Editing Content :: Admin Scraper

Chapter

Content type

Position

Value

Intheearly20thcentury,anewperspective E VOLUTION OF P SYCHOLOGY called Gestalt psychology emerged in Germany as a reaction to the structuralism of Psychology as a modern discipline, which is influenced to a large extent by Western Wundt. It focused on the organisation of developments, has a short history. It grew out perceptual experiences. Instead of looking at of ancient philosophy concerned with the components of the mind, the Gestalt questions of psychological significance. We psychologists argued that when we look at the world our perceptual experience is more than mentioned earlier that the formal beginning of modern psychology is traced back to 1879 the sum of the components of the perception. when the first experimental laboratory was In other words, what we experience is more established in Leipzig, Germany by Wilhelm thantheinputsreceivedfromourenvironment. Wundt. Wundt was interested in the study of When, for example, light from a series of flashing bulbs falls on our retina, we actually conscious experience and wanted to analyse the constituents or the building blocks of the experience movement of light. When we see a mind. Psychologists during Wundt’s time movie, we actually have a series of rapidly analysed the structure of the mind through moving images of still pictures falling on our introspection and therefore were called retina.Thus,ourperceptualexperienceismore structuralists. Introspection was a procedure than the elements. Experience is holistic; it is in which individuals or subjects in a Gestalt. We will learn more about the Gestalt psychological experiments were asked to psychology when we discuss about the nature describe in detail, their own mental processes of perception in Chapter 5. or experiences. However, introspection as a Yet another reaction to structuralism came method did not satisfy many other in the form of behaviourism. Around 1910, psychologists. It was considered less scientificohn Watson rejected the ideas of mind and because the introspective reports could not consciousness as subject matters of be verified by outside observers. This led to psychology. He was greatly influenced by the the development of new perspectives in work of physiologists like Ivan Pavlov on psychology. classical conditioning. For Watson, mind is not An American psychologist, William James, observable and introspection is subjective who had set up a psychological laboratory in because it cannot be verified by another Cambridge, Massachusetts soon after the observer. According to him, scientific setting up of the Leipzig laboratory, developedpsychology must focus on what is observable what was called a functionalist approach to andverifiable.Hedefinedpsychologyasastudy the study of the human mind. William James of behaviour or responses (to stimuli) which believed that instead of focusing on the can be measured and studied objectively. structure of the mind, psychology should Behaviourism of Watson was further developed instead study what the mind does and how by many influential psychologists who are behaviour functions in making people deal known as behaviourists. Most prominent with their environment. For example, among them was Skinner who applied functionalists focused on how behaviour behaviourism to a wide range of situations and enabled people to satisfy their needs. popularised the approach. We will discuss According to William James, consciousness Skinner’s work later in this textbook. as an ongoing stream of mental process Although behaviourists dominated the field interacting with the environment formed the of psychology for several decades after Watson, core of psychology. A very influential a number of other approaches and views about educational thinker of the time, John Dewey, psychology and its subject matter were used functionalism to argue that human developing around the same time. One person beings seek to function effectively by adaptingwho shook the world with his radical view of to their environment. human nature was Sigmund Freud. Freud 8 Psychology Reprint 2026-27