Structuralism (Psychology): Theory and Concepts

He structuralism , Also called structural psychology, is a theory of knowledge developed in the twentieth century by Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt and Edward Bradford Titchener. Wundt is generally known as the father of structuralism.

Structuralism seeks to analyze the sum total of experience from birth to adulthood. In that experience are the simple components that relate to each other to form more complex experiences. It also studies the correlation of these with the environment.

Structuralism-lifeder

Structuralism attempts to analyze the adult mind (the sum total of experience from birth to present) in terms of the components defined by the simpler and find how they fit together to form more complex experiences, as well as the correlation with Physical events.

To do this, psychologists use introspection through self-reports and inquiring into feelings, feelings, emotions, among other things that provide internal information of the person.

Definition of Structural Psychology

Structuralism can be defined in psychology as the study of the elements of consciousness. The idea is that conscious experience can be divided into conscious basic elements.

This can be considered a physical phenomenon that consists of chemical structures that can be divided into basic elements.

In fact, much of the research carried out in the laboratory of Wundt Consisted in the cataloging of these basic conscious elements.

To reduce a normal conscious experience in basic elements, structuralism was based on introspection (observation of oneself, of the conscience and of the own feelings).

To further understand the concept of introspection, we will put the following example that was given in Wundt's laboratory.

The German psychologist described an apple as to the basic characteristics that it has, that is, for example saying that it is cold, crispy and sweet.

An important principle of introspection is that any given conscious experience must be described in its most basic terms.

In this way, a researcher could not describe some experiences or objects by themselves, such as describing the apple simply as an apple. Such an error is known as the"stimulus error".

Through introspection experiments, Wundt began cataloging a large number of conscious basic elements, which hypothetically could be combined to describe all human experiences.

Wundt and Structuralism

Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt was born on August 16, 1832 in Baden, Germany, and died on August 31, 1920 in Leipzig, a city in the same country.

Wundt was considered a famous physiologist, philosopher and psychologist and is widely known for having developed the first experimental laboratory in the city of Leipzig.

In the university of this same city was instructor of Titchener, the founder of the estructuralismo.

Titchener declared what is known as the"science of immediate experience,"or what is the same, that complex perceptions can be obtained through basic sensory information.

Wundt is often associated in the old literature with structuralism and the use of methods similar to introspective ones.

The author makes a clear distinction between pure introspection, which is the relatively unstructured self-observation used by earlier philosophers, and experimental introspection. According to him, for introspection or experience to be valid they must be produced under experimentally controlled conditions.

Titchener took his own theory and Wundt's theory to North America, and in translating the works of the latter I do not interpret their meaning well. He did not present him as a voluntarist psychologist (a doctrine that organizes the content of the power of the mental will in thought processes at the higher level), which is what he really was, but presented him as an introspectionist.

Thus, Titchener used this poor translation to say that Wundt's works supported his own.

Titchener and structuralism

Edward B. Titchener was born in Chichester, United Kingdom on January 11, 1867 and died in the United States, specifically in Ithaca on August 3, 1927. Despite being a British psychologist, he later settled in the United States and adopted this nationality.

He is considered the founder of structuralism and the impeller of the experimental method in American psychology. Titchener is introspeccionista and when importing the work of Wundt to the United States it made a bad translation of the same introducing him to him also like introspeccionista.

The mistake is that in North America there was no difference in consciousness from the unconscious, but in Germany it was.

In reality for Wundt introspection was not a valid method because according to his theories did not reach the unconscious. Wundt understands introspection as a description of conscious experience divided into basic sensory components that have no external referents.

In contrast, Titchener's consciousness was the sum of a person's experiences at a given time, understanding them as feelings, ideas and impulses experienced throughout life.

Edward B. Titchener was a student of Wundt at the University of Leipzig, and one of his most important students.

For this reason his ideas of how the mind works were strongly influenced by Wundt's theory of voluntarism and his ideas of association and apperception (the combinations of elements of active and passive consciousness respectively).

Titchener attempted to classify the structures of the mind and pointed out that only observable events constitute science and that any speculation about unobservable events has no place in society.

In his book Systematic Psychology, Titchener wrote:"It is true, however, that observation is the only patented method of science, and that experiment, considered as the scientific method, is nothing else than Protected and assisted observation."

How to Analyze Mind and Consciousness

Titchener took into account the accumulated experience of a lifetime. He believed that he could understand the structure of the mind and its reasoning if it could define and categorize the basic components of the mind and the rules by which the components interact.

Introspection

The main tool that Titchener used to try to determine the different components of consciousness was introspection.

He himself writes in his systematic psychology:"The state of consciousness which must be the subject of psychology... can become an object of immediate knowledge only by way of introspection or self-consciousness."

And in his book An Outline of Psychology ; An introduction to psychology; Writes:"... within the sphere of psychology, introspection is the last and only court of appeal, that psychological evidence can be none other than introspective evidence."

Unlike the method of Wundt's introspection, Titchener had very strict guidelines for the presentation of an introspective analysis.

In his case, the subject would present himself with an object, such as a pencil and then report the characteristics of that pencil (color, length, etc.).

This subject would be instructed not to report the name of the object, in this case pencil, because that does not describe the basic data of what the subject was experiencing. Titchener referred to this as"stimulus error".

In Titchener's translation of Wundt's work, he illustrates his instructor as a supporter of introspection as a method through which to observe consciousness.

However, introspection only fits Wundt's theories if one takes the term to refer to psychophysical methods.

Elements of the mind

The first question that Titchener raised in his theory was the following: What is each element of the mind?

The British psychologist concluded that in his research there were three types of mental elements that constitute conscious experience.

On the one hand the sensations (elements of perception), on the other the images (elements of ideas) and finally the affections (elements of emotions).

In addition, these elements could be divided into their respective properties, which were: quality, intensity, duration, clarity and extension.

Sensations and images contain all these qualities; However, they lack affection in clarity and extension. On the other hand, the images and the affections could be decomposed into groups of sensations.

Thus, following this chain, all thoughts were images, which are constructed of elemental sensations.

That means that all reasoning and complex thinking could finally be divided into sensations, which could come through introspection. Only well-trained observers could carry out introspection scientifically.

Element interaction

The second question that Titchener raised in the theory of structuralism was how the mental elements combined and interacted with each other to form conscious experience.

His conclusions were based largely on the ideas of associationism, particularly on the law of contiguity. He also rejected the notions of apperception and creative synthesis; Base of Wundt's voluntarism.

Physical and mental relationships

Once Titchener identifies the elements of the mind and its interaction, it wonders why the elements interact the way they do.

In particular, Titchener was interested in the relationship between conscious experience and physical processes.

The British psychologist believed that physiological processes provide a continuous substrate that gives continuity to psychological processes, which otherwise would not have.

Therefore, the nervous system does not cause conscious experience, but can be used to explain some characteristics of mental events.

Dialectical confrontation of modern psychology

An alternative theory to structuralism was functionalism (functional psychology).

Functionalism was developed by William James , Who in contrast to structuralism emphasized the importance of empirical-rational thinking, thought about an experimental-empirical philosophy.

James included introspection in his theory (eg, the study of the psychologist's own mental states), but he also included such things as analysis (eg, precursor logic criticism and contemporary views of the mind) , The experiment (eg in hypnosis or neurology), and the comparison (eg, the use of statistics means distinguishing rules of anomalies).

Functionalism was also differentiated by being centered on how useful certain processes were located in the brain for the environment and not in the processes themselves, as in structuralism.

Functionalist psychology had a strong influence on American psychology, being a more ambitious system than structuralism and served to open new areas within scientific psychology

Criticism of structuralism

Among the great number of criticisms received, the main one comes from functionalism, a school that later developed in the psychology of pragmatism.

He criticized his focus on introspection as a method for understanding conscious experience.

They argue that self-analysis was not feasible, since introspective students can not appreciate the processes or mechanisms of their own mental processes.

Introspection, therefore, resulted in different outcomes depending on who was using it and what they were looking for. Some critics also pointed out that introspective techniques were actually a retrospective examination, for it was more the memory of a sensation than the sensation itself.

Behaviorists totally rejected the idea of ​​conscious experience as a worthy subject in psychology, since they believed that the subject of scientific psychology should be strictly operational in an objective and measurable way.

Since the notion of an objectively mind could not be measured, this did not deserve to be questioned.

Structuralism also believes that the mind could be divided into its individual parts, which form conscious experience. This approach received criticism from the school of Gestalt psychology, which argues that the mind can not be conceived in individual elements.

In addition to theoretical attacks, he was also criticized for excluding and ignoring important events that were not part of his theory.

For example, structuralism was not concerned with the study of animal behavior and personality.

Titchener himself was criticized for not using his psychology to help answer practical problems. Instead, Titchener was interested in the pursuit of pure knowledge which to him was more important than other more banal subjects.

Contemporary Structuralism

Today, structuralist theory is not widely used. Researchers are still working to offer experimental approaches to reach the measurement of conscious experience, particularly in the field of cognitive psychology. You are working on the same kind of issues as sensations and perceptions.

At present, any introspective methodology is performed in very controlled situations and is understood as subjective and retrospective.

References

  1. Caws, P. 1997. Structuralism: Philosophy for the Human Sciences New York: Humanity Books
  2. Hergenhahn, B.R. An Introduction to the History of Psychology . 6th Edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2009
  3. Titchener, E.B., 1899,"Structural and Functional Psychology", Philosophical Review , 8 (3): 290-9. Doi: 10.2307 / 2176244
  4. Ashland, OH, US: Hogrefe & Huber Publishers The structuralist program in psychology: Foundations and applications (1992). X 292 pp.
  5. Psychology.wika.com
  6. Web.mst.edu
  7. En.wikipedia.org


Loading ..

Recent Posts

Loading ..