowed to give meaning or interpretation to these basic elements either, but that they had to describe them objectively. According to Titchener, attention was only a matter of clarity of the imaginary process, one of the elementary sensory attributions. He interpreted the vague feeling of concentration and effort that accompanies attention as being nothing more than sensations from the immediate frowns, movements, and muscle contractions that take place simultaneously with a thought. Such analyses distorted the nature of the central psychological processes that Wundt saw as much more than just the sum of the convergent elements. Titchener's goal to avoid stimulus-error and get rid of 'meaning' in connection to experiences was completely in contrast to Wundt's general approach to psychology. It also ran counter to the anti-elemental approach that took place around the same time Gestalt psychologists were developed, and in another way against the psychoanalytic approach of Sigmund Freud. Freud used the introspective method of "free association" with the intent to uncover the symbolic meaning of ideas. This was therefore complete contrary to removing its meaning.
Titchener himself did not completely disregard these competitive approaches, but he saw them as examples of functional or applied psychology instead of the experimental, scientific psychology that he practised. Since the structural foundations had yet to be determined, he found these applied attempts premature. In due time, Titchener's structuralism, along with others introspective based perspectives, became under attack of the behaviourist movement.
In the early 1980s, women hardly had a chance to study. In New York, Margaret Floy Washburn (1871-1939) tried to get accepted into Cattell's course, but was refused by higher authorities. Titchener was open to teaching women and wanted to guide her. Washburn became Titchener's first student. In 1894, Washburn became the first woman with a PhD in Psychology. Titchener's support for women was impressive at the time. He even recommended them for jobs. In the late eighties, Titchener and a number of other experimental psychologists were flabbergasted by the composition and emphasis of the American Psychological Association. They felt that the philosophical and the various applied subjects were dominant, at the expense of the truly experimental science of mind. Titchener therefore decided to have a small group of experimentalists (who were only admitted on his invitation) that would meet once a year to conduct and discuss ongoing investigations, to deal with experimental demonstrations and having free discussions (or conservazione). This would serve to connect younger researchers in the area with each other socialize. However, women were not allowed to participate.
A woman who strongly opposed this policy was Christine Ladd-Franklin. Under influence of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), she became interested in symbolic logic and directed her attention to a long-standing problem that was called the transformation of the syllogism. After she graduated, she worked on an arithmetic question underlying the theory of binocular vision and became interested in theories about colour vision. Based on her scientific credentials, Ladd-Franklin was eventually admitted to the Experimentalists. However, in 1912 she came face to face with Titchener's refusal to recognize the sexism that underpinned his policy. Two years later she was allowed to attend a session, but it was not successful to convince Titchener to reverse his general policy. This did not change until two years after the death of Titchener in 1927. But then they still were only four women admitted: Margaret Floy Washburn, June Etta Downey, Eleanor Gibson, and Dorothea Jameson.
Titchener was not the only one who challenged Wundtian psychology. Oswald Külpe (1862-1915) and Hermann Ebbinghaus adapted the ideas of Wundt in a number of ways. Oswald Külpe was a structural psychologist and student and assistant of Wundt. Külpe made important contributions to psychology including the systematic experimental introspection, imageless thoughts, mental sets and abstraction. In 1896, Külpe set up a laboratory at the University of Würzburg. Scientists in Würzburg who used introspection, became aware of the existence of certain specific transitional states, which could not be defined in terms of sensations or feelings. They said they were aware of their own processes that were involved in associating or judging, but that these experiences were intangible and without specifically definable content.
Külpe believed that there were certain sensations and feelings existence that cannot be described or be associated with a certain image (imageless thoughts). He believed in the existence of a thought process that had no sensation or feeling connected to it. Wundt refused to accept these findings, on the grounds that the experimental conditions were insufficiently checked and because he believed that the mental processes involved were too complex to be reliably retrieved from the memory.
Investigations of direct association by Külpe’s Scottish student Henry J. Watt (1879-1925) and his younger colleague Narziss Ach (1871-1946), gave a more immediate challenge to the experimental psychology of Wundt. Watt's subjects were asked for a very specific association (instead of a free association) with stimulus words. This had to by naming the first higher order and subordinate concepts in mind come up. So with the stimulus word bird, associations like "animal" "creature" and "living thing "suitable for higher order concepts, while" canary "" robin "and" hawk " acceptable subordinate answers. In Ach's experiment, test subjects were shown a set of numbers and were told to either add, subtract, multiply or divide them. So a card with a 4 and a 3 provoked a response of 7, 1, 12 or 1.33, depending on his instructions. This study showed that the subjects easily and with negligible differences in reaction time gave correct answers. And when they are introspective remembered their experiences, they said that the instructions have no further conscious role in the process of association, once they were heard and registered in consciousness. The subjects who had to pull the above numbers apart, called it just as quickly answer (1), if the subjects who had to add the numbers together (giving the answer of 7). It seemed that the instructions determined the associative patterns of the subjects before the experiment had even started. Ach wrote that the instructions that were of different defining tendencies, or "mental sets," caused the subjects to be unaware of them later. These did make sure, however, that the participants did start thinking in a certain direction before the experiment began.
In a way, these results corresponded well with Wundt's voluntarist psychology, the determining of the trend and the set were precisely the kind of central, steering and motivating variables that he had proposed in the process of conscious observation. But Külpe, who was suspicious of many mental chronometry experiments even before he left Leipzig, saw the results of Würzburg as an impairment of the logic of the subtractive procedure of Wundt. Külpe argued that the subjects, in the more complicated situations, did not just the perform the sum of simple reactions (perception plus apperception plus discrimination plus association, etc.). Instead, the acted in to "series", which were completely different from those of subjects in simpler situations. Külpe thus found that the logic of the subtractive procedure apparently simplified the true process of thinking and reacting. Although Wundt protested, Kulpe's argument was generally more convincing.
Hermann Ebbinghaus was a German psychologist who did a lot of research into memory. To the late seventies, he read Fechners' 'Elements of Psychophysics'. After that, he wanted to try to apply the same kind of experimental treatment to the new memory topic as Fechner had on sensation apply. Wundt just had his 'Physiological Psychology' published, in which he stated that higher processes such as memory could not be experimentally investigated.
Ebbinghaus saw this as a challenge. He developed nonsense syllables by systematically continuing the alphabet and formed more than 2,000 consonant-vowel-consonant combinations, such as taz, bok and lef. These words could serve as original neutral or meaningless stimuli, which had to be remembered in his experiments to become. Ebbinghaus made a list of these words and tried to learn and remember them under controlled learn conditions. After he knew his list by heart, he tested himself on the preservation of these words in his memory under different circumstances. Learning the entire list all over again took him a shorter period of time than the first time he did the words learned. Ebbinghaus used fractional 'savings' in study time as a quantitative measurement of the strength of his memory. When Ebbinghaus calculated his average savings for various periods between the first and the second time he learned the words, he was not surprised to find that the savings were smaller when the interval was larger. More surprisingly, however, the rate of decline was not constant, but on a regular basis forgetting curve in which his memory declined rapidly after the first learning, but afterwards remained almost stable. The shape of this forgetting curve was similar to psychophysical law from Fechner. He demonstrated that the memory can be experimentally investigated.
Wundt remained intellectually involved until his 85th, when he retired. He also remained writing about Völker psychology and completed his autobiography 8 days before his death in 1920. In general, however, historians were not at all pleased with Wundt. Recently, however, his work has been again reviewed by many historians, and he is better understood. The current interest in the central cognitive processes in psychology indicate a renewed interest in Wundt.
Introduction to the book Pioneers of Psychology - Pioneers of Psychology - Fancher & Rutherford Historiography is the official term for the concept of writing about history, but it is difficult to determine when 'the history of psychology' exactly begun. Psychology, as a field of study, did not become an independent department within universities until the mid-nineteenth century, yet it was not uncommon for man to give thought to the mind and behaviour. General psychological and philosophical theories already arose in ancient times and these ancient theories can also be relevant for modern psychology still.
Over the last century, psychology has become one of the largest scientific studies there is. Within its stream, many sub-disciplines have arisen, some of which are related to each other. Every one of these branches has its own history, but it is sadly impossible to fully treat all of these different histories in a book.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Francis Galton (1822-1911) and B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) have not only each left behind their well-known, published works, but also a lot of unpublished data. These unpublished works included background stories and information about their private lives that influenced their scientific work. This interaction between biographical and theoretical factors led to a greater appreciation and understanding of the abstract work and thinking they performed.
This is why this book contains a more personalistic way of writing. The goal is to give an accurate representation or important psychological ideas, which get more meaning when viewed in the context of the scientists' lives. In result, it will become clear how modern ideas have come about. The theories that we know now of as incorrect can become more understandable when seen in the view point of the researcher and it will be made clear how these theories have led to progress.
The pioneers in this book had to fulfil three criteria. Firstly, they must have been important for the development or psychological thinking. Secondly, because the ideas in this book are presented in the context of the life of the researcher, biographical information must also be available. In addition, the pioneers needed to have contributed to the broad field of psychology in a meaningful way.
For instance, Plato, known for his nativist conception of the brain, and Aristotle, known for his empirical view and observations, are not addressed in this book due to a severe lack of biographical information. Therefore, our starting point will be René Descartes, at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
Though excluded, Aristotle and Plato do return in René Descartes’ work, thus giving an overview of the important ideas of the ancient Greeks. Chapter one will portray his theories about body
.....read more Why does one study history of psychology? – Chapter 0Studying history offers the opportunity to take a step outside the internal mechanisms of the discipline of psychology. This can help you to see how all the elements have evolved in relation to specific problems.
A second advantage of studying history is seeing how ideas that we see as old or incorrect today, actually seem logical within their original context. This can help to better evaluate current psychological findings. This historical awareness can also contribute to your personal ability to critically evaluate contemporary ideas.
A third reason is that it helps us to appreciate the 'reflexive' nature of the field. Reflexivity refers to the human ability to become aware of and reflect on your own activities. This reflection can lead to changes in the understanding of yourself.
Psychologists have always been interested in studying their own history. One of the first American texts on the history of psychology appeared in 1912: Founders of Modern Psychology, by G. Stanley Hall. Another early text was A History of Experimental Psychology, published in 1929 by Boring. He wanted to strengthen the status of psychology as an experimental science.
It is clear that the history of psychology has the interest of psychologists for various reasons. In the US, John Watson was very influential. He was trained as a clinical psychologist but decided in 1959 to dedicate himself solely to the history of psychology. He published an article titled History of Psychology: A Neglected Area, resulting that in 1965, a department of the APA arose that devoted itself to history: division 26.
Historiography is the technical term for writing about history, but it can also refer to historical work. Some historians solely focus on the development of important ideas and their intellectual and disciplinary contexts, neglecting the social and political factors that played a role in them.
This distinction is called internalism versus externalism. Most historians try to find a balance between these two positions. Some adopt what they call the 'Great Man Approach', in which history is told by the contributions of important people in the field. In this case, external factors are often ignored. The Zeitgeist approach takes into account the fact that the ‘spirit of time’ can influence someone's ideas. In this book, a balance is maintained between the internalistic and externalist stand point, and between the Great Man and the Zeitgeist approach.
Some historians use presentism, which means they try to view a subject from the present and explain current circumstances by emphasizing that we have made progress thanks to our ancestors. Others adopt the perspective of historicism and try to see
.....read more Foundational ideas from the Antiquity - Chapter 1
Plato (424-347 BC) came from a wealthy family in Athens and was schooled mainly by sophists. Plato, however, wanted a modest teacher and found Socrates (470-399 BC). Socrates claimed that his only special wisdom was that he was aware of much he didn’t know. He wanted his students to appreciate what was true and permanent instead of temporary and popular.
He did this by conducting dialogues with his students, to discover their inner capacities of finding truths. The fact that Plato chose Socrates and, therefore, philosophy still has consequences to this day. Socrates didn’t leave any written documents of his thoughts because, according to him, trusting in writing weakened the faculties of memory and serious thinking. Plato, however, made many written accounts of him: the Socratic dialogues. These emphasize the importance of the higher capacities of rational thinking and mathematical reasoning.
The dialogues became the source of nativism - in which the innate is important, opposite to acquired qualities - and of rationalism, in which reason is emphasized. When Plato was 30, he founded the Academy, a place where pupils of different ages and interests could pursue their intellectual goals.
In 367 BC, Aristotle (384-322 BC) arrived at said Academy and became a top student. At the age of 37, he left again. Aristotle placed much more emphasis than Plato on the systematic observation of the natural, empirical world of the senses. He became the first supporter of empiricism - the notion that true knowledge is obtained from sensory experiences of the external world.
400 years before Plato's time, settlers from Greece spread and collected writings from wealthy Greek-speaking colonies. These colonies were developed very differently and had founded different types of governments. The Greeks, however, were all very proud of their language, and thought of all who spoke a language other than Greek as barbarians.
Shortly before Socrates began teaching, Protagoras (490-420 BC) claimed that it was useless to speculate on big questions such as the ultimate nature and layout of the universe. He was a sophist and focused on purely human experiences and behaviour. The sophists tried to understand people.
Hippocrates (460-370 BC) is often mentioned as a pre-Socratic, and, like Protagoras and the Sophists, he dealt with everyday human concerns. However, Hippocrates was mainly a physicist. He attracted a school of students and followers, called the Hippocrats, who together produced many medical writings known as the Hippocratic Corpus. In this, diseases were described as natural phenomena, instead of the result of demons or supernatural influences. The Hippocrats had a ‘humoral’ theory to explain health and viewed disease as the result of the disbalance or four prominent fluids in the human body: blood, yellow bile, black
.....read more Philosophy of the mind: what are the thoughts of Descartes, Locke and Leibniz? - Chapter 2René Descartes moved Paris in 1615, in the midst of an identity crisis. He did not think of his elite education as valuable because it had been too focused on the past. He also found it depressing that philosophy had never produced anything that was doubtful or uncertain. He became one of the first influential thinkers to have fully mechanical explanations for the traditional functions of the sensitive psyche or soul of Aristotle. Descartes described the human mind and body as two cooperating, yet different entities. According to him, both need their own analysis and explanation.
Descartes (1596-1650) was born in La Haye in France. He grew up with his grandmother. His father was a wealthy lawyer, but Descartes had little close ties with his family. His intelligence was noticed by his father, after which he sent his son to the most progressive school in France.
Young Descartes learned about a science which was dominated by the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC). The Aristotelian view of the universe placed the earth in the middle, surrounded by a number of rotating crystalline globes, namely the planets in our solar system, the moon, the sun and the stars. The Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) published a book in 1543, in which he assumed that not the earth, but the sun was the centre of the system. His view was not taken seriously, however.
Descartes convinced his teachers that he could think best if he meditated in bed, allowing him to stay in bed all morning while other students were already working. When he left La Flèche at age 16, he was the best student of the best school in the country. He then migrated to Paris, and got influenced by Marin Mersenne, a French monk who offered Descartes intellectual and personal support. In 1618, he went into the army to see if the practical experiences of the "real world" would provide more satisfactory knowledge. The actual war had not started yet, so Descartes experienced seven months of boredom and learned quickly that the military had no more useful knowledge than scholars did.
A turning point for Descartes was when he met Isaac Beeckman (1588-1637) in the Netherlands, a physician and internationally known mathematician. He became a mentor to Descartes and helped him to get back his intellectual interest. With his support, Descartes wrote his first scholarly work, an essay about music. When Beeckman had to leave Breda, Descartes went with him, and during the trip to the south he got two insights. According to a legend, the inspiration came when he saw a fly humming in the corner of his room. He suddenly realized that the position of the fly at any time can be exactly determined by
.....read more Physiologists of the mind: which important scientists examined the brain in the period between Gall and Penfield? - Chapter 3Nowadays, we see the brain as the organ responsible for our intelligence and higher mental possibilities. However, it took about 200 years before this concept was accepted. Aristotle could hardly believe how a bloodless, numb and generally not impressive-looking organ could be the source of the highest human faculties. He supposed these functions were to be contributed to the heart. Descartes saw a number of important functions in the brain, however attributed the greatest functions to the rational soul.
Locke's teacher, Thomas Willis (1621-1675), paid more attention to the brain and was in 1664 the first to accurately publish a detailed work about it, named 'Anatomy of the Brain'. Willis saw that the brain tissue was not undifferentiated, as Aristotle thought, but consisted of two kinds of substances. Firstly, there is a fleshy, grey mass that forms the outer layer, also know as the cortex, (the inner part of the spinal cord and several discrete centres within the brain). Secondly, there is a fibrous white mass in the other areas. He speculated that this white mass consisted of narrow channels whose function is to distribute the "souls" that are created in the grey mass. In addition, he also accurately described the blood vessels in the brain, which proved that the brain is not a bloodless organ. Other doctors discovered that strokes can occur in the brain, and that, in case of injuries on one side of the brain, there are often paralysis or loss of feeling on the other side of the body. However, the brain only really became a topic of interest around 1800, in which the German physiologist Franz Josef Gall (1758-1828) played a big part.
Gall confirmed and developed many of Willis' basic ideas about the grey and white matter. He showed that the two halves of the brain are linked by stems of white matter that are called commissures and that other, narrower pieces of white fibres connect the two halves of the brain to the opposite sides of the spinal cord. This helped explain why damage on one side of the brain can lead to paralysis on the other side of it body. He also showed that the brain is in fact the centre for higher mental activity (by describing that animals with a larger brain tend to be more complex, more flexible and display more intelligent behaviour). Gall's anatomical findings were the basis for the later discovery that the brain and spinal cord consist of billions of neurons. Neurons are connected by dendrites, which receive signals from other neurons via axons. Axons tend to cluster together and thus form the white matter, while the cell bodies and dendrites form the grey matter.
Gall was also
.....read more The sensing and perceptive spirit: which developments took place in this area in the period between Kant and the Gestalt psychologists? - Chapter 4The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) became known because of what he called 'my dogmatic slumbers'. He was trained in the Leibnizian tradition and had written before on subjects such as the origin of God and the difference between absolute and relative space. He was stimulated by one of John Locke's successors to start thinking about 'critical philosophy’, which ultimately led to subtle but crucial changes in how Germany, until then, thought about humanity and nature.
It was the Scotsman David Hume who caused Kant to become inspired to bring empiricism and associationism to an extreme. In addition, he started the logical status of the causal connection (the intuitive belief that certain events are directly 'caused' by certain other prior events).
They started from a cause, which implied a necessary consecutive relationship between certain preconditions and subsequent events. It also suggests that when we observe events, we immediately attribute causality to them. Hume brought this assumption, however, in doubt. He states that 'causality' is nothing more than that we expect events that took place in a certain way in the past, will occur in the same way in the future. The supposed connection between the events is never directly observed, so causality only has a probable rather than an absolute base.
From a practical point of view, these considerations make no difference. People thrive best in the real world by anticipating regularities in nature, whether or not this causality is genuine or assumed. For a philosopher like Kant, who dealt with the essential nature of human knowledge, this matter was crucial. Kant responded to this challenge with a simple but revolutionary variant of the nativist argument. He argued that even though causality could not be proven to exist in the external world, it nevertheless seemed to be an inevitable part of our experience. Therefore, according to him, it will be an innate quality in our minds.
He assumed two separate domains of reality, one complete within the human mind and one complete out there. The external or noumenal world consists of things-in-itself: objects in a pure state of independence of human experience. Despite that assuming that a certain object exists and that it interacts with the human mind, the noumenal world can never directly being seen. When this object encounters the human spirit, said spirit transforms the object into the inner or phenomenal world. The term phenomenal comes from the Greek phainomenon, meaning 'appearance', and reflects Kant’s argument that people never directly experience the true reality of things-in-themselves. Instead they experience a number of 'apparitions' or 'phenomena', which are the creation of an active mind who experiences the noumenal world.
To create this phenomenal world, the Kantian spirit inevitably follows a certain amount
.....read more How did Wundt develop experimental psychology? - Chapter 5The German Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) developed a "Thought-meter" to test the assumed assumption that, when two different stimuli reach our senses at the same moment (for example, when we hear someone speak and at the same time see his lips moving), we also become aware of both stimuli at the same time. On page 174 is his 'thought-meter' with an explanation. When Wundt tested himself, he concluded that he had not consciously experienced visual and visual stimuli at the same time, despite the fact that they took place simultaneously. Instead separate moments of attention were needed. Wundt acknowledged that, like Herman Helmholtz and Gustav Fechner, that he now had a clear psychological process subject to experimentally study, while Kant had implied that this was impossible. Wundt therefore suggested that there was sufficient ground for setting up a new field of experimental psychology. This possibility he introduced in his book from 1862, ‘Contributions to the Theory of Sensory Perception’. He is still seen as the father of modern academic and experimental psychology today.
Wundt was born in a small village in Germany, where his father was a pastor. The family had good academic connections. As a child, Wilhelm got malaria, after which his parents decided to move to Heidelberg, with a healthier climate. He grew up as an only child and was often picked on. Wilhelm was a real daydreamer, and his first year in high school became a complete failure. Wundt's parents sent him to Heidelberg to live with his aunt and brother Ludwig. Here he found more connection with peers. However, he did not receive a scholarship to the University. Under the supervision of his uncle Arnold, professor of anatomy and physiology he did, however, have academic success.
Wundt's first experiment was led by the German chemist Robbert Bunsen (1811- 1899), and in 1854 he won a gold medal from the university for examining the effect of the nervus vagus on the breathing. Years later, Wundt worked as an assistant to Helmholtz. The 'thought-meter' was very similar to Helmholtz's work on the speed of nerve impulses. Astronomers had problems with the reaction speed for years. According to Helmholtz personal comparisons and differences arise because there are individual differences in the length of a person's sensory and motor nerves, or in the speed in which the nerves send impulses. It is also possible that the differences arise due to the speed of the central processing in the brain. He could demonstrate this with his thought-meter.
Wundt believed that his discovery, that stimuli are first registered in consciousness responded to it, supported the general philosophical tradition of Leibniz. This is a psychology that explains the receptive and creative qualities of the mind itself, beyond the influence of external stimuli in creating
.....read more The evolving mind: what psychological developments did Darwin bring? - Chapter 6Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) was unexpectedly asked for the position of naturalist on board of the ship the H.M.S. Beagle. Darwin would support the captain with geological, mineralogical and biological observations, but would also accompany the captain for the next five years in his room. Upon his return, Darwin was known as a talented and respected geologist and collector of biological samples. He had made a number of important observations, which were the beginning of his development of the theory of evolution through natural selection: a revolutionary biological theory with immeasurable implications for psychology.
Darwin came from a rich and respected family. His father was a doctor, his mother was from a famous family that produced Chinese tableware, and his grandfather, Erasmus Darwin (1731- 1802), was one of the most famous intellectual figures of his time. From early on in his live, Darwin possessed two important qualities. First of all, he was very curious and had a love for nature. He was also a warm and sympathetic man, which made him loved with almost everyone he met.
Darwin was sent to a medical school where he learned taxidermy. He didn’t think medications was interesting enough and he had bad memories of this school period. His father therefore placed him at the University of Cambridge, where Darwin was prepped to become an Anglican pastor. Here he became a member of a club called the Gourmet Club. This club was known for their hunt for birds and beasts, which were previously unknown to the taste buds of man. However, this came to an early end when they tried to eat a brown one owl.
Darwin liked geometry, but nevertheless had 'an argument' with binomial theory. Instead, he liked nature, and especially collecting beetles provided him with a lot of fun. He called this his "proof of my zeal." Darwin's enthusiasm for natural history and his friendly personality drew the attention from Cambridge's more scientifically oriented faculty. These people were mainly John Stevens Henslow (1796-1861) and Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873), professors in botany and geology. Darwin went on one of their excursions to the countryside and spent a lot of time with Henslow. After graduating in 1831, he went to the north of Wales for a summer for a geological tour with Sedgwick.
Darwin's journey on the Beagle began in December 1831. Darwin devised a sample bag, which he dragged behind the ship and in which he caught thousands of sea creatures he subsequently examined and classified. He read about geology, geography and biology. He kept
.....read more Measuring the mind: what are Galton's thoughts about individual differences? - Chapter 7London's International Health Exhibition of 1884 was characterized by a remarkable exhibition called the anthropometric laboratory that drew many spectators. These spectators became test subjects in this laboratory and eventually received some comparative information about themselves. The devices in it laboratory tested the test subjects different ways and gave them their score and the average score of the previous test subjects.
At that time, these tests were seen as mental tests to measure aspects of intelligence. Today, we see that intelligence uses "higher" mental processes, such as thinking, reasoning and logic. Nevertheless, the creator of these tests, Francis Galton, argued that the people with the highest intellectual possibilities, logically also had the most powerful and most efficient nervous systems and brains. He thought that the powers of one's brain was possibly in relation to its size. So the first test to measure the supposed intelligence of a person was to measure size of one’s head.
He also thought that someone's neurological effectiveness should be related to the speed in which this person can respond to something, therefore there was also a test of response time. He believed in two incorrect, but then generally accepted prejudices, which according to him proved a major correlation between sensory acuteness and intelligence. The first prejudice was that people with intellectual disabilities have both a sensory and intellectual disability. The second bias stated that women were generally less intelligent than men and that they can perceive things less vividly.
Fechner's psychophysics had studied the limitations of sensory discrimination and the Wundtian mental chronometry experiments had carefully measured the reaction time. But these previous studies only focused on established, general psychological principles that apply to all people, while individual differences in sharpness of mind or response time were avoided or rejected. The founder of the Anthropometric Laboratory assumed a Darwinian framework in which variability and adaptation were included. Individual differences in sharpness and reaction time were not "errors" or "irregularities" that were to be avoided but instead were the basic mechanism of evolution and therefore an important subject of interest. The anthropometric laboratory led to the development of the psychology of individual differences. This is a discipline that focuses on measuring variations between people at certain psychological characteristics.
Francis Galton (1822-1911) was the younger cousin and friend of Charles Darwin. He was a curious person and was discoverer, geographer, meteorologist and a biological researcher before he turned his attention to measuring intelligence and other psychological attributions. Many of his psychological ideas (such as his theory of measuring intelligence) were found to be incorrect and too simple. He was, however, the pioneer who came up with the idea that tests can be used to measure psychological differences between people. In
.....read more American pioneers: what are the thoughts of James, Hall, Calkins and Thorndike? - Chapter 8It became clear at the conference in Munich in 1896 that psychology was slowly becoming a respected scientific and academic discipline. The two professors who were responsible for this, were sadly not there: Wilhelm Wundt and William James (1842-1910). Ironic enough, despite the contribution of both professors to the creation of an intellectual climate, both the professors did not appreciate each other's work. Wundt thought that there was little new information or original content in James’s writing, except for his style, which Wundt called personal and informal (he thought it was beautiful literature, but that it did not fall under psychology). Another reason that Wundt was not all that enthusiastic about James' work, for one was because James also criticized the work of Wundt. The reason for this was in the fact that it took James twelve years old to write his book "The Principles of Psychology ". The two professors each had their own style and stood behind different ones psychology, yet they were two of the most influential professors of their time.
William James was born in New York. He was the eldest child and came from a rich family. During his childhood and adolescence, he regularly moved with his family around in Europe and America. His father, Henry James Sr., had suffered a restless life and experienced regular anxiety attacks. After he had recovered, he focused on teaching his children and he searched for the best place to do so. Despite that he never actually found this perfect place, all four children remained highly motivated to study.
James had a talent for drawing and art, but because the subject was rejected by his father, he was sent to Harvard in 1861 to study chemistry. At Harvard, he shifted his attention from chemistry to physiology and in 1864 he registered himself at the medical school. A year later ,he interrupted his studies to go on an expedition, supervised by Louis Agassiz (1807- 1873). Agassiz was a biologist and one of the most outspoken critics of Darwin's book 'Origin or Species'. During this trip, James found out that biology was not suitable for him anyway and he returned home.
James convinced his father in 1867 to let him go to Germany, for the mineral baths that were good for his back among other reasons. But after a series of events in 1870, he experienced his first anxiety attack as well and he had trouble recovering from it. Until he read an article about free will in 1870, written by the French philosopher Charles Renouvier (1815-1903). Because of this he started to believe in free will. Also an article about customs ('habits') written by the philosopher and psychologist Alexander
.....read more Psychology as behavioural science: how is this area affected by Pavlov, Watson and Skinner? - Chapter 9Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936) was interested in the congenital and reflexive saliva reactions in dogs, which he first called psychic secretions. It was about this saliva that arose automatically and involuntarily once there food was nearby. Pavlov saw that when dogs had become accustomed to the routine of the laboratory, they already started to drool as soon as they entered the research room came in. The dogs had associated the research room with food. These reactions were clearly learned and the result of experience and not of innate reflexes.
Pavlov saw himself as a physiologist and did not want to be associated with 'soft' psychology. After reading Sechenov's book, he became inspired enough to define his research into pure define physiological terminology. He called the psychic secretion conditioned reflexes and he called innate reflexes unconditioned reflexes. The relationship between the two could be examined in the laboratory and interpreted in physiological terms. Although Pavlov hated psychology, psychologists were interested showed for his work. One of those interested was Watson. He claimed the subject of psychology was the objective, observable behaviour, not the traditional mind and its subjective awareness. Inspired by the conditioned reflex of Pavlov, he became the founder of behaviourism.
As a poor, but gifted student, Pavlov started to study physiology at the University of St. Petersburg. There he focused on the new mechanistic physiology and soon he was known as an exceptionally accurate researcher who even helped doctoral students to get their degree, even before he got his own degree in 1883. Not that he could get started right away: jobs in conducting research were rare. Only after he was forty did he become a professor the St. Petersburg military medical academy, where he set up his own laboratory to carry out his dream: an experimental study into the physiology of the digestion.
Pavlov was known for having two different sides, depending on his environment. In his personal life he was known as naïve, but in the laboratory he was the complete opposite. There he was strict: his animals had to be well fed and the laboratory always had to be well stocked and taken care of. The remarkable thing about his laboratory was its organization. Although he had difficulty organizing his personal life, he succeeded in keeping his laboratory in order very well. Experiments were systematically performed and repeated. New employees were never assigned to a new or independent project, but always had to test existing experiments again. If the new and the old results matched, the new employee could start a new project. Systematic work was something that Pavlov gotten a strain on early on, and that was what he learned to others: working systematically at the gathering of knowledge.
In his laboratory he started studying
.....read more Social psychology: how did this psychology develop in the period after Mesmer? - Chapter 10Johann Joseph Gassner (1727-1779) was a priest who claimed that he could cure disease through exorcism. A lot of patients reported improvement after treatment, but many others thought he was going too far and applied it carelessly. That is why the Viennese physicist Franzz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) was asked to investigate the treatments of Gassner. Mesmer could try to cure patients in a similar way, but then through magnetism rather than of supernatural exorcism. Mesmer duplicated the effects of Gassner and stated that the effects were the result of a strong magnetic force. He explained Gassner's results in a naturalistic and scientific way. Gassner was banished and was not allowed to perform any more exorcisms. Mesmer did a number important discoveries about the phenomenon of hypnotism and has made an attempt to explain this scientifically. He also researched the social influence processes.
Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) was able to cure patients in the same way as Gassner, but he did also provoke a natural force as a therapeutic mechanism, instead of a so-called supernatural exorcism. He healed many patients and explained that this was due to a strong magnetic force that was concentrated in his own body. So he delivered a naturalistic and 'scientific' explanation. Gassner was then exiled and was not allowed to exercise exorcisms any longer. Mesmer made important discoveries about hypnosis, the process creating a mental concentration that leads to a state of high influenceability and tried to explain this in a scientific way. He also did important research in the field of social influence, which have led to many developments in the social psychology.
Of his life before 1766, little is known. In 1766 Mesmer got his doctorate in medicine. Much of his dissertation he had taken over from someone else, but one of the parts that he had not copied was about a force he called animal gravity. He argued that magnetism was caused by a group of invisible and mysterious liquids such as electricity, gravity and gases such as helium. His plagiarism remained unnoticed. He married a rich widow and became an active socialist. He was also a good amateur musician and became friends with Mozart. In 1773, Mesmer began to treat a patient who suffered from periodic seizures consisting of symptoms such as convulsions, vomiting and inflammation. He let his patient swallow some pieces of iron and placed magnets on different parts of her body. Then she felt a certain force through her body,
.....read more The mind in conflict: what does Freud's psychoanalysis mean? - Chapter 11Joseph Breuer and Bertha Pappenheim came up with the "cathartic method" as treatment. In that method. Breuer hypnotized Breuer Pappenheim and asked her to go back to the first times she had experienced a specific physical sensation (such as her symptoms). Hypnotizing made it easier to reach forgotten memories (but only high emotion memories, associated with symptoms). By recovering the forgotten memory, she can release the oppressed emotions. This way the symptoms could disappear.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), friends with Breuer, remembered the method years later tried it out. He found out that it works better than direct hypnosis. Together with Breuer, he wrote the book "Studies on Hysteria", which became the starting point for Freud's new field. He called this field psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis played an important role in the history of the Mental Hygiene Movement and the Child Guidance Clinics. In the book, different cases they showed and brought on the general hypothesis that patients with hysteria suffered this because of their repressed memories. It was not about normal memories, but memories about emotion-laden experiences that were stored in the unconscious, which turned them into a disease ("pathogenic ideas"). Without access to normal consciousness, the emotional energy that accompanies the pathogenic ideas is not expressed in the normal way and thus cannot be released. The stimulus that normally aroused the memories was now used to the pinched emotional energy, causing the hysterical symptoms. The hysterical symptoms were conversions (the transition of emotional information into physical energy). With hypnosis, people can consciously gain access to the pathogenesis ideas, allowing the normal expression of their pinched energy to take place. This is because the cause of the symptoms is directly addressed. One downside is that the "cathartic method" is only applicable to people who can be deeply hypnotized.
Freud grew up as the oldest child in his family, but with half-brothers who were as old as his mother and a nephew (grandson of Freud's father) who was older than he. By this unusual family composition Freud may have become susceptible to family relationships, which he later emphasizes in his theories. When Freud studied at the University of Vienna, he met the philosopher Franz Brentano, who became his inspiration. In 1874, Brentano published a book, "Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint". In his book, he emphasized the Act psychology, in which he put the essential nature of the subjects within psychology and those within the physical sciences directly opposed to each other. The physical sciences studied objects, while for Brentano, the basic units of psychological analyses were previously actions, which always referred to the contents of an object. For example, where the basic unit of physical analysis was probably an atom, the psychological base unit was an action like thinking about an atom or believing it that a certain atom exists. So all mental phenomena have a component that indicates what they are "about", a way in which the object is involved or implied in the consciousness. This, Brentano called intentionality.
Brentano also believed that each psychological theory must be dynamic, or able to take into account the influence of
.....read more Personality psychology: what are the thoughts of Allport and Maslow? - Chapter 12As discussed earlier, Titchener was involved in a new scientific approach of psychology, namely structuralism. He had tried to scientifically analyse experiences, but in the form of the most elementary sensations and feelings. Titchener was the opponent of Freud. The invitation that Gordon W. Allport (1897-1967) received for the conference "Society of Experimentalists", set up by Titchener, was probably one of the biggest mistakes he’s made, considering Allport was more focused on the subject of personality. Titchener responded negatively to Allport and belittled him during the conference. The disappointment in Allport was temporary, however, because he was the first to teach at the university in personality psychology.
Abraham H. Maslow (1908-1970) also could not find himself in Titchener's model. Allport and Maslow were similar to each other in the fact that they are both regularly the limits of psychology and searched for, but that was also just about it. Allport was interested in personality psychology, in which the subjects varied from individual case studies to statistical analysis of mutual relationships on a large scale. Maslow was interested in which factors caused people to be "normal" or "healthy". He formulated an influential theory on human motives, as they are in a hierarchy and became a supporter of humanistic psychology. Both theories formulated by Maslow and Allport were an important part of the development and evolution of modern psychology as we know it today.
Allport became fascinated by his teacher Munsterberg at Harvard, who felt that there were two fundamentally different types of psychology: Firstly, psychology is causal and objective, and is aimed at emphasizing deterministic and mechanistic relationships between specific stimuli and the reactions they produce. The other kind of psychology is purposeful and subjective, which requires psychologists to gain insight into certain thinking processes and perspectives of the participants and to share these insights.
After graduating, Allport became an English and Sociology teacher at a small school in Turkey. Later on he returned to Harvard for a PhD in psychology. He always had great admiration for the psychoanalysis and promoted this to academic psychologists. As an assistant to Floyd, he learned a lot about new developments in psychology. One of these topics was personality. Some psychologists were interested in measuring non-intellectual characteristics with personality tests. The corresponding concept of personality studies, according to Allport, was the focus on individual differences in properties. They suggested a model for of personality, consisting of four groups: intelligence, temperament, self-expression and sociality. In Hamburg, Allport met the professor William Stern (1871-1938), an advocate of the personalistic psychology, where
.....read more The developed spirit: how have Binet and Piaget contributed to the study of intelligence? - Chapter 13During the late 1880s Binet studied the behaviour of his daughters. He also tried new psychological tests on them. Some tests were about reaction time and sensory discrimination. He discovered that his daughters, without developed intellect, it did about as well as adults. He did not think the measurements were good indicators of intelligence. He wanted tests that were about higher and more complex functions, such as language and abstract reason. He was not the only pioneer in testing intelligence, Piaget did this too. He discovered that children have no concept of objects as stable and permanent, and as separate from yourself and your perception. The hypothesis the result is that the intelligence of a child is not is less than that of an adult, but qualitatively different is. There are different development stages.
Alfred Binet (1857-1911) was born in France. Binet graduated in law but then went to the medical school. However, he did not like this either. He read a lot of books in the library of Paris at the age of 22. He discovered books about experimental psychology and was instantly inspired by this. In 1880, he had his first scientific publication. He also became enthusiastic about the association psychology of John Stuart Mill. According to Binet, intelligence also works through the law of association. Then Binet became Charcot's assistant, and this remained the case for over a year. He published three books and more than 20 articles on various topics.
Eventually Binet found out that he had had too much faith in Charcot's name and prestige and had not been critical enough. Binet began to do experiments with his daughters at home. He was very aware of the individuality of everyone's intelligence. Deeply impressed by the individuality of man, he decided to work with his colleague Victor Henri in 1895 to set up a program that they called individual psychology (not too confuse with Alfred Adler's approach). They were looking for a series of short tests that would take less than 2 hours and could be carried out with each person. With the help of such tests, one was able to obtain as much information as you could with years of observations and interviews.
Binet anticipated many projective tests. He was looking for a combination of several long-term tests that could serve as a replacement for the extensive case study, but unfortunately he did not find it. He had confirmed his conviction with the help of the direct testing that the higher, complex mental functions, the significant intellectual differences could be measured.
Together with Theodore Simon (1873-1961) Binet decided to develop a test with
.....read more What does cognitive psychology entail? - Chapter 14There are three issues at the heart of this chapter. First, Hobbes was busy with analysing the properties and processes that underlie human reason. Hobbes was concerned with how the mind receives and acquires knowledge. His answer led to a second point. He suggested that mathematical calculations and logical reasoning are the same. Thirdly, since the use of Indo-Arabic numbers, mathematics had become a routine process through it apply a few simple rules.
Blaise Pascal's machine (1623-1662) was the first in a series of theoretical and technological innovations to create a mechanical likeness of the human mind. The Pascaline stands known as one of the first machines specially built for artificial intelligence (AI). After the "Pascaline", Leibniz came up with a new mechanism, which he called the "stepped cylinder". This could also carry out multiplications and divisions.
Leibniz began by constructing a new universal language for philosophy, the signs of which would function in the same way as the mathematical symbols. He imagined that different words would contain a different word, and that there was a logical hierarchy. An example is: the concept of "human" is included in the concept of "animal", and the concept "animal" is back in the concept of a "living thing". When the new universal language would be complete, all concepts would be given a rating that reflects the exact degree of inclusiveness in relation to each other. People would go out with the help of the new language different languages and cultures can not only communicate with each other, but also be able to calculate solutions for the problems that divided them. However, the dream of Leibniz didn’t ever come true. Logical statements could not be reduced to arithmetic. Classic logic and traditional arithmetic was seen as an example of general symbolic logic. Leibniz also came up with the idea of binary arithmetic - the representation of all figures through of ones and zeros.
Charles Babbage (1792-1871) designed a mechanical calculator that was very accurate in generating arithmetic tables and calculate polynomial functions. This machine he called the "difference engine" because it would use the "method of difference" to calculate things. He also came up with the analytical machine (or the "programmable computer"), with which he practically could perform all kinds of calculations. The machine consisted of five main components: An input system for the data and instructions. "The mill" to be able to carry out the calculations. This part was similar to the "difference engine". A controller to receive instructions from the input
.....read more What does the applied psychology mean? - Chapter 15Hugo Munsterberg (1863-1916) was known for his articles about how psychological knowledge could be applied in daily life. He felt that scientific psychology is superior to the normal human brain and that the methods had to be used to improve the way people judge others and the world around them. Munsterberg also showed interest in the influence of emotion, suggestion and dissociation on perception. He felt that these processes had consequences for the psychology of testimony and detecting deceit. That's why he thought that psychological expertise also applied had to be in court.
Munsterberg was eventually seen as the father of applied psychology. One of the first publications of Munsterberg was a report, in which he challenged Wundt, his teacher, about the subject of "will". He felt that the concept of will was actually the experiencing of one’s internal motor process when it is in response to a stimulus. After Munsterberg permanently established himself at Harvard, his interest grew towards applied psychology. Areas where he wanted to introduce applied psychology were legal testimony and individual psychotherapy. In the period in which psychotherapists assigned themselves the task to heal the mind, Munsterberg saw himself as an objective, scientific outsider. Every therapy that simply just assumed the existence of the unconscious (just like Freud had introduced), he saw as unscientific. The techniques used by Munsterberg were in stark contrast to those of psychoanalysis and were more functional in nature. In the approach that Munsterberg used, Clients were trained to forget their problems and deviant behaviors suppress. One of the interests of Munsterberg was the application of psychology in the business and industry. This approach was called psychotechnology.
To deal with the rapidly growing urbanization and industrial expansion, Frederick Winslow Taylor (1865-1915) designed a system, which he named scientific management. The purpose of this system was to increase the efficiency and productivity of the factories by applying scientific methods. One of the changes that Taylor encouraged was applying standardized tasks through careful analysis of industrial work. The emphasis was on increasing production by an increase of efficiency, or in other words: let employees do more work in a shorter time, by providing them with fast, repetitive tasks that were easier to do. Munsterberg quite like the approach that Taylor had.
Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878-1972) and her husband Frank Bunker Gilbreth (1868-1924) together developed the complex motion studies to identify the most efficient way to get a task done. By using a camera, which registered the necessary movements made when performing of a task, the Gilbreths analysed different types of work and activities. As a result, they identified 18 basic hand movements, which they called "therbligs". They felt that efficiency could reduce fatigue. They also thought that the motion studies were able
.....read more What does clinical psychology mean? - Chapter 16Paul Meehl, wrote a book 'Clinical Versus Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis and a Review of the Evidence, in which he emphasizes the superiority of empirical data above clinical assessment when predicting behaviour described. He was a psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapist. The 1950s are also called the Golden Century for psychoanalysis in the US. Since then, the clinical psychology began to take shape.
After World War II, there was a shortage of professionals who had mental health problems treatment, especially the trauma. Psychologists were increasingly asked for psychiatrists to fill in. Molly Harrower (1906-1999) was a psychologist with a private practice in New York. Until then, this kind of privilege had only been reserved for psychiatrists. She was probably the first psychologist with a private practice in New York. She studied the psychological effects of operations and worked with neurosurgeon Penfield. Harrower looked at reactions from patients. She was also interested in the Rorschach projective technique, also known as the ink stain test, discovered by Hermann Rorschach (1884-1922). Rorschach was interested in the effects of mental states on perception. His test consisted of a series of unstructured stimuli - symmetrical ink stains. The tester shows the ink blot and asks: what could this be? Patients may then each give an answer. Rorschach found not the content but the perceptual processes of the answers important, and how this related to mental states or neurological conditions. The tester also looks at which determinants (color, shape, texture or movement) patients used when replying. Rorschach wanted to use it for diagnostics, but criticism was that the test was not properly validated. Harrower combined her interest in the Rorschach test with her interest in the psychological effects of operations. She discovered that the answers to the test of patients with brain tumours differed from patients without tumours. Harrower made it clear that diagnosing mental disorders is only one small task of a psychologist. Psychologists must have one overall picture of someone. According to Harrower, this is the distinction between psychiatrists and psychologists.
There was therefore a need for more clinical psychologists, and because of this the National Mental Health Act passed in 1946. David Shakow was chosen to participate in the 'Committee on Training'. He was prominent in designing a standardized graduation program for clinical psychology. He was trained as a researcher, just like Harrower. He became a professor in psychiatry at the University of Illionois Medical School, and psychology professor in Chicago.
There was tension within the APA between 'pure' experimentalists and applied psychologists. Psychologists also received external opposition from psychiatrists
.....read more
JoHo can really use your help! Check out the various student jobs here that match your studies, improve your competencies, strengthen your CV and contribute to a more tolerant world
JoHo kan jouw hulp goed gebruiken! Check hier de diverse studentenbanen die aansluiten bij je studie, je competenties verbeteren, je cv versterken en een bijdrage leveren aan een tolerantere wereld
There are several ways to navigate the large amount of summaries, study notes en practice exams on JoHo WorldSupporter.
Do you want to share your summaries with JoHo WorldSupporter and its visitors?
Field of study
Add new contribution