prior to william james, what was true about psychology in america?

Learning Objectives

By the end of this department, you will be able to:

• Empathise the importance of Wundt and James in the development of psychology
• Appreciate Freud'due south influence on psychology
• Sympathise the basic tenets of Gestalt psychology
• Capeesh the important role that behaviorism played in psychology's history
• Understand basic tenets of humanism
• Understand how the cognitive revolution shifted psychology's focus back to the mind

Psychology is a relatively young scientific discipline with its experimental roots in the 19th century, compared, for example, to human physiology, which dates much before. As mentioned, anyone interested in exploring issues related to the heed by and large did so in a philosophical context prior to the 19th century. 2 men, working in the 19th century, are by and large credited every bit being the founders of psychology as a science and academic subject that was distinct from philosophy. Their names were Wilhelm Wundt and William James. This section will provide an overview of the shifts in paradigms that have influenced psychology from Wundt and James through today.

WUNDT AND STRUCTURALISM

Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) was a German scientist who was the get-go person to exist referred to as a psychologist. His famous book entitled Principles of Physiological Psychology was published in 1873. Wundt viewed psychology every bit a scientific report of conscious experience, and he believed that the goal of psychology was to identify components of consciousness and how those components combined to result in our conscious experience. Wundt used introspection (he chosen information technology "internal perception"), a process past which someone examines their own witting feel equally objectively equally possible, making the human mind similar any other aspect of nature that a scientist observed. Wundt'south version of introspection used only very specific experimental weather condition in which an external stimulus was designed to produce a scientifically observable (repeatable) experience of the mind (Danziger, 1980). The first stringent requirement was the use of "trained" or practiced observers, who could immediately observe and study a reaction. The 2d requirement was the utilise of repeatable stimuli that ever produced the same experience in the subject area and allowed the subject to expect and thus be fully circumspect to the inner reaction. These experimental requirements were put in place to eliminate "interpretation" in the reporting of internal experiences and to counter the argument that there is no way to know that an individual is observing their mind or consciousness accurately, since it cannot be seen by any other person. This attempt to understand the construction or characteristics of the heed was known equally structuralism. Wundt established his psychology laboratory at the University at Leipzig in 1879. In this laboratory, Wundt and his students conducted experiments on, for example, reaction times. A subject, sometimes in a room isolated from the scientist, would receive a stimulus such as a light, paradigm, or sound. The subject's reaction to the stimulus would be to button a button, and an appliance would tape the time to reaction. Wundt could measure out reaction fourth dimension to 1-thousandth of a second (Nicolas & Ferrand, 1999).

(a) Wilhelm Wundt is credited as i of the founders of psychology. He created the first laboratory for psychological enquiry. (b) This photograph shows him seated and surrounded past young man researchers and equipment in his laboratory in Germany.

However, despite his efforts to train individuals in the process of introspection, this process remained highly subjective, and there was very trivial agreement between individuals. Equally a consequence, structuralism fell out of favor with the passing of Wundt's student, Edward Titchener, in 1927 (Gordon, 1995).

JAMES AND FUNCTIONALISM

William James (1842–1910) was the beginning American psychologist who espoused a different perspective on how psychology should operate ([link]). James was introduced to Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and accepted it every bit an caption of an organism'south characteristics. Central to that theory is the thought that natural option leads to organisms that are adapted to their surround, including their behavior. Adaptation means that a trait of an organism has a function for the survival and reproduction of the individual, because information technology has been naturally selected. As James saw it, psychology'due south purpose was to study the part of behavior in the world, and as such, his perspective was known as functionalism. Functionalism focused on how mental activities helped an organism fit into its environment. Functionalism has a second, more than subtle meaning in that functionalists were more interested in the performance of the whole mind rather than of its individual parts, which were the focus of structuralism. Like Wundt, James believed that introspection could serve every bit one means past which someone might study mental activities, but James as well relied on more objective measures, including the apply of diverse recording devices, and examinations of concrete products of mental activities and of beefcake and physiology (Gordon, 1995).

William James, shown here in a self-portrait, was the outset American psychologist.

FREUD AND PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY

Perhaps one of the near influential and well-known figures in psychology's history was Sigmund Freud ([link]). Freud (1856–1939) was an Austrian neurologist who was fascinated by patients suffering from "hysteria" and neurosis. Hysteria was an ancient diagnosis for disorders, primarily of women with a wide variety of symptoms, including physical symptoms and emotional disturbances, none of which had an credible physical crusade. Freud theorized that many of his patients' bug arose from the unconscious heed. In Freud'due south view, the unconscious mind was a repository of feelings and urges of which nosotros have no awareness. Gaining access to the unconscious, then, was crucial to the successful resolution of the patient's problems. According to Freud, the unconscious heed could exist accessed through dream analysis, by examinations of the kickoff words that came to people'southward minds, and through seemingly innocent slips of the tongue. Psychoanalytic theory focuses on the role of a person's unconscious, likewise as early childhood experiences, and this particular perspective dominated clinical psychology for several decades (Thorne & Henley, 2005).

(a) Sigmund Freud was a highly influential figure in the history of psychology. (b) Ane of his many books, A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, shared his ideas about psychoanalytical therapy; information technology was published in 1922.

Freud's ideas were influential, and yous will learn more about them when you study lifespan evolution, personality, and therapy. For instance, many therapists believe strongly in the unconscious and the affect of early childhood experiences on the rest of a person'due south life. The method of psychoanalysis, which involves the patient talking about their experiences and selves, while not invented by Freud, was certainly popularized by him and is even so used today. Many of Freud'south other ideas, withal, are controversial. Drew Westen (1998) argues that many of the criticisms of Freud's ideas are misplaced, in that they attack his older ideas without taking into account later writings. Westen also argues that critics fail to consider the success of the broad ideas that Freud introduced or developed, such as the importance of childhood experiences in developed motivations, the role of unconscious versus conscious motivations in driving our behavior, the fact that motivations tin crusade conflicts that affect beliefs, the effects of mental representations of ourselves and others in guiding our interactions, and the development of personality over fourth dimension. Westen identifies subsequent research support for all of these ideas.

More than modernistic iterations of Freud's clinical approach accept been empirically demonstrated to be effective (Knekt et al., 2008; Shedler, 2010). Some current practices in psychotherapy involve examining unconscious aspects of the self and relationships, often through the human relationship between the therapist and the customer. Freud's historical significance and contributions to clinical practice merit his inclusion in a give-and-take of the historical movements within psychology.

WERTHEIMER, KOFFKA, KÖHLER, AND GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY

Max Wertheimer (1880–1943), Kurt Koffka (1886–1941), and Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967) were 3 German psychologists who immigrated to the U.s. in the early on 20th century to escape Nazi Federal republic of germany. These men are credited with introducing psychologists in the United states to various Gestalt principles. The word Gestalt roughly translates to "whole;" a major emphasis of Gestalt psychology deals with the fact that although a sensory experience can exist cleaved down into individual parts, how those parts relate to each other equally a whole is often what the private responds to in perception. For example, a song may be made upwardly of individual notes played by different instruments, but the real nature of the vocal is perceived in the combinations of these notes as they course the melody, rhythm, and harmony. In many means, this particular perspective would have straight contradicted Wundt'south ideas of structuralism (Thorne & Henley, 2005).

Unfortunately, in moving to the United States, these men were forced to carelessness much of their work and were unable to continue to bear research on a large scale. These factors along with the ascent of behaviorism (described next) in the U.s. prevented principles of Gestalt psychology from being as influential in the United States as they had been in their native Germany (Thorne & Henley, 2005). Despite these issues, several Gestalt principles are still very influential today. Because the human individual as a whole rather than equally a sum of individually measured parts became an important foundation in humanistic theory belatedly in the century. The ideas of Gestalt take continued to influence research on awareness and perception.

Structuralism, Freud, and the Gestalt psychologists were all concerned in one way or another with describing and understanding inner experience. But other researchers had concerns that inner experience could be a legitimate subject of scientific inquiry and chose instead to exclusively study behavior, the objectively observable event of mental processes.

PAVLOV, WATSON, SKINNER, AND BEHAVIORISM

Early work in the field of behavior was conducted by the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936). Pavlov studied a course of learning behavior chosen a conditioned reflex, in which an animal or human produced a reflex (unconscious) response to a stimulus and, over time, was conditioned to produce the response to a different stimulus that the experimenter associated with the original stimulus. The reflex Pavlov worked with was salivation in response to the presence of food. The salivation reflex could be elicited using a second stimulus, such every bit a specific audio, that was presented in association with the initial food stimulus several times. One time the response to the second stimulus was "learned," the food stimulus could exist omitted. Pavlov's "classical workout" is only 1 class of learning behavior studied by behaviorists.

John B. Watson (1878–1958) was an influential American psychologist whose well-nigh famous work occurred during the early 20th century at Johns Hopkins Academy. While Wundt and James were concerned with understanding conscious experience, Watson thought that the study of consciousness was flawed. Because he believed that objective assay of the mind was impossible, Watson preferred to focus direct on observable behavior and try to bring that behavior under command. Watson was a major proponent of shifting the focus of psychology from the mind to behavior, and this approach of observing and decision-making beliefs came to exist known as behaviorism. A major object of study by behaviorists was learned behavior and its interaction with inborn qualities of the organism. Behaviorism commonly used animals in experiments under the assumption that what was learned using animal models could, to some caste, be applied to man behavior. Indeed, Tolman (1938) stated, "I believe that everything important in psychology (except … such matters every bit involve society and words) can be investigated in essence through the continued experimental and theoretical assay of the determiners of rat behavior at a choice-point in a maze."

John B. Watson is known as the father of behaviorism within psychology.

Behaviorism dominated experimental psychology for several decades, and its influence can still be felt today (Thorne & Henley, 2005). Behaviorism is largely responsible for establishing psychology equally a science through its objective methods and especially experimentation. In improver, it is used in behavioral and cerebral-behavioral therapy. Behavior modification is unremarkably used in classroom settings. Behaviorism has besides led to research on environmental influences on human behavior.

B. F. Skinner (1904–1990) was an American psychologist ([link]). Similar Watson, Skinner was a behaviorist, and he concentrated on how behavior was afflicted by its consequences. Therefore, Skinner spoke of reinforcement and penalty as major factors in driving behavior. Equally a function of his research, Skinner developed a sleeping room that immune the careful study of the principles of modifying behavior through reinforcement and penalty. This device, known equally an operant conditioning chamber (or more than familiarly, a Skinner box), has remained a crucial resource for researchers studying behavior (Thorne & Henley, 2005).

(a) B. F. Skinner is famous for his research on operant conditioning. (b) Modified versions of the operant conditioning bedroom, or Skinner box, are still widely used in research settings today. (credit a: modification of piece of work past "Lightheaded rabbit"/Wikimedia Commons)

The Skinner box is a sleeping accommodation that isolates the subject field from the external environment and has a behavior indicator such as a lever or a button. When the animal pushes the button or lever, the box is able to evangelize a positive reinforcement of the behavior (such as food) or a punishment (such every bit a dissonance) or a token conditioner (such as a light) that is correlated with either the positive reinforcement or punishment.

Skinner's focus on positive and negative reinforcement of learned behaviors had a lasting influence in psychology that has waned somewhat since the growth of enquiry in cognitive psychology. Despite this, conditioned learning is still used in human behavioral modification. Skinner'southward 2 widely read and controversial pop science books well-nigh the value of operant conditioning for creating happier lives remain every bit idea-provoking arguments for his approach (Greengrass, 2004).

MASLOW, ROGERS, AND HUMANISM

During the early 20th century, American psychology was dominated by behaviorism and psychoanalysis. Still, some psychologists were uncomfortable with what they viewed equally limited perspectives existence so influential to the field. They objected to the pessimism and determinism (all actions driven by the unconscious) of Freud. They also disliked the reductionism, or simplifying nature, of behaviorism. Behaviorism is as well deterministic at its cadre, because it sees homo behavior as entirely determined by a combination of genetics and environment. Some psychologists began to form their own ideas that emphasized personal control, intentionality, and a true predisposition for "proficient" as important for our cocky-concept and our behavior. Thus, humanism emerged. Humanism is a perspective inside psychology that emphasizes the potential for practiced that is innate to all humans. Two of the most well-known proponents of humanistic psychology are Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers (O'Hara, northward.d.).

Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) was an American psychologist who is best known for proposing a bureaucracy of homo needs in motivating behavior ([link]). Although this concept will be discussed in more than detail in a later affiliate, a brief overview will be provided here. Maslow asserted that so long as basic needs necessary for survival were met (e.g., food, h2o, shelter), higher-level needs (e.g., social needs) would begin to motivate beliefs. According to Maslow, the highest-level needs relate to self-actualization, a process by which we achieve our full potential. Manifestly, the focus on the positive aspects of human nature that are characteristic of the humanistic perspective is evident (Thorne & Henley, 2005). Humanistic psychologists rejected, on principle, the research approach based on reductionist experimentation in the tradition of the concrete and biological sciences, because it missed the "whole" human being existence. Beginning with Maslow and Rogers, in that location was an insistence on a humanistic enquiry plan. This program has been largely qualitative (not measurement-based), just there exist a number of quantitative research strains inside humanistic psychology, including inquiry on happiness, self-concept, meditation, and the outcomes of humanistic psychotherapy (Friedman, 2008).

Carl Rogers (1902–1987) was as well an American psychologist who, like Maslow, emphasized the potential for practiced that exists within all people ([link]). Rogers used a therapeutic technique known every bit client-centered therapy in helping his clients deal with problematic problems that resulted in their seeking psychotherapy. Unlike a psychoanalytic approach in which the therapist plays an of import office in interpreting what witting behavior reveals about the unconscious mind, customer-centered therapy involves the patient taking a lead role in the therapy session. Rogers believed that a therapist needed to display three features to maximize the effectiveness of this particular approach: unconditional positive regard, genuineness, and empathy. Unconditional positive regard refers to the fact that the therapist accepts their customer for who they are, no affair what he or she might say. Provided these factors, Rogers believed that people were more than capable of dealing with and working through their own issues (Thorne & Henley, 2005).

Humanism has been influential to psychology as a whole. Both Maslow and Rogers are well-known names among students of psychology (you lot volition read more most both men later in this text), and their ideas have influenced many scholars. Furthermore, Rogers' client-centered arroyo to therapy is still commonly used in psychotherapeutic settings today (O'hara, n.d.)

Link to Learning

View a brief video of Carl Rogers describing his therapeutic arroyo.

THE COGNITIVE REVOLUTION

Behaviorism's emphasis on objectivity and focus on external behavior had pulled psychologists' attending away from the heed for a prolonged period of time. The early work of the humanistic psychologists redirected attention to the individual man equally a whole, and as a conscious and cocky-aware beingness. By the 1950s, new disciplinary perspectives in linguistics, neuroscience, and informatics were emerging, and these areas revived involvement in the mind equally a focus of scientific inquiry. This particular perspective has come to be known as the cerebral revolution (Miller, 2003). Past 1967, Ulric Neisser published the first textbook entitled Cognitive Psychology, which served equally a core text in cognitive psychology courses around the country (Thorne & Henley, 2005).

Although no one person is entirely responsible for starting the cerebral revolution, Noam Chomsky was very influential in the early days of this move ([link]). Chomsky (1928–), an American linguist, was dissatisfied with the influence that behaviorism had had on psychology. He believed that psychology's focus on behavior was short-sighted and that the field had to re-incorporate mental functioning into its purview if it were to offer any meaningful contributions to understanding behavior (Miller, 2003).

Noam Chomsky was very influential in beginning the cerebral revolution. In 2010, this landscape honoring him was put upward in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (credit: Robert Moran)

European psychology had never really been every bit influenced by behaviorism every bit had American psychology; and thus, the cognitive revolution helped reestablish lines of communication between European psychologists and their American counterparts. Furthermore, psychologists began to cooperate with scientists in other fields, like anthropology, linguistics, computer science, and neuroscience, amidst others. This interdisciplinary approach frequently was referred to as the cognitive sciences, and the influence and prominence of this particular perspective resonates in modernistic-day psychology (Miller, 2003).

Dig Deeper: Feminist Psychology

The science of psychology has had an impact on human wellbeing, both positive and negative. The dominant influence of Western, white, and male academics in the early on history of psychology meant that psychology developed with the biases inherent in those individuals, which oft had negative consequences for members of society that were not white or male. Women, members of ethnic minorities in both the United States and other countries, and individuals with sexual orientations other than heterosexual had difficulties entering the field of psychology and therefore influencing its development. They also suffered from the attitudes of white, male psychologists, who were not immune to the nonscientific attitudes prevalent in the society in which they adult and worked. Until the 1960s, the science of psychology was largely a "womanless" psychology (Crawford & Marecek, 1989), meaning that few women were able to exercise psychology, so they had petty influence on what was studied. In addition, the experimental subjects of psychology were by and large men, which resulted from underlying assumptions that gender had no influence on psychology and that women were not of sufficient interest to written report.

An article by Naomi Weisstein, first published in 1968 (Weisstein, 1993), stimulated a feminist revolution in psychology past presenting a critique of psychology as a science. She likewise specifically criticized male person psychologists for constructing the psychology of women entirely out of their own cultural biases and without careful experimental tests to verify any of their characterizations of women. Weisstein used, as examples, statements by prominent psychologists in the 1960s, such as this quote by Bruno Bettleheim: ". . . we must start with the realization that, equally much as women want to be good scientists or engineers, they want beginning and foremost to exist womanly companions of men and to be mothers." Weisstein's critique formed the foundation for the subsequent development of a feminist psychology that attempted to exist gratuitous of the influence of male person cultural biases on our knowledge of the psychology of women and, indeed, of both genders.

Crawford & Marecek (1989) identify several feminist approaches to psychology that tin be described as feminist psychology. These include re-evaluating and discovering the contributions of women to the history of psychology, studying psychological gender differences, and questioning the male bias nowadays beyond the do of the scientific approach to knowledge.

MULTICULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY

Culture has important impacts on individuals and social psychology, yet the effects of culture on psychology are nether-studied. There is a take chances that psychological theories and information derived from white, American settings could be assumed to apply to individuals and social groups from other cultures and this is unlikely to be true (Betancourt & López, 1993). One weakness in the field of cantankerous-cultural psychology is that in looking for differences in psychological attributes beyond cultures, there remains a need to go across simple descriptive statistics (Betancourt & López, 1993). In this sense, it has remained a descriptive scientific discipline, rather than 1 seeking to determine cause and consequence. For example, a study of characteristics of individuals seeking treatment for a binge eating disorder in Hispanic American, African American, and Caucasian American individuals found significant differences between groups (Franko et al., 2012). The study ended that results from studying any one of the groups could not be extended to the other groups, and notwithstanding potential causes of the differences were non measured.

This history of multicultural psychology in the United States is a long i. The role of African American psychologists in researching the cultural differences betwixt African American private and social psychology is but one instance. In 1920, Cecil Sumner was the first African American to receive a PhD in psychology in the United States. Sumner established a psychology caste program at Howard University, leading to the education of a new generation of African American psychologists (Black, Spence, and Omari, 2004). Much of the work of early African American psychologists (and a general focus of much work in kickoff half of the 20th century in psychology in the United States) was dedicated to testing and intelligence testing in particular (Black et al., 2004). That emphasis has continued, particularly because of the importance of testing in determining opportunities for children, simply other areas of exploration in African-American psychology research include learning style, sense of community and belonging, and spiritualism (Black et al., 2004).

The American Psychological Association has several ethnically based organizations for professional person psychologists that facilitate interactions amongst members. Since psychologists belonging to specific ethnic groups or cultures have the about interest in studying the psychology of their communities, these organizations provide an opportunity for the growth of research on the touch of culture on individual and social psychology.

Link to Learning

Read a news story near the influence of an African American's psychology enquiry on the celebrated Brown five. Lath of Pedagogy ceremonious rights case.

Summary

Before the time of Wundt and James, questions most the mind were considered by philosophers. However, both Wundt and James helped create psychology as a distinct scientific subject. Wundt was a structuralist, which meant he believed that our cognitive experience was all-time understood past breaking that experience into its component parts. He idea this was best accomplished past introspection.

William James was the first American psychologist, and he was a proponent of functionalism. This particular perspective focused on how mental activities served every bit adaptive responses to an organism'southward environs. Like Wundt, James also relied on introspection; even so, his inquiry arroyo besides incorporated more objective measures besides.

Sigmund Freud believed that understanding the unconscious mind was absolutely critical to understand conscious behavior. This was especially true for individuals that he saw who suffered from various hysterias and neuroses. Freud relied on dream analysis, slips of the natural language, and free association as ways to access the unconscious. Psychoanalytic theory remained a dominant forcefulness in clinical psychology for several decades.

Gestalt psychology was very influential in Europe. Gestalt psychology takes a holistic view of an individual and his experiences. As the Nazis came to ability in Germany, Wertheimer, Koffka, and Köhler immigrated to the United states. Although they left their laboratories and their research behind, they did introduce America to Gestalt ideas. Some of the principles of Gestalt psychology are still very influential in the study of sensation and perception.

I of the most influential schools of idea within psychology's history was behaviorism. Behaviorism focused on making psychology an objective science by studying overt behavior and deemphasizing the importance of unobservable mental processes. John Watson is frequently considered the begetter of behaviorism, and B. F. Skinner'due south contributions to our understanding of principles of operant conditioning cannot be underestimated.

As behaviorism and psychoanalytic theory took agree of so many aspects of psychology, some began to become dissatisfied with psychology's picture of human nature. Thus, a humanistic movement within psychology began to take hold. Humanism focuses on the potential of all people for skillful. Both Maslow and Rogers were influential in shaping humanistic psychology.

During the 1950s, the mural of psychology began to change. A science of behavior began to shift back to its roots of focus on mental processes. The emergence of neuroscience and computer science aided this transition. Ultimately, the cognitive revolution took concur, and people came to realize that knowledge was crucial to a true appreciation and understanding of behavior.

Self Check Questions

Critical Thinking Questions

1. How did the object of study in psychology change over the history of the field since the 19th century?

2. In part, what aspect of psychology was the behaviorist approach to psychology a reaction to?

Personal Application Question

3. Freud is probably 1 of the nigh well-known historical figures in psychology. Where have you encountered references to Freud or his ideas about the office that the unconscious listen plays in determining conscious behavior?

Answers

1. In its early days, psychology could be defined as the scientific written report of listen or mental processes. Over time, psychology began to shift more towards the scientific study of beliefs. Even so, as the cerebral revolution took hold, psychology once once again began to focus on mental processes as necessary to the agreement of behavior.

2. Behaviorists studied objectively observable beliefs partly in reaction to the psychologists of the listen who were studying things that were not directly observable.

Glossary

behaviorism focus on observing and controlling beliefs

functionalism focused on how mental activities helped an organism adjust to its environment

humanism perspective within psychology that emphasizes the potential for skilful that is innate to all humans

introspection process by which someone examines their ain conscious experience in an attempt to suspension it into its component parts

psychoanalytic theory focus on the office of the unconscious in affecting witting behavior

structuralism agreement the witting feel through introspection

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wsu-sandbox/chapter/history-of-psychology/

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