Psychology Gyan 3 (मनोविज्ञान)
STRUCTURALISM
STRUCTURAL psychology was established at Cornell University(
America) in 1898 by British psychologist Edward Bradford Titchener.
 |
| Cornell University America |
He was student of wundt,he done his ph.d under wundt in
1890-1892 At Leipzig University.
Titchener established structural psychology in his paper- “The
postulates of a structural psychology”.
 |
| Edward Bradford Tichener |
#Basic features of structural psychology :-
1.subject- matter of psychology:- Titchener psychology was the study of
conscious experience dependent upon the experiencing person.He didn’t accept
wundt’s idea that psychology studies only immediate experience.
Titchener distinct between mind and consciousness that mind
was sum total of person’s experiences summed from birth to death, and
consciousness was sum total of person’s experience at any given time.
Titchener stated three basic problems of psychology –
·
What – analysis of mental experience into its
simplest form.
·
How – discovering how these components are
combined.
·
Why – is the way mental events correlate with
their physiological conditions,(brain and nervous system).
Titchener analyzed the three basic elements of consciousness
– sensations, images and affections. Titchener had rejected wundt’s”
tridimensional Theory of feeling “ (pleasant- unpleasant, strained- relaxed,
and excited- calm). He accepted only the first one and later, even rejected
that also.
Titchener gives 4 basic attributes of elements of consciousness-
quality, intensity, duration, clarity(clarity only in sensation and image, not
available in affection), later he added extensity in this list of basic
attributes.
Titchener rejected wurzberg’s point – “ imageless
thought”,he said that it is because of faulty or incomplete introspection because
people always start imagining during any thinking process or conversation.
2.Methodology of psychology :- like wundt, titchener
also considered introspection and experimentation to be the primary methods of
investigation in psychology.For him, experiment is an observation that could be
repeated, isolated and varied.
In introspection, he encountered a problem that is “
stimulus error”, it means to see things or object rather than the conscious
experiences, generated by the concerned object or thing. Example:- To see a
table and call it table – ‘stimulus error'.
3.principles of selection:- Titchener use the concept of attention. In
this, concious elements are arranged and thus, it becomes the focus of
consciousness. He outlined three stages of attention :-
·
Native or involuntary or primary attention
(basic factors like quality or intensity of sensory experience required).
·
Voluntary or secondary attention- (purposeful
focusing on elements in consciousness).
·
Derived or habitual attention- (arise due to
repetition of similar learnt factors in past).
He regarded that these stages are continuous, not separate
ones.
4.principle of connection:- For Titchener, “law of contiguity” was his
main law of connection or association.
“Law of contiguity”- any sensory or imaginal contents occurs
in our present experience ,who are likely to appear in past.
Meaning of sensation or image was the result of connection
between past Associations and images – (Titchener, in context theory of
meaning, 1915).
5.Emotion:- For Titchener, emotions are intensified
feelings arising from sensations within the body. For him, 2 methods to study
emotions –
·
Method of impression- (used when comparison of
different affective characteristics).
·
Method of expression – (study on the basis of
bodily changes).
6. Thinking:- Titchener criticise the wurzberg’s
point that- the process of thought was imageless. According to Titchener, the
result of wurzberg’s wese caused by the faulty or incomplete introspection.
He also rejected the”will” element – fundamental by wundt.
He accepted determining tendency of ach and the thought
maybe unconscious – viewpoint of wurzberg’s.
7.Mind-body problem :- As wundt believed, Titchener also accepted
that mind and body are different from each other. No interaction and neither
cause between them called ' psychophysical parallelism'.
CRITICISM of
STRUCTURALISM
·
It was too ‘self-contained’ and it was limited
to the analytical framework of conscious experience.
·
No interest in practical applications of psychology.
·
No interest in applied branches of psychology,
he excluded child, Animal, social and abnormal psychology.
·
He ignored Watson behavioural studies, that they
were not psychology.
·
Introspection changed into retrospection because
it take some time to report about the conscious content, some of them are
forgotten.
·
Act of introspection might change the experience
itself. Example – inspecting the experience of anger, the state of anger
disintegrate and finally disappear.
·
This method in different laboratories were
getting different results.
·
Some data( unconscious) couldn’t obtained by
this method of introspection and it doesn’t work on animals.
·
Gestalt psychology studied psychology phenomena
as a whole and this is not whole. It studies only on elements.
Similarity in wundt and Titchener
:-
·
Subject-matter of psychology was conscious for
both.
·
Introspection , experimentation and observation
are primary methods of psychology.
·
Both believed in psychophysical parallelism.
Dissimilarity in wundt and
Titchener :-
·
For wundt, - two elements of conscious
experience ( sensation and affection),but for Titchener- three elements of
conscious experience (sensation, image and affection).
·
For wundt- Two primary attributes of concious
experience (quality and intensity), but for Titchener- four primary attributes
of conscious experience (quality, intensity, duration, cleanness and later he
added one more that is extensity)
·
Wundt gave- tridimensional theory of feeling but
later Titchener rejected this theory.
·
Titchener rejected applied and practical aspects
of psychology, wundt had some inclination towards practical psychology.
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