ABPG1203

Faculty of Applied Social Sciences
ABPG1203
History and Philosophy
of Psychology
Copyright © Open University Malaysia (OUM)

ABPG1203
HISTORY AND
PHILOSOPHY OF
PSYCHOLOGY
Dr Chavi Bhargava Sharma
Dr Anita Gupta

Project Directors: Prof Dato’ Dr Mansor Fadzil
Assoc Prof Dr Mohd Yusuf Ahmad
Open University Malaysia
Module Writers: Dr Chavi Bhargava Sharma

Dr Anita Gupta
Acme Learning Private Limited
Enhancer: Kelvin Chong
Moderator: Dr Wong Huey Siew

Developed by: Centre for Instructional Design and Technology

First Edition, April 2011

Second Edition, December 2015 (rs)
Copyright © Open University Malaysia (OUM), December 2015, ABPG1203
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means
without the written permission of the President, Open University Malaysia (OUM).

Table of Contents
Course Guide xi – xv
Topic 1 Historical Background of Psychology 1

1.1 Understanding Psychology 2
1.2 Understanding Psychology as a Science 3
1.2.1 Scientific Methods in Psychology 4
1.2.2 Principles of Psychology 6
1.3 Philosophy and Psychology 7
1.3.1 What is Philosophy? 8
1.3.2 What is Epistemological Philosophy of Psychology? 8
1.3.3 Why Study the History and Philosophy of Psychology? 8
1.3.4 What are the Major Philosophical Issues in Psychology? 9
1.4 Understanding the History of Psychology 10
1.4.1 Pre-scientific Era 10
1.4.2 Scientific Era 14
Summary 21
Key Terms 21
Self-Test 1 22
Self-Test 2 22
References 22
Topic 2 The Psychology of Consciousness 24

2.1 Wilhelm WundtÊs Psychology 25
2.1.1 Theoretical Orientation 26
2.1.2 Contributions of Wundt to Psychology 30
2.2 Edward B. TitchenerÊs Structuralism 31
2.2.1 TitchenerÊs Theoretical Orientation 32
2.2.2 TitchenerÊs Contributions to Psychology 35
2.2.3 The Structuralism 35
2.3 Challenges to Analytic Psychology of Consciousness – Franz
Brentano 36
2.3.1 Franz BrentanoÊs Theoretical Orientation 37
2.3.2 Contributions of Franz Brentano 39
Summary 40
Key Terms 40
Self-Test 1 40

iv  TABLE OF CONTENTS
Self-Test 2 41
References 41
Topic 3 The Psychology of the Unconscious Mind and the Psychology of

Adaptation 42
3.1 Sigmund Freud 43
3.1.1 Sigmund FreudÊs Psychoanalysis 44
3.1.2 The Psychosexual Stages of Development 48
3.1.3 Major Neo-Freudian Thinkers 50
3.1.4 Neo-Freudian Disagreements with Freud 53
3.2 Darwinism 54
3.2.1 Early Darwinian Psychology 56
3.2.2 What is Natural Selection? 57
3.2.3 The Origin of the Species 57
3.2.4 What Did Darwin Find from His Beagle Voyage? 57
3.2.5 The Controversial Issue of DarwinÊs Theory 58
3.2.6 What is Evolution? 58
3.3 William James – Pragmatism 60
3.4 Paradigm of Functionalism 64
3.4.1 The Basic Idea of Functionalism 64
3.4.2 The Major Themes that Characterised Functionalistic
Psychology 65
3.5 John Dewey 66
3.5.1 John DeweyÊs Theory on Education 68
3.5.2 John DeweyÊs Theory on Democracy 69
3.5.3 John DeweyÊs Theory on Functional Psychology 69
3.5.4 John DeweyÊs Theory on Pragmatism 69
3.5.5 John DeweyÊs Theory on Epistemology 70
Summary 70
Key Terms 71
Self-Test 1 71
Self-Test 2 72
References 72
Topic 4 From Consciousness to Behaviour 74

4.1 Functional Psychology 75
4.1.1 Experimental Functional Psychology 76
4.1.2 The Structural Psychology of Conscious Experience 80
4.1.3 The Chicago School of Functional Psychology 81
4.1.4 European Functionalists 81
4.1.5 Criticism of Functionalism 83
4.1.6 Summary of Functional Psychology 86

TABLE OF CONTENTS  v
4.2 New Directions in Animal Psychology 88

4.3 Radical Empiricism 92
4.3.1 The Postulate 93
4.3.2 Context and Importance 94
Summary 95
Key Terms 96
Self-Test 1 96
Self-Test 2 96
References 97
Topic 5 Behaviourism 99
5.1 Introduction to Behaviourism 99
5.1.1 What is Behaviourism? 100
5.1.2 History of Behaviourism 100
5.2 Foundations of Behaviourism 103
5.2.1 Watsonian Behaviourism 103
5.2.2 Watsonian Behaviourism: Systematic Criteria 104
5.2.3 Methodological Behaviourism 105
5.2.4 WatsonÊs Views and Concepts 106
5.3 Psychology and Science of Behaviour 111
Summary 113
Key Terms 114
Self-Test 1 114
Self-Test 2 114
References 114
Topic 6 Psychologists in Social Controversy 115

6.1 Intelligence Testing 116
6.1.1 Various Types of Intelligence Tests 118
6.1.2 Other Types of Intelligence Testing 122
6.1.3 Limitations of Intelligence Tests 123
6.1.4 Value of Intelligence Tests 124
6.2 Psychology and Everyday Life – Work, Family and Youth 125
6.2.1 Practical Ways to Apply Psychology in Everyday Life 126
Summary 130
Key Terms 130
Self-Test 1 131
Self-Test 2 131
References 131

vi  TABLE OF CONTENTS
Topic 7 Theories of Learning 132

7.1 Analysis of Behaviour 132
7.1.1 Tools in Behavioural Research 137
7.1.2 Radical Behaviourism 141
7.1.3 Verbal Behaviour 142
7.2 Thinking 144
7.2.1 Concepts 145
7.2.2 Problem Solving 146
7.2.3 Decision Making 147
7.2.4 Creative Thinking 148
7.3 Artificial Intelligence 148
7.4 Overview of Gestalt Psychology 149
7.4.1 Historical Background of Gestalt Psychology 149
7.4.2 Antecedents of Gestalt Psychology 150
7.4.3 Founding of Gestalt Psychology 150
7.4.4 Phi Phenomenon of Gestalt Psychology 152
7.4.5 Perceptual Organisation of Gestalt Psychology 152
7.4.6 Gestalt Studies of Learning 153
7.4.7 Epistemology of Gestalt Psychology 153
Summary 154
Key Terms 154
Self-Test 1 155
Self-Test 2 155
References 155
Topic 8 Challenges to Behaviourism 156

8.1 Humanistic Psychology: The Third Force 158
8.1.1 What is Humanistic Psychology? 159
8.2 Cartesian Linguistics 162
8.3 Erosion of the Foundations 164
Summary 167
Key Terms 168
Self-Test 1 168
Self-Test 2 168
References 168
Topic 9 Revolutions in Psychology 171

9.1 The New Structuralism 173
9.1.1 History of Structuralism 174
9.1.2 Structuralism in Linguistics 175
9.1.3 Reactions to Structuralism 176
9.2 The New Mentalism 177
9.2.1 The Phenomenon of Change 178

TABLE OF CONTENTS  vii
9.2.2 Obstacles to Acceptance of Mentalism 179

9.2.3 Mentalism and the Paranormal 179
9.2.4 Areas of Emphasis 180
9.3 Man Information Processing 183
9.3.1 The Information Processing Theory 185
9.3.2 Structure of the Information Processing System 185
9.4 Professional Psychology 189
9.4.1 Psychological Research 191
9.4.2 Psychological Practice 192
9.4.3 Psychology in the Community 195
Summary 196
Key Terms 196
Self-Test 1 197
Self-Test 2 197
References 197
Topic 10 Contemporary Psychology and the Rise of Cross-cultural

Psychology 200
10.1 Contemporary Psychology 201
10.2 Cognitive Science 202
10.2.1 Levels of Analysis in Cognitive Science 202
10.2.2 Interdisciplinary Nature of Cognitive Science 203
10.2.3 Areas of Study in Cognitive Science 204
10.3 Challenges to Psychology as a Science 205
10.3.1 Is Psychology a Science? 205
10.3.2 Present Day Human Psychology 208
10.4 Cross-cultural Psychology 210
10.4.1 Methodology in Cross-cultural Psychology 211
10.4.2 Culture within the Tradition of Cross-cultural
Psychology 213
10.4.3 Psychologist Strategies to Deal with Inter-group
Differences 214
Summary 218
Key Terms 219
Self-Test 1 219
Self-Test 2 219
References 219

xxvi X COURSE ASSIGNMENT GUIDE

COURSE GUIDE

COURSE GUIDE  xi
COURSE GUIDE DESCRIPTION

You must read this Course Guide carefully from the beginning to the end. It tells
you briefly what the course is about and how you can work your way through
the course material. It also suggests the amount of time you are likely to spend in
order to complete the course successfully. Please keep on referring to the Course
Guide as you go through the course material as it will help you to clarify
important study components or points that you might miss or overlook.
INTRODUCTION
ABPG1203 History and Philosophy of Psychology is one of the courses offered
by the Faculty of Applied Social Sciences at Open University Malaysia (OUM).
This course is worth 3 credit hours and should be covered over 8 to 15 weeks.
COURSE AUDIENCE
This course is offered to all learners taking the Bachelor of Psychology with
Honours programme.
The course is intended to introduce the history and philosophy of psychology.

The history of the Greek, the development of psychology from the Roman
Empire to the Middle Ages and the rise of modern science are discussed. It also
covers structuralism, functionalism, psychoanalysis, behaviourism and
humanistic psychology. The recent development in cognitive and neurocognitive
science will also be discussed.
As an open and distance learner, you should be acquainted with learning

independently and being able to optimise the learning modes and environment
available to you. Before you begin this course, please confirm the course material,
the course requirements and how the course is going to be conducted.
STUDY SCHEDULE
It is a standard OUM practice that learners accumulate 40 study hours for every
credit hour. As such, for a three-credit hour course, you are expected to spend
120 study hours. Table 1 gives an estimation of how the 120 study hours could be
accumulated.

xii  COURSE GUIDE
Table 1: Estimation of Time Accumulation of Study Hours
Study
Study Activities
Hours
Briefly go through the course content and participate in initial discussions 3
Study the module 60
Attend 3 to 5 tutorial sessions 10
Online Participation 12
Revision 15
Assignment(s), Test(s) and Examination(s) 20
TOTAL STUDY HOURS ACCUMULATED 120
COURSE OUTCOMES
By the end of this course, you should be able to:
1." Describe the history of psychology;
2." Evaluate the major theoretical systems of psychology;
3." Discuss the philosophical issues in psychology;
4." Describe the major methodologies in psychology; and
5." Evaluate the need for cross-cultural psychology/indigenous psychology.

COURSE GUIDE  xiii
COURSE SYNOPSIS
This course is divided into 10 topics. The synopsis for each topic can be listed as
follows:
Topic 1 gives an introduction of understanding psychology as a science and also

relates the history and philosophy of psychology.
Topic 2 discusses Wilhelm Wundt's psychology, Edward B. Titchener's

structuralism and the challenges to analytic psychology of consciousness as
expounded by Franz Brentano.
Topic 3 examines Freud's psychoanalysis, Darwinism, William James

pragmatism and John Dewey's theories.
Topic 4 explains functional psychology, new directions in animal psychology and

radical empiricism.
Topic 5 explains the definitions, foundations, psychology and science of

behaviour.
Topic 6 describes intelligence testing, psychology in everyday life and work.
Topic 7 examines experimental analysis of behaviour, thinking, artificial

intelligence and gives an overview of Gestalt psychology.
Topic 8 discusses humanistic psychology which includes a discussion on

Cartesian linguistics and the erosion of the foundations.
Topic 9 discusses the new structuralism, the new mentalism, and analyses the
concept of professional psychology.
Topic 10 explains contemporary psychology, cognitive science, challenges to

psychology as a science, professional controversies and cross-cultural
psychology.
TEXT ARRANGEMENT GUIDE

Before you go through this module, it is important that you note the text
arrangement. Understanding the text arrangement will help you to organise your
study of this course in a more objective and effective way. Generally, the text
arrangement for each topic is as follows:

xiv  COURSE GUIDE
Learning Outcomes: This section refers to what you should achieve after you
have completely covered a topic. As you go through each topic, you should
frequently refer to these learning outcomes. By doing this, you can continuously
gauge your understanding of the topic.
Self-Check: This component of the module is inserted at strategic locations

throughout the module. It may be inserted after one sub-section or a few sub-
sections. It usually comes in the form of a question. When you come across this
component, try to reflect on what you have already learnt thus far. By attempting
to answer the question, you should be able to gauge how well you have
understood the sub-section(s). Most of the time, the answers to the questions can
be found directly from the module itself.
Activity: Like Self-Check, the Activity component is also placed at various

locations or junctures throughout the module. This component may require you to
solve questions, explore short case studies, or conduct an observation or research.
It may even require you to evaluate a given scenario. When you come across an
Activity, you should try to reflect on what you have gathered from the module and
apply it to real situations. You should, at the same time, engage yourself in higher
order thinking where you might be required to analyse, synthesise and evaluate
instead of only having to recall and define.
Summary: You will find this component at the end of each topic. This component
helps you to recap the whole topic. By going through the summary, you should
be able to gauge your knowledge retention level. Should you find points in the
summary that you do not fully understand, it would be a good idea for you to
revisit the details in the module.
Key Terms: This component can be found at the end of each topic. You should go
through this component to remind yourself of important terms or jargon used
throughout the module. Should you find terms here that you are not able to
explain, you should look for the terms in the module.
References: The References section is where a list of relevant and useful

textbooks, journals, articles, electronic contents or sources can be found. The list
can appear in a few locations such as in the Course Guide (at the References
section), at the end of every topic or at the back of the module. You are
encouraged to read or refer to the suggested sources to obtain the additional
information needed and to enhance your overall understanding of the course.

COURSE GUIDE  xv
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
Learners are not required to take any pre-requisite course prior to this.
ASSESSMENT METHOD
Please refer to myINSPIRE.
REFERENCES
Brennan, J. F. (1998). History and systems of psychology. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall.
Fancher, R. E., & Yahaya, M. (1994). Perintis psikologi. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia:
Dewan Bahasa Pustaka
Leahey, T. H. (1991). A history of modern psychology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall.
Smith, N. W. (2001). Current systems in psychology: History, theory, research,
and applications. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
TAN SRI DR ABDULLAH SANUSI (TSDAS) DIGITAL

LIBRARY
The TSDAS Digital Library has a wide range of print and online resources for the
use of its learners. This comprehensive digital library, which is accessible
through the OUM portal, provides access to more than 30 online databases
comprising e-journals, e-theses, e-books and more. Examples of databases
available are EBSCOhost, ProQuest, SpringerLink, Books24x7, InfoSci Books,
Emerald Management Plus and Ebrary Electronic Books. As an OUM learner,
you are encouraged to make full use of the resources available through this
library.

xxvi X COURSE ASSIGNMENT GUIDE

Topic  Historical
1 Background
of Psychology
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1. Explain the nature and various fields of psychology;
2. Discuss psychology as a scientific method and a science;
3. Explain the relationship between philosophy and psychology; and
4. Explain the historical background of psychology including pre-
scientific and scientific eras.
 INTRODUCTION
Perhaps the most fascinating and mysterious universe of all is the one within
us.
Psychology is a quest, involving a curiosity to know and comprehend our own

selves and others. It includes the various aspects of the environment around us.
What is psychology? This is a perennial question. It can be simply put as the
„what,‰ „why‰ and „how‰ of the behaviour of human beings. To understand
what psychology is all about, one needs to know its history, that is, one needs to
begin from the start. Each development has contributed to the current discipline
of psychology.
In academic terms, psychology is the „study of the mind and behaviour‰. The
discipline „embraces all aspects of the human experience – from the functions of
the brain to the actions of nations, from child development to care for the aged‰.
In every conceivable setting from scientific research centres to mental healthcare
services, „the understanding of behaviour‰ is the enterprise of psychologists
(American Psychological Association, 2015).

2  TOPIC 1 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF PSYCHOLOGY
1.1 UNDERSTANDING PSYCHOLOGY

As a science, psychology uses systematic methods to observe, describe, predict,
and explain human behaviour and mental processes. These scientific methods are
not casual. Researchers carefully and precisely plan and conduct their studies
and try to observe the results without influencing them in any way.
Psychologists also try to obtain results that describe the behaviour of different
people. For instance, researchers might construct a questionnaire on sexual
attitudes and give it to 500 individuals.
In the process, psychologists spend a considerable amount of time devising the

questions and determining the backgrounds of the people chosen to participate
in surveys. Psychologists might try to predict the sexual activity of college
students based on sexual attitudes. After the psychologists have analysed the
data, they will also want to explain why any change in behaviour occurred. This
is because psychologists use the same method that physicists, biologists and
scientists use.
Definition of Psychology
The first attempt to define psychology was made on the basis of its
terminological derivation. The word „psychology‰ comes from the Greek words
„psyche‰ which means the soul and „logos‰ which means to study or know
about. Thus, psychology was defined as the study of the soul.
Psychology can be defined as a „scientific discipline‰. Psychology can also be

defined as the „scientific study of behaviour and mental processes‰. It comprises
of three key terms: science, behaviour and mental processes.
The term „behaviour‰ refers to actions and responses that we can directly
observe; it is everything we do that can be observed directly. Since behaviour is
so complex, the scientific study poses many special challenges.
The term „mental processes‰ refer to internal states and processes such as
thoughts and feelings that cannot be seen directly and that must be inferred from
observable, measurable responses. Although our thoughts, feelings, motives,
memory and our private experiences are not visible and observed directly, they
are very real. All of these form part of our mental processes and the mind.

TOPIC 1 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF PSYCHOLOGY  3
SELF-CHECK 1.1
Explain the meaning of psychology in your own words.
1.2 UNDERSTANDING PSYCHOLOGY AS A

SCIENCE
„What is science?‰ and „Is psychology a science?‰ are two questions that have
dominated the consciousness of psychologists. Science refers to a systematic and
bias-free method of studying any phenomena. It is the method that characterises
science. In psychological studies, the method used to understand behaviours and
mental processes is the same scientific method, therefore psychology is a science.
One of the hallmarks of taking the scientific approach involves adopting the
scientific method. The scientific method is essentially a four step process:
(a)" Conceptualising a problem;
(b)" Collecting research information or data collection;
(c)" Analysing the data; and
(d)" Drawing conclusions or making inferences.
Two key concepts especially in conceptualising a problem are theory and

hypothesis. A hypothesis is an idea that is arrived at logically from a theory. It is
a prediction that can be tested. A „theory‰ is a broad idea or a set of closely
related ideas that attempt to explain certain observations. Theories try to explain
why certain things have happened. They can also be used to make predictions
about future observations.
Theories organise and connect observations and research. The overall meaning of
the large amounts of research studies being conducted in psychology would be
difficult to grasp if theories did not provide a structure for summarising and
understanding them and putting them in a context with other research studies.
Essentially, then, the scientific method is a process of developing and testing

theories. Scientists do not regard theories as being exactly, entirely and
permanently correct. A theory is judged by its ability to generate hypotheses that
predict important events and behaviours. Depending on how well the theory
predicts, it gains or loses its importance. Theories that have been proven are
laws.

Science involves two types of research as follows:

(a)" Basic Research
It reflects the quest for knowledge purely for its own sake. For
psychologists, most basic research examines how and why people behave,
think and feel the way they do.
(b)" Applied Research
It is designed to solve specific, practical problems. In applied research,
psychologists often use basic scientific knowledge to design, implement
and assess intervention programmes.
As a science, psychology has five central goals:

(a)" To describe how people and other species behave;
(b)" To understand the causes of these behaviours;
(c)" To predict how people and animals will behave under certain conditions;
(d)" To influence behaviour through the control of its causes; and
(e)" To apply psychological knowledge in ways that enhances human welfare.
SELF-CHECK 1.2
Explain the role of theory and hypothesis in the scientific method.
1.2.1 Scientific Methods in Psychology

Psychology uses scientific methods in its study. It is based upon generalisations
drawn on the basis of factual data analysed and compared. It is distinguished
from philosophy on the basis of its methods. The conclusions of psychology are
veridical. Scientific method requires a lot of creative imagination, objectivity,
patience and hard labour. It requires a scientific attitude or the spirit of study.
Figure 1.1 shows the five central steps in psychological research.

Figure 1.1: Five central steps in psychological research
The following are the descriptions of the five main steps involved in a scientific
method.
(a)" Observation
The first step in a scientific method is to observe the object of study closely
and carefully. This observation requires the various types of apparatus and
instruments used to be correct and exact.
Basically, there are three requirements which are as shown in Figure 1.2:
Figure 1.2: Three requirements in scientific observation
(b)" Recording
Another step in the scientific method is the recording of whatever is
observed. This requires detached objectivity.
(c)" Classification
After the data are gathered, the scientist classifies according to facts. As
Karl Pearson writes, „The classification of facts, the recognition of their
sequence and relative significance is the function of the science„. The
classification is done in such a way that a certain relation and pattern may
be observed in the scattered data.
(d)" Generalisation
It means that if scientific laws are discovered in the classified data and hold
true for the larger population, they may be generalised.
(e)" Verification
The last step is verification of the laws that have been discovered. Scientific
facts are veridical. They can be verified by anyone under suitable conditions.
1.2.2 Principles of Psychology

Does psychology adhere to scientific principles? Can psychology be considered a
science? Psychology studies the facts of behaviour. The psychologist is detached
and objective in his or her observations and experiments.
Behaviour includes anything a person or animal does that can be observed in

some way. Behaviour, unlike the mind, thoughts or feelings can be observed,
recorded and studied. No one can see or hear a mind, but we can see and hear
behaviour. We can see and measure what a person does and hear and record
what a person says (this is vocal behaviour).
From what is done and said, psychologists can and do make inferences about the
feelings, attitudes, thoughts and other mental processes which may be behind the
behaviour. In this way, internal mental events can be studied as they manifest
themselves through what people do – their behaviour. Thus, it is through
behaviour that we can actually study and come to understand internal processes
that would otherwise be hidden from us. When we define psychology as „science
of behaviour‰, we are not excluding the mind; we are saying that what a person
does – his or her behaviour – is the avenue through which internal mental events
can be studied. This proves that psychology is a science.
The following are some of the descriptions of psychology.
(a)" The Laws of Psychology are Universal

The laws of psychology have been found to be correct in every time and
place, under the same conditions. The general principles of human
psychology are universal. For example, the psychological fact that human
beings and animals are emotionally disturbed by any obstacle in the
satisfaction of their impulse is applicable everywhere.
(b)" The Laws of Psychology are Veridical

Through the process of verification and re-verification, psychological
principles have been found to be true everywhere.

(c)" Psychology Discovers the Cause and Effect Relationship in Human

Behaviour
Psychology not only observes behaviour, but also finds out cause and effect
relationships in it. For example, psychology has discovered why and in
what circumstances a child becomes a delinquent.
The scope of modern psychology stretches from the borders of medicine and the
biological sciences to those of the social sciences. Because we are biological
creatures living in a complex social world, psychologists study an amazing array of
factors to understand why people behave, think and feel as they do. Psychology is
also intricately related to many disciplines as shown in the Table 1.1.
Table 1.1: Psychology as a Scientific Hub
Scientific Field Description

Biology Study of life processes and biological structures
Medicine Study of health and the causes and treatment of diseases
Computer Science Study of information processing and manipulations of data
Sociology Study of human social and relations and systems
Anthropology Study of cultural origins, evolutions and variations
1.3 PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology used to be a part of philosophy, until psychology cut itself loose from
philosophy both institutionally and professionally (Wilson, 2005).
There are three main elements in the philosophy of psychology as follows
(Wilson, 2005):
(a)" Intentionality: Information about the world and how it is used to guide the
behaviour in that world;
(b)" Cognitive architecture: Concept of cognitive processing as a form of
computation; and
(c)" Consciousness: Refers to awareness.

1.3.1 What is Philosophy?

A philosophy is a comprehensive system of ideas about human nature and the
nature of the reality we live in. It is a guide for living, because the issues it
addresses are basic and pervasive, determining the course we take in life and
how we treat other people.
The topics that philosophy addresses fall into several distinct fields. Among
those of fundamental concern are as follows:
(a)" Metaphysics
This is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality,
including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and
attribute, fact and value.
(b)" Epistemology
This is the branch of philosophy that examines the extent of human
knowledge and the nature of the knowledge. Epistemologists concern
themselves with the study of knowledge (Truncellito, n.d.).
1.3.2 What is Epistemological Philosophy of

Psychology?
Epistemology refers to assumptions about knowledge and ways to obtain
knowledge. Epistemology tries to answer the following basic questions:
(a)" What differentiates knowledge? Some knowledge can be differentiated in
terms of self-knowledge, rationalism and empiricism.
(b)" Which knowledge is true (justified)? Some knowledge is known as justified
true belief. In order for that to happen, information gained through logical
reasoning must contain the truth, the belief and the justification.
(c)" Which knowledge is false (unjustified)? Some knowledge which does not
contain adequate information is known as false or unjustified (Engel, n. d.).
1.3.3 Why Study the History and Philosophy of

Psychology?
Psychology tells us that the complex behaviour of human beings is mediated by
seemingly unobservable mental states playing a role in seemingly hidden mental
processes.

What gives contemporary psychologists confidence in this account? The

following are some examples:
(a) Are mental processes „just‰ chemical processes?
(b) If they are, is psychology a kind of crude biochemistry? Or is it a really
sophisticated biochemistry?
(c) Will psychology ultimately be replaced by neuroscience?
1.3.4 What are the Major Philosophical Issues in

Psychology?
The following are the three major philosophical issues in psychology:
(a)" Free Will versus Determinism

Some psychologists assume the philosophy of determinism (where
everything that happens has its cause or determinant in the external world).
The opposite view is indeterminism (the idea that events happen randomly,
with no cause at all).
In actual situations, indeterminism refers to those who believe in free will.

In other words, free will involves psychologists who believe our behaviour
is caused by our independent decisions and not by external determinants.
(b)" The Mind-Brain Problem

The „philosophical question of how our experience relates to our brain‰ is
the mind-brain problem. Psychologists by research have demonstrated
strong relationships between our brain activities with our psychological
events or behaviours or experiences.
But, whether our brain activities cause our associated thoughts or vice-
versa is still actively in debate. However, many psychologists consider our
thoughts and our brain activity as one in one.
(c)" The Nature-Nurture Issue

This is the very basic question in psychology „What are the roles of
heredity and environment in the development of various behaviours?‰
Heredity („nature‰) refers to the genetic transmission of physical and

psychological characteristics from parents to their children. Environment
(„nurture‰) refers to the sum of all external conditions affecting
development, especially the effects of learning.

Scientist still engage in this fundamental argument, that is, which one is most
important, our heredity or our environment especially in terms of learning.
1.4 UNDERSTANDING THE HISTORY OF

PSYCHOLOGY
It can be said that psychology has a long past but a short history. It has a long past
because the roots of psychology lie in our curiosity to understand ourselves and
understand our fellowmen. But psychology has a short history because it emerged
as an organised body of scientific inquiry only in the last hundred odd years.
Since man existed, he sought to explain, find the cause, understand and predict
natural events and his behaviour. Various people at different times sought to
explain the causes of human behaviour and so there are diverse and divergent
systems and views. History of psychology can be divided into the pre-scientific
phase and the scientific phase.
1.4.1 Pre-scientific Era

In prehistoric times, guidance and knowledge was passed from generation to
generation in an oral tradition. For instance, the domestication of maize for
agriculture has been dated to about 9,000 years ago in southern Mexico, before the
development of writing systems. Philosophical concern in the mind and behaviour
dates back to the prehistoric civilisations of Egypt, Greece, China and India.
Predating Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung by nearly 1000 years, psychotherapy was
performed by Islamic individuals on those with mental illness in psychiatric
hospitals built as early as the 8th century in Fez, Morocco.
„Psychology more than any other science has had its pseudo-scientific period no
less than its scientific period‰ (Baldwin, 1913). The occultisms, spiritisms,
mysticisms, psychic magic, pseudo-religious „isms‰ of all times, earliest and
modern, and of all races, oriental and occidental, have claimed the right to name
themselves psychological. Each makes pretence to a specific way of thinking of or
interpreting the mind, soul and spirit – whatever the spiritual principle is known
for. Each reflects how a period – a succession of men – has understood and
endeavoured to elucidate its own mental being and activity. „This is the sort of
thing we souls are,‰ say uniformly the sorcerers, the ghost-seers, the spiritual
prophets and the speculative thinkers.
„We are animated bodies‰, „we are warm air‰, „we are astral presences‰, „we are
indivisible atoms‰, „we are ghosts in migration‰, „we are the seeds of things‰,
„we are fallen gods‰, „we are pure spirit‰ – all these and many more are kinds of

psychosophic opinions which have at one time or another gained currency and
played their role in practical and social life. They are only by indulgence
permitted to be called science.
We will now discuss the history of the pre-scientific era in detail in the following
paragraphs:
(a) Ancient Roots

The initial explanations started with attributing causes in terms of
supernatural things and magical powers to natural events and thus,
emerged the concepts of good and evil and various mythologies. The
concept of the soul as distinct from the body was a product of this line of
thinking. Through the ages, the mind-body-soul has been the major
intellectual dilemma for thinkers and has led to the birth of psychology as a
separate discipline.
(b) The Greek Roots

Ancient Greeks started to use reason, speculation and logic in
understanding natural events. This was the foundation of Western
philosophical thinking. Aristotle propounded the empiricist view which
stated that anything complex must be understood by reducing it to its
elements. In psychology, this idea of elementalism took the form of
analysing the mind by reducing it to sensations and associations.
Plato derived another view from Aristotle's empiricism called rationalism. This
view emphasised reasoning as the form of understanding phenomena. For
him, knowledge is derived from reason which is as valid as the reason itself.
(c) Philosophical Roots – The Early Greek Philosophers

The following points provide information about early Greek philosophers:
(i)" Socrates (470 to 399 BC)
Socrates was a classical Greek philosopher from Athens. His
philosophy is stated as, „One thing only I know, and that is I know
nothing.‰ According to Socrates, philosophy begins when one learns
to doubt (especially oneÊs cherished beliefs).
He took the injunction, „Know Thyself‰ which described that there is

no real philosophy until the mind begins to examine itself. The
Socratic Method is a series of questions and answers which are meant
to analyse, test or define particular concepts. Socrates asked what it is
that makes something beautiful, just, or truthful. What Socrates
sought was the essence of something as its basic nature. He died at the
age of 71 from hemlock poisoning.
(ii)" Plato (427 to 347 BC)

He was a Greek philosopher and scholar who formed the first
university „academy‰. Plato's best known concept is the Theory of
Forms. According to this theory, everything in the empirical world is
a manifestation of a pure form (idea) that exists abstractly.
Plato replaced the essence that Socrates sought with the concept of
form as the aspects of reality that was permanent and therefore
knowable. He believed knowledge existed in two worlds, which are,
„World of Phenomena‰ and „World of Forms‰. He also established a
form of thought that is now referred to as „Moral Psychology‰. He
died in 347 BC.
(iii)" Aristotle (384 to 322 BC)
He was a Greek philosopher who was the founder of formal logic. He
disagreed that knowledge relied on reasoning not sensory experience.
According to him, knowledge should be based on observations of the
external world.
According to Aristotle, there are three types of souls, and a living

thingÊs potential (purpose) is determined by what type of a soul it
possesses. The three categories of living things are as follows:
" A nutritive soul is possessed by plants. It allows only growth, the

assimilation of food and reproduction;
" A sensitive soul is possessed by animals but not plants; and
" A rational soul is possessed only by humans. It provides all the

functions of the other two souls but also allows thinking or
rational thought.
(d) The Influence of Islam in the Middle Ages

The following are the two main philosophers from the Islamic civilisation:
(i)" Avicenna (980 to 1637)
Avicenna was a Persian philosopher and physician, one of the main
interpreters of Aristotle to the Islamic world. His actual name was Ibn
Sina and he was a child prodigy who had memorised the Koran by
the age of 10. He became a physician before he was 20, and as a young
adult was considered the best of the Muslim physicians.
He was the author of Al-Qanun-fi-al-Tibb (The Canon of Medicine).

His best-known books include the million-word, systematic synthesis
of the medical and pharmacological knowledge. According to
Avicenna, psychology is human intellect at birth and rather like a

tabula rasa, a pure potentiality that is actualised through education.
(ii)" Averroes (1126 to 1198)

Averroes is the Latinised form of his real name, Ibn Rushd. According
to him, all human experiences reflect GodÊs influence. Averroes said
that only the active intellect is the same for everyone, nothing
personal services death. He made a number of impressive scientific
contributions.
(e) The Beginning of Modern Science and Philosophy in Psychology

The following are two theories in the beginning of modern science and
philosophy:
(i) Interactionism
Rene Descartes (1596-1650) is considered by many to be the father of
modern science. He did not believe in dualism in understanding
human mind-body relationship. Interactionism is a theory in the
philosophy of the mind which holds that, body and mind are distinct
and independent, that they exert causal effects on one another.
(ii) Empiricism
John Locke (1632-1704) was the first to define the self through a
continuity of consciousness. He postulated that the mind was a blank
slate or tabula rasa. Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts
that knowledge arises from sense of experience. Knowledge is the
truth that can be proven through observation and experiments based
on events and data.
When did the scientific era of psychology begin? Psychology was a branch of
philosophy until 1879, when psychology developed as an independent scientific
discipline after Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) founded the first laboratory
dedicated exclusively to psychological research in Leipzig, Germany.
The following are the major schools of thought in psychology:

(a) Structuralism;
(b) Darwinism;
(c) Functionalism;
(d) Gestalt psychology;
(e) Psychoanalysis;
(f) Behaviourism;

(g) Humanistic Psychology; and

(h) Cognitivism.
1.4.2 Scientific Era

Psychology as a self-conscious area of experimental study began in 1879, when
Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory dedicated entirely to psychological
research in Leipzig. Other important early contributors to the area comprise
Hermann Ebbinghaus (a pioneer in the study of memory), William James (the
American father of pragmatism), and Ivan Pavlov (who developed the
procedures associated with classical conditioning).
It is true that modern psychology, the science proper of psychology, provides us

only a further interpretation. But it is based upon sounder data, attained by safer
methods and established by broader induction and experimentation. Still, taken
as a whole it sums up what we think and think we have a right to think about the
soul or self. The knowledge of science takes the position of the guessing,
conjecture, superstition and speculation of the pre-scientific opinions; but still,
like these positions, it is an interpretation of the mind; a statement of what the
human beingÊs mind understands itself to be.
Biological Roots of the Scientific Era of Psychology

Johannes Muller and Claude Bernard laid the foundations of physiological
psychology. Furthermore Marshall Hall, Pierre Flourens and Paul Broca studied
brain functions. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution stating the commonality
between species paved the way for psychologists to conduct experiments using
rats, cats, dogs, monkeys, guinea pigs and make generalisations about human
behaviour. It laid the foundation for comparative psychology.
Herman Helmholtz's experiments on the conduction of nerve impulses

contributed to the birth of experimental psychology and psychophysics. WH
Weber and GT Fechner evolved the method of psychophysics. Sir Francis
Galton's book on heredity and individual differences led to the founding of
psychometrics and testing of intellectual mental abilities and intelligence testing.
All these roots have greatly influenced psychology and helped establish
psychology as a discipline and gave birth to the various schools of psychology.
Each of these schools sought to explain behaviour in diverse ways and have
contributed to the development of psychology as a science.

Schools of Thought in Psychology

The following are the main schools of thought in psychology:
(a) Structuralism
This school originated when Wilhelm Wundt set up the first psychological
laboratory in 1879 at the University of Leipzig being dissatisfied with the
philosophical approach to the study of the mind. He felt that psychology
should acquire an independent status and mental processes should be
studied objectively. Wundt and his colleague Edward Titchener were
interested in studying consciousness and identifying its basic elements.
Structuralists were concerned with discovering the „structure‰ or

„anatomy‰ of conscious processes. The subject matter of structuralists was
„consciousness‰ and in some respects, they paralleled those of the many
British philosophers in interest; but they differed greatly in the method they
employed to investigate their interests. The structuralists employed the
experimental method while the philosophers employed the traditional
methods of philosophy  logic and deduction.
The major method employed by the structuralists was introspection. A

subject was instructed to report as objectively as possible his conscious
experiences during the process of perceiving and judging stimuli in their
laboratory. Introspection means literally to „look within‰. The structuralists
concluded after their numerous experiments that all conscious processes
consisted of basically three elements  sensations, images and feelings.
(b) Functionalism
Functionalism can be defined as „a philosophy of the mind according to
which mental states are defined by their causes and effects‰. As interest in
psychology grew, many were not satisfied with structuralism and felt
compelled to initiate new systems and explanations. This was founded by a
group of psychologists in Chicago University – John Dewey, James Angel,
Harvey Carr, Cattell and others.
The subject matter of functionalism was thought of as the „fundamental

utilities of consciousness‰. They were interested in the functional processes
of the mind and not just in its structures. They did not restrict their method
to just introspection but added observation and experimentation to their
methods of data collection. They emphasised both subjective and objective
methods.

(c) Associationism
Associationism can be defined as „a theory that states that association is the
basic principle of mental activity‰. Associationism refers to the idea that
mental processes operate by the association of one state with its successor
states.
David Hartley is the pioneer associationistic thinker. Modern associationists

include Ebbinghaus, Pavlov, Bectrev and Thorndike. They laid emphasis on
the association of either stimulus with stimulus (S-S association) or
stimulus and response (S-R association) as the fundamental principle of
learning.
(d) Behaviourism
The term „behaviourism‰ refers to the school of psychology founded by
John B. Watson. The thought for the initiation was based on the belief that
behaviours can be measured, trained and changed. Behaviourism was
established with the publication of Watson's classic paper Psychology as the
behaviourist views it (Watson, 1913). This school of psychology regarded
the objective observation of the behaviour of organisms as the only proper
subject for study. It refused to postulate any intervening mechanisms
between the stimulus and the response.
The school emerged against structuralism. John Watson was the father of
behaviourism. He was a trained functionalist but he became dissatisfied
with functionalism. Watson did not believe that consciousness could be
studied scientifically since one had to rely on subjective reports of
individuals trained in introspection. The proper subject matter for
psychology he maintained was behaviour and only behaviour. The
behaviourists emphasised that behaviour was learned and they rejected the
idea of instincts. They stated that the environment shapes the individual.
Watson's ideas were reinforced by Pavlov's experiments.
(e) Gestalt Psychology

This was another school of thought that was initiated by Max Wertheimer,
K. Koffka, W. Kohler and K. Lewin. „Gestalt‰ is a German term that refers
to „form‰, „organisation‰ or „configuration‰. The main thrust of the
Gestalts was the pattern of behaviour and experience. This pattern they said
was an „organised whole‰ and not just the sum total of their parts or
elements. They opposed atomism rigorously. They studied perception,
learning, thinking, memory and other cognitive processes. Their influence
has permeated virtually every aspect of modern psychology.

The Gestalt school of psychology interprets phenomena as organised

wholes rather than as aggregates of distinct parts, maintaining that the
whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The term „Gestalt‰ was coined by
the philosopher Christian von Ehrenfels in 1890, to denote experiences that
require more than the basic sensory capacities to comprehend.
In 1912, the movement was given impetus by German theorists Max

Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka as a protest against the
prevailing atomistic, analytical psychological thought. According to the
school, understanding of psychological phenomena such as perceptual
illusions could not be derived by merely isolating the elementary parts for
analysis, because human perception may organise sensory stimuli in any
number of ways, making the whole different from the sum of the parts.
(f) Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis was born in the twentieth century with the publication of
Interpretation of dreams in 1900 by Sigmund Freud (Freud, 1924).
Roughly contemporary with the beginnings of American behaviourist

psychology and Gestalt psychology was a third school of thought; dynamic
psychology. The name is taken from the school's concern with motivation
and the dynamics or functioning of personality. Founded by Sigmund
Freud, this school of thought revolutionised psychology.
Freud developed a system for diagnosing and treating mental disorders

based on his experiences and also attempted to explain personality. The
system he introduced is called psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis as a system
is used in three senses:
(i) It is an elaborate system of diagnosing and classifying mental
disorders.
(ii) It refers to the treatment method with emphasis on free association
technique.
(iii) It is also a theory of personality.
Psychoanalysis can be described as the following:

(i) A systematic structure of theories of personality concerning the
relation of conscious and unconscious psychological processes;
(ii) A therapy of neurosis inspired from the above method; and
(iii) A discipline based on the knowledge acquired from applying the
investigation method and clinical experiences.
Carl Jung and Alfred Adler were two of Freud's students who later
disagreed with Freud and established their distinct approaches of
„analytical psychology‰ and „individual psychology‰ respectively.
Freud's theory generated lot of controversies and diverse views and led to
many psychologists attempting to modify and bring flexibility in Freudian
theory. They constituted the Neo-Freudians like Karen Horney, Eric
Fromm, Eric Erikson and H.S. Sullivan.
(g) Humanistic Psychology

Humanistic psychology began as a reaction to psychoanalysis and
behaviourism in the 1950s. While psychoanalysis focused on understanding
the unconscious motivations that drove behaviour, behaviourism studied
the conditioning processes that produced behaviour. Humanist thinkers felt
that both psychoanalysis and behaviourism were too pessimistic and
incomplete, and failed to take the role of personal choice into account.
Humanistic psychology focused on each individual's potential and stressed

the importance of growth and self-actualisation (refer to Figure 1.3). The
fundamental belief of humanistic psychology was that people are innately
good, with mental and social problems resulting from deviations from this
natural tendency.
Figure 1.3: Humanistic psychology humour
In 1962, Abraham Maslow published Toward a psychology of being, in

which he described humanistic psychology as the „third force‰ in
psychology (Maslow, 1962). The first and second forces were behaviourism
and psychoanalysis respectively.

Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers and a few others emphasised the role of a
person as an integrated, unique and organised whole. To know a person as
a whole, one needs to collect information about the person's whole life
story. Self-realisation or actualisation is the basic and ultimate goal of an
individual's life. The nature of an individual is basically good and possesses
creative and positive potentialities.
All the discussed schools of thought in psychology have disappeared today

but they have greatly influenced psychology. Psychology of modern times
has taken a turn towards eclecticism by selecting the best from each school
and working in collaboration with other scientists from other disciplines as
given in Table 1.2.
Table 1.2: Summary of Subject Matter and Goal According to Classical Psychological
System
The Psychology
School of Subject Matter Goal
Thought
Pre-ancient Research on clinical Improvement in treatment cases.
period (1550 BC) depression
Greek period (500 Nature of knowledge Led to naturalistic observation, analysis
to 300 BC) and the essence of things and classification of natural phenomena
into meaningful descriptive categories,
formulation of hypotheses of cause and
effect on the basis of such analyses; and
value of quantitative methods (Euclid
and Pythagoras).
Islam period (981 Mental issues Huge improvement upon the treatment
to 1406 CE) of European ideas of demonic
possession and witchÊs curses.
Structuralism Elementary structures of Academic: goal to set psychology apart
(1880 to 1920) consciousness from philosophy; sensation, attention,
*Main idea: Introspection judgments and affective states.
(mental reduction)
Darwin Humans and animals Led to comparative psychology and
(1900 to 2000) have a lot in common researchers making inferences about
human behaviours such as learning,
memory, emotions and even social
interactions based on observations and
experiments with animals. Also led to
research on individual differences.
Functionalism Functions (mental Utilitarian: education, mental illness,
(1890 to1930) processes) developmental.
*Main idea: Evolutionary,
eclectic

Behaviourism Behaviour and emotional Goal to objectify psychology: animal

(1913-1930) expressions (overt or learning, conditioning.
operant)
Gestalt Phenomena as molar Reaction to structuralism and
(1912 to 1950) units behaviourism anti-reductionist
*Main idea: Inner perception theory.
perception
(phenomenological
analysis)
Psychoanalysis Unconscious, personality Demystification of mental illness:
(1885 to 1990s) *Main idea: Clinical Outline of normal and abnormal stages
anecdotal of personality, typologies.
Humanistic and Models and problems of Anti-behaviourist: Stressed the
existential existence intentional nature of human life, free
(1960 to 1991) *Main idea: Subjective will and self-actualisation.
analysis
Cognitive Information processing Stressed mental processes like
psychology (1950 approach perception, thinking, learning and
to 1970) memory, especially with respect to the
internal events occurring between
sensory stimulation and the overt
expression of behaviour.
Source: Ballantyne (2008)
SELF-CHECK 1.3
Explain in your own words, what makes psychology a science.
ACTIVITY 1.1
1. As soon as you finish reading subtopic 1.3, prepare a flow chart

explaining the history of psychology.
2. Think about the various schools of psychology and choose your
favourite school and the reason for choosing so.

" Psychology can be defined as the scientific study of behaviour and mental
processes.
" In psychological studies, the method used to understand behaviours and

mental processes is the same scientific method; therefore, psychology is a
science.
" The laws of psychology are universal and veridical.
" The scope of modern psychology stretches from the borders of medicine and
the biological sciences to those of the social sciences.
" It can be said that psychology has a long past but a short history. It has a long
past because the roots of psychology lie in our curiosity to understand
ourselves and understand our fellowmen. But psychology has a short history
because it emerged as an organised body of scientific inquiry only in the last
hundred odd years.
" History can be divided into the pre-scientific phase and the scientific phase,
wherein the pre-scientific era refers to ancient Greek philosophers and to the
period of Islam.
Behaviourism Psychoanalysis
Humanistic psychology Psychology
Pre-scientific era Scientific era

1." Explain the various schools of psychology.

2." Trace the history and evolution of psychology into a science.
3." „Psychology is the science of the mental activities of an organism‰. Discuss
the definition.
1." Discuss the nature of psychology.

2." What are the various fields of psychology?
3." Define psychology and explain the three terms contained in the definition.
4." Discuss the four attributes of the scientific method.
American Psychological Association (APA). (2015). Support center. Retrieved

from http://www.apa.org/support/about/apa/psychology.aspx#answer
Baldwin, J. M. (1913). History of psychology: A sketch and an interpretation.

New York, NY: G.P. PutnamÊs Sons.
Ballantyne, P. F. (2008). History and theory of psychology: An early 21st century

student's perspective. Retrieved from
http://www.cyberus.ca/~pballan/Engel, M. Jr. (n.d.). Epistemic luck.
Retrieved from www.iep.utm.edu/epi-luck
Freud, S. (1924). A short account of psychoanalysis. In Strachey, J. (Ed. & Trans.),

The standard edition of the works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 19, pp. 191-209).
London, England: Hogarth.
Maslow, A. H. (1962). Toward a psychology of being. Princeton, NJ: Brandeis

University.
Passer, M. W., & Smith, R. E. (2003). Psychology: The science of mind and
behaviour. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Truncellito, D. A. (n.d.). Epistemology. Retrieved from

http://www.iep.utm.edu/epistemo/
Watson, J. B. (1913). Psychology as the behaviorist views it. Psychological

Review, 20(2), 158-177.
Wilson, R. A. (2005). Philosophy of psychology. Retrieved from

http://www.ualberta.ca/~philosop/faculty/wilson/philofpsych.pdf

Topic  The Psychology
2 of Consciousness
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1." Discuss the psychology of Wilhelm Wundt;
2." Describe the historical background of structuralism;
3." Explain the theoretical orientation of Edward B. Titchener; and
4." Describe the theoretical tenets of Franz Brentano.
 INTRODUCTION
Consciousness means awareness. It has become a new approach in psychology.
The structural psychology of Wundt and Titchener had a threefold aim which are
to describe the components of consciousness in terms of basic elements; to
describe the combinations of basic elements; and to explain the connections of the
elements of consciousness to the nervous system. Consciousness was defined as
immediate experience, that is, experience as it is being experienced. Mediate
experience, in contrast, is flavoured by contents already in the mind such as
previous associations and the emotional and motivational states of a person. The
immediate experience was presumed to be unprejudiced by mediate experience.
The experimental method proposed to secure appropriate analysis of the mental
contents via introspection. In this topic, we are going to discuss psychology of
consciousness in detail.

TOPIC 2 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS  25
2.1 WILHELM WUNDT'S PSYCHOLOGY

Figure 2.1 shows some basic information about Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt.
Figure 2.1: Details about Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt

Source: Patel & Mehta (2014)
Wundt was born in the south-western German province of Baden and was the
son of a Lutheran pastor. During his childhood and adolescence, he was allowed
only a strict regimen of learning, with little or no time for play or idleness. This
upbringing produced a rather serious person, totally committed to intellectual
endeavours of a systematic kind. He studied physiology and finished his

26  TOPIC 2 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS
doctorate in medicine and joined Helmholtz in his laboratory. Between 1873 and
1874, Wundt published his works on the call for psychology as a new discipline.
2.1.1 Theoretical Orientation

The best way to understand WundtÊs work is by reading what he himself wrote
in his classic book The outlines of psychology. It is a systematic survey of the
fundamentally important results and doctrines of modern psychology. It makes
clear the rationale behind his views on psychology.
The impetus for Wundt's work on the Outlines came from the 1893 publication of
Oswald Külpe's Grundriss der Psychologie. Wundt's objective was not only to
offer students an introduction to psychology but to offer a counter text to that of
Külpe that would provide students with the „correct‰ idea of the nature and
scope of psychology. He made a clear distinction between psychology and
natural science, defining psychology in such a way as to preclude its reduction to
biology, divulging the full range of complex psychological phenomena beyond
sensation, arguing for a severe restriction of the role of experimentation in
psychology and recognising the theoretical importance of purely psychological
constructs.
In introducing the Outlines, Wundt turned first to the distinction between

psychology and natural science. There are „two directions for the treatment of
experience,‰ he wrote. One is that of the natural sciences, which concern
themselves with the objects of experience, thought of as independent of the
subject. The other is that of psychology, which investigates the whole content of
experience or consciousness in its relations to the subject and in its attributes
derived directly from the subject. Wundt defined psychology as the study of
experience or consciousness „in its relations to the subject‰. The point of
reference, in other words, was not the individual as a nervous system, but the
individual as an active apprehender (voluntarism) of the contents of experience.
Wundt stressed the independence of psychology from biology.
Wundt gave approximately equal treatment to sensations or ideas and to feelings

or emotions. Less than a third of Wundt's text was focused on elementary
processes; the remainder was taken up with more complex psychological
phenomena ranging from psychical compounds and their interconnections to the
psychological development of animals (for example, the rise of instincts),
children (for example, the development of ideas, self-consciousness, will and
play) and cultures (for example, the emergence of language, myth and custom).

In discussing these more complex phenomena, Wundt made it clear that he did
not, by any means, share faith in the broad relevance of the experimental
method. Wundt drew a sharp distinction between those aspects of psychology
for which experimentation was useful (viz., the analysis of simpler psychical
processes in the individual) and those for which it was not (viz., the more
complex psychical processes of value and meaning elaborated in interactions
between individuals). For Wundt, the higher processes were unapproachable by
means of experiment.
In the last section of the book, Wundt (1897) laid out his argument for the
necessity of purely psychological constructs. Re-emphasising the distinction
between psychology (which studies immediate experience dependent on the
experiencing subject) and natural science (which studies mediate experience in
abstraction from the subject), and arguing that the parallelism between mediate
and immediate experience was only partial. Wundt pointed to the existence of
phenomena that lie entirely outside the sphere of experience to which the
principle of parallelism applies.
Purely psychological phenomena of this sort (for example, value, meaning and
purpose) could, for Wundt, only be understood through psychological analysis.
Moreover, the existence of such phenomena required the recognition of an
independent psychical causality, just as „physical causality as the point of view
adopted in psychology‰ is different from „the point of view taken in the natural
sciences‰. In psychical causality, Wundt believed that he had found the basis not
only for psychology's right to exist in independence of biology, but for
psychology's claim to serve as the foundation for all of the human sciences. It is
hardly any wonder that he loathed seeing this principle lost in an over
assimilation of psychology to natural science (Wundt, 1897).
The governing principles of the psychological position maintained by Wundt

may be summed up in the following three general statements:
(a)" Inner or psychological experience is not a special sphere of experience apart
from others, but is immediate experience in its totality;
(b)" This immediate experience is not made up of unchanging contents but of an
interconnection of processes; not of objects, but of occurrences, of universal
human experiences and their relations in accordance with certain laws; and
(c)" Each of these processes contains an objective content and a subjective
process, thus, including the general conditions both of all knowledge and of
all practical human activity.

Corresponding to these three general principles, there is a threefold relation of

psychology to the other sciences as follows:
(a)" As the science of immediate experience, it is supplementary to the natural
sciences, which, in consequence of their abstraction from the subject, have
to do only with the objective, mediate contents of experience. Any
particular fact can, strictly speaking, be understood in its full significance
only after it has been subjected to the analyses of both natural science and
psychology. In this sense, then, physics and physiology are auxiliary to
psychology, and the latter is, in turn, supplementary to the natural sciences.
(b)" As the science of the universal forms of immediate human experience and
their combination in accordance with certain laws, it is the foundation of
the mental sciences. The subject matter of these sciences is in all cases of the
activities proceeding from immediate human experiences and their effects.
Since psychology has for its problem the investigation of the forms and
laws of these activities, it is at once the most, general mental science and the
foundation for all the others, such as philology, history, political economy
and jurisprudence.
(c)" Psychology pays equal attention to both the subjective and objective
conditions which underlie not only theoretical knowledge, but practical
activity as well. Since it seeks to determine their interrelation, it is the
empirical discipline whose results are most immediately useful in the
invention of the general problems of the theory of knowledge and ethics,
the two foundations of philosophy. Thus, psychology is, in relation to the
natural sciences, the supplementary and in relation to the mental sciences,
the fundamental. In relation to philosophy, it is the propaedeutic empirical
(preparatory experimental) science.
The view that „it is not a difference in the objects of experience, but in the way of
treating experience, that distinguishes psychology from natural science‰ has
come to be recognised more and more in modern psychology.
On the basis of these three general principles, his theoretical orientation can be
summarised as follows:
(a)" Psychologists should construct theory from phenomena and, consequently,
construction of theory produces a hunt for data. All scientific research looks
for underlying causal relationships that are logical.
(b)" Dualist orientation and major focus was on mental processes and examined
behaviour that reflected mental processes.

(c)" Voluntarism was a concept given by him. It states that all psychic activity is
influenced by the will. Cognitive processes never occur in a vacuum. They
are always influenced by the motives of people. Humans are not rational
organisms.
(d)" Apperception (experiences related to past) is the process by which a mental
event enters the focal area of consciousness and involves the manifestation
of volition.
(e)" Consciousness is a process of creative synthesis. Mental constructions from
component processes always produce novel consequences. The whole is
different than the sum of the parts.
(f)" The principle of Psychological Relations states that there is an innate level
of organisation operating in the human mind that prevents psychical
phenomena from being reduced to a level that would destroy an organism.
This allows for the elementary processes of the mind to occur in an
organised fashion rather than a series of discrete events.
(g)" The principle of Psychological Contrasts states that opposing mental
experiences intensify each other. Thus experiences are relative, not
absolute.
(h)" The principle of Heterogeneity of Ends occurs due to developmental
changes that occur in individual's social groups. Emergent unanticipated
results, not originally planned for, will inevitably occur.
(i)" The principle of Mental Growth states that mental development occurs in a
manner similar to embryological development.
(j)" The principle of Development Toward Opposites states that cyclical
patterns of development characterise both individuals and society.
Activities tend to fluctuate between two opposite extremes. One type of
mental experience increases the tension to operate in the opposite manner.
(k)" Wundt studied three phenomena: cognitions, emotions and motivations.
His goal was to isolate each construct for study and then see how each was
integrated. Emotion drives cognition and motivation drives them both.
Voluntary attention processes are the units of consciousness. All
psychological constructs need to be construed in willing terms.
(l)" To understand immediate experience, one needs to determine the elements
of consciousness; determine the mechanisms responsible for synthesis;
discover the laws guiding synthesis and examine the inputs for conscious
experience which are memory and sensory inputs.

2.1.2 Contributions of Wundt to Psychology

Being one of the few founding fathers in the field of Psychology of
Consciousness, Wilhelm Wundt has contributed significantly to the development
of psychology. Table 2.1 outlines the few contributions of Wundt in the field of
psychology.
Table 2.1: Contribution of Wundt to Psychology
No. Contributions
1. Founded the first laboratory and established experimental psychology as a
discipline.
2. He taught the first course in psychology; founded the first department of
psychology; founded the first journal (Philosophische Studien) and wrote the first
textbook (Gundzüge der physiologische Psychologie).
3. He came up with the idea of „voluntarism‰. He studied the ideas of will and
choice, or „voluntary‰ action or movement, etc. He stated that all psychic activity
is influenced by the will. His programme was all about applying to psychology
the principles that had made physiology „scientific‰ in the previous decades
(Helmholtz, et al.). This was precisely what was meant by "physiological
psychology‰.
4. He developed the technique of introspection to study behaviour objectively.
Introspection is the examination of one's own thoughts, feelings or mental states.
Wundt argued that conscious mental states could be scientifically studied using
introspection.
5. He believed consciousness could be broken down (or reduced) to its basic
elements without sacrificing any of the properties of the whole. Wundt
concentrated on three areas of mental functioning; thoughts, images and feelings.
The basic mental activity was designated by Wundt as „apperception‰. These are
the basic areas studied today in cognitive psychology. This means that the study
of perception can be traced back to Wundt.
6. He also conducted a number of memory experiments. He investigated
phenomena through experiments that would fall under the modern headings of
iconic memory, short-term memory and the enactment and generation effects.
7. The first experimental studies on memory are his contributions. The oft-forgotten
Folk Psychology is one of them. Of the 10 volumes of that work, only one
„condensed‰ volume has appeared in English.
Source: New World Encyclopedia (2013)

SELF-CHECK 2.1
What do you think are Wundt's greatest contributions and why?
2.2 EDWARD B. TITCHENER'S

STRUCTURALISM
The following Figure 2.2 shows some basic information about Edward Bradford
Titchener.
Figure 2.2: Important details about Edward Bradford Titchener

Source: Cherry (2014)
Titchener was one of WundtÊs students who imported WundtÊs system to the US.
Titchener was born in southern England to a family of old lineage but with little
money. He entered Oxford University on a scholarship to study philosophy and
got interested in Wundt's writings. However, since WundtÊs writings were not
accepted in Oxford, Titchener resolved to go to Leipzig and work directly under

Wundt. There he took his doctorate after completing a dissertation on the

binocular effects of monocular stimulation. His works are encyclopaedic in
nature and laid the foundations for a scientific psychology.
2.2.1 Titchener’s Theoretical Orientation

TitchenerÊs ideas on consciousness and on how the mind worked were heavily
influenced by Wundt's theory of voluntarism and his ideas of association and
apperception (the passive and active combinations of elements of consciousness
respectively).
Titchener carried the basic ideas of Wilhelm Wundt to the US. Titchener called
Wundt's ideas structuralism, and tried to study the structure of mental life or
consciousness. He also coined the term „structuralism‰ and „functionalism‰.
Structural psychology according to Titchener has a threefold aim:

(a)" To describe the components of consciousness in terms of basic elements;
(b)" To describe the combinations of basic elements; and
(c)" To explain the connections of the elements of consciousness to the nervous
system.
Titchener defined psychology as „the analytic study of the generalised adult

normal human mind through introspection‰. Psychology is „the science of
existential experience regarded as functionally or logically dependent upon the
nervous system‰. The goal of introspection is to describe immediate experience
and thereby, avoid the "stimulus error‰.
Titchener defined consciousness as „immediate experience‰, that is, experience as

it is being experienced. Mediate experience was flavoured by contents already in
the mind, such as previous associations and the emotional and motivational levels
of a person. Structural psychology, in general, attempted to defend the integrity of
psychology by contrasting it with physics.
Titchener put his own spin on Wundt's psychology of consciousness. Titchener

attempted to classify the structures of the mind, like the way a chemist analyses
chemicals into their component parts – water into hydrogen and oxygen, for
example. Thus, for Titchener, sensations and thoughts were the component parts
of the mind. If hydrogen and oxygen were structures of a chemical compound,
then sensations and thoughts were structures of the mind. Titchener believed
that if the basic components of the mind could be defined and categorised, then
the structure of mental processes and higher thinking could be determined. What

each element of the mind is, how those elements interact with each other and
why they interact in the ways that they do was the basis of reasoning that
Titchener used in trying to find structure to the mind. This approach is known as
„structuralism.‰
The objectives of structuralism were to analyse the sum total of mental processes;
identify their elements; discover the laws of connection among the elements; and
determine the correlations between the mind as well as the nervous system. In
Titchener's structuralism, the subject matter of psychology is experience,
dependent on the experiencing person. The problem of psychology involves the
questions What, How and Why. „What‰ questions deal with the basic elements
of the subject; „How‰ questions deal with appearances of things, and „Why‰
questions deal with the causes of observed phenomena. Adding meaning to the
experience (such as using names, functions, prior experiences, etc.) was called
„stimulus error,‰ or reading unwanted meanings into experience.
The experimental method employed by structuralists and Titchener was

introspection. This technique of self-report is the ageless approach to describing
self-experience. Introspection depended on the nature of consciousness observed,
the purpose of the experiment and the instructions given by the experimenters.
Introspection was considered valid only if done by exceptionally well-trained
scientists, not naive observers. The most common error made by untrained
introspectionists was labelled the „stimulus error‰ – describing the object
observed rather than the conscious content. Stimulus error, according to
Titchener, resulted not in psychological data but in physical descriptions.
Under this natural science approach, psychology was defined as the

experimental study of the data of immediate experience through the method of
introspection. The goal of psychology was to reduce the contents of
consciousness to constituent elements of sensory origin.
In the 1890s, Wilhelm Wundt developed a three dimensional theory of feeling.

Essentially, Wundt thought that feelings vary along three dimensions: pleasant-
unpleasant, strain-relaxation and excitement-calm. Titchener agreed with Wundt
but accepted only the pleasant-unpleasant dimension. This approach led him to
relegate emotions to organic visceral reactions. Titchener proposed a theory of
meaning suggesting that the context in which a sensation occurs in consciousness
determines meaning. Accordingly, simple sensation has no meaning by itself, but it
acquires meaning by association with other sensations or images. In that way,
Titchener described the mind in terms of formal elements with „attributes‰ of their
own, connected and combined by the mechanism of associations (New World
Encyclopedia, 2008).

Psychology, for Titchener was about conscious experience from the perspective
of the person who was actually experiencing it, that is, not objective time but
time as it is experienced. For example, sometimes one hour seems longer than
another, though the „objective‰ reality is the same.
Observing illusions according to Titchener is a good way to differentiate between

the "object' and the mental experience. An example is the moon illusion in the
picture: the moon appears bigger on the horizon.
Figure 2.3: Moon illusion

Source: http://www.archimedes-lab.org/atelier.html?http://www.archimedes-
lab.org/moon_illusion/moon.html
Titchener attempted to reduce the complex experience into smaller parts. Wundt
tried to make a synthesis from smaller parts. Titchener also held a mechanistic
view. For him, observers could operate like „machines‰. They were like
measuring instruments. Similarly, people were viewed as machines; elements
combined automatically, etc.
Titchener identified 44,500 individual sensation qualities, of which 32,820 were

visual and 11,600 were auditory. Each sensation quality could vary in intensity,
duration, clearness and sometimes extensity. Affective states could vary in
quality, intensity and duration.
TitchenerÊs context theory proposed how the „meaningless sensation‰ is given

meaning in the form of perceptions. According to TitchenerÊs context theory,
meaning was divided into core and context. Both these elements are explained as
follows:
(a)" Core referred to raw (active) experiences such as sensations of light, sound,
touch and smell; context consisted of associations brought on by raw
experiences;
(b)" Context is the mental associations conjured up by prior experiences; and
(c)" Without „context‰, the „core‰ had no meaning.

In later years, Titchener gave up his „elements‰ to think in terms of larger

dimensions. By 1920, he was shifting towards a more phenomenological
approach and that may be where he would have ended up, had he not died in
1927.
2.2.2 Titchener’s Contributions to Psychology

Similar to Wundt, Titchener has also significantly contributed to the
development of modern psychology. Table 2.2 outlines three of his contributions.
Table 2.2: TitchenerÊs Contribution to Psychology
No. Contributions
1. He experimented on sensations, images and feelings. It led to important
findings like attention. It was interpreted as an increase in the vividness of a
sensation (or image).
2. He gave the core-context theory of meaning.
3. Titchener personally directed 56 students into getting doctoral degrees in
experimental psychology.
Source: Markov (2014)
2.2.3 The Structuralism

What is structuralism? Structuralism was a school of thought that sought to
identify the components (structure) of the mind (the mind was the key element to
psychology at this point). Structuralists believed that the way to learn about the
brain and its functions was to break the mind down into its most basic elements.
They believed that the whole is equal to the sum of the parts.
Who was the founder of structuralism? The founder was Wilhelm Maximilian
Wundt (1832-1920). His student, Edward Bradford Titchener (1867-1927), first
coined the term to describe this school of thought. The main goal of structuralism
is to describe the structure of consciousness of mind by carefully observing
conscious experience by breaking it down into it components; mainly perception,
sensation and affection.
This systematic movement was founded by German psychologist Wilhelm

Wundt and mainly identified with Edward Titchener. Their aim was to analyse
the human mind in the simplest form and then find ways to explain complex
human behaviour. Their basic method was to train their subjects in introspection,
which was careful, systematic observation of one's own conscious experiences.

What is introspection? Introspection refers to a situation where an individual

comes to form his or her own beliefs about his or her mental states. It is also a
known technique used to try to understand the conscious mind. Introspection is
a process of having a person look inward, focus on and try to understand the
emotion or thought he or she is experiencing at that moment. Introspection is the
process of looking inward and examining one's self and one's own actions in
order to gain insight.
SELF-CHECK 2.2
Compare the work between Wundt and Titchener.
2.3 CHALLENGES TO ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY

OF CONSCIOUSNESS – FRANZ BRENTANO
The following Figure 2.4 shows some basic information about Franz Brentano.
Figure 2.4: Franz Brentano

Source: Huemer (2014)

Brentano was the grandson of an Italian merchant who migrated to Germany.

His family was known for their literary achievements. BrentanoÊs aunt and uncle
were writers in the German romantic tradition. His younger brother Lujo won
the Nobel Prize in 1927 for his work on intellectual history. At 17, Brentano
began studying for the Catholic priesthood in Germany. He joined the same
order of priests, the Dominicans, as did the scholastic Saint Thomas Aquinas. The
controversy that surrounded Brentano from 1870 onwards was his criticism of
the church due to the churchÊs anti-intellectualism attitude. Finally, he left the
church and priesthood in 1873.
His „Act Psychology‰ spoke about the inseparable interaction between the
individual and the environment. As such he defined psychological events as
phenomena, that is, events that cannot be reduced to component elements
without losing their identity. This is where he provided an alternative to WundtÊs
structural psychology. He moved towards the development of a
phenomenological method for psychology. He influenced a lot of thinkers and
HusserlÊs thesis is greatly influenced by BrentanoÊs thinking.
2.3.1" Franz Brentano’s Theoretical Orientation

Franz Brentano's theological interests and his experiences surrounding the
debate on papal infallibility heavily influenced his career. Aristotle was the other
influence on him. He presented „Act Psychology‰, as a powerful alternative to
structuralism and other theories. He advocated a form of empirical psychology
rooted in the active nature of experience instead of sensory elements.
Brentano described psychology as „the science of mental phenomena‰. In this
context, „phenomenon‰ is close in meaning to „appearance‰. For Brentano,
experienced phenomena are real. Brentano embraced a pluralistic and dynamic
approach to method.
Brentano argued that inner observation was not possible because our phenomena
are part of the flow of experienced events; therefore, we can only study
phenomena the way we see them with our inner perception. He developed a
classification system for mental phenomena in which phenomena were viewed as
part of three intertwined categories: presentations, judgments and desires.
BrentanoÊs influence comes through his system but also through his teaching and
his impact on later ideas including the thought of William James, Gestalt
psychology, existentialism and others.
Intentionality is his most significant contribution. In his words „Every mental
phenomenon is characterised by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called
the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object, and what we might call,
though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction toward an

object (which is not to be understood here as meaning a thing) or immanent

objectivity‰. Brentano defined it as the main characteristic of psychical
phenomena, by which they could be distinguished from physical phenomena.
Every mental phenomenon, every psychological act, has a content and is directed
at an object (the intentional object). Every belief, desire, etc., has an object – the
believed, the wanted. Every mental phenomena includes something as object
within itself, although they do not all do so in the same way. In presentation,
something is presented; in judgment, something is affirmed or denied; in love,
loved; in hate, hated; in desire, desired and so on (Brentano, 2014).
Brentano used the expression „intentional inexistence‰ to indicate the status of
the objects of thought in the mind. The property of being intentional, of having
an intentional object, was the key feature to distinguish psychical phenomena
and physical phenomena, because physical phenomena lack intentionality
altogether. The thesis formulated by Brentano has been one of the most
influential in contemporary philosophy. It gave rise, first of all, to Husserlian
phenomenology, but it also lies at the root of much of the thinking of analytic
philosophers on meaning and reference and on the relations of language and
mind.
BrentanoÊs theory of perception claimed that Wahrnehmung ist Falschnehmung
(„perception is misception‰ or literally „truth-grasping is false-grasping‰) and
that perception is erroneous. In fact, Brentano maintained that external sensory
perception could not tell one anything about the de facto existence of the
perceived world, which could simply be an illusion. However, one can be
absolutely sure of oneÊs internal perception.
When someone hears a tone, he cannot be completely sure that there is a tone in
the real world, but he can be absolutely certain that he hears it. This awareness,
of the fact that one hears, is called internal perception. External perception can
only yield hypotheses about the perceived world, but not the truth. Hence
Brentano and many of his pupils (in particular Carl Stumpf and Edmund
Husserl) thought that the natural sciences could only ever yield hypotheses and
not universal, absolute truths as in pure logic or mathematics.
BrentanoÊs Philosophy as a Rigorous Science attempted to define philosophy as a
„rigorous science‰. He tried to develop philosophy not as a system of speculative
ideas, but as a discipline comparable to the natural sciences. Brentano, however,
did not take physics or mathematics as the model of science or the model of
knowledge as other positivists did. He conceived of philosophy as being
comparable to psychology, arguing that psychology bore more resemblance to
philosophy than any physical science.

While physics deals with external phenomena, psychology deals with

phenomena that are internal to the self. Physical phenomena are accessible to the
third person through external observation, but mental phenomena are directly
accessible only to the first person. In other words, the field of psychology exists
in the realm of consciousness, which is, according to Brentano, accessible only to
the first person through introspection.
Another reason for BrentanoÊs preference for psychology as the model of
knowledge is that subjective experiences imply a level of certainty, whereas
judgments about external phenomena do not. For example, when one feels
„hot‰air in a room, the experience of „feeling hot‰ is always true. But, one can
make incorrect judgments about the objective external phenomena of air
temperature. The air temperature can be low, but the person may have just „felt‰
hot. Nevertheless, the subjective „feeling‰ of hot or the fact that he felt hot air is
always true (this type of thought was put forth by Rene Descartes in the
development of early modern philosophy). Furthermore, as opposed to
behaviourist psychology built on the analyses of external behavioural patterns of
human action, Brentano developed descriptive psychology as the descriptive
study of mental phenomena based upon introspection and derived philosophy as
an extension of psychology.
2.3.2 Contributions of Franz Brentano

Brentano is mainly known for his work in the philosophy of psychology,
especially for having introduced the notion of intentionality to contemporary
philosophy. He made important contributions to many fields in philosophy,
especially to ethics, ontology, logic, the history of philosophy and philosophical
theology. Brentano was strongly influenced by Aristotle and the scholastics as
well as by the empiricist and positivist movements of the early nineteenth
century.
BrentanoÊs introspectionist approach of describing consciousness from a first

person point of view and his rigorous style as well as his contention that
philosophy should be done with exact methods like the sciences led him to be
often considered a forerunner of both the phenomenological movement and the
tradition of analytic philosophy. Brentano exerted a strong influence on the work
of Edmund Husserl, Alexius Meinong, Christian von Ehrenfels, Kasimir
Twardowski, Carl Stumpf and Anton Marty, among others and thereby played a
central role in the philosophical development of central Europe in the early
twentieth century.

SELF-CHECK 2.3
Brentano influenced many people and many schools. State them.
ACTIVITY 2.1
As soon as you finish reading subtopic 2.3, prepare a short note

depicting the contributions of Wundt, Titchener and Brentano.
" Wundt is known for founding the first laboratory and establishing
experimental psychology as a discipline.
" Titchener experiments on sensations, images and feelings led to important
findings.
" Brentano is mainly known for his work in philosophy of psychology,
especially for having introduced the notion of intentionality to contemporary
philosophy.
Edward B. Titchener Introspection

Franz Brentano Structuralism
Intentionality Wilhelm Wundt
1." What is intentionality?

2." How is Brentano's system different from that of Titchener and Wundt?

1." Write a short biography of all three psychologists.

2." What are the differences between Titchener's and Wundt's method of
introspection?
Brentano, F. (2014). Psychology from an empirical standpoint. London, England:

Routledge.
Cherry, K. (2014). Edward B. Titchener biography. Retrieved from

http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesmz/p/edward-titchener.htm
Huemer, W. (2014). Franz Brentano: Founder of act psychology or intentionalism.

Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/brentano/
Markov, S. (2014). Edward Titchener. Retrieved from

http://geniusrevive.com/en/component/sobipro/195-edward-
titchener.html?Itemid=0
New World Encyclopedia. (2008). Edward B. Titchener. Retrieved from

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Edward_B._Titchener
New World Encyclopedia. (2013). Wilhelm Wundt. Retrieved from

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/p/index.php?title=Wilhelm_Wu
ndt&oldid=971872
Patel, A. P., & Mehta, A. (2014). Person of the issue: Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920).
The International Journal of Indian Psychology, 1(4), 1-5.
Wozniak, R. H. (1999). Classics in psychology, 1855-1914: Historical essays.

Bristol, England: Thoemmes.
Wundt, W. (1897). Outlines of psychology (C. H. Judd, Trans.). Leipzig,

Germany: Wilhelm Engelmann. (Original work published in 1896).

Topic  The Psychology
3 of the
Unconscious
Mind and the
Psychology of
Adaptation
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1." Discuss the influence and work of Sigmund Freud;
2." Explain the history and impact of Darwin's theory in psychology;
3." Analyse the influence and work of William James;
4." Briefly discuss functionalism; and
5." Explain the influence and work of John Dewey.
 INTRODUCTION
In the previous topic, you studied about the psychology of consciousness. In this
topic, you will study the psychology of the unconscious mind and the
psychology of adaptation. The main contributors in this regard are Sigmund
Freud, Charles Robert Darwin, William James and John Dewey.

TOPIC 3 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND AND THE  43
PSYCHOLOGY OF ADAPTATION
3.1 SIGMUND FREUD

The following Figure 3.1 shows some basic information about Sigmund Freud.
Figure 3.1: Brief introduction to Sigmund Freud

Source: Thornton (2014)

44  TOPIC 3 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND AND THE
3.1.1 Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalysis

It is said that three German Jews changed the history of the world – Albert
Einstein, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. You can love Freud; you can hate Freud
but you cannot be indifferent to Freud. The psychoanalytic movement's place in
contemporary psychology is both unique and paradoxical. While Sigmund Freud
is the founder of the psychoanalytic school, the influences on his theory are
many. Psychoanalysis was particularly influenced by earlier ideas about the
nature of psychopathology.
Freud's scientific method was a direct descendant of the British and French
empiricism, represented by Francis Bacon's criticism of bias „idols‰ and John
Stuart Mill's „canons‰. In the best tradition of empiricism, Freud proceeded from
observable phenomena to generalisation and interpretation. He was not a naive
empiricist nor did he refrain from inquiry into unobservable phenomena.
Freud found that nervous disorders often made no neurological sense. He began
to hypnotise his patients, encouraging them to talk freely about the
circumstances surrounding the onset. Freud's views evolved continually
throughout his long career. The collective result of his extensive writings is an
elaborate system of personality development. Freud described personality in
terms of an energy system that seeks equilibrium of forces. This homeostatic
model of human personality was determined by the constant attempt to identify
appropriate ways to discharge instinctual energies which originate in the depths
of the unconscious.
The structure of personality, according to Freud, consists of a dynamic

interchange of activities energised by forces that are present in the person at
birth. Freud's model for psychoanalysis translated physical stimuli of psychic
energies or forces and retained an essentially mechanical description of how such
forces interact. Figure 3.2 depicts FreudÊs psychoanalytic theory of personality.

Figure 3.2: FreudÊs psychoanalytic theory of personality

Source: http://www.simplypsychology.org/psyche.html
Freud put forth three structures of personality; the id, ego and super ego, which
he believed were essentially formed by seven years of age. These structures
maybe diagrammatically represented in terms of their accessibility to a person's
awareness or extent of consciousness as shown in Figure 3.2. The id is the most
primitive and least accessible of the structure of personality. As originally
described by Freud, the id is pure libido or psychic energy of an irrational nature
and sexual character which instinctively determines unconscious processes. The
id is not in contact with the environment, but rather relates to the other structures
of personality that in turn must mediate between the id's instincts and the
external world.
Immune from reality and social conventions, the id is guided by the pleasure
principle, seeking to gratify instinctual libidinal needs either directly (through a
sexual experience) or indirectly (by dreaming or fantasising). The latter, indirect
gratification was called the primary process. The exact object of direct
gratification in the pleasure principle is determined by the psychosexual stage of
the individual's developments.
The division or structure of personality that is first differentiated from the id is

the ego, often called the „executive‰ of the personality because of its role in
channelling id energies into socially acceptable outlets. The development of the
ego occurs between the ages one and two when the child initially confronts the
environment. The ego is governed by the reality principle; it is aware of
environmental demands and adjusts behaviour so that instinctual pressures of
the id are satisfied in acceptable ways. The attainment of specific objects to
reduce libidinal energy in socially appropriate ways was called the secondary
process.

The final differentiation of the structures of personality called the super ego
appears by the age of five. In contrast to the id and ego, which are internal
developments of personality, the superego is an external imposition. The super
ego is the incorporation of the moral standards perceived by the ego from some
agent of authority in the environment, usually an assimilation of the parents'
views. Both positive and negative aspects of these standards are represented in
the super ego.
The positive moral code is the ego ideal, a representation of the perfect behaviour
for the individual to emulate. The conscience embodies the negative aspect of the
super ego and determines which activities is to be taboo. Conduct that violates
the dictates of the conscience produces guilt. The super ego and id are in direct
conflict, leaving the ego to mediate. Thus, the super ego imposes a pattern of
conduct that results in some degree of self-control through an internalised system
of rewards and punishments.
The major motivational construct of Freud's theory of personality was derived

from instincts, defined as biological forces that release mental energy. The goal of
personality is to reduce the energy drive through some activity acceptable to the
constraints of the super ego. Freud classes inborn instincts into life (Eros) and
death (Thanatos) drives. Life instincts involve self-preservation and include
hunger, thirst and sex. The libido is that specific form of energy through which
the life instincts arise in the id. The death instincts maybe directed inward, as in
suicide or masochism, or outward, as in hate and aggression.
With the imperative that personality equilibrium must be maintained by

discharging energy in acceptable ways, anxiety plays a central role. Essentially,
Freud viewed anxiety as a diffuse fear in anticipation of unmet desires and future
evils. Given the primitive character of id instincts, it is unlikely that primary
goals are ever an acceptable means of drive reduction; rather they are apt to give
rise to continual anxiety in a person. Freud described three general forms of
anxiety.
Reality or objective anxiety is a fear of real environmental danger with an obvious

cause; such fear is appropriate and has survival value for the organism. Neurotic
anxiety comes from the fear of potential punishment inherent in the goal of
instinctual gratification. It is a fear of punishment for expressing impulsive desires.
Finally, Freud posited moral anxiety as the fear of the conscience through guilt or
shame.

In order to cope with anxiety, the ego develops defence mechanisms, which are
elaborate, largely unconscious processes that allow a person to avoid
unpleasantness. Freud placed great emphasis on the development of the child
because he was convinced that neurotic disturbances manifested by his adult
patients had their origins in their childhood experiences. Table 3.1 summarises
example of common defence mechanism.
Table 3.1: Examples of Defence Mechanisms
Defence Description Example

Denial Arguing against an Denying that your physician's diagnosis
anxiety-provoking of cancer is correct and seeking a second
stimuli by stating it does opinion.
not exist.
Displacement Taking out impulses on a Slamming a door instead of hitting a
less threatening target. person. Yelling at your spouse after an
argument with your boss.
Intellectualisation Avoiding unacceptable Focusing on the details of a funeral as
emotions by focusing on opposed to sadness and grief.
the intellectual aspects.
Projection Placing unacceptable When losing an argument, you state
impulses in oneself onto "You're just stupid" – homophobia.
someone else.
Rationalisation Supplying a logical or Stating that you were fired because you
rational reason as did not kiss up to the boss, when the
opposed to the real real reason was your poor
reason. performance.
Reaction Taking the opposite Having a bias against a particular race
formation belief because the true or culture and then embracing that
belief causes anxiety. race or culture to the extreme.
Regression Returning to a previous Sitting in a corner and crying after
stage of development. hearing bad news; throwing a temper
tantrum when you do not get your
way.
Repression Pulling into the Forgetting sexual abuse from your
unconscious. childhood due to the trauma and
anxiety.
Sublimation Acting out unacceptable Sublimating your aggressive impulses
impulses in a socially towards a career as a boxer; becoming
acceptable way. a surgeon because of your desire to
cut; lifting weights to release „pent
up‰ energy.
Suppression Pushing into the Trying to forget something that causes
unconscious. you anxiety.

Ego defences are not necessarily unhealthy as you can see in the examples above.
In fact, the lack of these defences or the inability to use them effectively can often
lead to problems in life. However, we sometimes employ the defences at the
wrong time or overuse them, which can be equally destructive.
3.1.2 The Psychosexual Stages of Development

Freud described the various stages as the psychosexual stages of development. He
stated that the child looks to seek gratification and avoid pain and this he termed
as the pleasure principle. If these psychosexual stages are completed successfully,
the result is a healthy personality.
If certain issues are not resolved at the appropriate stage, fixation can occur. A
fixation is a persistent focus on an earlier psychosexual stage. Until this conflict is
resolved, the individual will remain „stuck‰ in this stage. For instance, a person
who is fixated at the oral stage may be over-dependent on others and may seek
oral stimulation through smoking, drinking or eating. Table 3.2 shows the
characteristics of the psychosexual stages of development.
Table 3.2: Psychosexual Stages of Development
Stages Age Characteristics

Oral Birth to " During the oral stage, the child is focused on oral pleasures
18 (sucking). Too much or too little gratification can result in an
months oral fixation or oral personality, which is evidenced by a
preoccupation with oral activities. This type of personality may
have a stronger tendency to smoke, drink alcohol, overeat or
bite his or her nails.
" Personality wise, these individuals may become overly
dependent upon others, gullible and perpetual followers. On
the other hand, they may also fight these urges and develop
pessimism and aggression towards others.
Anal 18 " The child's focus of pleasure in this stage is on eliminating and
months retaining faeces. Through societyÊs pressure, mainly via
to three parents, the child has to learn to control anal stimulation.
years " In terms of personality, after effects of an anal fixation during
this stage can result in an obsession with cleanliness, perfection
and control (anal retentive). On the opposite end of the
spectrum, they may become messy and disorganised (anal
expulsive).

Phallic Age " The pleasure zone switches to the genitals. Freud believed that
three to during this stage, boys develop unconscious sexual desires for
six the mother. Because of this, he rivals with his father and sees
him as competition for the mother's affection. During this time,
boys also develop a fear that the father will punish them for
these feelings, such as by castrating them. This group of
feelings is known as Oedipus Complex (after the Greek
Mythology figure who accidentally killed his father and
married his mother).
" Later, it was added that girls go through a similar situation,
developing unconscious sexual attraction to their father.
Although Freud strongly disagreed with this, it has been
termed the Electra Complex by more recent psychoanalysts.
" According to Freud, out of fear of castration and due to the
strong competition of his father, boys eventually decide to
identify with him rather than fight him. By identifying with his
father, the boy develops masculine characteristics and identifies
himself as a male, and represses his sexual feelings toward his
mother.
" A fixation at this stage could result in sexual deviancies (both
overindulging and avoidance) and weak or confused sexual
identity according to psychoanalysts.
Latency Age six It is during this stage that sexual urges remain repressed and
to children interact and play mostly with same sex peers.
puberty
Genital Puberty " The final stage of psychosexual development begins at the start
onwards of puberty when sexual urges are once again awakened.
" Through the lessons learned during the previous stages,
adolescents direct their sexual urges onto opposite sex peers;
the primary focus of pleasure is the genitals.
Source: Heffner (2014)

Table 3.3 outlines the pleasure sources and conflicts in the psychosexual stages of
development (by age) suggested by Freud.
Table 3.3: Pleasure Sources and Conflicts in the Psychosexual Stages of Development
Stage Age Pleasure Source Conflict
Oral Birth to 2 Mouth: sucking, biting, swallowing Weaning away
years from mother's
breast
Anal 2 to 4 Anus: defecating or retaining faeces Toilet training
years
Phallic 4 to 5 Genitals Oedipus (boys);
years Electra (girls)
Latency 6 years to Sexual urges sublimated into sports and
puberty hobbies. Same-sex friends also help avoid –
sexual feelings.
Genital Puberty Physical sexual changes reawaken Social rules; need
onward repressed needs. Direct sexual feelings to complete
toward others lead to sexual gratification. education or job
training
Source: Straker (2014)
Psychoanalysis has a unique position in psychology and Freud's contribution to

the understanding of the functioning of the human mind remains unparalleled.
Freud proposed a number of ideas that were highly controversial, but also
attracted a number of followers. Many of these thinkers agreed with FreudÊs
concept of the unconscious mind and the importance of early childhood. There
were, however, a number of points that other thinkers disagreed with or directly
rejected. Because of this, these individuals went on to propose their own unique
theories of personality.
3.1.3 Major Neo-Freudian Thinkers

Neo-Freudian thinkers refer to those who were all influenced by FreudianÊs
theory but extend his theory considerably. Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Erik Erikson,
Karen Horney and Erich Fromm were among those who were famous.

The following are some of the descriptions of the famous Neo-Freudian thinkers:
(a)" Carl Jung
JungÊs theory separates the psyche into three parts. The first is the ego,
which Jung recognises with the conscious mind. Closely related is the
personal unconscious, which comprises anything which is not presently
conscious, but can be. The personal unconscious is similar to most peopleÊs
understanding of the unconscious in that it comprises both memories that
are easily brought to mind and those that have been suppressed for some
reason. But it does not comprise the instincts that Freud would have it
include. Figure 3.3 shows an image of Carl Jung.
Figure 3.3: Carl Jung

Source: http://universitybookstore.tumblr.com
(b)" Alfred Adler

Alfred Adler assumes a single „drive‰ or motivating force behind all our
behaviour and knowledge. By the time his theory had gelled into its most
mature outline, he called that motivating force „the striving for perfection‰.
It is the desire we all have to accomplish our potentials, to come closer and
closer to our ideal. Figure 3.4 shows an image of Alfred Adler.
Figure 3.4: Alfred Adler

Source: http://www.mapsadler.org

(c)" Erik Erikson

Erikson is a Freudian ego-psychologist. This indicates that he accepts Freud's
ideas as mostly correct, comprising the more debatable ideas such as the
Oedipal complex and accepts as well the ideas about the ego that were added
by other Freudian loyalists such as Heinz Hartmann and, of course, Anna
Freud. However, Erikson is much more people and culture-oriented than
most Freudians, as one might expect from someone with his anthropological
interests. He frequently pushes the instincts and the unconscious practically
out of the picture. Perhaps because of this, Erikson is popular among
Freudians and non-Freudians alike! Figure 3.5 shows an image of Erik
Erikson.
Figure 3.5: Erik Erikson

Source: http://www.genograms.us
(d)" Karen Horney

Karen Horney was a revolutionary theorist in personality, psychoanalysis and
„feminine psychology‰. While debatable, many agree that Horney's theory of
neurosis is the best that exists today. She looked at neurosis in a different light,
saying that it was much more continuous with regular life than other theorists
believed. In addition, she saw neurosis as an attempt to make life bearable, as
an interpersonal controlling and coping method. Figure 3.6 shows an image of
Karen Horney.
Figure 3.6: Karen Horney

Source: http://www.biography.com

(e)" Erich Fromm

As his biography indicates, Fromm's theory is a rather sole blend of Freud
and Marx. Freud, of course, stressed the unconscious, biological drives,
repression and so on. In other words, Freud assumed that our characters
were determined by biology. Marx, on the other hand, saw people as
determined by their society and most especially by their economic
mechanisms. Figure 3.7 shows an image of Erich Fromm.
Figure 3.7: Erich Fromm

Source: http://www.erichfromm.net
3.1.4 Neo-Freudian Disagreements with Freud

There are a few different reasons why these neo-Freudian thinkers disagreed
with Freud. For example, Erik Erikson believed that Freud was incorrect to
believe that personality is shaped almost entirely by childhood events.
Other issues that motivated neo-Freudian thinkers include:

(a)" FreudÊs emphasis on sexual urges as a primary motivator;
(b)" FreudÊs negative view of human nature;
(c)" FreudÊs belief that personality is entirely shaped by early childhood
experiences; and
(d)" FreudÊs lack of emphasis on social and cultural influences on behaviour and
personality.
SELF-CHECK 3.1
Discuss the concept of anxiety as given by Freud.

3.2 DARWINISM
The following Figure 3.8 shows some basic information about Charles Darwin.
Figure 3.8: Details about Charles Robert Darwin

Source: Whye (2002)
On the origin of species by means of natural selection (1962/1859) is one of the

most important books ever written. Charles Darwin (1809-1882) did not at first
appear to have extraordinary talents. From a young age, Darwin disliked school
and preferred observing birds and collecting insects to study. He was sent to
medical school in Scotland when he was 16. Young Darwin found medicine
„intolerably dull‰. He was much more interested in attending natural history
lectures.

Seeing that Darwin lacked enthusiasm for becoming a doctor, his father
suggested he study for the clergy. Darwin was agreeable to the idea and enrolled
in the university at Cambridge, England, in 1827. Darwin admitted, „My time
was wasted, as far as the academic studies were concerned.‰ However, Darwin
found that his friendship with John S. Henslow, professor of botany, made life in
Cambridge extremely worthwhile. Through long talks with Henslow, DarwinÊs
knowledge of the natural world increased. Henslow encouraged Darwin in his
studies of natural history. In 1831, Henslow recommended that Darwin be
chosen for the position of naturalist on the ship, the „HMS Beagle‰.
Figure 3.9 depicts Charles DarwinÊs theory of evolution (and devolution) of man
in a satirical manner.
Figure 3.9: Darwin's theory of evolution of man

Source: http://blogs.swa-jkt.com/swa/10310/page/2/
DarwinÊs theory of evolution is based on key facts and inferences drawn from
them, which biologist Ernst Mayr summarised as follows (Farmer & Cook, 2013):
(a)" Every species is fertile enough that if all offspring survived to reproduce,
the population would grow (fact);
(b)" Despite periodic fluctuations, populations remain roughly the same size
(fact);
(c)" Resources such as food are limited and are relatively stable over time (fact).
(d)" A struggle for survival ensues (inference);
(e)" Individuals in a population vary significantly from one another (fact);
(f)" Much of this variation is inheritable (fact);
(g)" Individuals less suited to the environment are less likely to survive and less
likely to reproduce; individuals more suited to the environment are more
likely to survive and more likely to reproduce and leave their inheritable

traits to future generations which produces the process of natural selection

(inference); and
(h)" This slowly effected process results in populations changing to adapt to
their environments, and ultimately, these variations accumulate over time
to form new species (inference).
Darwin placed humans on a continuum with other animals, making the causes of
their thought and behaviour natural phenomena, not supernatural ones. He
promoted the concept of inheritance of physical, mental and behavioural
features. He generated interest measuring variability and individual differences
in human behaviour. The concept of selection of morphological features by
natural selection is reflected in SkinnerÊs behaviourism, which emphasises the
selection of behaviours through environmental consequences.
In DarwinÊs words „Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does

knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so
positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science‰
(Darwin, 1871). It was not always that way.
3.2.1 Early Darwinian Psychology

In 1844, Charles Darwin penned a 230-page manuscript outlining his basic theory
(Desmond & Moore, 1991). It was never published, although Darwin instructed
his wife to have it published in case he died. In 1859, his theory was presented to
the public in what Darwin described as a „short abstract‰; it was 490 pages of
text entitled On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the
Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.
The essential features of this theory are three straightforward notions as follows:
(a)" Differences: Individual differences in many traits;
(b)" Heredity: The individual differences were to some extent inherited; and
(c)" Selection: The individually different heritable traits could contribute to
differential success in the struggle for life. If the most successful types in
this struggle for life differ from the average, if superior survivors had more
or less of certain traits, then a species could change, that is, evolve under
the pressure of natural selection.

3.2.2 What is Natural Selection?

According to Charles Darwin, natural selection is the mechanism by which an
organism that is best suited to its environment will survive and pass on its
beneficial traits in increasing numbers to the following generations, whilst those
organisms less suited to the environment will be eliminated. Darwin eventually
published his findings in The Origin of the Species by Natural Selection.
Example of Natural Selection

Some cheetahs can run faster than other cheetahs and will therefore be more
likely to catch their prey. Organisms that blend into their background and remain
hidden from their predators will have a better chance of surviving than those
members of their species that cannot. Basically if an organism develops a trait
that helps it to survive, then it will pass on that trait to its offspring.
How did Charles Darwin find out about Natural Selection?

Charles Darwin sailed from Plymouth on the 27 December 1831 on a journey that
was to take him many thousands of miles and took about five years. He sailed in
a ship called the Beagle.
On the voyage, Darwin read LyellÊs Principles of Geology which suggested that
the fossils found in rocks were actually evidence of animals that had lived many
thousands or millions of years ago. The breakthrough in his ideas came in the
Galapagos Islands, 500 miles west of South America.
3.2.3 The Origin of the Species

According to DarwinÊs theory, published in 1859 in The Origin of Species, given
any animal population, a wide variety of traits may be present (Darwin, 1988).
If an animal develops a trait which helps it to survive, it will be more likely to
pass the trait on to future generations eventually resulting in the widespread
appearance of that trait as successive generations breed. This could potentially
result in the emergence of an entirely new species over time.
3.2.4 What Did Darwin Find from His Beagle Voyage?

On his return to England in 1836, Darwin tried to solve the riddles of these
observations and the puzzle of how species evolve. Influenced by the ideas of
Malthus, he proposed a theory of evolution occurring by the process of natural
selection.

The animals (or plants) best suited to their environment are more likely to
survive and reproduce, passing on the characteristics which helped them survive
to their offspring. Gradually, the species change over time.
3.2.5 The Controversial Issue of Darwin’s Theory

The book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was extremely
controversial, because the logical extension of DarwinÊs theory was that Homo
sapiens were simply another form of animal.
It made it seem possible that even people might just have evolved – quite
possibly from apes and destroyed the prevailing orthodoxy on how the world
was created. Darwin was vehemently attacked. However, his ideas soon gained
currency and have become the new orthodox.
3.2.6 What is Evolution?

Evolution is the gradual process by which the present diversity of plant and
animal life arose from the earliest and most primitive organisms, which is
believed to have been continuing for the past 3,000 million years (Oxford Concise
Science Dictionary as cited in Moran, 1993).
Darwinian Evolution tells us that evolution must have existed before humans
evolved or existed. Thus, there was a time before humans existed when the
human mind did not exist.
Nonetheless, despite this absence of the mind, evolutionary reasoning still

requires that our ancestors (primates, protomammals) physically existed for us to
evolve from them (to evolve arms and legs, eyes and ears).
The following are the five principles of DarwinÊs theory of evolution:
(a)" Variation: There is variation in every population;

(b)" Competition: Organisms compete for limited resources (survival of the
fittest). The reproductive capacity of all living organism allows for many
more offspring than can survive in a given environment;
(c)" Offspring: Organisms produce more offspring than can survive (fitness);
(d)" Genetics: Organisms pass genetic traits on to their offspring; and
(e)" Natural selection: Those organisms with the most beneficial traits are more
likely to survive and reproduce.
Impact of DarwinÊs theory of evolution to psychology

The following are the impacts of DarwinÊs theory of evolution to psychology:
(a)" Much could be learned about humans by studying non-humans (animals);

(b)" Studying behaviour is at least as important as studying the mind;
(c)" His theory of evolution played a significant role in the development of the
schools of functionalism and behaviourism; and
(d)" The arising of evolutionary psychology.
ACTIVITY 3.1
Where can one apply Darwinism in the various fields of psychology?
SELF-CHECK 3.2
What are DarwinÊs contributions to psychology?

3.3 WILLIAM JAMES – PRAGMATISM

The following Figure 3.10 shows some brief details about William James.
Figure 3.10: Brief details about William James

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James
The Principles of Psychology by William James is widely considered to be the

most important text in the history of modern psychology. Twelve years in the
writing, The Principles was, and in many ways is still, a document unique in the
history of human thought. James was not only completely conversant with the
psychological literature in English, but with that in French, German and Italian;
and, as a result, The Principles presented the discipline for the first time as a truly
international endeavour.

James was also an artist, with the artistÊs eye for shading and detail, and one of
the English languageÊs truly great prose stylists. In The Principles, these
characteristics combined to yield some of the richest descriptions of human
experience, human behaviour and human nature ever to appear in a work of
non-fiction.
As a psychologist, James was as interested in and knowledgeable about the

phenomena of psychopathology and exceptional mental states as he was in those
of normal consciousness; and in The Principles he drew constantly from this
material to enrich his analyses. Trained as a biologist and a physician, James felt
compelled to ground his psychology wherever possible in the facts of nervous
physiology; but he was also at heart a philosopher concerned with issues such as
the problem of other minds, the relationship of mind to body, the continuity of
self, the mechanism of objective reference and the nature of necessary truths. In
The Principles, both of these orientations were manifest, as James moved
effortlessly back and forth from one level of analysis to another.
More important than any of these characteristics for the claim of JamesÊ text to
uniqueness and for its extraordinary and continuing influence was the
exceptionally innovative way in which the subject matter of psychology was
approached. The more traditional topics (for example, the functions of the
nervous system, sensation, the perception of time, space, objects, reality,
imagination, conception, reasoning, memory, association, attention, emotions
and will) were rarely dealt with in a traditional manner; and a whole series of
non-traditional topics (for example, habit, the stream of thought, consciousness
of self, discrimination and comparison, the production of movement, instinct,
and hypnotism) were introduced in ways that forever changed the discipline.
Not surprisingly, The Principles can still be read in its entirety with great profit.
Of all JamesÊ contributions, however, there are three of which he has been
especially famous for in the history of psychology: his analysis of the stream of
thought, his characterisation of the self and his theory of emotion. Each of these
will be briefly described; but it should be kept in mind that, with James, there is
no substitute for reading the original.
JamesÊ analysis of the stream of thought was first published in an article on the
mind, entitled On some omissions of introspective psychology. As it appeared in
the edited form in The Principles, it consisted of a number of components. Three
of these, all of which flowed directly from James' recognition that psychology
had traditionally attributed to thought, a characteristic, true only of the objects of
thought (viz., analysability into discrete elements).

The first of these components was an attack on the idea that sensations
constituted the fundamental elements of consciousness. Sensation, James argued,
was an abstraction from not a fact of experience. „No one,‰ he wrote, „ever had a
simple sensation by itself. Consciousness, from our natal day, is of a teeming
multiplicity of objects and relations, and what we call simple sensations are
results of discriminative attention, pushed often to a very high degree‰.
The two remaining components emphasised change and continuity in thought.

For James, thought contained no constant elements of any kind; be they
sensations or ideas. Every perception was relative and contextualised, every
thought occurred in a mind modified by every previous thought. States of mind
were never repeated. Objects might be constant and discrete, but thought was
constantly changing and sensibly continuous. „Consciousness,‰ he wrote,
„...does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as `chainÊ or `trainÊ
do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing
jointed; it flows. A `riverÊ or `streamÊ are the metaphors by which it is most
naturally described‰ (James, 2012).
James' chapter on the self introduced numerous self-related concepts and

distinctions into psychology. The phenomenal self (the experienced self, the „me‰
self, the self as known) was distinguished from the self thought (the I-self, the self
as knower). „Personality,‰ he wrote, „implies the incessant presence of two
elements, an objective person known by a passing subjective thought and
recognised as continuing in time. Hereafter let us use the words ÂMEÊ and ÂIÊ for
the empirical person and the judging thought.‰
In discussing the „me-self,‰ James wrote of three different but interrelated

aspects of self: the material self (all those aspects of material existence in which
we feel a strong sense of ownership, our bodies, our families and our
possessions), the social self (our felt social relations) and the spiritual self (our
feelings of our own subjectivity). These aspects were then treated in terms of
relevant feelings of self-worth and self-seeking actions; and in the course of this
analysis, James made three major contributions to self-theory.
He articulated the principle of multiplicity of social selves (a man has as many

social selves as there are individuals who recognise him and carry an image of
him in their mind), defined self-esteem in terms of the ratio of successes to
pretensions, arguing that self-esteem can be as easily increased by lowering
aspirations as by increasing successes and distinguished ideal selves from real
selves („In each kind of self, material, social, and spiritual, men distinguish
between the immediate and actual, and the remote and potential...‰).

In addressing the „I-self‰, James turned first to the feeling of self-identity, the
experience that „I am the same self that I was yesterday,‰ pointing out that „the
sense of our own personal identity...is exactly like any one of our other
perceptions of sameness among phenomena‰. He then proceeded to review the
classical (spiritualist, associationist and transcendentalist) theories of personal
identity and concluded with an extremely important discussion of the
phenomena and implications of multiple personality. In the last especially, we
see James in his element, struggling with the nature of the most complex
manifestations of the self.
Finally, James' chapter on emotions, revised from an 1884 paper, presented his
famous theory of emotion. The chapter began with a clear recognition of the close
relationship between action and the expressive and physiological concomitants
of emotion „Objects of rage, love, fear, etc.,‰ he wrote, „not only prompt a man to
outward deeds, but provoke characteristic alterations in his attitude and visage,
and affect his breathing, circulation and other organic functions in specific
ways‰. Here James also made it clear that emotion could be as easily triggered by
memory or imagination as by direct perception of an emotion producing event.
As he phrased it, „One may get angrier in thinking over one's insult than at the
moment of receiving it‰.
In what was to become known as the James-Lange theory of emotion, James then
went on to argue that emotion consists of our experience of these bodily changes.
As he put it, „My theory...is that the bodily changes follow directly the
perception of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they
occur which is the emotion...we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we
strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike or tremble because
we are sorry, angry or fearful as the case may be‰.
Although James may have been a bit too strong in equating emotion with
experience of bodily change (and in other sections of the chapter made claims in
relation to the neural basis of emotion that have not been supported), his
description of the nature of emotion anticipated much of what is commonly held
by modern theorists to be characteristic of emotion: the presence of an external or
internal precipitating event, physiological change, expressive movement and a
characteristic affective experience.
It is impossible in brief to summarise the many ways in which JamesÊ Principles,

read and assimilated by those coming to academic maturity in the decades
following its publication, altered the course of development of the newly
emerging scientific psychology. JamesÊ views, especially those on the stream of
consciousness, played a major role in shifting psychology away from

elementalism towards a functional, process-oriented account of the mind (and

eventually behaviour).
JamesÊ concern with emotion, motivation and the nature of the self, the social self
and self-esteem, not only laid the groundwork for dynamic psychology, but for a
dynamic psychology that recognised the importance of social factors in
personality. JamesÊ deep and abiding concern with exceptional mental states
helped legitimise an emerging, indigenous American psychotherapy and paved
the way for the eventual acceptance of psychoanalysis within psychology.
3.4 PARADIGM OF FUNCTIONALISM

The subject matter of psychology can be described as follows:
(a)" Psychology is the study of mental activity (for example, perception,
memory, imagination, feeling, judgment); and
(b)" Mental activity is to be evaluated in terms of how it serves the organism in
adapting to its environment.
Mental activity can be studied through introspection. Introspection is the

examination of one's own conscious thoughts and feelings. Introspection is
closely related to human self–reflection. By the term of introspection, William
James meant a kind of active observation and a description of the contents of
one's own consciousness.
3.4.1 The Basic Idea of Functionalism

If you see a machine that you have never seen before, you might ask „What is
that contraption? What is its purpose? What is it for?‰ In asking those questions,
you are asking for an explanation of the function that the machine serves.
In many contexts, when we ask „What is it?‰ what we ultimately are asking for is
an account of what it does. For example, a mousetrap – what you know is the
function it performs. You know nothing about how it performs its function or
what materials it is made of. Also, you may not care; so long as it performs its
function well.

The Idea of Functionalism

Functionalism in the philosophy of the mind is the doctrine that what makes
something a mental state of a particular type does not depend on its internal
constitution, but rather on the way it functions or the role it plays in the system
of which it is a part.
The focus was on the ongoing stream of consciousness – the ever-changing
pattern of images, sensations, memories and other mental events. This approach
also encouraged psychologists to measure individual differences in mental
processes.
3.4.2 The Major Themes that Characterised

Functionalistic Psychology
Functionalism is to understand the function of mind rather than its structure.
Functionalists interested in the „why‰ of mental processes and behaviour led
directly to a concern with motivation. Functionalism is interested more in what
makes organisms different from one another than what makes them same.
Functionalists accepted both mental processes and behaviour as legitimate
subject matters for psychology.
SELF-CHECK 3.3
1. What is the contribution of William James to the field of

psychology?
2. Describe functionalism.

3.5 JOHN DEWEY
Figure 3.11: Details about John Dewey

Source: Field (n.d.)
John Dewey is the co-founder of functional psychology. He led the „progressive‰

movement in US and is world renowned for his works on education, nature,
democracy and inquiry. There are a number of John Dewey theories on each of
the subject areas he contributed to. John Dewey was born in 1859, in Burlington,
Vermont. He attended the University of Vermont and attained Phi Beta Kappa in
the year 1879.
He studied for a year under G. Stanley Hall and went on to earn a PhD in 1884
from the School of Arts and Sciences, Johns Hopkins University. He served at the
University of Michigan between 1884 and 1888 and then again, between 1889 and
1894. He devoted a great deal of time to the study of „Absolute Idealism‰ by

Hegel. From 1904 onwards, he taught philosophy at Columbia University and

Teachers College. He remained a member of the American Federation of
Teachers to the very end.
Dewey did not identify himself as a pragmatist per se, but instead he referred to
his philosophy as „instrumentalism‰. He is considered one of the three major
figures in American pragmatism, along with Charles Sanders Peirce, who
invented the term and William James, who popularised it. Dewey worked from
strongly Hegelian influences, unlike James, whose intellectual lineage was
primarily British, drawing particularly on empiricist and utilitarian ideas.
Neither was Dewey so pluralist or relativist as James. He stated that value was a
function not of whim or purely of social construction, but a quality situated in
events („nature itself is wistful and pathetic, turbulent and passionate‰;
experience and nature).
John DeweyÊs philosophical view throughout his career was that the „theory of
inquiry‰ was how species survived in their environment. Dewey believed in
Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, adopting the naturalistic approach
of Darwin. He thought that a living organism interacting with the environment
responds by developing an understanding of how to adapt to that situation and
excels.
One of DeweyÊs most outstanding essays was the Reflex Arc Concept in
Psychology in 1869. In this paper, he treated the stimulus separate from the
response. This would be later known as social behaviourism. The reflex arc
combines the sensory stimulus, central connection and the motor response as
working together as one. He claimed that a person had to experience a set of
circumstances and the reflex arc works simultaneously. A person focuses on
something, and then decides what to do and then acts on the decision. Dewey
argued that how we acted in the environment is how we learn.
Dewey put to use some of his ideas of learning in the Dewey School at the
University of Chicago. The scientifically tested curriculum was centred on the
student. Dewey wanted the students to learn from hands-on experience. He
designed the school to make a balance between philosophy and natural science.
Today, we call this approach pragmatism. Dewey believed that education was a
lifelong process and that philosophy was everyday life. He believed that
psychology was the basis for learning and the way to obtain a good education. In
the Dewey School, the teachers were to present real-life problems to the children
and then guide the students to solve the problem by providing them with hands-
on activity to learn the solution. The child's decision was to be based on the
experience the child had in school (McNergney & McNergney, 1998).

The History of the University of Chicago Laboratory SchoolÊs website gives some
of the curriculum that Dewey had for his students. The childÊs home
environment should be centred in the school. Cooking and sewing was to be
taught at school and be a routine. Reading, writing and maths were to be taught
in the daily course of these routines. Building, cooking and sewing had these
schooling components in it and these activities also represented everyday life for
the students. The students had to measure things and be able to read to do these
things. For an example, if a student was not able to read, it was here they would
teach to achieve the ability to read. The child would experience school as being in
a community. This would help the child learn how to share and communicate
with others. Problems would be presented to the child and by trial and error, the
child would be able to solve the problem. The teacherÊs responsibility was to be
aware of where each child was intellectually and provide appropriate problems
for the child to solve. Dewey wrote a book about his findings from the Dewey
School called School and Society.
Dewey encountered a lot of questions on how well the children learned and if the
teacher had any control over the students. He gave lectures overseas in China,
Japan and the Soviet Union on his schooling system. This way of teaching is still
being used today. DeweyÊs theory of a schooling system opened the door for
hands-on learning though trial and error.
The Contribution of John Dewey in the Development of Functionalism

Dewey used James' ideas as the basis for his writings, but asserted that
consciousness and the will were not relevant concepts for scientific psychology.
Instead, the behaviour is the critical issue and should be considered in the
context in which it occurs.
For example, a stimulus might be important in one circumstance, but irrelevant

in another. A personÊs response to that stimulus depends on the value of that
stimulus in the current situation. Thus, practical and adaptive responses
characterise behaviour, not some unseen force like consciousness.
3.5.1 John Dewey’s Theory on Education

Dewey presented his views on education in My Pedagogic Creed, School and
Society, The Child and Curriculum, Experience and Education and Democracy
and Education. He believed that education in society equated with nutrition and
reproduction. He strongly advocated the primary need for transmission of
education through effective communication. Dewey campaigned educational
reforms and denounced an authoritarian approach. He believed that children or
students should be able to understand actual experiences and be a part of hands-
on experiential education.

3.5.2 John Dewey’s Theory on Democracy

John Dewey considered democracy as the result of schools and society at large. He
believed that democracy in its very essence can only be applied to the full potential
if adequate attention was paid to reconstruction of experimental intelligence and
social plurality. He strongly advocated social reconstruction to adopt democracy
beyond voting right and well-defined public opinion. He believed that the concept
had to be an imminent part of effective social communication and politicians were
completely accountable for adopted policies. Dewey believed democracy to be
synonymous with the only ethical ideal of humanity.
3.5.3 John Dewey’s Theory on Functional Psychology

Dewey was committed to Hegelian idealism. He explored the possible synthesis
between experimental science and idealism. In his theory on functional
psychology, John Dewey laid a lot of emphasis on the need to reformulate
psychology. He stressed that the focus on the role of the social environment
needed to be strengthened to ensure that it remained in sync with that of mental
activity and human behaviour. DeweyÊs functional psychology laid practical
emphasis on application and action to reason with the paradigms of traditional
stimulus response. The manner in which an individual views a situation was
believed to influence the unitary nature of sensation and response to the situation.
3.5.4 John Dewey’s Theory on Pragmatism

Dewey preferred to evade the use of the term „pragmatist‰ when referring to
himself, and referred to „instrumentalism‰ as the basic philosophy he
propounded. His theory on pragmatism was based on popular utilitarian and
empiricist thought. He propounded that „value‰ was the result of social
construction and basically a function. On the other hand, he strongly advocated
that quality could be measured as part of a situation or event. Dewey strongly
believed in the wistful aspect of human nature. He believed that experimentation
on social, philosophical and cultural issues could stand in for the truth. He
honoured the importance of religious institutions and ethical practices, while at the
same time, advocated that only a scientific approach could further human
progress.

3.5.5 John Dewey’s Theory on Epistemology

John Dewey believed that generated and retained logic was mainly the outcome of
accepted levels of organisation and presentation. He believed that self action was
the result of possessed power, which in turn, generated further action. Interaction,
on the other hand, has been explained by Dewey as the balance or equation
between the living and inorganic. John Dewey stressed on the thought that
reactions sprung from transactions involved in the various phases, with or without
a contribution to the ultimate reality. Logical positivism, according to Dewey,
springs from change of referents to symbolic structure and proposition content.
SELF-CHECK 3.4
What are the major contributions of Dewey in the field of education?
" Freud described the various stages called the psychosexual stages of
development. He stated that the child looks to seek gratification and avoid
pain and this he termed as the pleasure principle. If these psychosexual
stages are completed successfully, the result is a healthy personality.
" There are non-Freudian thinkers such as Carl Jung, Horney and Fromm who
believed Freud was incorrect to believe that personality is shaped almost
entirely by childhood events.
" As a psychologist, William James was as interested in and knowledgeable

about the phenomena of psychopathology and exceptional mental states as
he was in those of normal consciousness and in the principles he drew
constantly from this material to enrich his analyses.
" Trained as a biologist and a physician, William James felt compelled to

ground his psychology wherever possible in the facts of nervous physiology;
but he was also a philosopher at heart concerned with issues such as the
problem of other minds, the relationship of mind to body, the continuity of
self, the mechanism of objective reference and the nature of necessary truths.
" John DeweyÊs philosophical view throughout his career was that the „theory
of inquiry‰ was how species survived in their environment. Dewey believed
in Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, adopting the naturalistic
approach of Darwin. He has given theory on education, democracy,
functional psychology, pragmatism and epistemology.

" Freud proposed a number of ideas that were highly controversial, but also
attracted a number of followers. Many of these thinkers agreed with Freud's
concept of the unconscious mind and the importance of early childhood.
" Darwin placed humans on a continuum with other animals, making the
causes of their thought and behaviour natural phenomena not supernatural
ones.
" JamesÊ views, especially those on the stream of consciousness, played a major
role in shifting psychology away from elementalism towards a functional,
process-oriented account of the mind.
" John Dewey is the co-founder of functional psychology.
Charles Darwin Neo-Freudian thinkers

Contemporary psychology Origin of species
Elementalism Sigmund Freud
John Dewey William James
1." Discuss the various stages of psychosexual development.

2." What are defence mechanisms?
3." What do you consider as the greatest contribution of Freud?
4." Explain the psychosexual stages of development.

Write short notes on the following:

(a)" DarwinÊs theory of Evolution.
(b)" John DeweyÊs Theory on Democracy.
(c)" John DeweyÊs Theory on Education.
Darwin, C. (1871). The descent of man and selection in relation to sex. Vol. 1.
London, England: John Murray.
Darwin, C. (1988). On the origin of species, 1859. Washington Square, NY: New
York University.
Desmond, A. J., & Moore, J. R. (1991). Darwin. New York, NY: Warner.
Ellis, A., Abrams, M., & Abrams, L. (2008). Personality theories: Critical
perspectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Farmer, G. T., & Cook, J. (2013). Climate change science: A modern synthesis:
Volume 1 - The physical climate. New York, NY: Springer.
Field, R. (n.d.). John Dewey (1859-1952). Retrieved from

http://www.iep.utm.edu/dewey/
Heffner, C. L. (2014). Chapter 3: Section 4: FreudÊs stages of psychosexual

development. Retrieved from
http://allpsych.com/psychology101/sexual_development/
James, W. (2012). The principles of psychology, Volume 1. Newburyport, MA:

Dover.
McNergney, R. F., & McNergney, J. M. (1998). Foundations of education: The

challenge of professional practice. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Moran, L. (1993). What is evolution? Retrieved from

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html

Straker, D. (2014). Freud's psychosexual stage theory. Retrieved from

http://changingminds.org/explanations/learning/freud_stage.htm
Thornton, S. P. (2014). Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Retrieved from

http://www.iep.utm.edu/freud/
Whye, J. V. (2002). Charles Darwin: Gentleman naturalist. Retrieved from

http://darwin-online.org.uk/darwin.html

Topic  From
4 Consciousness
to Behaviour
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1." Discuss the theory of functional psychology with its related
experiments;
2." Explain the new directions in animal psychology; and
3." Explore radical empiricism, its assumptions, context and importance.
 INTRODUCTION
Functionalism in the philosophy of the mind is the doctrine that what makes
something a mental state of a particular type does not depend on its internal
constitution but rather on the way it functions or the role it plays in the system of
which it is a part. This doctrine is rooted in AristotleÊs conception of the soul, and
has antecedents in HobbesÊs conception of the mind as a „calculating machine‰.
but it has become fully articulated (and popularly endorsed) only in the last third
of the 20th century. Though the term „functionalism‰ is used to designate a
variety of positions in a variety of other disciplines including psychology,
sociology, economics and architecture, this entry focuses exclusively on
functionalism as a philosophical thesis about the nature of mental states.
A very genuine psychological interest is apt to be awakened in anyone who has

the opportunity of watching the development of a young child. How many
different things even the little baby can do! He sleeps, awakes, sucks and
swallows, breathes, coughs and sneezes, at times cries and vocalises in various
ways, lies placid or throws his arms and legs around. After a while he begins to
„take notice,‰ to look and listen, to recognise people, to reach for things and
handle them with increasing skill. Months later he begins to understand words
that are spoken to him and a little later he tries to speak a few words and then

TOPIC 4 FROM CONSCIOUSNESS TO BEHAVIOUR  75
more and more words. Dozens of items could be added, as any young parent
who undertakes to keep a „baby diary‰ would find.
Such a record, psychologically considered, consists of answers to the question,

„What did the child do?‰ This question „What?‰ is one of the three types of
questions that are asked by any inquiring person, for example a scientist. The
others are „How?‰ and „Why?‰ These questions, too, are likely to occur to the
observer of a child. How does he creep? Why does he cry? They are harder
questions to answer. The „How‰ question inquires into the process by which a
result is reached and the „Why‰ question seeks for the cause behind an action.
The process may be too complex and rapid to follow with the eyes, besides being
partly concealed inside the body and even in the brain. The cause of an action
often called a motive is very likely to be invisible.
4.1 FUNCTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

If such a diary should be continued through childhood and youth and on into
adult life, the number of things recorded would be so immense that some kind of
classification would be necessary and since the interest presumably would be in
the person rather than in the numerous objects involved in his activities, the
variety of objects could be disregarded and the „things done‰ brought under a
relatively few heads according to the results accomplished. All the different
words and sentences spoken could be brought under the head of „talking,‰ all
the games played under the head of „playing,‰ all the lessons learned under the
head of „learning,‰ all the various facts remembered under the head of
„remembering.‰ So the final answer to the „What‰ question would be more or
less a systematic list of kinds of results accomplished. Meanwhile, the answers to
the „How‰ and „Why‰ questions would linger behind because of their difficulty.
Something like this, as far as we can make out from the record, was the early
history of psychology. In the time of the ancient Greek philosophers such classes
were recognised as perceiving objects by the senses, remembering, imagining
things never seen, choosing between alternative possible actions and carrying out
oneÊs chosen plan. Knowing and willing seemed to be the most inclusive classes
possible above the physiological level of digesting, sensing and moving. This
classification was obviously an answer to the „What‰ question. Aristotle made an
important start toward answering the question how we remember and other
philosophers gave some very inexpert answers to the question how we perceive
objects. The „Why‰ question received a very general answer from the hedonists,
who asserted that all human activity is dominated by a desire for pleasure. On
the whole, the psychology that came down from the Greeks consisted of a set of
broad classes of results accomplished by the human mind.

76  TOPIC 4 FROM CONSCIOUSNESS TO BEHAVIOUR
A psychology that attempts to give an accurate and systematic answer to the

question, „What do men do?‰ and then go on to the questions, „How do they do
it?‰ and „Why do they do it?‰ is called functional psychology. Men not only
know and will, but also feel and their emotions as well as their intellectual and
executive functions are included in the scope of functional psychology.
In the US, where psychology of the armchair variety was a very active academic
subject as early as 1830, long before the advent of experimental psychology, a
favourite expression was the „workings of the mind‰ to indicate the subject
matter. It was evidently a functional psychology that these „mental
philosophers‰ were attempting to develop. They used whatever results they
could glean from the contemporary physiologists and psychiatrists but were after
all rather abstract.
4.1.1 Experimental Functional Psychology

It is all very well to ask the question „How,‰ but the difficulty is to find adequate
methods for tracing the hidden process that leads to an observed result. Three
general methods were devised during the nineteenth century and still seem to
exhaust the possibilities.
There are objective methods which may be designated as follows:
(a)" The Physiological Method

If the question is how we see, the anatomy and physiology of the eye will
give an important part of our answer. The focusing mechanism for getting
clear vision, the iris diaphragm for regulating the amount of light admitted,
the eye muscles for turning the eyes, the retina with its rods and cones, its
photochemical substances that contribute to clear night and day vision, the
conduction of impulses by the optic nerve, all tell parts, but only part of the
story of how we see.
If the question is how we respond to a stimulus, the answer is partly to be

found in the sensory and motor nerves conducting to and from the brain at
a rate of about 60 metres a second. If the question is how we get angry, part
of the answer is found in the activity of the adrenal glands. If the question
concerns general mental activity, part of the answer may be furnished by
the new technique of amplified „brain waves‰. These electrical phenomena,
however, give only a vague impression of what is going on in the brain.
They tell about as much as you would learn of the operations going on in a
factory by listening to the noise coming out through a window. The
physiological method does not reveal nearly all we want to know about the

processes of perceiving, learning, thinking, choosing and most of the

psychological work has been done with the psychological methods.
(b)" The Method of Varied Conditions

This is simply the general method of experimental science applied to the
performances of an individual. He is given a task to perform and we wish
to discover how he performs it. If he can do it under certain conditions but
not under others, or does it better under some conditions than others, we
have some indication of his mode of operation. We may have to try out
many hypotheses by appropriate control of the conditions before we obtain
anything like a complete picture of the process.
EbbinghausÊs pioneer experiment on memory (1885), from which came the

well-known „curve of forgetting‰ is a good example of varied conditions
(Ebbinghaus, 1964). Is forgetting a gradual process? The condition varied
was the elapsed time since the learning of a fixed quantity of standard
material (non-sense syllables) and the results showed that when the
material had been just barely learned, it was forgotten rapidly in the first
few hours after learning, and then more and more slowly.
Another variation of conditions was to have the material „over-learned‰

(more than barely learned) and the result was that it was forgotten more
slowly. Another, much more recent experiment was to have the subject go
to sleep immediately after learning and the result showed that forgetting
was slower than under the waking condition. The experiment has been
varied in many different ways during the past sixty years for the purpose of
getting as complete a picture as possible of the process of forgetting.
(c)" The Introspective Method

You are with a friend who is driving to the suburb of a good-sized city. A
few miles from the city he comes to a stop at the entrance to a side road and
silently deliberates for a while, then takes the side road. You ask him how he
reached his decision, and he replies, „I was getting worried about the time
and the slow driving through the city. This side road seemed to run in the
general direction we want and I figured that, though we might wander
around a bit, we should probably lose less time this way than in the city
traffic.‰ Your friend has given you an introspective account of his thought
process and probably a correct account as far as it goes.
At the beginning of the present century when our schools were taking shape,
much doubt was expressed regarding the validity of the introspective
method and the behaviourists for discarding it altogether though they would
admit privately that introspective reports like the one just given were wholly

acceptable in ordinary life. At the time mentioned, too, a common accusation

against the older psychology was that it had been merely introspective; but
this was a false accusation in two respects. Many objective experiments had
already been carried out, as we have seen; and even the old „mental
philosophers‰ had not depended much on introspection in the exact sense.
They had sometimes appealed to the introspection of their audience in
support of a statement, as in the famous American controversy over free will.
Jonathan Edwards (1754) had offered a strong logical argument against free
will: „Nothing ever comes to pass without a cause. The will is always
determined by the strongest motive‰. Several of his successors, as Henry
Tappan (1841), sought to rescue free will: „We appeal directly to
consciousness; and as a result, we find that..... there is nothing intervening
between the will and its act of choice.‰ What we miss here is a report of
certain occasions when the subject said, „I was conscious of choosing A
rather than B as a perfectly uncaused, unmotivated act.‰
The modern introspectionist would require definite data, not general

appeals and he would feel that such introspections as Tappan called for
were too difficult to be reliable.
Strange as it may seem, psychology learned the accurate use of

introspection not from philosophy but from physics and physiology.
Physics used it in studying light and sound and physiology in studying the
sense organs. Light and sound, we must remember, are not absolutely
objective facts, for light is not simply radiation, but visible radiation, and
sound is not simply vibration, but audible vibration. There is much
vibration that is not audible and much radiation that is not visible.
The method of impression has been used in many different ways. It got its
name in experiments on the feelings, likes and dislikes and aesthetic
judgments. You show a person a colour and ask whether he likes it, whether
it makes a pleasant or unpleasant impression. You show him two colours and
ask which makes the pleasanter impression. You show him two pictures and
ask which seems to him the more beautiful, or you ask the same question
regarding two faces. You cannot call his judgments on such matters either
correct or incorrect, though you may be able to trace the effects of prejudice.
But you do assume that he reports his actual feelings or impressions. To that
extent the method of impression calls for a simple form of introspection.

But is this form of introspection really any different from our ordinary
objective observation of external facts? Those psychologists who always
insist on objective methods dislike the method of impression as if it were
tainted with subjectivism.
However it seems perfectly objective to the person who receives the

impression and gives the verbal report. For instance, you show him a
colour and he reports, „It is green‰ rather than that it gives him a green
impression or sensation. Even when you ask whether he likes it, he is apt to
say, „It is beautiful‰ rather than that, „It gives me a pleasant impression or
feeling‰. His attitude is that of the ordinary objective observer.
If the method of impression is unsound, all scientific observation must be

unsound, since it makes the same demands on the observer. Let us suppose
that a chemist has great many specimens of water to be examined for traces
of iron, and that he adds to each specimen a certain reagent which gives a
blue tinge to water containing any iron; and suppose he says to himself, „If I
had an assistant with a good pair of eyes whom I could trust to observe
accurately, I could save myself much routine work.‰ He advertises, and a
young girl applies for the job. He fixes up some test tubes of water containing
iron and others with no iron, and tells the girl that the job is to examine each
test tube carefully and be sure whether or not it shows any tinge of blue.
He finds her very accurate and puts her on the job. He then places his
unknown specimens in her hands and depends on her to report which show
the blue tinge and which do not. First he tested the girl; now with the girl's
help he tests his specimens. But the girlÊs task is the same, and her attitude
throughout is that of the objective observer. The chemist used her
observations first for testing her psychologically, and then for testing the
water chemically. At first, he used known specimens to find out something
regarding an unknown person; later he used the known person to find out
something regarding unknown specimens. The data was the same, but they
were used first for a psychological purpose and later for a chemical purpose.
(d)" Further Development of the Introspective Method

The purpose of introspection in functional psychology is to obtain from the
person who has done a thing some inside information on how he did it to
be accurate enough for scientific use. An introspective report should be
made right after the act is completed and it should not attempt to cover too
much ground, since it depends on the person's memory of what has just
„passed through his mind‰. The method of impression is ideal in these
respects. Processes that are more complicated and take more time can
nevertheless be observed and reported to some extent.

4.1.2 The Structural Psychology of Conscious

Experience
William James (1842-1910), a truly great psychologist, offered a briefer course in
psychology for college students in 1892. He started off with a definition which
was regarded as standard at the time: „The definition of psychology may be best
given as the description and explanation of states of consciousness as such‰. A
much-used English textbook of the period was Outlines of Psychology, 1884, by
James Sully, who said: „I abide by the old conception that psychology is
distinctly marked off from the physical or natural sciences as having to do with
the phenomena of the inner world, and employing its own method or
instrument, namely, introspection‰.
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920), certainly a leader in psychology, said in 1892:

„Psychology has to investigate that which we call internal experience i.e., our
own sensation and feeling, our thought and volition in contradistinction to the
objects of external experience, which form the subject matter of natural science‰.
In 1896, however, he replaced the words „internal experience,‰ by the improved
formula „immediate experience‰, so as to include what obviously was a part of
psychologyÊs subject matter, our experience of external objects. We are conscious
of objects outside us as well as of thoughts and feelings inside us and a science of
conscious experience must cover both. Undoubtedly, it is the inner experience
that first awakens true interest of students who approach psychology from this
angle James said in a well-known passage of his larger work, Principles of
Psychology (James, 1890).
The manner in which trains of imagery and consideration follow each other
through our thinking, the restless flight of one idea before the next, the
transitions our minds make between things wide as the poles asunder ... all this
magical, imponderable streaming has excited the admiration of all whose
attention happened to be caught by its omnipresent mystery. Furthermore, it has
challenged the race of philosophers to banish something of the mystery by
formulating the process in simpler terms.
If conscious experience was set apart as the field for a science of psychology to
explore and reduce to order, the project was similar to that of chemistry.
Discover the elements of conscious experience and their modes of combination.
So it seemed to Wundt anyway, though contrary to JamesÊ view, the main
requirement was to bring out clearly the fluid, streaming and personal nature of
consciousness. It was Wundt, not James, who mapped out the field of structural
psychology, which however he called simply „psychology.‰ All our experiences
perceptions of external objects, memories, motions, purposes are complex and
call for scientific analysis.

The elements of conscious experience, in WundtÊs analysis, were of two main

classes: the sensations which seem to come to us from outside, and the feelings
which seem to belong to ourselves. The elementary sensations were teased out by
the physiologistsÊ sense of colours, the tones, the elementary tastes and the
elementary skin sensations. For the functional psychologist these sensory
elements help to explain how we see, hear, etc., but for the structural
psychologist they are significant as being the simplest possible kinds of
experience, unless it be the feelings. As for the elementary feelings, the pleasant
and unpleasant were universally agreed on, and Wundt proposed two additional
pairs: the excited and the quiet; the tense and the relaxed. These elements
combine into many blends and patterns. Emotion, for example, is a complex
experience composed of feelings and bodily sensations and the experience of
willing is a certain time pattern of emotion, characterised by abruptness.
4.1.3 The Chicago School of Functional Psychology

Titchener's challenge to the functionalists was promptly accepted by a vigorous
group at the University of Chicago under the leadership of John Dewey (born
1859) and James Rowland Angell (born 1869), two of the most distinguished men
in our whole list: Dewey the great philosopher and Angell later influential as an
educational administrator. In their stand for functional psychology they were
influenced by William James with his conviction that consciousness was not a
mere frill or epiphenomenon but rather a genuine causal factor in life and
biological survival.
Every sensation or feeling, besides its mere existence, has a function as referring
to some kind of an object, knowing it and also choosing or rejecting it. Moreover,
„every possible feeling produces a movement,‰ or sometimes an inhibition of
movement. Conscious processes are thus tied in with the environment on both
sensory and motor sides (James, 1890). Like James, the early Chicago
functionalists accepted the definition of psychology as the science of
consciousness and held that conscious processes should be studied not only as
existential facts but also as playing their parts in the life of the individual and his
adaptation to the environment.
4.1.4 European Functionalists

Some European functionalists are described with their work and biographies in Table
4.1.

Table 4.1: European Functionalists
European Works
Functionalists
Edouard " Early in his career he adopted a point of view which he first called
Claparede biological and later functional. The functional conception, he said,
(1873 to 1940) „considers psychical phenomena primarily from the point of view
of their function in life. This comes to the same thing as asking
oneÊs self: what is their use?‰ Their function is to meet a personÊs
needs and interests.
" He set up an animal laboratory in his department of the university.
" He founded at Geneva the now world-famous J. J. Rousseau
Institute for the study of the child and for the development of
progressive methods of teaching.
" For the study of thought processes he adopted a method which he
called reflexion or „thinking aloud‰.
" He became the secretary of the International Congresses of
Psychology.
David Katz " He was a professor in other universities in Germany, US and
(1884 to 1953) Sweden.
" He attacked the psychological problems of hunger and appetite.
" His works are phenomenology of colour sensation (1911, 1930) and
of touch sensation.
" He stands as the promoter of „phenomenological‰ psychology. He
reported that one thing is smooth and hard, another thing soft and
bulky and uses quite a variety of such descriptive adjectives.
" His work on „colour constancy‰ was particularly important and
has been followed up by other investigators in many laboratories.
Edgar Rubin " He was a professor at the University of Copenhagen.
(1886 to 1951) " His special contribution was the famous study of figure and
ground (1915, 1921). It was quickly taken up by the Gestalt school
and made a part of their system.
Source: Woodworth & Sheehan (1964)
In this topic, we have taken note of two, or really three, approaches to

psychology. One is the structural approach, the other two are functional. The
structural approach starts from a manÊs conscious experience and attempts to
give a scientific account of it and by analysis and synthesis to work out its
composition or structure. The Chicago functionalists also started from a man's
conscious experience but were interested not only in its structure but also in its
function or use to the man in his dealings with the physical and social

environment. The primary fact for this school was conscious experience; the
secondary fact was the function of consciousness. This approach can therefore be
called secondary functionalism. By contrast, primary functionalism starts with
results accomplished and asks by what process they are accomplished. It may
appeal to conscious experience for evidence on the process, but its interest in
conscious experience is secondary to its interest in functions.
Psychology was formerly defined as the science of the mind. Considered as an

entity, „the mind‰ is a metaphysical concept of no use to an empirical science
such as modern psychology. The structuralists, however, could define an
individual's mind as the sum total of his conscious experiences. The secondary
functionalists could accept this definition, adding that the role in life of
consciousness must be considered. The primary functionalists would define
mind as the sum total of mental functions, though they would admit the
difficulty of drawing a sharp distinction between these and other functions of the
organism. Of the schools next to be considered, associationism and behaviourism
certainly belong to the general functional group, while Gestalt psychology
originated, at least, as a reform in structural psychology. Figure 4.1 shows some
cartoons about the world of psychology.
Figure 4.1: World of psychology

Source: https://psych-oh.wikispaces.com/
4.1.5 Criticism of Functionalism

In the 1960s, functionalism was criticised for being unable to account for social
change, or for structural contradictions and conflict (and thus was often called
„consensus theory‰). The refutation of the second criticism of functionalism, that
it is static and has no concept of change, has already been articulated above. It

concludes that while ParsonsÊ theory allows for change, it is an orderly process of
change (Parsons, 1961), a moving equilibrium. Therefore, referring to ParsonsÊ
theory of society as static is inaccurate. It is true that it does place emphasis on
equilibrium and the maintenance or quick return to social order, but this is a
product of the time in which Parsons was writing (post-World War II, and the
start of the cold war). Society was in upheaval and fear abounded. At the time
social order was crucial, and this is reflected in ParsonsÊ tendency to promote
equilibrium and social order rather than social change.
Furthermore, Durkheim favoured a radical form of guild socialism along with

functionalist explanations. Also, Marxism, while acknowledging social
contradictions, still used functionalist explanations. ParsonsÊ evolutionary theory
describes the differentiation and reintegration systems and subsystems and thus
at least temporary conflict before reintegration. „The fact that functional analysis
can be seen by some as inherently conservative and by others as inherently
radical suggests that it may be inherently neither one nor the other‰ (Merton,
1957).
Stronger criticisms include the epistemological argument that functionalism is

teleological, that it attempts to account for the development of social institutions
solely through recourse to the effects that are attributed to them and thereby
explains the two circularly. However, Parsons drew directly on many of
Durkheim's concepts in creating his theory. Certainly Durkheim was one of the
first theorists to explain a phenomenon with reference to the function it served
for society. He said, „the determination of function is⁄necessary for the
complete explanation of the phenomena‰ (as cited in Coser, 1977). However,
Durkheim made a clear distinction between historical and functional analysis,
saying, "When the explanation of a social phenomenon is undertaken, we must
seek separately the efficient cause which produces it and the function it fulfils"
(as cited in Coser, 1977). If Durkheim made this distinction, then it is unlikely
that Parsons did not.
However Merton does explicitly state that functional analysis does not seek to
explain why the action happened in the first instance, but why it continues or is
reproduced. He says that „latent functions ⁄go far towards explaining the
continuance of the pattern‰ (as cited in Elster, 1990). Therefore, it can be argued
that functionalism does not explain the original cause of a phenomenon with
reference to its effect, and is therefore, not teleological. Another criticism
describes the ontological argument that society cannot have „needs‰ as a human
being does, and even if society does have needs they need not be met. Anthony
Giddens argues that functionalist explanations may all be rewritten as historical
accounts of individual human actions and consequences.

A further criticism directed at functionalism is that it contains no sense of agency,

that individuals are seen as puppets, acting as their role requires. Yet, Holmwood
(2005) states that the most sophisticated forms of functionalism are based on „a
highly developed concept of action‰. Also, as was explained above, Parsons took
as his starting point the individual and their actions. His theory did not however
articulate how these actors exercise their agency in opposition to the socialisation
and inculcation of accepted norms. As has been shown above, Merton addressed
this limitation through his concept of deviance, and so it can be seen that
functionalism allows for agency. It cannot, however, explain why individuals
choose to accept or reject the accepted norms, why and in what circumstances
they choose to exercise their agency, and this does remain a considerable
limitation of the theory.
Further criticisms have been levelled at functionalism by proponents of other

social theories, particularly conflict theorists, Marxists, feminists and
postmodernists. Conflict theorists criticised functionalism's concept of systems as
giving far too much weight to integration and consensus as well as neglecting
independence and conflict (Holmwood, 2005). Lockwood (as cited in Holmwood,
2005), in line with conflict theory, suggested that ParsonsÊ theory missed the
concept of system contradiction. He did not account for those parts of the system
that might have tendencies to mal-integration.
According to Lockwood, it was these tendencies that come to the surface as

opposition and conflict among actors. However, ParsonsÊ thought that the issues
of conflict and cooperation were very much intertwined and sought to account
for both in his model (Holmwood, 2005). In this, however, he was limited by his
analysis of an „ideal type‰ of society which was characterised by consensus.
Merton, through his critique of functional unity, introduced into functionalism
an explicit analysis of tension and conflict.
Marxism which was revived soon after the emergence of conflict theory,
criticised professional sociology (functionalism and conflict theory alike) for
being partisan to advanced welfare capitalism (Holmwood, 2005). Gouldner (as
cited in Holmwood, 2005) thought that ParsonsÊ theory specifically was an
expression of the dominant interests of welfare capitalism, that it justified
institutions with reference to the function they fulfil for society. It may be that
ParsonsÊ work implied or articulated that certain institutions were necessary to
fulfil the functional prerequisites of society, but whether or not this is the case,
Merton explicitly states that institutions are not indispensable and that there are
functional alternatives. That he does not identify any alternatives to the current
institutions does reflect a conservative bias, which as has been stated before is a
product of the specific time that he was writing in.

As functionalismÊs prominence was ending, feminism was on the rise and it

attempted a radical criticism of functionalism. It believed that functionalism
neglected the suppression of women within the family structure. Holmwood
(2005) shows, however, that Parsons did in fact describe the situations where
tensions and conflict existed or were about to take place, even if he did not
articulate those conflicts. Some feminists agree, suggesting that ParsonsÊ
provided accurate descriptions of these situations (Johnson as cited in
Holmwood, 2005). On the other hand, Parsons recognised that he had
oversimplified his functional analysis of women in relation to work and the
family, and focused on the positive functions of the family for society and not on
its dysfunctions for women. Merton, too, although addressing situations where
function and dysfunction occurred simultaneously, lacked a „feminist
sensibility‰ (Holmwood, 2005). However, to repeat, this was likely a product of
the desire for social order.
Postmodernism, as a theory, is critical of claims of objectivity. Therefore, the idea

of grand theory that can explain society in all its forms is treated with skepticism
at the very least. This critique is important because it exposes the danger that
grand theory can pose, when not seen as a limited perspective, as one way of
understanding society.
Jeffrey Alexander (1985) sees functionalism as a broad school rather than a

specific method or system, such as ParsonÊs, which is capable of taking
equilibrium (stability) as a reference-point rather than assumption and treats
structural differentiation as a major form of social change. The term
„functionalism‰ implies a difference of method or interpretation that does not
exist (Davis, 1967). This removes the determinism criticised above. Cohen argues
that rather than needs, a society has dispositional facts: features of the social
environment that support the existence of particular social institutions but do not
cause them.
4.1.6 Summary of Functional Psychology

Important points in summary of all that you learnt about functional psychology
are as follows:
(a)" Functionalism has been a loose and informal system. Its encompassing
character made it the best representative of mainstream American
psychology.
(b)" Its major pioneers were William James, Stanley Hall and James McKeen
Cattell. We take John Dewey and James Angell as its „founders‰ although
there was never any one event which could be identified as a founding.

(c)" Harvey Carr at Chicago and Robert S. Woodworth at Columbia were the
early representatives of a developed functionalism. Carr was in a somewhat
more analytic tradition and WoodworthÊs dynamic psychology resembled
the more molar approach of James and Dewey.
(d)" Functionalism as a „movement‰ arose partially as a force opposing the
structural psychology of Wundt and Titchener. It emphasised learning,
mental testing and other applied fields, which made functionalism
appealing to the pragmatic American temperament.
(e)" Although functionalism became a less self-conscious position as the need to
oppose structuralism disappeared, its eclectic tendencies continued to suit
many psychologists.
(f)" Functionalism, thus, continued to go its unpretentious way during the
heyday of behaviourism. Today the ascent of interest in evolutionary
theory and the burgeoning growth in ethnology, sociobiology, molecular
biology and cognitive theory, all of them consistent with a functional
approach, have given a tremendous boost to a generally functional
psychology.
(g)" Functionalism, especially as represented in the psychologies of Carr and
Woodworth, relied heavily on experimentation; was more concerned with
functional interrelationships of variables than with theoretical
superstructures; accepted both introspective and behavioural data; stressed
adaptive behaviour and purposive, motivated activity within either an S-R
(Carr) or an S-O-R (Woodworth) framework; and was always
systematically eclectic while taking a tough-minded approach to
experimental problems.
(h)" Functionalists have made and will continue to make an important
contribution to the advance of psychology as a science.
SELF-CHECK 4.1
Explain the basic concept of the beginnings of functional psychology.
ACTIVITY 4.1
As soon as you finish reading section 4.1, prepare a list depicting the
basic tenets of functionalism as advocated by European functionalists.

4.2 NEW DIRECTIONS IN ANIMAL

PSYCHOLOGY
Evolutionary theory was tremendously important both in the development of
psychology as a science and as a specific background factor determining the form
of functional psychology. It also stimulated the study of animal psychology.
WatsonÊs involvement in the study of animal behaviour may have been the most
important single factor related to his formulation of the behaviouristic position.
Animal psychology played a role in the controversy about evolutionary theory.

Although Darwinian theory won quick acceptance among the majority of British
intellectuals, it was violently opposed by the clergy and theologians. One of the
most effective answers to their objections would be provided if mental continuity
between humans and other animals could be demonstrated, much as Darwin had
already demonstrated the physical continuities between animal and plant
species. Thus, if mind could be demonstrated in infrahuman organisms (contrary
to DescartesÊ views), and its continuity with the human mind exhibited, Darwin
would be vindicated. Charles Darwin himself began the defence. His main theme
in expression of emotions in animals (1872) was that human emotional behaviour
is the result of the inheritance of behaviour which was once useful but is now
useless to human beings.
Darwin drew upon a wealth of observations on animals for his examples. One of
his most famous examples is the way people curl their lips in sneering. He held
that to be a remnant of the baring of the canine teeth in rage by carnivorous
animals. Another example of a behavioural remnant in another species is the
tendency for dogs to turn in a circle several times before lying down. This was
said to be a behaviour held over from the dogÊs ancestors, to whom it was useful
as a precautionary measure to frighten away snakes and the like and to flatten
out a bed in grass or weeds.
George John Romanes has been mentioned as one of DarwinÊs personal friends
who later used animal behaviour in the defence of evolutionary theory. Romanes
culled all kinds of literature for stories, scientific or popular, on animal
behaviour. People in many walks of life sent him their most remarkable
anecdotes about animal intelligence. After he had accumulated a great mass of
material, he wrote the first book on comparative psychology, Animal intelligence
(Romanes, 1886). RomanesÊ method of gathering data is now called the anecdotal
method. In spite of the fact that he had adopted explicit rules for using stories,
Romanes was unable to avoid using some inadequately controlled observations
since he had no way of checking on the original sources.

The tendency to anthropomorphise is to read human motives and abilities into

animal behaviour. This played into RomanesÊ hands, since his goal was the
demonstration of continuity between humans and animals. Anthropomorphising,
like the anecdotal method, is now thoroughly disapproved of in psychology, so
Romanes is doubly damned. In spite of the limitations of his methodology, Romanes
deserves credit for stimulating the initial development of comparative psychology.
He prepared the way for the experimental study of animal behaviour, which
followed shortly.
Lloyd Morgan (1899) used a semi-experimental methodology and partly

controlled observations in the field in his studies on animals. He is better known
today for his methodological contributions than for his substantive findings, and
certainly his standards were more demanding than those of Romanes. Morgan
adapted the law of parsimony (also called, more picturesquely, William Occam's
razor) to comparative psychology in its original form. The law of parsimony
stated that when either of two hypotheses is consistent with the observed data,
the simpler hypothesis must be preferred. As specialised for comparative
psychology, „Lloyd MorganÊs canon‰ states: „In no case may we interpret an
action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psychical faculty, if it can be
interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower in the
psychological scale‰ (Morgan, 1899). This dictum was intended to counteract the
tendency to anthropomorphise, and the point was well received.
If one cannot anthropomorphise, how can the desired continuity be demonstrated?

One helpful rule is that „Lloyd MorganÊs canon‰ should be applied to humans as
well as to animals. We have a tendency to be „anthropomorphic‰ when interpreting
the behaviour of other people in the sense that we may give them too much credit
for higher mental functions. Romanes was demonstrating continuity, finding the
mind everywhere. Morgan also wished to demonstrate continuity, but he suggested
that it might be as easily done by demonstrating mind nowhere.
In this contrast we see Romanes „levelling up‰ and Morgan „levelling down.‰
MorganÊs appeal to simplicity and his rejection of anthropomorphism were direct
precursors of behaviourism.
Morgan relied upon habit, rather than upon intelligence, as a major explanatory
factor. Trial-and-error learning was stressed. He assumed that human and
subhuman learning processes were continuous. ThorndikeÊs laboratory
experimentation was closely related to MorganÊs work in both content and
outlook. Watson was also stimulated in his animal research by heading MorgansÊ
report.

All the three men tried to explain learning in term of a few simple principles
which apply to humans as well as to animals. Others, like the Gestaltists, have
been more like Romanes in tending to see insight, which is characteristic of much
human learning in non-human animals.
„Lloyd MorganÊs canon‰ has been attacked by various psychologists. The critics
claim that in many cases the more complex of two alternative interpretations is
the better one. However, this does not invalidate MorganÊs canon or the principle
of parsimony; these rules apply only to cases in which all the alternative
explanations are about equally consistent with the available data. Naturally, if
there is a flow in the simple explanation, it is not acceptable. Then there is no
issue at all but it is incumbent upon the proponent of the more complex account
to show why that account must be accepted over the simpler one. If that cannot
be done, the simpler account is preferable. In all of this, however, we must
recognise that it may not be simple to show which of the alternative accounts is
simpler!
Jacques Loeb (1859-1924) is the next important figure we consider in the

development of animal psychology. Loeb, a Gennan biologist, came to America
in 1891 and spent the greater part of his professional career there. Loeb is
responsible for the wide acceptance of the concept of tropism or forced
movement, as an explanatory factor in animal behaviour. (The word taxis is now
more often used for the movement of a whole organism in response to some
stimulus.) In a tropism, the response is a direct function of the stimulus and is in
this sense forced. Loeb felt that all the behaviour of the lowest of animal forms is
tropistic and that a considerable proportion of the behaviour of higher forms also
is forced. One familiar example of a tropism is the apparently mechanical and
irresistible movement of moths toward light (positive phototropism), even
though flight directly into a flame results in their destruction. Of course, not
many tropisms are so maladaptive.
Loeb was reacting against the anthropomorphic tendency which Romanes was
thought to represent. Despite the fact that Loeb used tropistic factors to account
for a great deal of the behaviour of higher forms, he did not try to deal with
human problems.
He did, however, contribute to the question of consciousness by suggesting a

way to determine whether or not a given organism was conscious. He said that
an organism was conscious if it demonstrated associative memory. Certainly this
is not a very demanding criterion; protozoa, for example, have been said to show
evidence of associative learning. The question of what organisms are conscious
can be given only an arbitrary answer. We can choose our definition of
consciousness to suit our own selves, but there is no debating.

By the time of LoebÊs pronouncements, the study of animal behaviour within the
biological sciences was becoming widespread. The biologists Thomas Beer,
Albrecht Bethe, and Jacob J. von Uexkull supported LoebÊs call for the elimination
of psychological terms and the substitution of objective ones. Another biologist,
H.S. Jennings obtained evidence for the modifiability of behaviour in the
protozoan paramecium and he opposed LoebÊs mechanistic interpretations of
animal behaviour. Hans Driesch also opposed Loeb and maintained a vitalistic
position. He maintained that living organisms differ qualitatively from non-living
matter and are not reducible to physicochemical reactions.
Other students of animal behaviour included Sir John Lubbock, who studied
ants, wasps and bees as well as the Frenchmen J. Henri Fabre and Auguste Forel,
who also studied insects. Albrecht Bethe published a mechanistic interpretation
of the social lives of ants and bees. Certainly animal psychology was by this time
a growing concern, although much of the study was not being done by
psychologists. The pressure of these researches was pushing objective
psychology to the fore some time before behaviouristic psychology was founded
as a school in America.
Watson, who studied under Loeb at the University of Chicago, was thoroughly
exposed to this objective tradition within biology. Angell, who was Watson's
primary adviser, discouraged him from doing a dissertation with Loeb because
he did not regard Loeb as „safe‰. AngellÊs fears proved to be well-founded, when
Watson left functionalism to found behaviourism. Watson was further exposed
to biology at Johns Hopkins when, despite the fact that he went there as a full
professor, he attended the courses of H. S. Jennings.
Thorndike was already working systematically with animals. Watson wanted to

do some research on the effects of alcohol with Thorndike and stayed in close
touch with him. Robert Yerkes (1876-1956) also began research with animals
early. In 1900, Yerkes studied crabs, turtles, frogs, dancing mice, rats, worms,
crows, doves, pigs, monkeys, apes and finally humans. During WatsonÊs early
years in the field, he and Yerkes corresponded frequently about their research,
long before they met face-to-face. Yerkes's research on apes was most significant.
It is summarised in Chimpanzees: A laboratory colony (1943).
Yerkes and Watson collaborated on the development of equipment and

techniques for testing colour vision in animals. However, Yerkes was no
behaviourist, despite the fact that he did work in comparative psychology that
was typically behaviourist in method. He was an admirer of Titchener, and he
felt that the investigation of experience was one of psychologyÊs most interesting
problems. YerkesÊs contribution to behaviourism was mainly that he
strengthened the position of comparative psychology. He also strengthened the

position of applied psychology via his contribution to the testing of Army

recruits during World War I.
W. S. Small at Clark devised the first rat maze in 1900, the same year that Yerkes
began his animal investigations. The albino rat was so well suited to being
studied in the maze that it became the most outstanding laboratory animal in
psychology, and the rat in-the-maze has continued to be a standard situation for
the study of learning. Since the 1930s, the rat has shown that it is equally well
adapted to life in the Skinner box (or as Skinner prefers to call it, the operant
chamber). Growth of the study of animals was so rapid between 1900 and 1911
that the Journal of Animal Behaviour was founded then. Watson adopted SmallÊs
use of the maze with rats, although he criticised Small's experimental methods.
Finally, Margaret Washburn, TitchenerÊs first doctoral student and later

president of the American Psychological Association, published a compendium
of animal psychology (1908). The book was an analogical study of human and
animal mental processes, but it contained a lot of factual information and became
a classic. Thus, some of the impetus for a behavioural psychology came from the
camp of the structuralists. WatsonÊs dislike for guessing what the rat was
thinking finally led him to decide that he could get along without guessing what
people were thinking.
SELF-CHECK 4.2
Briefly describe animal psychology.
4.3 RADICAL EMPIRICISM

The theory of empiricism maintains that human knowledge arises from the
senses or through experience. Empiricism is related to pragmatism in that it turns
our attention to the world of experience.
William James (1842-1910) is considered one of the founders of the pragmatic

movement in nineteenth century in America. James believed that we shape and
construct reality. Unlike rationalists, who believed that reality is already made,
James thought of reality as still in the making. This pragmatic view relies heavily
on empiricism and experience. James believed that experience is the given, and
truth means adequacy to experience or workability in practice.

James took empiricism a step further to become the founder of what is known as
radical empiricism. Radical empiricism finds connections between experiences in
experience itself. James believed that in certain experiences one can know,
believe and remember other experiences. He considered connections such as
these to be intellectual or conceptual connections. Non-intellectual connections,
or „extra-mental‰ connections, are the connections which have a cause and effect
relationship. Connections of this sort have the tendency for one experience to
follow another, such as smoke after fire and pain after intense heat on the skin.
James believed that to be radical, empiricism must neither admit into its
constructions any element that is not directly experienced, nor exclude from
them any element that is directly experienced. He described radical empiricism
as a loose universe, where experiences lean on nothing but other finite
experiences, but the whole of them, if such a whole exists, leans on nothing.
Radical empiricism is a postulate, a statement of fact and a conclusion, says

James in The Meaning of Truth. The postulate is that „the only things that shall
be debatable among philosophers shall be things definable in terms drawn from
experience‰. The fact is that our experience contains disconnected entities as well
as various types of connections; it is full of meaning and values. The conclusion is
that our worldview does not need „extraneous trans-empirical connective
support, but possesses in its own right a concatenated or continuous structure.‰
4.3.1 The Postulate

The postulate is a basic statement of the empiricist method: our theories should
not incorporate supernatural or transempirical entities. Empiricism is a theory of
knowledge that emphasises the role of experience, especially sensory perception,
in the formation of ideas, while discounting a prior reasoning, intuition or
revelation. James allows that transempirical entities may exist, but that it is not
fruitful to talk about them.
JamesÊ factual statement is that our experience is not just a stream of data; it is a
complex process that is full of meaning. We see objects in terms of what they
mean to us and we see causal connections between phenomena. Experience is
„double-barrelled‰: it has both content („sense data‰) and a reference. Empiricists
unjustly try to reduce experience to bare sensations, according to James. Such a
„thick‰ description of conscious experience was already part of William JamesÊ
monumental Principles of Psychology in 1890, more than a decade before he first
wrote about radical empiricism.

Conclusion
James concluded that experience is full of connections and that these connections
are part of what is actually experienced.
„Just so, I maintain, does a given undivided portion of experience, taken in one
context of associates, play the part of a knower, of a state of mind, of
`consciousnessÊ; while in a different context the same undivided bit of experience
plays the part of a thing known, of an objective `contentÊ. In a word, in one group
it figures as a thought, in another group as a thing. And, since it can figure in
both groups simultaneously we have every right to speak of it as subjective and
objective, both at once‰ (James, 1912).
4.3.2 Context and Importance

James put forth the doctrine because he thought ordinary empiricism, inspired
by the advances in physical science, has or had the tendency to emphasise
„whirling particles‰ at the expense of the bigger picture: connections, causality,
and meaning. Both elements, James claims, are equally present in experience and
both need to be accounted for.
The observation that our adherence to science seems to put us in a quandary is

not exclusive to James. For example, Bertrand Russell notes the paradox in his
Analysis of Matter (1927), we appeal to ordinary perception to arrive at our
physical theories, yet those same theories seem to undermine that everyday
perception, which is rich in meaning.
Radical empiricism relates to discussions about direct versus indirect realism as

well as to early twentieth-century discussions against the idealism of influential
philosophers like Josiah Royce. This is how neo-realists like William Pepperell
Montague and Ralph Barton Perry interpreted James.
The conclusion that our worldview does not need trans-empirical support is also
important in discussions about the adequacy of naturalistic descriptions of
meaning and intentionality, which James attempts to provide, in contrast to
phenomenological approaches or some forms of reductionism that claim that
meaning is an illusion.
Radical empiricism differs from traditional British empiricism in that instead of

focusing on the experience of reality, it focuses on the reality of experience. Also,
radical empiricism emphasises the world of experience, whereas British
empiricism emphasises the experience of the world.

Another major difference between JamesÊ radical empiricism and traditional

British empiricism can be found in the relations between things in experience.
James believed that relations between things in experience are as real as the
things that are related, while British empiricists, such as Hume and Locke,
assumed that experience presents itself in separate bits devoid of any relations.
James criticised British empiricists for missing these connections disclosed by
experience, and he criticised rationalists and idealists for making those
connections transcendental rather than empirical.
James believed that the only reality in the universe is „pure experience‰. He
believed that experiences are carved out of pure experience. James proposed that
there is only one primal material in the whole world, and if we call that material
„pure experience‰, then knowing can be explained as a relation into which
portions of pure experience may enter. In such relations, one experience knows
another.
SELF-CHECK 4.3
Answer the following questions by filling in the blanks.
(a) A very genuine psychological interest is apt to awaken in anyone
who has the opportunity of watching the development of a
__________.
(b) __________ is simply the general method of experimental science
applied to the performances of an individual.
(c) The elements of conscious experience, in Wundt's analysis, were
of two main classes: the sensations which seem to come to us from
outside and the __________ which seem to belong to ourselves.
" Functionalism has been a loose and informal system and its encompassing
character made it the best representative of mainstream American
psychology.
" Psychology that attempts to give an accurate and systematic answer to the
question, „What do men do?‰ and then go on to the questions, „How do they
do it?‰ and „Why do they do it?‰ is called functional psychology.
" Evolutionary theory was tremendously important both in the development of
psychology as a science and as a specific background factor determining the

form of functional psychology. It also stimulated the study of animal

psychology.
" The theory of empiricism maintains that human knowledge arises from the
senses or through experience. Empiricism is related to pragmatism in that it
turns our attention to the world of experience.
" WatsonÊs involvement in the study of animal behaviour may have been the
most important single factor related to his formulation of the behaviouristic
position.
" Radical empiricism finds connections between experiences in experience
itself.
Animal psychology Introspective method

Functionalism Physiological method
Introspection Structural psychology
1." Briefly describe the following:

(a)" Physiological method
(b)" The method of varied conditions
(c)" The introspective method
2." Explain the contributions of William James towards radical empiricism.
1." Briefly describe experimental functional psychology.

2." Explain the objective methods of functional psychology.
3." Explain the structural psychology of conscious experience.
4." Why was functionalism criticised?

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Merton, R. K. (1957). Social theory and social structure. Glencoe, Scotland: Free
Press.
Morgan, C. L. (1899). Animal biology: An elementary text-book. London,

England: Longmans, Green and Company.

Parsons, T. (1961). Theories of society: Foundations of modern sociological

theory. New York, NY: Free Press of Glencoe.
Romanes, G. J. (1886). Animal intelligence. London, England: K. Paul, Trench &

Co.
Tappan, H. P. (1841). The doctrine of the will: Applied to moral agency and
responsibility. New York, NY: Wiley and Putnam.
Woodworth, R. S., & Sheehan, M. R. (1964). Contemporary schools of

psychology. New York, NY: Ronald.

Topic  Behaviourism
5
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1." Discuss the definition of behaviourism;
2." Explain the theoretical orientation of early behaviourism (Watsonian
Behaviourism); and
3." Identify the psychology and science of behaviour.
 INTRODUCTION
Psychology as the behaviourist views it is a purely objective experimental branch
of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behaviour.
Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of
its data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend themselves to
interpretation in terms of consciousness. The behaviourist, in his efforts to get a
unitary scheme of animal response, recognises no dividing line between man and
brute. The behaviour of man, with all of its refinement and complexity, forms
only a part of the behaviourist's total scheme of investigation.
5.1 INTRODUCTION TO BEHAVIOURISM

As behaviourism is now approaching forty years of age, it has had time to pass
through different stages and to take on somewhat different meanings. It grew out
of the study of animal behaviour, but to define it as the science of behaviour
would be to miss the force of the „ism‰. In fact some of the leading workers in
animal psychology Edward Thorndike, Robert Yerkes and others never joined
the ranks of the behaviourists.

100  TOPIC 5 BEHAVIOURISM
Behaviourism started off very definitely and consciously as a school of thought,

opposed to the supposedly dominant school of structuralism, and to functionalism
as represented by William James. As these old controversies have died down,
behaviourism has naturally become less negativistic and more a part of the general
stream of psychology, while still adhering to behaviour methods and behaviour
concepts. Our aim will be to show what behaviourism was when it started, to
follow its development to some extent, and finally to see what it has now become.
5.1.1 What is Behaviourism?

Behaviourism is a theoretical approach in psychology that emphasises the study
of overt behaviour (behaviours that can be seen and observed). Overt behaviour
is the outwardly observable reactions to a stimulus of an organism, whether
animal or human; rather than the content of the mind or the physiological
correlates of behaviour.
Major Thinkers in Behaviourism

There were numerous theorists who contributed to the rise of behaviourism in
the psychology of learning.
The following are some of the early theorists:
(a)" Ivan Pavlov;

(b)" Thorndike;
(c)" John Watson;
(d)" Guthrie;
(e)" Hull; and
(f)" Skinner.
5.1.2 History of Behaviourism

The period of behaviourism development was from 1900 to 1960. Behavioural
revolution had been divided into two of the following phases:
(a)" First Phase: Classical S-R (Stimulus-Response) Behaviourism

Classical behaviourism flourished from 1913 to the early 1930s. Classical S-
R behaviourism argued that the subject matter of psychology should be
publicly observable behaviour, rather than mental, subjective or conscious
experience.

TOPIC 5 BEHAVIOURISM  101
The goal is to predict and control publicly observable behaviour. Given the
stimulus, the task of the psychologist was to predict the response, and
given the response, the task was to determine the stimulus that had
produced it.
The paradigm of S-R (Stimulus-Response) indicated that the stimulus-

response description pointed to a causal mode without any mediation,
thinking or feeling between the stimulus and the response.
A stimulus is an alteration in the internal or external environment of an

organism, which is strong enough to induce a response from the organism
without actually providing the energy for that response. The following are
examples of external and internal environments:
(i)" An external example: We touch a hot object and we immediately
remove our hand. This is a perfect example of Stimulus-Response. The
hot object is the stimulus and the removal of the hand is the response
to that stimulus.
(ii)" An internal example: Food poisoning (stimulus) leads to damage to
your digestive system, which stimulates pain receptors. The response
is muscle spasms that lead to stomach ache.
Behaviourism is primarily associated with Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-

1936). Let us look at the following descriptions about Pavlov:
(i)" Born in September 14, 1849 in Ryazan, Russia;
(ii)" Died in February 27, 1936 (aged 86) at Leningrad, Soviet Union;
(iii)" Residence and Nationality: Russian Empire, Soviet Union;
(iv)" Fields: Physiologist, psychologist, physician;
(v)" Institutions: Military Medical Academy, Alma mater Saint Petersburg
University;
(vi)" Known for: Classical Conditioning, Behavioural modification; and
(vii)" Notable awards: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1904).
PavlovÊs classical conditioning can be described as follows:

(i)" Classical conditioning can be defined as a type of learning in which a
stimulus acquires the capacity to evoke a reflexive response that was
originally evoked by a different stimulus.

(ii)" Pavlov did famous experiments with dogs, ringing a bell and then
feeding them (unconditioned stimulus or UCS). Dog then salivated to
food (unconditioned response or UCR). After a while, he could ring
the bell (conditioned stimulus or CS) and their mouths would salivate
(conditioned response or CR).
Classical conditioningÊs contribution to behaviourism can be described as

follows:
(i)" One of Pavlov's greatest contributions was to emphasise that the
nature of the psychic secretions, which were previously thought to be
in the realm of psychology, could be objectively studied by
physiologists through the conditioned reflex method.
(ii)" He thus believed that the true road to understanding brain function
and therefore human behaviour was through the objective
physiological observation.
(b)" Second Phase: From Classical S-R (Stimulus-Response) Behaviourism to

Mediational S-O-R (Stimulus-Organism-Response) Neobehaviourism
By the early 1930s, psychologists began to see at least three problems with
the validity of classical behaviourism, even when classical behaviourism
was accompanied by the collateral positions described above.
First, publicly observable stimuli and responses were not always only
correlated with each other in the way that classical behaviourism required.
Second, the S–R (Stimulus-Response) model does not easily accommodate

how we come to use subjective terms to describe various conditions inside
our bodies.
Classical behaviourism put forth primitive versions of how to deal with

certain phenomena that were not publicly observable (like emotions;
thinking), but many scholars questioned their adequacy.
Third, other sciences seemed to be making progress by postulating about

the unobservable (for example, physics with relativity theory and quantum
mechanics), so why should psychology limit itself by restricting its concerns
to publicly observable phenomena?
The new form of behaviourism proved exceptionally popular and

influential, and to a large extent, the history of psychology since the advent
of mediational neobehaviourism in the 1930s is the history of various sets of

unobserved, mediating, organismic variables that theorists have proposed.

One theorist might emphasise variables associated with physiology, either
directly or metaphorically, whereas another theorist might emphasise those
associated with perception, either directly or metaphorically. In any case, a
common concern of all mediational neobehaviourists in the early to mid-
1930s was how to remain scientifically respectable in the process of
proposing these organismic variables. Very close to operationism was the
philosophical position called „logical positivism.‰
Logical positivism called for verification of meaning in terms of publicly

observable phenomena, and gave further support to operationism in
psychology. In sum, operationism and theoretical terms became the key
concerns in psychological theorising, and if theorists were able to
operationally define their mediating theoretical terms, theorists were
judged to have removed any problems arising because they had included
phenomena of uncertain ontology.
SELF-CHECK 5.1
Explain in your own words, „Psychology as the behaviourist views
it‰.
ACTIVITY 5.1
Find out various definitions of behaviourism.
5.2 FOUNDATIONS OF BEHAVIOURISM

Now, we will be learning in detail about John B. WatsonÊs behaviourism.
5.2.1 Watsonian Behaviourism

John Watson (born 1878) (professor at Johns Hopkins) was the founder of this
school of thought. Having become interested in philosophy during his college
years, he went to graduate school and studied in that subject in the University of
Chicago, where he switched to psychology, took his doctoral degree, joined the
teaching staff and set up one of the earliest of the animal psychology laboratories.
In 1908, he became a professor at Johns Hopkins University. By 1912, he was well
known for his incisive studies in animal learning as well as for his forceful but
winning personality.
The portrait of John Broadus Watson is shown in Figure 5.1.
Figure 5.1: Portrait of John Broadus Watson

Source: http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/watson.htm
John Broadus Watson (1878-1958) claimed that behaviour is a matter of

conditioned reflexes and human behaviours are learned through conditioning.
His goals are as follows:
(a)" To describe the individual or group in terms of behaviour patterns

considered suitable for social purposes; and
(b)" To emphasise overt behaviour and the objective was to predict and control
human behaviour which was believed to result from conditioned learning.
Watson has contributed to the field and has many achievements in many
different ways as follows:
(a)" In 1915: Served as the President of the American Psychological Association

(APA);
(b)" In 1919: Published Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviourist;

(c)" In 1925: Published Behaviourism;
(d)" In 1928: Published Psychological Care of Infant and Child; and
(e)" In 1957: Received the APA's award for contributions to psychology.
5.2.2 Watsonian Behaviourism: Systematic Criteria

The following points are clearly made:
(a)" Definition
Psychology is to be the science of behaviour, not of consciousness.

(b)" Scope
It is to cover both human and animal behaviour, the simpler animal
behaviour being indeed more fundamental than the more complex
behaviour of men (therefore, many of the experiments done involved
animals).
(c)" Method
It is to rely on objective data, introspection being discarded. In other words, to
conclude something in psychology, it has to be backed up by hard evidence.
(d)" Concepts
It is to avoid „mentalistic‰ concepts such as sensation, perception and
emotion as well as employ only behaviour concepts such as stimulus and
response learning.
Presumably mentalistic concepts are suggested by human conscious

experience and introspection, while behaviour concepts are suggested only
by objective observation of animals and human beings. Since behaviourism
is to be „the only consistent and logical functionalism,‰ the admissible
concepts would apparently be concepts of functions, but this point is not
made very clear.
(e)" Application
A scientific basis is to be provided for the practical control of behaviour,
and this means, as shown in some unquoted passages, a scientific basis for
dealing with „behaviour problems‰ as they appear in a guidance or
psychiatric clinic.
(f)" Philosophy
The old mind-body problem and the rival theories of interaction and
parallelism disappear with the disappearance of mind. There is no mystery
in the relation of body and behaviour. Psychologists have introduced
unnecessary mystery by replacing the mind or soul by the inaccessible
brain. Behaviourism must not make a fetish of the brain but must keep its
eyes fixed on the peripheral organs, the sense organs, muscles and glands.
Only objectively observable facts are admissible.
5.2.3 Methodological Behaviourism

The insistence on objective methods to the exclusion of introspection loomed
very large at first but proved to be of minor importance. It would have been a
mistake to do away with all introspection and Watson himself came to make
some use of it under the name of „verbal report‰. On a side note, the

behaviourists had little to contribute, for the excellent reason that objective
methods had been a major concern of psychology since it began to be
experimental. The psycho-physical methods, the memory methods and the
conditioned response methods were already in use before the behaviourists came
along. Certainly, they made contributions to the methods, but not revolutionary
ones, because no revolution was necessary and also because there is no
fundamental antagonism between objective and introspective methods.
5.2.4 Watson's Views and Concepts

Watson has to his credit quite a number of important contributions to animal
psychology and also to child psychology, for he was a pioneer in experimental
studies of young children.
His system of behaviouristic psychology can be found in his three principal

books:
(a)" The Behaviour of 1914;
(b)" The Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviourist first published in
1919; and
(c)" The Behaviourism first published in 1924-1925.
The first book is devoted mostly to animal psychology, the other two mostly to
the behaviour of human children and adults. The major tenets of behaviourism
can be found in each of these books but perhaps best in Psychology of 1919.
(a) Stimulus and Response

Just as Wundt had said that conscious experiences are complex and call for
analysis into simple sensations and feelings, so Watson said that behaviour
is complex and capable of analysis into simple stimulus – response units
which he called reflexes. „Instinct and habit are undoubtedly composed of
the same elementary reflexes. In instinct the pattern and order are inherited,
in habit both are acquired during the lifetime of the individual‰ (Watson,
1919). Such statements made it easy for the Gestalt and organismic schools
to accuse Watson of „atomism‰. Neither his experimental work nor his
theorising, however, ran much to atomism.
From his strong emphasis on motor behaviour you might have expected
him to embark on an analysis of complex movements into the action of
separate muscles; but, though he does include this in his Psychology of
1919 some account of the striped and smooth muscles, and of the glands, he
makes no effort to analyse complex movements into muscular elements,

believing no doubt that such analysis is the job of the physiologist and not
of the psychologist. In explaining what he means by response he starts with
the knee jerk and other reflexes but advances to acts such as taking food,
unlocking a door, writing a letter and even building a house. Evidently he
is thinking of a response not as composed of muscular elements but as
accomplishing certain results in the environment.
In the same way his examples of a stimulus start with rays of light thrown
into the eyes, sound entering the ears, etc., and go on to objects in the
environment and to total situations. His real interest is not in the analysis of
behaviour into elementary muscular (and glandular) responses to
elementary stimuli, but, quite on the contrary, in what the individual will
do in a given situation. For example, the stimulus is a stick of candy
dangled in front of a baby and the response (at a certain age) is a reaching
out and grasping the candy and putting it into the mouth. Or, the stimulus
is a baseball thrown by the pitcher and the response is a fly to the outfield.
In strictness we should speak in such cases not of stimulus and response
but of objective situation and objective results produced by the individual's
response. It is in that sense that Watson should be understood when he says
that the goal of behaviour psychology is the „ascertaining of such data and
laws that, given the stimulus, psychology can predict what the response
will be; or, given the response, it can specify the nature of the effective
stimulus‰ (Watson, 1919).
Responses can be classified as learned or unlearned, and also as explicit and

implicit. It was important for behavioural psychology to distinguish between
what was instinctive and what was learned and to discover the laws of
learning or habit formation. Still another way of classifying responses is
according to the sensory organ receiving the stimulus. So an „auditory
response‰ is any sort of motor response aroused by a stimulus to the ears,
whether it is a startled response to a pistol shot or a verbal report that a tone
is high or low. An „olfactory response‰ may be a sniffing movement or a
verbal report of smelling something like violets or like tar. But how can a
speech movement be called olfactory or auditory? It seems to be a strange
use of terms. To see why the behaviourists felt compelled to speak in this
queer way we need to examine their attitude toward sensation.
(b) Sensation and Perception

Since we cannot assume consciousness in animals, we have no right to say
that they see, hear or smell. However, since they visibly make motor
responses to visual, auditory and olfactory stimuli, there is no objection to
saying that they make „visual responses‰. With a human subject before us
we wish to be equally objective. His conscious experience, if he has any, is

invisible to us. We wish to find out what his „visual response‰ will be to
light of a certain wavelength and to make things simple for him we use the
vulgar expression, „Tell me what you see.‰ He replies that he sees blue.
This verbal response is a perfectly objective phenomenon. We need not
assume that he has any conscious sensation but only accept the fact that he
makes the verbal response.
If we make the blue stimulus fainter till he says that he no longer sees blue,
we learn as much about his power of colour discrimination by simply
accepting his verbal response as by assuming any conscious sensations in
him which we cannot observe.
That chemist who employed the young girl to make colour tests could have
been a behaviourist; in which case he would have said, „I do not care
whether she sees blue or not, if only she says blue at the right time and not
otherwise. I do not admit,‰ he might continue, „that there is any such thing
as seeing, apart from some motor response, any more than I admit that my
thermometer feels the temperature which it registers. All I admit, in either
case, is a movement which tallies with the stimulus.‰
Well and good but sometimes the chemist examines his test tubes himself
and reports blue or not blue, and he probably would admit if cross-
examined that he reported what he saw. For him to deny or doubt that the
other observerÊs reports are like his own in this respect, or, in general, for
the behaviourists to deny that the human subject, at least, is actually seeing
or hearing when he so reports, seems pedantic to say the least. The
behaviourist certainly admits that he himself can see and hear, for does he
not insist that only what he can see and hear shall be accepted as scientific
data?
(c) Theory of Learning

It is noteworthy that Thorndike had modified the older association theory
by adding to the law of contiguity, which he renamed the law of exercise, a
new law, the law of effect. Successful responses to a situation, by giving
satisfaction to the learner, were gradually stamped in, while the
unsuccessful ones were stamped out by the discomfort of failure. Although
satisfaction and discomfort could be regarded as physiological states, and
although Watson himself suggested a behavioural theory for them, yet the
law of effect seemed to assume conscious feelings in the animal subject and
even to allow them a causal influence on behaviour. Therefore,
behaviourists attempted to eliminate the law of effect by reducing it in
some way to the law of exercise. Watson at first pointed his faith to the
long-accepted laws of frequency and recency, those sublaws under the law

of exercise. He pointed out that an animal learning to run a maze is bound

to take the correct path at least once on every trial before reaching the food
box, whereas any particular blind alley may be skipped in some trials.
Therefore, the successful response would gradually acquire a balance of

frequency over the unsuccessful. Thorndike, in reply, pointed out that the
same blind alley was often entered several times in the same trial, so that
the advantage in frequency would favour that alley, trial after trial, and the
blind alley never could be eliminated on the basis of frequency.
Thorndike had the best of the argument later; Watson came to rely mostly
on the conditioned response. He had at first adopted the Pavlov and
Bekhterev techniques only as convenient objective methods in certain
problems. In 1919 he utilised the conditioned response concept for
explaining acquired fears (for example, Little Albert Experiment), and we
have seen how he developed a conditioned fear in a child. By 1924 he had
come to suspect that the conditioned response might afford the key to all
habit formation a suggestion first made, apparently, by Smith and Guthrie
in a book with decided behaviouristic leanings. But neither these writers
nor Watson himself recognised the basic importance of Pavlov's law of
reinforcement, which we have seen to be practically identical with the law
of effect. Watson's theory of learning, therefore, belongs with the older
associationism.
(d) WatsonÊs Popular Appeal

WatsonÊs later books and lectures were intended to win a public following and
were very successful in doing so. A literary reviewer could say in 1930 that
behaviourism and psychoanalysis „come near dividing the modern Occidental
world between them‰ and „the two behaviourisms are probably better
adapted to the American temperament because it is fundamentally hopeful
and democratic.‰ There is some literary exaggeration here but interest in
behaviourism was genuine and widespread. Why was this?
We cannot imagine people getting excited over the psychologist's technical

concepts and methods. Why the public should be disturbed to learn that
introspection was practiced in certain psychological laboratories and that
certain psychologists pretended to be conscious and to have sensations,
feelings and memory images, and why should the public acclaim the bold
knight who set forth to fight these superstitions? Why should great
enthusiasm be awakened by the announcement that thinking went on in the
neck and not in the head?

That part of the public which became involved in college courses in

psychology would to be sure welcome the simplifications which
behaviourism seemed to introduce. Some of the simplifications were only
verbal, and some of the „mysteries‰ eliminated with a wave of the hand
remained in the form of unsolved problems; but other simplifications were
genuine, for behaviourism certainly helped in their path to eliminate some
un-psychological problems inherited from the old mental philosophy.
What Watson said between 1924 and 1925 was that behaviourism is a truly
natural science which takes as its prospective field all human behaviour, to
be studied by experimental methods, with the object of controlling manÊs
behaviour scientifically. This natural-science approach is causing
philosophy to disappear and become a history of science and is preparing
the way for an experimental ethics to replace the old authoritative and
speculative ethics based on religion. This will gradually do away with
psychoanalysis and develop in its place a scientific control of child
development which will prevent the neuroses instead of leaving them to be
treated in adult life.
He outlined his system in very few words and left it as a programme or

rather as a hope for future scientific work. But it was significant that a man
who had won the public ear as a representative of science should express
this hope so confidently. The New York Times said of this same book, „It
marks an epoch in the intellectual history of man.‰
That is doing pretty well for the Times Magazine. The Tribune wrote:
„Perhaps this is the most important book ever written. One stands for an
instant blinded with a great hope.‰ The reference must be to WatsonÊs
strong faith in the environment and to that „guarantee‰ to make something
great of any child whose environment from birth up he was allowed to
control. It was only a hope on WatsonÊs part, for if anyone had secured him
the full control of a child's environment he would not have known how to
proceed, except by way of research. Neither he nor anyone yet possesses
the requisite scientific knowledge. But at any rate that may have been the
hope that blinded the reviewer.
It was not so much WatsonÊs actual scientific achievements, nor even his
system of concepts and methods, that made him a standard-bearer in the
forward march of psychology. It was, rather, his boldness, tough
mindedness, scorn of tradition and mystery along with an optimistic faith in
the capacity of science to take charge of human affairs. Behaviourism meant
to many young men and women of the time a new orientation and a new
hope when the old guides had become hopelessly discredited in their eyes.

SELF-CHECK 5.2
Explain the various views of Watson.
5.3 PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENCE OF

BEHAVIOUR
Psychology is the science and art of explaining and changing human mental
processes and behaviours. Its immediate goal is to understand humanity by both
discovering general principles and exploring specific cases and its ultimate aim is
to benefit society. In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is called a
psychologist, and is classified as a social or behavioural scientist. Psychologists
attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and social
behaviour, while also exploring the physiological and neurological processes that
underlie certain functions and behaviours.
Psychologists explore such concepts as perception, cognition, attention, emotion,

motivation, brain functioning, personality, behaviour and interpersonal
relationships. Some, especially depth psychologists, also consider the
unconscious mind. Psychologists employ empirical methods to infer causal and
correlational relationships between psychosocial variables. In addition, or in
opposition to employing empirical and deductive methods, some clinical and
counselling psychologists at times rely upon symbolic interpretation and other
inductive techniques. Psychology incorporates research from the social sciences,
natural sciences and humanities.
While psychological knowledge is typically applied to the assessment and

treatment of mental health problems, it is also applied to the understanding and
solving of problems in many different spheres of human activity. Although the
vast majority of psychologists are involved in clinical, counselling and school
positions, some are employed in industrial and organisational settings and in
other areas such as human development and ageing, sports, health, the media,
law and forensics.
Behaviour refers to the actions of a system or organism, usually in relation to its

environment, which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as
the physical environment. It is the response of the system or organism to various
stimuli or inputs, whether internal or external, conscious or subconscious, overt
or covert and voluntary or involuntary. Only to be applied to human psychology,
it is anthropomorphism to apply to machines.

Behaviours can be either innate or learned. However, current research in the

Human Microbiome Project points towards a possibility that human behaviour
may be controlled by the composition of the microbe population within a human
body. More generally, behaviour can be regarded as any action of an organism
that changes its relationship to its environment. Behaviour provides outputs
from the organism to the environment.
Human behaviour (and that of other organisms and mechanisms) can be

common, unusual, acceptable or unacceptable. Humans evaluate the
acceptability of behaviour using social norms and regulate behaviour by means
of social control. In sociology, behaviour is considered as having no meaning,
being not directed at other people and thus is the most basic human action,
although it can play a part in diagnosis of disorders such as autism. Animal
behaviour is studied in comparative psychology, ethology, behavioural ecology
and socio-biology.
Behaviour became an important construct in the early 20th century Psychology

with the advent of the paradigm known subsequently as „behaviourism‰.
Behaviourism was a reaction against „faculty‰ psychology which purported to see
into or understand the mind without the benefit of scientific testing. Behaviourism
insisted on working only with what can be seen or manipulated and in the early
views of John B. Watson, a founder of the field; nothing was inferred as to the
nature of the entity that produced the behaviour.
Subsequent modifications of WatsonÊs perspective and that of „classical

conditioning‰ led to the rise of operant conditioning or „radical behaviourism‰, a
theory advocated by B.F. Skinner, which took over the academic establishment up
through the 1950s and was synonymous with „behaviourism‰ for many.
Behaviour outside of psychology includes physical property and chemical

reactions as in computer science.
Computer Science
Behaviour as used in computer science is an anthropomorphic construct that
assigns „life‰ to the activities carried out by a computer, computer application or
computer code in response to stimuli, such as user input. Also, „a behaviour‰ is a
reusable block of computer code or script that, when applied to an object,
especially a graphical one, causes it to respond to user input in meaningful
patterns or to operate independently. Also, behaviour is a value that changes
over time (one of the key concepts in functional reactive programming). The term
can also be applied to some degree to functions in mathematics, referring to the
anatomy of curves.

SELF-CHECK 5.3
Write a short note on the Psychology and Science of Behaviour.
ACTIVITY 5.2
The following link would lead you to few important articles about
psychology. Read and try to understand the concept of psychology as a
whole.
(a)" http:/ /www.bbc.co.uk/science/ human body/min
d/articles/psychology/what_is_psychology.shtml
(b)" http://www.arachnoid.com/psychology/
" The school of psychology originated with John B. Watson (1879-1958), who
was for many years at Johns Hopkins University.
" Watson rejected the mind as a subject of psychology and insisted that
psychology be restricted to the study of behaviour – the venerable (or
potentially observable) activities of people and animals.
" Behaviourism is a worldview that operates on a principle of „stimulus
response‰.
" All behaviour is caused by external stimuli (operant conditioning).
" All behaviour can be explained without the need to consider internal mental
states or consciousness.
" Originators and important contributors: John B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov, B.F.
Skinner, E. L. Thorndike (connectionism), Bandura, Tolman (moving toward
cognitivism).

Behaviourism Environmentalism
Classical conditioning (Pavlov) Operant conditioning (Skinner)
Emotions and sensation Stimulus-Response (S-R)
1." Define the concept of behaviourism. Can it explain all set of behaviours?
2." State the basic tenets of Watsonian Behaviourism.
1." Tell in brief about the life history of John Broadus Watson.
2." Explain the psychology as a science of behaviour.
Cannon, W. B. (1929). Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear and rage: An account
of recent researches into the function of emotional excitement. New York,
NY: D. Appleton and Co.
Jacobson, E. (1932). Electrophysiology of mental activities. The American Journal

of Psychology, 44, 677-694.
Landis, C. (1924). Studies of emotional reactions: II. Baltimore, MD: Williams &
Wilkins.
Max, L. W. (1937). Experimental study of the motor theory of consciousness. IV.

Action-current responses in the deaf during awakening, kinaesthetic
imagery and abstract thinking. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 24(2),
301-344.
Watson, J. B. (1919). Psychology from the standpoint of a behaviorist.

Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott.
Watson, J. B. (1967). Behavior: An introduction to comparative psychology. New

York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Topic  Psychologists
6 in Social
Controversy
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1." Discuss the role of psychologists in social controversy;
2." Explain the history and role of intelligence testing; and
3." Identify the role of psychology in everyday life in relation to work,
family and youth.
 INTRODUCTION
The dramatic increase in the applications of psychology over the last 20 years has
brought about a greater interdependence between psychology and the larger
society. With this has come a greater awareness by psychologists of their social
responsibilities.
Tolerance of all aspects of psychology by psychologists also seems to be on the

rise. Although there continues to be plenty of healthy disagreements, there is a
general recognition that the applied and artistic side of psychology depends on a
strong basic research component and a case can be made that the reverse
dependency is just as strong. Much work remains to be done by way of
communicating the broad scope of psychology to the general public and to other
segments of the scientific community. We can expect our image to become clearer
with the passage of time, since there is already considerable awareness of the
importance of psychological knowledge in the solution of social problems.
On the intellectual front, there has been a shift away from a strict behaviouristic
viewpoint toward a more cognitive psychology which includes models of central
processes and recognition of consciousness. However, behaviouristic psychology

116  TOPIC 6 PSYCHOLOGISTS IN SOCIAL CONTROVERSY
still plays a critical role in the overall picture and will ensure that cognitive
psychology does not stray too far from the path of operationism. At the same
time that consciousness is returning to psychology, even more fundamental work
in neurophysiology and neuro-psychology is being done with instrumentation of
ever-increasing sophistication. Computer simulation of processes ranging from
the behaviour of single neurons to the behaviour of societies will come into much
greater favour over the next few years. The intellectual future of psychology, as
well as its social future, looks very exciting from our present perspective.
6.1 INTELLIGENCE TESTING

Intelligence testing is used to assess the all around effectiveness of an
individualÊs mental processes, especially understanding, reasoning and the
ability to recall information. Tests exist that are appropriate for both children and
adults. The use of standardised tests to produce a numerical value for these
abilities is a very popular tool among educators. Correctly administered, some
intelligence tests can also detect learning impairments. The Stanford-Binet
Intelligence Scale and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale are the two most widely
used standardised intelligence tests. Other tests are available that attempt to
quantify areas such as creativity, personality and ability or aptitude to perform
specific tasks. Many employers, from police departments to the National Football
League, use some form of standardised intelligence testing to evaluate job
applicants („Intelligence Tests,‰ n.d.).
That there are different levels or degrees of intelligence has always been
recognised and the lay men have always classified people into idiots, bright and
dull, into very dull and very bright, into geniuses but it is only recently that
attempts have been made to measure intelligence and to convert vague
qualitative differences of intelligence into precise quantitative distinctions. To say
that a person is very bright is not as helpful and reliable as to say that he is
among the top ten percent of his group. Qualitative judgments are not as
scientific as exact quantitative judgments. Figure 6.1 shows the intelligence
testing to assess the effectiveness of an individualÊs mental processes.

TOPIC 6 PSYCHOLOGISTS IN SOCIAL CONTROVERSY  117
Figure 6.1: Intelligence testing

Source: www.cartoonstock.com
The earliest attempt of testing mental ability and activity was made by the
German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt. He devised mental tests to gauge an
individual's performance in sensory and motor activity. Cattell studied under
him, and on returning to Columbia University in America, devised tests for
measuring strength of grip, reaction time to sound and speed of naming colours
and memory span for letters. This work was followed by Hugo Munsterberg who
devised and applied tests at Harvard University and Joseph Jastrow doing the
same at Wisconsin University.
But all of them assumed that mental ability can be measured through sensory
and motor activities, and the more sensitive an individual is the more intelligent
he will be. The father of intelligence testing is a Frenchman, Alfred Binet. Binet
disagreed with those who sought to measure general ability by testing speed of
reaction, rote memory, sensory acuity or muscular movements. Intelligence can
be estimated, according to Binet, only by tests of higher faculties like reasoning,
comprehension, judgment, adaptability, persistence and self-criticism.
SELF-CHECK 6.1
In your own words, explain the importance of intelligence testing.

6.1.1 Various Types of Intelligence Tests

Intelligence tests are among the most commonly used tests in the field of
psychological testing. Intelligence tests in specific could be categorised into
verbal intelligence tests and non-verbal intelligence tests. It is noteworthy that
contemporary intelligence tests also cover the emotional aspect of intelligence.
The following are descriptions of the two categories of intelligence tests:

(a)" Verbal Intelligence Tests
This type of test can be further divided into the following categories:
(i)" Verbal individual intelligence tests; and
(ii)" Verbal group intelligence tests.
(b)" Non-verbal Intelligence Tests

This type of test can be further divided into the following categories:
(i)" Non-verbal or performance individual intelligence tests; and
(ii)" Non-verbal or performance group individual intelligence tests.
We shall describe and discuss these types of intelligence tests in detail:
(a)" Verbal Individual Intelligence Test

The Binet-Simon scale and the Stanford Revised scale whose tests have
been described above and whose historical development has been briefly
indicated are examples of verbal individual tests of intelligence. They are
verbal in so far they make use of language and tests invariably consisting of
questions expressed in language spoken or written. They are individual
tests because only one individual can be tested at a time.
As has already been indicated, Terman and his associates at Stanford

University, in adapting BinetÊs scale to American children, found it
necessary to shift the position of some of the tests, and in some instances, to
substitute new ones. They also extended the scale to the adult level. Their
scale was first published in 1916, and the revised version by Terman and
Merrill was published in 1937. This revision contains tests difficult enough
to measure the superior adults as well as tests for infants as young as two
years old. There are two forms of test, making it possible for the examiner
to repeat the test if he wants too. Gesell and his associates at the Yale
University extended Binet's tests to include infancy.

These individual tests are very expensive. They take a lot of time; each
individual is given about an hour. It obviously limits the number of
individuals who can be tested by a single examiner. Because of the need of
bringing out the best in the individual test, the examiner must be specially
trained. He must have memorised thoroughly every detail of the test and
must have a thorough knowledge of how to score the numerous responses
made by a child in a test situation.
Lastly, these tests involve use of language and pre-suppose that individuals
being tested are able to speak, read and understand the language of the test.
This means that children who are retarded in language development will be
handicapped in the test. Similarly children brought up in homes where
some foreign language is being used or foreign students cannot easily take
these tests. No test has eliminated these objections and though the Binet-
Simon scale and its Stanford revision are not free from these drawbacks,
they continue to be the best that is available so far.
(b)" Verbal Group Tests of Intelligence

Several group tests, tests which may be given to many persons at the same
time, have been devised, They are clearly more suitable than the Binet tests
for measuring large groups of people, as children in a public school system,
applicants for jobs in industry or candidates for recruitment to the army.
Shortly after the publication of the Stanford revision of the Binet scale in
1916, the US entered World War 1. Military authorities were at once faced
by the problem of classifying hundreds and thousands of recruits into
ordinary soldiers and commissioned and non-commissioned officers. The
American Psychological Association placed their services at the disposal of
the State and a committee of experts was appointed under the president
ship of Professor Yerkes of Yale University to draw up a test that could be
taken by a large number of people simultaneously. In framing the new
group tests, the committee took pains to reach innate ability, keeping the
test as far as possible free from the effects of education or training. Two
tests resulted, the Army Alpha test for literates and the Army Beta tests for
illiterates or those with little knowledge of English.
The Army Alpha test consists of eight sections, each containing 12 to 40

questions. Every section begins with easy questions and proceeds to more
difficult ones, so that all persons can answer some questions, but few can
answer all. The maximum score on Army Alpha is 212 points. Over 135 is
excellent, 105 to 134 is good, and 45 to 104 is fair. Nearly all rated above
105; enlisted men averaged a little below 60.

Army Beta is a paper-and-pencil test, but directions are given by way of

pantomime or demonstration. It includes tracing a line through a maze,
counting blocks in given piles, completing patterns of XÊs and OÊs,
substituting symbols for numbers, noting similarities and differences in two
sets of figures, completing pictures by supplying parts omitted and solving
simple geometrical puzzles. While Army Beta did not test exactly the same
abilities as the verbal Alpha test, it helped discover men of good
intelligence whose Alpha performance was bad because they lacked
schooling or command over the English language.
More than a million and a half recruits took the Alpha and several
thousand took the Beta test. The tests were very helpful in separating
satisfactory from unsatisfactory soldiers. The experience with these tests
demonstrated the practicality and the value of group intelligence testing
and opened the way for dozens of tests of this design. They also yielded
valuable information to the psychologists about intelligence and its testing.
Shortly after the war many new tests were devised and began to be used on
a large scale in schools, industry and business.
After the First World War several group tests were devised primarily for
the selection of people for jobs in business and industry. Among the best-
known intelligence tests for general adults is the Otis Self-Administering
Test of Mental Ability (Otis S. A.). In this test, the role of the examiner is
reduced to a minimum since all necessary directions are printed on the test
booklet. The examiner has only to see that the test is conducted under
proper conditions and to give the signal for starting and ending the test.
A number of tests have been devised for new entrants to colleges and
universities and the best known are those devised by the American Council
on Education and the Scholastic Aptitude Test of the College Entrance
Examination Board. They are most widely used in America.
In World War II, the army authorities took full advantage of the
psychological research in intelligence testing and brought out a revised
scale known as Army General Classification Test (AGCT). This was given to
several million recruits to the army. It was in four different forms which
could be exchanged with one another, each form required about an hour to
give.

Besides this, there were longer forms of the test which sought to find out
scores on tests of:
(i)" Verbal ability;
(ii)" Spatial comprehension;
(iii)" Arithmetic computation; and
(iv)" Arithmetic reasoning (the Navy developed a similar test NGCT).
It is obvious that group tests take less time and are more convenient to
administer when we have to deal with a very large number of people. But
they are not as easy to manage as it appears. Conditions are very difficult to
control and there is a chance of people copying from each other and feeling
panicky or nervous about it. Besides these tests are group-centred rather
than individual centred and their purpose is to select suitable individuals
for certain objectives of the group. The main concern therefore is about the
welfare and progress of the group, those who promote this are selected and
those who hinder this are rejected. The concern is not for the individuals
selected for special training or for promotion as officers but for the needs of
the larger group, the army and the nation at war.
(c)" Performance Tests

We have seen that Binet's tests could be given to one person at a time and
their validity depends on normal vision, hearing, muscular control and
comprehension of language. They are not suitable for testing blind or deaf
persons, illiterates or those who speak very little English. Special
performance tests were devised to meet these special conditions.
In 1850, a French physician, Seguin, constructed a kind of test for feeble-

minded children. It consisted of fitting blocks of various shapes, such as a
star, triangle, cross, square or circle, into corresponding cut-outs in a board.
By pantomime the child could be shown how to put each block in its proper
hole. Two psychologists, R. Pintner and D. Paterson, taking over the Seguin
tests, prepared the first performance scale in 1917. In this series, all the tests
call for a motor response, such as putting together a puzzle, fitting blocks
into a place or imitating the tester in tapping cubes. Verbal directions are
unnecessary. Tests are scored in terms of time taken and moves or errors
made. This scale included 15 tests and was meant for age levels four to
fifteen. In picture completion tests the subject inserts irregularly shaped
blocks into a board to complete a picture as we do in solving a jigsaw
puzzle. In a form-board test variously shaped blocks are assembled and
inserted into cut-out places in a board to make a complete picture. Some of

those tests are designed for pre-school children and some will baffle even
college students.
The Porteus Maze Test is a standardised performance test using a series of

mazes of increasing complexity for children from three to fourteen years of
age. The subject is given a pencil and begins at the maze entrance to trace
the path way to its end avoiding blind alleys. Maze tests are especially
useful with illiterates, people of low or defective intelligence and primitive
people whose command of language is either nil or poor. These tests show
that maze tracing can test prudence, ability to plan and look ahead, and
elementary foresight. There are several other performance tests available
and they all rely on movement of one kind or the other. It is possible to
obtain mental ages on the basis of these tests and intelligence quotients can
be calculated. Performance tests are a good supplement of the Binet-Simon
scale but cannot be substituted for it. Performance tests are mostly
individual tests, though the Army Beta tests were used for groups very
large in size.
Other intelligence tests also exist. One is the Slosson Intelligence Test
Revised (SIT-R), also called the „Short Intelligence Test‰. The revised
version was issued in 1991. This test can be used from infancy through age
27, and contains items similar to the Wechsler scales. One advantage is that
the test does not have to be administered by a trained test giver. The
disadvantage is that there are statistical and interpretive limitations on the
data that comes out of the testing process.
6.1.2 Other Types of Intelligence Testing

Other tests are designed to be given in groups. These include the Cognitive
Abilities Test (CAT) and the School and College Abilities Tests (SCAT). These
tests can be given by untrained test administrators and are computer scored.
Intelligence testing is just one snapshot of a person's abilities. The information

from the test does not predict one's success in life. It should be taken as just one
factor in a complete neurological or psychiatric evaluation („Intelligence Tests,‰
n.d.).

6.1.3 Limitations of Intelligence Tests

Intelligence tests have been severely criticised. Minor criticisms, as of certain test
items and procedures, have often been met by revisions and improvements of the
tests. We have already dealt with revisions of scales and shown how the Stanford
Revision of 1937 was superior to the original Binet-Simon scale of 1917.
Other criticisms are more fundamental. It is said that intelligence tests fail to
reach native inborn ability because a childÊs performance and the resulting IQ is
greatly affected by his home environment and socio-economic factors. This is
true and therefore many comparisons between individuals or groups are invalid
because they do not take into account differences of background and experiences.
But, on the other hand, when children from a common or similar social
background such as those living in the same small town are tested, test scores of
children offer a fair measure of the children's relative abilities.
Thorndike and Thurstone deny that there is any such thing as general ability or
general versatility of adjustment, and if that is so, what validity can the test of
intelligence have. Instead of one general ability, there are many special abilities,
but as has already been pointed out even with many special abilities attempts are
being made to correlate and combine their scores and obtain a collective picture
of them by averaging scores on the separate ability tests.
Other critics rightly point out that intelligence tests leave out many important
aspects of personality like interests, motives, attitudes or social adaptability. But
these tests do not claim that they measure any such aspects of personality and
other tests have been devised to measure them.
It is also objected that tests measure intelligence only through language spoken
or printed. Children from better homes are likely to score higher than those from
poor ones. This is true but home conditions do not modify results to any serious
degree. No doubt environment may discourage or stimulate intellectual activity,
but tests can be slightly modified to suit different kinds of environment.
Intelligence tests are not adequately standardised and do not predict with
absolute certainty success in school or industry. They are not a perfect measure of
intelligence and in several areas of work intelligence does not make for success.
One typist may be more intelligent than another, but may not be a good typist.
There are other things like skills, attitudes and interests which also contribute to
success. Happily, tests are being devised for them also, and there is a growing
feeling that intelligence tests must be supplemented by other tests to predict later
success with certainty.

6.1.4 Value of Intelligence Tests

In the first place, intelligence tests have contributed largely to our knowledge
and understanding of human nature and behaviour. Even though no hard and
fast definition of intelligence is available, everybody agrees that there is some
intellective quality which is inborn and which determines the efficiency and
effectiveness of our adjustments, learning and behaviour. Today on their basis
we are able to draw some general and definite conclusions about human nature
and its growth. This includes educational guidance and there is no doubt that
this purpose has been served fairly satisfactorily. Today, we are able to predict
the possibilities of children's success in learning and thereby direct their mental
growth accordingly. If parents have a fair knowledge of what their children are
capable of achieving, they would not waste time and money on educating them
to become what they never can become.
Intelligence tests will also reveal to parents whether their children are doing their
best in studies and making the best use of their opportunities. Many children are
very intelligent but do not work hard or are not put to hard work. They develop
bad habits of indifference. Many children are too slow and cannot keep pace with
the programme of study in the school, and thus lose all interest in their work. If
we have accurate knowledge and understanding of the intellectual capacity of
every child we could plan his or her education better. We will not only eliminate
failure but also the unhappiness which accompanies it. With the help of
intelligence tests, the teacher can also check his work and methods of teaching. If
the class is intelligent and its IQ is satisfactory, but their examination scores are
low, this means that there is something wrong with the methods of teaching.
The chief value of determining the IQ is that we can classify him or her into a
group to which he or she really belongs and then provide for his or her
educational needs. If his or her IQ is low he or she may have to be placed in a
group of feeble-minded students and taught in a separate class to acquire
intelligent behaviour. Those children whose IQ are above normal have to be
taught on a higher level and placed in special classes according to their capacity.
Parents can be given vocational guidance so that they can prepare their children
for the professions for which they are suitable.
SELF-CHECK 6.2
Describe briefly the history of the growth of intelligence testing.

ACTIVITY 6.1
Given the communication problems in autism, find out why there might
be difficulty in interpreting IQ findings. You can visit the following link:
http://labspace.open.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=364910
6.2 PSYCHOLOGY AND EVERYDAY LIFE –

WORK, FAMILY AND YOUTH
Since psychology was founded 110 years ago, it has grown and diversified
beyond the dreams of its early pioneers and has produced research-based
applications for nearly every aspect of human endeavour. From health care to
education, family life to corrections, religion to the arts, business and industry to
law and from sports to the military and on to engineering, it is hard to find an
area of human activity where psychology does not have relevance.
A few examples illustrate the following points:

(a)" Psychology helps teachers design instruction to meet individual student
needs;
(b)" Psychology helps patients manage chronic diseases like diabetes and
hypertension;
(c)" Psychology improves safety by advising the aviation industry on how to
design cockpits and fire departments on the colour of fire engines;
(d)" Psychology helps athletes and executives reach their peak performance;
(e)" Psychology advises the FBI on how to combat terrorism; and
(f)" Psychology helps public health officials prevent injuries and violence.

Figure 6.2: Psychological state of mind

Source: http://www.bloglovin.com/de/blog/1036149/everyday-people-cartoons-blog
As shown in Figure 6.2, the psychological state of mind changes with time.
Consider this: most of us see our optometrist once per year, our dentist twice per
year, our internist once per year. I can imagine a day in the not too distant future
when people will make appointments for annual psychological checkups. At
these checkups they will address such matters as their stress level and their
psychological well-being, auditing their work or family life balance, their
relationships, how they are managing children and/or ageing parents and health
basics like diet, nutrition, sleep and exercise. Less than five per cent of the
population would have doctoral degrees. Hence, we are the educated elite of our
time. Our chosen field, psychology, is applicable to every aspect of human life.
As former APA President Patrick De Leon has said, if we take care of society's
most pressing needs, society will take care of us. The future of psychology is as
bright as we dare.
6.2.1 Practical Ways to Apply Psychology in Everyday

Life
According to Cherry (n.d.), do you think that psychology is just for students,
academics and therapists? Then think again. Because psychology is both an
applied and a theoretical subject and it can be utilised in a number of ways.
While research studies are not exactly light reading material for the average
person, the results of these experiments and studies can have important
applications in daily life.

Cherry (n.d.) came up with some of the top practical uses for psychology in
everyday life:
(a)" Get Motivated

Whether your goal is to quit smoking, lose weight or learn a new language,
some lessons from psychology offer tips for getting motivated. In order to
increase your motivational levels when approaching a task, utilise some of the
following tips derived from research in cognitive and educational psychology:
(i)" Introduce new or novel elements to keep your interest high;
(ii)" Vary the sequence to help stave off boredom;
(iii)" Learn new things that build on your existing knowledge;
(iv)" Set clear goals that are directly related to the task; and
(v)" Reward yourself for a job well done.
(b)" Improve Your Leadership Skills

It does not matter if you are an office manager or a volunteer at a local youth
group. Having good leadership skills will probably be essential at some point
in your life. Not everyone is a born leader, but a few simple tips gleaned from
psychological research can help you improve your leadership skills. One of
the most famous studies on this topic looked at three distinct leadership
styles. Based on the findings of this study and subsequent research, practice
some of the following when you are in a leadership position:
(i)" Offer clear guidance, but allow group members to voice opinions;
(ii)" Talk about possible solutions to problems with members of the group;
and
(iii)" Focus on stimulating ideas and be willing to reward creativity.
(c)" Become a Better Communicator

Communication involves much more than how you speak or write.
Research suggests that non-verbal signals make up a huge portion of our
interpersonal communication. In order to communicate your message
effectively, you need to learn how to express yourself non-verbally and to
read the non-verbal cues of those around you. A few key strategies include
the following:
(i)" Use good eye contact;
(ii)" Start noticing non-verbal signals in others; and
(iii)" Learn to use your tone of voice to reinforce your message.

(d)" Learn to Better Understand Others

Much like non-verbal communication, your ability to understand your
emotions and the emotions of those around you plays an important role in
your relationships and professional life. The term emotional intelligence
refers to your ability to understand both your own emotions as well as
those of other people. Your emotional intelligence quotient is a measure of
this ability. According to psychologist Goleman (1995), your EQ may
actually be more important than your IQ.
What can you do to become more emotionally intelligent? Consider some of

the following strategies:
(i)" Carefully assess your own emotional reactions;
(ii)" Record your experience and emotions in a journal; and
(iii)" Try to see situations from the perspective of another person.
(e)" Make More Accurate Decisions

Research in cognitive psychology has provided a wealth of information
about decision making. By applying these strategies to your own life, you
can learn to make wiser choices. The next time you need to make a big
decision, try using some of the following techniques:
(i)" Try using the „six thinking hats‰ approach by looking at the situation
from multiple points of view, including rational, emotional, intuitive,
creative, positive and negative perspectives;
(ii)" Consider the potential costs and benefits of a decision; and
(iii)" Employ a grid analysis technique that gives a score for how a
particular decision will satisfy specific requirements you may have.
(f)" Improve Your Memory

Have you ever wondered why you can remember exact details from
childhood events yet forget the name of the new client you met yesterday?
Research on how we form new memories as well as how and why we
forget has led to a number of findings that can be applied directly in your
daily life. What are some ways you can increase your memory power?
(i) Focus on the information;
(ii) Rehearse what you have learned; and
(iii) Eliminate distractions.

(g)" Get Better Grades

The next time you are tempted to complain about pop quizzes, mid-term or
final exams, consider this: research has demonstrated that taking tests
actually helps you remember better what you have learned, even if it was
not covered on the test (Chan, McDermott, & Roediger, 2006).
Another study found that repeated test-taking may be a better memory aid
than studying (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006). Students who were tested
repeatedly were able to recall 61 per cent of the material while those in the
study group recalled only 40 per cent. How can you apply these findings to
your own life? When trying to learn new information, self-test frequently in
order to cement what you have learned into your memory.
(h)" Become More Productive

Sometimes it seems like there are thousands of books, blogs and magazine
articles telling us how to get more done in a day, but how much of this
advice is founded on actual research? For example, think about the number
of times have you heard that multitasking can help you become more
productive. In reality, research has found that trying to perform more than
one task at the same time seriously impairs speed, accuracy and
productivity. So what lessons from psychology can you use to increase your
productivity? Consider some of the following:
(i)" Avoid multitasking when working on complex or dangerous tasks;
(ii)" Focus on the task at hand; and
(iii)" Eliminate distractions.
(i)" Be Healthier
Psychology can also be a useful tool for improving your overall health.
From ways to encourage exercise and better nutrition to new treatments for
depression, the field of health psychology offers a wealth of beneficial
strategies that can help you to be healthier and happier. Here are some
examples that you can apply directly to your own life:
(i)" Studies have shown that both sunlight and artificial light can reduce
the symptoms of seasonal affective disorders; and
(ii)" Research has demonstrated that exercise can be an effective treatment
for depression as well as other mental disorders.

(j)" Make Wiser Financial Decisions

Nobel Prize winning psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky
conducted a series of studies that looked at how people manage uncertainty
and risk when making decisions. Subsequent research in this area known as
behaviour economics has yielded some key findings that you can use to
make wiser money management choices. A study found that workers could
more than triple their savings by utilising some of the following strategies:
(i)" Do not procrastinate! Start investing in savings now;
(ii)" Commit in advance to devote portions of your future earnings to your
retirement savings; and
(iii)" Try to be aware of personal biases that may lead to poor money
choices.
SELF-CHECK 6.3
Define the concept of psychology and everyday life.
" Sir Francis Galton is a key figure in modern intelligence testing. The first
workable intelligence test was developed by French psychologist Alfred
Binet.
" Intelligence is not something we can see, hear or taste. We can only see the
results of intelligence.
" When lay people think of psychology, they often think of helping people
suffering from emotional illness (like anxiety or depression), marital and
family problems (domestic violence or unmanageable children) or substance
abuse. While psychology certainly deals with these problems, few realise how
broadly applicable psychology is to everyday life.
Intelligence quotient (IQ) Non-verbal intelligence tests

Intelligence testing Performance intelligence test
Mental age Verbal intelligence tests

1." What are the different kinds of intelligence tests? Give examples and
describe briefly.
2." What are the limitations and values of intelligence tests?
3." Briefly describe the Wechsler-Bellevue tests of intelligence. What peculiar
advantages do they have over other tests?
1." How does psychology help people get rid of their day-to-day problems?
2." Write down five best ways to apply psychology in your everyday life.
Chan, J. C. K., McDermott, K. B., & Roediger, H. L., III. (2006). Retrieval-induced
facilitation: Initially nontested material can benefit from prior testing of
related material. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 135(4), 553–571.
Cherry, K. (n. d.). 10 ways psychology can help you live a better life. Retrieved
from http://psychology.about.com/od/psychology101/tp/applying-
psychology.htm
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York, NY: Bantam.
Intelligence Tests (n.d.) Retrieved from

http://www.faqs.org/health/topics/86/Intelligence-tests.html
Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory

tests improves long-term retention. Psychological science, 17(3), 249-255.

Topic  Theories of
7 Learning
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1." Define the basic concept of theories of learning;
2." Discuss the basic tenets of experimental analysis of behaviour;
3." Explain the concept of the theory of thinking; and
4." Describe the meaning of artificial intelligence.
 INTRODUCTION
In psychology and education, learning is commonly defined as a process that
brings together cognitive, emotional and environmental influences and
experiences for acquiring, enhancing or making changes in oneÊs knowledge,
skills, values and world views. In this topic, we are going to describe all the
theories of learning including analysis of behaviour and theory of thinking in
detail.
7.1 ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOUR

Learning as a process focuses on what happens when the learning takes place
(„Learning Theories,‰). Explanations of what happens constitute learning
theories. A learning theory is an attempt to describe how people and animals
learn; thereby helping us understand the inherently complex process of learning.
Learning theories have two chief values. One is in providing us with vocabulary
and a conceptual framework for interpreting the examples of learning that we
observe. The other is in suggesting where to look for solutions to practical

TOPIC 7 THEORIES OF LEARNING  133
problems. The theories do not give us solutions, but they do direct our attention
to those variables that are crucial in finding solutions.
Learning can be defined as the process leading to relatively permanent

behavioural change or potential behavioural change (Heffner, n.d.). In other
words, as we learn, we alter the way we perceive our environment, the way we
interpret the incoming stimuli and therefore the way we interact, or behave. John
B. Watson (1878-1958) was the first to study how the process of learning affects
our behaviour, and he formed the school of thought known as behaviourism.
The central idea behind behaviourism is that only observable behaviours are
worthy of research since other abstractions such as a person's mood or thoughts
are too subjective. This belief was dominant in psychological research in the US
for a good 50 years.
Behaviourism as a theory was primarily developed by B. F. Skinner („Learning

Theories,‰). It loosely encloses the work of people like Edward Thorndike,
Tolman, Guthrie and Hull. What characterises these investigators are their
underlying assumptions about the process of learning.
In essence, three of the following basic assumptions are held to be true:

(a)" First, learning is manifested by a change in behaviour;
(b)" Second, the environment shapes behaviour; and
(c)" Third, the principles of contiguity (how close in time two events must be for
a bond to be formed) and reinforcement (any means of increasing the
likelihood that an event will be repeated) are central to explaining the
learning process. For behaviourism, learning is the acquisition of new
behaviour through conditioning.
There are two types of possible conditioning as follows („Learning Theories,‰

n.d.):
(a)" Classical conditioning, where the behaviour becomes a reflex response to

stimulus as in the case of Pavlov's dogs as shown in Figure 7.1. Pavlov was
interested in studying reflexes, when he saw that the dogs drooled without
the proper stimulus. Although no food was in sight, their saliva still
dribbled. It turned out that the dogs were reacting to lab coats. Every time
the dogs were served food, the person who served the food was wearing a
lab coat. Therefore, the dogs reacted as if food was on its way whenever
they saw a lab coat. In a series of experiments, Pavlov then tried to figure
out how these phenomena were linked. For example, he struck a bell when

134  TOPIC 7 THEORIES OF LEARNING
the dogs were fed. If the bell was sounded in close association with their
meal, the dogs learned to associate the sound of the bell with food. After a
while, at the mere sound of the bell, they responded by drooling.
Figure 7.1: Experiment of classical conditioning

Source: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/meriw007/psy_1001/2011/10/pavlovs-classical-
conditioning-1.php
(b)" Operant conditioning, where there is reinforcement of the behaviour by a

reward or a punishment. The theory of operant conditioning was
developed by B.F. Skinner and is known as „radical behaviourism‰. The
word „operant‰ refers to the way in which behaviour „operates on the
environment.‰ Briefly, a behaviour may result either in reinforcement,
which increases the likelihood of the behaviour recurring, or punishment,
which decreases the likelihood of the behaviour recurring. It is important to
note that a punishment is not considered to be applicable if it does not
result in the reduction of the behaviour, and so the terms punishment and
reinforcement are determined as a result of the actions. Within this
framework, behaviourists are particularly interested in measurable changes
in behaviour.

The four orientations to learning are summed up (after Merriam & Caffarella,
1991) in Table 7.1.
Table 7.1: Four Orientations to Learning

Social and
Behaviourist Cognitivist Humanist
Situational
Learning Thorndike, Koffka, Kohler, Maslow, Bandura, Lave
theorists Pavlov, Lewin, Piaget, Rogers and Wenger,
Watson, Ausubel, Salomon
Guthrie, Hull, Bruner, Gagne
Tolman,
Skinner
View of the Change in Internal mental A personal Interaction or
learning behaviour process act to fulfil observation in
process (including potential social contexts.
insight, Movement from
information the periphery to
processing, the centre of a
memory, community of
perception) practice
Locus of Stimuli in Internal Affective and Learning is in
learning external cognitive cognitive relationship
environment structuring needs between people
and environment
Purpose in Produce Develop Become self- Full participation
education behavioural capacity and actualised, in
change in skills to learn autonomous communities of
desired better practice and
direction utilisation of
resources
Educator's Arranges Structures Facilitates Works to establish
role environment content of development communities of
to elicit learning activity of the whole practice in which
desired person conversation and
response participation can
occur
Manifestations Behavioural Cognitive Andragogy, Socialisation,
in adult objectives, development, self-directed social
learning competency- intelligence, learning participation,
based learning and associationalism,
education, memory as conversation
skill function of age,
development learning how to
and training learn
Source: Smith (2003)

As can we see from the schematic presentation in Table 7.1, these approaches
involve contrasting ideas as to the purpose and process of learning and education
– and the role that educators may take.
B. F. Skinner
Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 to August 18, 1990) was an American
psychologist, author, inventor, social philosopher and poet („B.F. Skinner,‰ n.d.).
He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from
1958 until his retirement in 1974. Skinner invented the operant conditioning
chamber, innovated his own philosophy of science called „radical
behaviourism,‰ and founded his own school of experimental research
psychology  the experimental analysis of behaviour. His analysis of human
behaviour concluded in his work Verbal Behaviour, which has recently seen
enormous increase in interest experimentally and in applied settings.
Skinner discovered and advanced the rate of response as a dependent variable in

psychological research. He invented the cumulative recorder to measure the rate
of responding as part of his highly influential work on schedules of
reinforcement. In a June 2002 survey, Skinner was listed as the most influential
psychologist of the 20th century. He was a prolific author who published 21
books and 180 articles.
Skinner was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania to Grace and William Skinner.

His father was a lawyer. His brother Edward, two and a half years his junior,
died at age sixteen due to cerebral haemorrhage. He attended Hamilton College
in New York with the intention of becoming a writer. While attending, he joined
Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity. He wrote for the school paper, but as an atheist,
he was critical of the religious school he attended. He also attended Harvard
University after receiving his B.A. in English Literature in 1926. After graduation,
he spent a year at his parentsÊ home in Scranton attempting to become a writer of
fiction. Figure 7.2 shows an image of B. F. Skinner.
Figure 7.2: B.F. Skinner

Source: http://www.tricitypsychology.com/what-was-b-f-skinner-really-like-a-study-
parses-his-traits/

He soon became disappointed with his literary skills and concluded that he had
little world experience and no strong personal perspective from which to write.
Skinner received a PhD from Harvard in 1931, and remained there as a
researcher until 1936. He then taught at the University of Minnesota at
Minneapolis and later at Indiana University, where he was chair of the
psychology department from 1946 to 1947, before returning to Harvard as a
tenured professor in 1948. He remained at Harvard for the rest of his career. In
1936, Skinner married Yvonne Blue. The couple had two daughters, Julie (m.
Vargas) and Deborah (m. Buzan). He died of leukemia on August 18, 1990, and
was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts (refer to
Figure 7.3).
7.1.1 Tools in Behavioural Research

The following are the inventions used as experimental tools in behavioural
research.
(a)" Air Crib
In an effort to help his wife cope with the day-to-day tasks of child rearing,
Skinner, a consummate inventor, thought he might be able to improve
upon the standard crib. He invented the „air-crib‰ to meet this challenge.
An „air-crib‰ (also known as a „baby tender‰ or amusingly as an „heir
conditioner‰) is an easily cleaned, temperature and humidity-controlled
box Skinner designed to assist in the raising of babies.
It was one of his most controversial inventions, and was popularly

mischaracterised as cruel and experimental. It was designed to make the
early childcare simpler (by greatly reducing laundry, diaper rash, cradle
cap), while encouraging the baby to be more confident, mobile,
comfortable, healthy and therefore less prone to cry. Babies sleep and will
sometimes play in air cribs but it is misleading to say they are „raised‰ in
them. Apart from newborns, most of a baby's waking hours will be spent
out of the box. Reportedly it had some success in these goals. Air-cribs were
later commercially manufactured by several companies. Air-cribs of some
fashion are still used to this day and publications continue to dispel myths
about and tout the progressive advantages of SkinnerÊs invention.
(b)" Cumulative Recorder

The cumulative recorder is an instrument used to automatically record
behaviour graphically. Initially, its graphing mechanism is consisted of a
rotating drum of paper equipped with a marking needle. The needle would
start at the bottom of the page and the drum would turn the roll of paper
horizontally.

Each response would result in the marking needle moving vertically along
the paper in one tick. This makes it possible for the rate of response to be
calculated by finding the slope of the graph at a given point. For example, a
regular rate of response would cause the needle to move vertically at a
regular rate, resulting in a straight diagonal line rising towards the right.
An accelerating or decelerating rate of response would lead to a curve. The
cumulative recorder provided a powerful analytical tool for studying
schedules of reinforcement.
(c)" Operant Conditioning Chamber

Figure 7.4 shows the operant conditioning chamber invented by B.F. Skinner.
Figure 7.4: Operant conditioning chamber

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber
While at Harvard, he invented the operant conditioning chamber to

measure responses of organisms (most often, rats and pigeons) and their
orderly interactions with the environment. This device is an example of his
lifelong ability to invent useful devices, which included strange and
amusing devices in his childhood to the cumulative recorder to measure the
rate of response of organisms in an operant chamber. Even in old age,
Skinner invented a „thinking aid‰ to assist in writing.
(d)" Teaching Machine

The teaching machine in Figure 7.5 is a mechanical invention to automate
the task of a programmed instruction.

Figure 7.5: Teaching machine

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Skinner_teaching_machine_01.jpg
The teaching machine was a mechanical device whose purpose was to

administer a curriculum of programmed instruction. It stored a list of
questions and a mechanism through which the learner could respond to each
question. Upon delivering a correct answer, the learner would be rewarded.
(e)" System80 (Subandi, 2011)

The System80 is another example of a teaching machine that follows
SkinnerÊs methods. The System80 elevated SkinnerÊs five steps toward
educational progression.
The automated educational device worked in the following ways:

(i)" Gave the learner immediate feedback;
(ii)" Broke the task into small steps;
(iii)" Repeated the directions;
(iv)" Worked from the simplest to the most complex tasks; and
(v)" Gave positive reinforcement for correct answers to questions.
For example, the System80 would project five semi-related pictures onto its
visual display. It would then prompt the student with a recorded audio
question. Example: „Find the ball that is inside the box‰. Each picture
would vary slightly showing the ball on top of the box, below the box, to
the right of the box and to the left of the box. Only one picture would
represent the ball correctly inside the box. As the student depressed the
proper button corresponding with the ball „inside the box,‰ he or she
would be granted immediate feedback by advancing promptly to the next
question.

The next question would also refer to spatial relationships, and ask „find
the ball on top of the box‰ using the same five pictures. The sequential
spatial relationships broke the task of learning space relations into very
small steps. Finally, if the student failed to depress the key corresponding
with the correct answer, she would be asked the question again and again 
thereby forcing the user to hear the directions repetitively. The sequence of
tasks start at a simple level before ranging to the complex. For example, a
ball inside versus outside of a box would be presented as a more simple
spatial question before educating the student on the more abstract
directional space of right versus left or north versus south.
(f)" Pigeon-guided Missile

The US Navy required a weapon effective against the German Bismarck
class battleships. Although missile and TV technology existed, the size of
the primitive guidance systems available rendered any weapon ineffective.
Project Pigeon was potentially an extremely simple and effective solution,
but despite an effective demonstration it was abandoned when more
conventional solutions became available.
The project centred on dividing the nose cone of a missile into three
compartments, and encasing a pigeon in each. Each compartment used a
lens to project an image of what was in front of the missile onto a screen.
The pigeons would peck toward the object, thereby directing the missile.
Skinner complained „our problem was no one would take us seriously.‰
The point is perhaps best explained in terms of human psychology (that is,
few people would trust a pigeon to guide a missile no matter how reliable it
proved).

7.1.2 Radical Behaviourism

Skinner called his particular brand of behaviourism „radical‰ behaviourism
(Subandi, 2011). Unlike less austere behaviourisms, it did not accept private
events such as thinking, perceptions and unobservable emotions in a causal
account of an organism's behaviour.
The position can be stated as follows: what is felt or self observed is not some
non-physical world of consciousness, mind or mental life but the observerÊs own
body. This does not mean, as he shall show later, that introspection is a kind of
psychological research, nor does it mean (and this is the heart of the argument)
that what is felt or introspectively observed are the causes of the behaviour. An
organism behaves as it does because of its current structure, but most of this is
out of the reach of introspection. At the moment we must be content, as the
methodological behaviourist insists, with a personÊs genetic and environment
histories. What are introspectively observed are certain collateral products of
those histories.
In this way, we repair the major damage processed by mentalism. When what a
person does is attributed to what is going on inside him, investigation is brought
to an end. For twenty five hundred years people have been preoccupied with
feelings and mental life, but only recently has any interest been shown in a more
precise analysis of the role of the environment. Ignorance of that role leads in the
first place to mental fictions, and it has been perpetuated by the explanatory
practices to which they gave rise.
Radical behaviourism seeks to understand behaviour as a function of

environmental histories of reinforcing consequences („B.F. Skinner,‰ n.d.).
Reinforcement processes were stressed by Skinner, and were seen as primary in
the shaping of behaviour. A common misconception is that negative
reinforcement is synonymous with punishment. This misconception is rather
pervasive, and is commonly found in even scholarly accounts of Skinner and his
contributions. To be clear, while positive reinforcement is the strengthening of
behaviour by the application of some event (for example, praise after some
behaviour is performed), negative reinforcement is the strengthening of
behaviour by the removal or avoidance of some aversive event (for example,
opening and raising an umbrella over your head on a rainy day is reinforced by
the cessation of rain falling on you).
Both types of reinforcement strengthen behaviour, or increase the probability of a

behaviour reoccurring; the difference is in whether the reinforcing event is
something applied (positive reinforcement) or something removed or avoided
(negative reinforcement). Punishment and extinction have the effect of

weakening behaviour, or decreasing the future probability of the behaviour's

occurrence, by the application of an aversive stimulus or event (positive
punishment or punishment by contingent stimulation), removal of a desirable
stimulus (negative punishment or punishment by contingent withdrawal) or the
absence of a rewarding stimulus, which causes the behaviour to stop (extinction).
Skinner also sought to understand the application of his theory in the broadest
behavioural sense. This methodological stance is a reaction and predates the
current level of advancement, in which mental structures can be observed in
operation via technologies such as functional MRI.
7.1.3 Verbal Behaviour

Challenged by Alfred North Whitehead, during a casual discussion while at
Harvard to provide an account of a randomly provided piece of verbal
behaviour, Skinner set about attempting to extend his then-new functional,
inductive, approach to the complexity of human verbal behaviour (Berger, n.d.).
Developed over two decades, his work appeared as the culmination of the
William James lectures in the book, Verbal Behaviour. Although Noam Chomsky
was highly critical of Verbal Behaviour, he conceded that it was „S-R
psychology‰ as a reason for giving it „a review.‰
Verbal Behaviour had an uncharacteristically slow reception, partly as a result of

ChomskyÊs review, paired with SkinnerÊs neglect to address or rebut any of
Chomsky's condemnations. Skinner's peers may have been slow to adopt and
consider the conventions within Verbal Behaviour due to its lack of experimental
evidence – unlike the empirical density that marked SkinnerÊs previous work.
However, SkinnerÊs functional analysis of verbal behaviour has seen a resurgence
of interest in applied settings.
Skinner influenced education as well as psychology. He was quoted as saying

„Teachers must learn how to teach ... they need only to be taught more effective
ways of teaching.‰ Skinner asserted that positive reinforcement is more effective
at changing and establishing behaviour than punishment, with obvious
implications for the then widespread practice of rote learning and punitive
discipline in education. Skinner also suggests that the main thing people learn
from being punished is how to avoid punishment.

Skinner says that there are five main obstacles to learning:

(a)" People have a fear of failure;
(b)" The task is not broken down into small enough steps;
(c)" There is a lack of directions;
(d)" There is also a lack of clarity in the directions; and
(e)" Positive reinforcement is lacking.
Skinner suggests that any age-appropriate skill can be taught using the following
five principles to remedy the above mentioned problems:
(a)" Give the learner immediate feedback;
(b)" Break down the task into small steps;
(c)" Repeat the directions as many times as possible;
(d)" Work from the simplest to the most complex tasks; and
(e)" Give positive reinforcement.
SkinnerÊs views on education are extensively presented in his book The

Technology of Teaching. It is also reflected in Fred S. KellerÊs Personalised
System of Instruction and Ogden R. Lindsley's Precision Teaching. Skinner is
popularly known mainly for his books Walden Two and Beyond Freedom and
Dignity. The former describes a visit to a fictional experimental community in
1940s in US, where the productivity and happiness of the citizens is far in
advance of that in the outside world because of their practice of scientific social
planning and use of operant conditioning in the raising of children.
Walden Two, like ThoreauÊs Walden, champions a lifestyle that does not support
war or foster competition and social strife. It encourages a lifestyle of minimal
consumption, rich social relationships, personal happiness, satisfying work and
leisure. In Beyond Freedom and Dignity, Skinner suggests that a technology of
behaviour could help make a better society. We would, however, have to accept
that an autonomous agent is not the driving force of our actions. Skinner offers
alternatives to punishment and challenges his readers to use science and modern
technology to construct a better society.

SELF-CHECK 7.1
Explain radical behaviourism in your own words.
7.2 THINKING
During most of our waking hours, and even when we are asleep and dreaming, we
are thinking; it is hard not to think. As you read these words you are thinking and
even if you stop thinking about what you are reading and your thoughts wander
off to something else  perhaps to what you are going to do tomorrow  you will
still be thinking. What do we do when we think? Loosely speaking, we might say
that we mentally, or cognitively, process information. More formally, we might say
that thinking consists of the cognitive rearrangement or manipulation of both
information from the environment and the symbols stored in long-term memory.
A symbol represents, or stands for, some event or item in the world; as we will see,
images and language symbols are used in much of our thinking.
The general definition of thinking given above encloses many different varieties
of thought. For instance, some thinking is highly private and may use symbols
with very personal meanings. This kind of thinking is called autistic thinking;
dreams are an example of autistic thinking. Other thinking is aimed at solving
problems or creating something new; this is called directed thinking. It is also the
type of thought we value so much in the great human thinkers. The definition of
thinking given above also covers the thinking that we believe animals engage in
when they solve certain kinds of problems.
From another viewpoint, thinking is the „form of information processing that

goes on during the period between a stimulus event and the response to it.‰ In
other words, thinking is the set of cognitive processes that mediate, or go
between, stimuli and responses. To illustrate, suppose you are trying to make a
decision about buying a new turntable for your hi-fi. The sales person presents
several turntables in your price range (the stimuli), and you eventually purchase
one of them (the response). Before making the response, however, you weigh the
advantages and disadvantages of the several turntables; you process the
information you have about them. Your information processing  your thinking
about the turntables  thus mediates between the turntables as stimuli and your
eventual response of buying one of them.

Thinking consists of the cognitive re-arrangement or manipulation of both

information from the environment and the symbols stored in long-term memory.
A symbol represents, or stands for, some event or item in the world. Thinking
can also be considered a process that mediates, or goes between, stimuli and
responses. Thinking uses images and language. The images used in thinking are
abstractions and constructions based on information stored in long-term
memory. In using language as a „tool of thought,‰ we draw on word meanings
and grammatical rules stored in our semantic long-term memories. While
language is often used in thinking, we do not literally „talk to ourselves‰ when
thinking. Thinking or cognition refers to a process that involves knowing,
understanding, remembering and communicating.
According to cognitive psychologists, thinking involves the following mental

activities which cognitive psychologists study in great detail.
(a)" Concepts;
(b)" Problem solving;
(c)" Decision making; and
(d)" Creative thinking
7.2.1 Concepts
Concepts are an important class of language symbols used in thinking. A concept
is a symbolic construction representing some common and general feature or
features of objects or events. Some natural or basic concepts are easily acquired
and appear in thinking early in life. Other concepts are acquired by
discrimination learning, by seeing examples of a concept in different contexts and
by definition. A concept is a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas or
people. There are varieties of chairs but their common features define the concept
of a chair as shown in Figure 7.6.
Figure 7.6: Concepts of chairs
Secondly, some members of a category are perceived to be more typical of that

category than others. When people are asked to list properties of different
concepts, the most typical members, called prototypes, have more of these

properties than others. In the process of developments of concepts, we form some

by „definitions,‰ for example, a triangle has three sides. But mostly, we form
concepts by a mental image or a best example (prototype), for example, a robin is
a prototype of a bird but a penguin is not. This is shown in Figure 7.8.
Figure 7.7: A robin and a penguin

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DMR24/sandbox
7.2.2 Problem Solving

Problem solving is an important kind of thinking. In general, a problem is any
conflict or difference between one situation and another we wish to produce 
the goal. Many instances of problem solving can be considered a form of
information processing. The solution of problems is guided by rules; algorithms
and heuristics. Let us look at the following descriptions of these two:
(a)" Algorithms
Algorithms are sets of rules which, if followed correctly, guarantee a
solution to a problem. It is a methodical, logical rule or procedure that
guarantees solving a particular problem. Algorithms exhaust all
possibilities before arriving at a solution. It takes a long time. Computers
use algorithms.
SPLOYOCHYG
If we were to unscramble the above letters to form a word, using an

algorithm approach would take 907,208 possibilities. These are simple
thinking strategies that often allow us to make judgments and solve
problems efficiently. They are speedier but more error prone than
algorithms.

(b)" Heuristics
Heuristics make it easy for us to use simple principles to arrive at solutions
to problems.
SPLOYOCHYG
PS SP YL OC HY O CL OH G Y
Try putting Y at the end of the first algorithm and see if the word starts to
make sense. Heuristics are strategies or approaches to a problem that are
usually based on past experience, likely to lead to a solution, but do not
guarantee success. One common heuristic is breaking a larger problem
down into smaller sub problems which when solved, will lead to the
solution of the overall, larger problem. The solution to a problem depends,
to a large degree, on choosing good heuristic rules to follow which can
predispose us to select appropriate or inappropriate heuristics. The
hindering effects of habit on problem solving are discussed at some length.
Functional fixedness is an example of the hindering effects of habit on
problem solving.
7.2.3 Decision Making

This is a kind of problem-solving method in which we are presented with several
alternatives among which we much choose. One idea about decision making is
that people use subjective probability estimates of the likelihoods of various
outcomes in an effort to maximise utility  perceived benefit or psychological
value  in making their decisions. Heuristics-decision-making rules for
estimating the likelihood or subjective probability of outcomes are used in
making risky decisions. While useful, these rules can lead to biases and errors in
making decisions. Among the decision-making heuristics are representativeness,
availability and adjustment.
Weighing alternatives is an important part of many decisions. The decision

maker first makes a list of desired attributes and then gives weights to each of
these attributes on the basis of their perceived importance. Then the decision
maker assesses the utility or perceived benefit of each attribute and multiplies
this by its weight to get an overall value for the attribute. Finally, the overall
values of the attributes are summed to give a single weighted value, or utility, for
each alternative involved in the decision. Each day we make hundreds of
judgments and decisions based on our intuition seldom using systematic
reasoning.

7.2.4 Creative Thinking

In creative thinking something new is sought. Some new ideas seem to come
suddenly after little progress has been made over a long period of time; this
sudden appearance of new ideas is called insight. Insights are sometimes
triggered by lucky, or fortuitous environmental circumstances which, after
creative thinkers have immersed themselves in a problem, direct their thoughts
in a new direction.
Creative thinking is said to proceed in five stages, namely, preparation,

incubation, illumination, evaluation and revision. Divergent thinking is
characterised by a wide range of thoughts on a topic and by some autistic
thinking, is considered conducive to creativity. Creative people are usually
intelligent, often have a special talent and are generally strongly motivated to
solve the problems that interest them. A personality dimension called origins
seems to be related to creativity.
SELF-CHECK 7.2
1." What is the nature of learning? Discuss problem solving and
several processes involved in it.
2." Write short notes on the following:
(a)" Concepts; and
(b)" Decision making.
7.3 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Along with the growth of concept of artificial intelligence and the possibilities
projected by research, the question of humanity and what it is to be human,
surfaces. Due to the original objective of scientists to create a human-like robot
within a few years, human life was underestimated and taken too lightly. It is
very common today that individuals themselves have mechanical, computer-like
qualities. Individuals refer to remembering ideas as „storing files‰ and
„retrieving‰ them later. Students generally want to erase information from their
memory after the exams as they want to save more space for other information.

As the advancement in research continues to proceed slowly, it seems that creating

human intelligence is not as simple as assumed. This process of using our brains to
create leads to questions of uniqueness and identity. As a part of human nature,
individuals would like to believe that they are special and not a pattern for copying.
So, in order to create a robot in the human vision, it should also demonstrate
uniqueness and individuality. In the process of trying to create consciousness and
thought, one lesson being learned is that intelligence is complicated and multi-
faceted. An appreciation for personality, talents, emotions and so on is strengthened
through the process of re-examination. The actual approaches taken by scientists, for
instance, bottom-up and top-down, are an effort to clarify the nature of intelligence
in humans. By striving to create human intelligent robots, researchers have been
faced with examining their own processes as humans.
It is encouraging to know that the fact we are either bodies filled with millions of
facts interpreting ideas from many domains (top-down) or bodies that have
learned through experience (bottom-up) is not relevant. It is the fact that we have
to re-examine ourselves that is significant. It is all the way through this process
that we gain an admiration and enhance understanding of ourselves.
7.4 OVERVIEW OF GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY

Gestalt psychology is a school of thought that looks at the human mind and
behaviour as a whole. Gestalt is the German word for form, and it means unified
whole or configuration. The essential point of Gestalt is that in perception the
whole is different from the sum of its parts. Gestalt psychologists developed five
laws that govern human perception.
7.4.1 Historical Background of Gestalt Psychology

Referring to as one of the influential school of thought in Psychology, Gestalt
psychology was among the earliest school of psychology that deviates from
structuralism. This approach to psychology began in Germany and Austria
during the late 19th century.
Originating in the work of Max Wertheimer, Gestalt psychology formed partially
as a response to the structuralism of Wilhelm Wundt. Rather than breaking down
thoughts and behaviour to their smallest element, the Gestalt psychologists
believed that you must look at the whole of experience.

7.4.2 Antecedents of Gestalt Psychology

Like other schools of thought in psychology, Gestalt psychology was driven by
several famous psychologists that set the scene for the movement. They are as
follows:
(a)" Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

According to Kant, when we perceive objects, we encounter mental states
that appear to be composed of bits and pieces. These bits and pieces are not
organised through mechanical process of association but rather the mind
will form a whole experience. Perception is not a passive process but an
active one.
(b)" Ernst Mach (1838-1916)

Ernst Mach discussed the following areas:
(i)" The Analysis of Sensations (1885);
(ii)" Spatial patterns; and
(iii)" Perceptions do not change, even if orientation does.
(c)" Christian von Ehrenfels (1859-1932)

He proposed that there are qualities of experience that cannot be explained
as combinations of sensory elements. These he called Gestalt qualitaten
(form qualities), which are perceptions based on something greater than a
merging of individual sensations.
(d)" William James (1842-1910)

James regarded elements of consciousness as artificial abstractions and
stated that people see objects as wholes, not as bundles of sensations. James
defined phenomenology as an approach to knowledge based on an
unbiased description of immediate experience as it occurs, not analysed or
reduced to elements.
7.4.3 Founding of Gestalt Psychology

Gestalt psychology was founded in response to Structuralism. Prior to the official
founding of the school of thoughts, several psychologists (highlighted above)
were paving the path for its development. Subsequently, Max Wertheimer and
other colleagues further developed this school of thought.

Let us get to know more about these psychologists:
(a)" Max Wertheimer (1880-1943)

Gestalt psychology grew out of a field study by Max Wertheimer
conducted in 1910. WerteimerÊs research problem involved perceiving
apparent movement when no actual movement had taken place. He
referred to this as the „impression‰ of movement. If you have a light in a
dark room shining on the wall and you switch it off and a second light on
quickly enough, the light looks as if it has moved. According to Wundt, if
you introspected, you should see two successive lights, but no matter how
hard one introspected, it could not be seen.
(b)" Kurt Koffka (1886-1941)

Koffka is the most inventive of GestaltÊs founders. He presented the basic
concepts of Gestalt psychology in the article Perception: An Introduction to
Gestalt-Theorie (1922).
(c)" Wolfgang Kohler (1887-1967)

Kohler was the spokesperson for the Gestalt movement. He suggested that
Gestalt theory was a general law of nature that should be extended to all
sciences.
Note that the word Gestalt in German has two uses:
(i)" Refers to general properties that can be expressed in such terms as
angular or symmetrical and describes characteristics such as
triangularity in geometry and tempo in melody; and
(ii)" Denotes a whole or concrete entity that has one attribute and a
specific shape or form.
Thus, Gestalt can be used to refer to objects as well as their characteristic

forms.

7.4.4 Phi Phenomenon of Gestalt Psychology

The illusion that two stationary flashing lights are moving from one place to
another involves the following:
(a)" Perceptual Constancies

A quality of wholeness or completeness in perceptual experience that does
not vary when the sensory elements change.
(b)" Principle of Perceptual Organisation

We perceive objects in the same way that we perceive apparent motion  as
unified wholes rather than clusters of individual sensations.
These are the rules by which we organise our perceptual world.
7.4.5 Perceptual Organisation of Gestalt Psychology

Perceptual organisation occurs automatically whenever we sense different
shapes and patterns. The brain is a dynamic system in which all elements at any
given time interact.
Perceptual organisational principles are as follows:
(a)" Proximity: Parts that are close together in time or space appear to belong
together and tend to be perceived together;
(b)" Continuity: There is a tendency in our perception to follow a direction, to
connect the elements in such a way that makes them seem continuous or
flowing in a particular direction;
(c)" Similarity: Similar parts tend to be seen together as forming a group;
(d)" Closure: There is a tendency in our perception to complete incomplete
figures, to fill in the gaps; and
(e)" Simplicity: We tend to organise perceptions into the object being looked at
and the background against which it appears.

7.4.6 Gestalt Studies of Learning

Gestalt psychologists have always been dedicated to the studies of learning. In a
series of experiments, Gestalt psychologists used apes as research subjects on
learning. They looked into the following aspects:
(a)" Insight and the mentality of apes.
(b)" Interpreted results in terms of the whole situation and the relationships
among the stimuli.
(c)" Considered problem solving to be a matter of restructuring the perceptual
field.
(d)" Insight: An immediate apprehension or understanding of relationships.
(e)" Productive thinking in humans:
(i)" Thinking is done in terms of wholes; and
(ii)" The whole problem must dominate the parts.
(f)" Problem solving should proceed from the whole problem downward, not
the reverse.
(g)" This idea challenged traditional educational practices, such as mechanical
drill and rote learning, which was derived from the associationist approach.
7.4.7 Epistemology of Gestalt Psychology

Epistemology refers to the study of knowledge. In epistemology of Gestalt
psychology, it is referred to as the examination of the world through wholes –
whole problem, whole consciousness and whole environment.
Isomorphism
This is the doctrine that there is a correspondence between psychological or
conscious experience and the underlying brain experience. It involved a theory
that dealt with the underlying brain mechanisms involved with perceived
gestalts. The cerebral cortex was depicted as a dynamic system, in which the
elements active at a given time interact. Perception is like a map.
SELF-CHECK 7.3
Write a short note on artificial intelligence in psychology.

ACTIVITY 7.1
The following link will lead you to an article. Read it carefully and try
to analyse artificial intelligence in psychology.
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=7417
" The experimental analysis of behaviour is the name given to the school of
psychology founded by B. F. Skinner based on his philosophy of radical
behaviourism.
" We humans are an interesting species. As a civilisation, we have invented the

wheel, kept historical records to guide present and future generations, landed
space ships on the moon, unlocked the atom, cracked the genetic code and
revolutionised the face of all we do with computers that bring us to the global
Internet.
" With the rise of artificial intelligence and the possibilities projected by
research, the question of humanity and what it is to be human, surfaces.
Algorithm Operant conditioning

Classical conditioning Problem solving
Cognition Radical behaviourism
Concepts Rationalisation
Creative thinking Thinking
Heuristics Verbal behaviour

1." What is a learning theory?

2." Discuss the concept and tenet of Skinner's reinforcement. What was his
position regarding human behaviour and functioning?
2." Discuss and differentiate various types of reinforcements. Give examples of
each.
3." Contrast respondent and operant behaviour.
1." What is the nature of learning? Discuss problem solving and several
processes involved in it.
2." What are the four types of reinforcement schedules – which are most
effective in eliciting desired behaviour?
Berger, E. H. (n.d.). Parents as partners in education: Families and schools

working together. Retrieved from
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1467286818
B. F. Skinner. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.crystalinks.com/skinner.html
Burrhus Frederic (B.F. Skinner). (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://burrhusfredericskinner.weebly.com/schedules-of
reinforcement.html
Franklin, B. (1996). The autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. New York, NY:

Dover.
Heffner, C. L. (n.d.). Introduction to learning theory and behavioral psychology.

Retrieved from
http://allpsych.com/psychology101/learning/#.VV2CYfmqpHw
Koffka, K. (1922). Perception: An introduction to the Gestalt-theorie.

Psychological Bulletin, 19(10), 531-585.

Learning Theories. (n.d.) Retrieved from http://aiobp.org/resources/learning-

theories/
Mach, E., & Williams, C. M. (Ed.). (1897). Contributions to the analysis of the
sensations. Chicago, IL: Open Court.
Smith, M. K. (2003). Learning theory: Models, product and process. Retrieved

from http://infed.org/mobi/learning-theory-models-product-and-
process/
Subandi, A. (2011). Developmental psychology. Retrieved from

http://pascasarjanapaiuinsgd.blogspot.com/2011/04/developmental-
psychology.html

Topic  Challenges to
8 Behaviourism
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1." Explain humanistic psychology;
2." Explain the concept of Cartesian linguistics; and
3." Identify the main points of erosion of foundations.
" INTRODUCTION
The 1950s marked the end of the dominance of behaviourism and the rise of an
alternative cognitive and information processing paradigm. Behaviourism was
professionalising itself out of existence. Hundreds of articles were being written
on problems of the interest to no one outside the field. Harlow (1953) wrote that
the importance of the psychological problems studied during the last 15 years
had decreased as a negatively accelerated function approaching an asymptote of
complete indifference. Serious criticism of behaviourismÊs basic assumptions was
launched during this period.
The basic point of the critiques was the structured nature of behaviour and the
contribution of the organism that produces it. In the following section, we will
focus on humanistic psychology, explaining the concept of Cartesian linguistics
and some issues related to the erosion of foundations.

158  TOPIC 8 CHALLENGES TO BEHAVIOURISM
8.1 HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY: THE

THIRD FORCE
With the development of structuralism and Gestalt psychology, other
psychologists believed there should be more than two ways to look at human
behaviours. As a result, the third force was founded. But where did the term
third force come from? Third force psychology is named so because there are
three fields – humanism, phenomenology and existentialism. Third force
psychology is based on a materialistic philosophy.
The term third force refers to the third force in psychology of which the other
two are as shown in Figure 8.1.
Figure 8.1: The three forces in psychology
In addition, phenomenology, more than the other fields, refers to a method or an

approach to studying human behaviour. An existential approach is one that
recommends a particular view about reality.
Maslow, in disagreement with behaviourism and psychoanalytic theory, claims

that humans are influenced more by their past. Phenomenology is the most
general of the three fields because it includes both some experimentalists and
clinicians in advocating that one needs to understand a person's perception in
order to understand their behaviour.
Early challenges to behaviourism came from the psychologists such as Yerkes

and Kohler (Weiner, 2003). Their observations were on apes which led them to
conclude that animals did not learn complex problems by a combination of
random trial and error and eventual reinforcement of a correct solution but
rather the higher animals had insights into relationships between means and
ends.

TOPIC 8 CHALLENGES TO BEHAVIOURISM  159
Tolman (1932) was perhaps the most successful in challenging behaviourism

because he developed operation definitions for mentalistic processes, including
purposive behaviour and expectancy. His goal was to get behind the behaviour
and understand it; not by specifying particular elements of habits or their
linkage, but by identifying the complex cognitive mechanisms, purposes, insights
and expectations that guided behaviour.
TolmanÊs basic principles were that learning generally involved the acquisition of
knowledge about the world; in particular about relationships between, and
among stimuli and their consequences. His knowledge led to expectancies when
the animal was put in teasing situations. He argued that learning involved the
creation of what he called a cognitive map that organised the relations among
stimuli and consequences based on interconnections between groups of stimuli.
Moreover, he rigorously tested these ideas using the same species and maze-
learning paradigms that were a major focus of the prominent S-R theorists.
In a series of studies, Tolman showed that rats were capable of solving maze
problems by taking novel detours or shortcuts. They exhibited a capacity for
latent learning, in which they acquired problem solutions in the absence of
reinforcement. Collectively, in each of these studies, rats showed they were
capable of learned behaviours that were not previously reinforced and therefore
could not be mediated.
8.1.1 What is Humanistic Psychology?

Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers and Clark Moustakas were interested in starting a
professional association dedicated to a psychology that focused on uniquely
human issues, such as the self, self-actualisation, health, hope, love, creativity,
nature, being, becoming, individuality and meaning (something which they
believe is, a concrete understanding of human existence) (Humanistic
Psychology, 2013).
The following are the major theorists considered to have prepared the ground for
Humanistic psychology.
(a)" Abraham Maslow: He emphasised a hierarchy of needs and motivation;
(b)" Rollo May: The existential psychology of Rollo May acknowledged human
choice and the tragic aspects of human existence; and
(c)" Carl Rogers: The person-centred or client-centred therapy of Carl Rogers
centred on the clientsÊ capacity for self-direction and understanding of his
or her own development.

The following part highlights humanistic psychology in detail.
(a)" Features of Humanistic Psychology (Cherry, n.d.):

Humanism is an attempt to focus psychology to more person-oriented
objectives (contrary to behaviourism which only focus on human
behaviours). Humanistic psychology was instead focused on each
individual's potential and stressed the importance of growth and self-
actualisation. The fundamental belief of humanistic psychology was that
people are innately good, with mental and social problems resulting from
deviations from this natural tendency.
(b)" Basic Assumptions of Humanistic Psychology („Humanistic psychology

(the third-force),‰:
Humanistic psychology assumes that behaviour must be understood in
terms of the subjective experience of the individual (phenomenology) and
that behaviour is not constrained by either past experience of the individual
or current circumstances (determinism). Instead, people can make choices
(free will).
(c)" The Humanistic View of Human Behaviour (Stewart, 2005)

The following are some of the basic viewpoints with which most
humanistic psychologists agree:
(i)" A person is more than just a sum of his parts. A person should be
viewed holistically.
(ii)" A person does not live alone. People are social by nature and their
interpersonal interactions are a part of their development.
(iii)" A person is aware. People have an awareness of their existence and
themselves. How a person reacts to a situation is in part influenced by
previous events. Future responses will be influenced by past and
present experiences.
(iv)" A person has free will. People are aware of themselves; therefore, they
make conscious choices. Animals, unlike humans, are driven by
instincts and do not reach a conscious level of choice.
(v)" A person is consciously deliberate. A person seeks certain things for
himself such as value or meaning in his life. How a person seeks
meaning or value for himself results in a personal identity. This
personal identity is what distinguishes one person from another.

Humanistic psychology tends to look beyond the medical model of psychology

in order to open up a non-pathologising view of the person (mind and body
connection) („Humanistic Psychology,‰ n.d.-a). This usually implies that the
therapist downplays the pathological aspects of a person's life in favour of
healthy aspects. A key ingredient in this approach is the meeting between the
therapist and client and the possibilities for a dialogue. The aim of much
humanistic therapy is to help the client approach a stronger and healthier sense
of self, also called self-actualisation. All this is part of humanistic psychology's
motivation to be a science of human experience, focusing on the actual lived
experience of persons.
Humanistic psychology has been referred to as the „third force‰ in American

psychology movement (Poppen, Wandersman, & Wandersman, 1976). Seeing
themselves as an alternative to the pre-dominant schools of psychoanalysis and
behaviourism, humanistic psychology was described by Charlotte Buhler and
Melanie Allen (1972) as „revolutionary‰ because it presents a positive model of
the human being and believes that life is lived subjectively. Unlike the
psychoanalysts who derived much of their data from rats and pigeons and who
focused on externally observed behaviour, humanistic psychologists laid claim to
the whole person as their domain of investigation. Indeed, Buhler defined
humanistic psychology as "the scientific study of behaviour, experience and
intentionality‰ (Krippner, 2001). It adopts a holistic approach to human existence
through investigations of meaning, values, freedom, tragedy, personal
responsibility, human potential, spirituality and self-actualisation („Humanistic
Psychology, „ n.d.-b).
By including human intention in its domain, humanistic psychology assumed

that human beings were able to make choices, to search for meaning and to
engage in self-reflection (Krippner, 2001).
While mainstream psychologists spoke of their goal as the understanding,

prediction, and control of behaviour, humanistic psychologists emphasised
understanding and description. For them, psychology could never be a science of
the complete prediction and control of behaviour. This is a far different model
than the Laplacian clock the movements of which, once set in motion, could be
predicted by a master intelligence.
Humanistic psychology uses a variety of research methods in its attempt to

describe and understand behaviour, experience and intentionality. Amedeo
Giorgi (1986), observed that the activities of most concern in the human are the
least susceptible to treatment by existing research methods, and called for a
„reform‰ in the way that science studied human beings. This „human science‰
would include „phenomenological research, hermeneutic clarification of

meaning, life and case history studied, and a variety of studies using qualitative
data and/or reconceptualised quasi-experimental designs‰.
Charlotte Buhler (1933) was one of the first to criticise the psychoanalytic concept
of homeostasis as the end goal of human striving, claiming that homeostasis was
only a goal in illness. She emphasised the creative processes by which humans
attempt to bring values into existence, whether those values are artistic,
technological, social or spiritual. Indeed, human creativity may have an
underlying chaotic process that selectively amplifies small fluctuations and
moulds them into coherent mental states experienced as thought (Rossi, 1989). By
focusing on the human being's potentials for growth, humanistic psychologists
have constructed a model of the healthy personality that diverges from
psychoanalysis' medical model of the person (Krippner, 2001).
Behaviourist, so understood, is a psychological theorist who demands

behavioural evidence for any psychological hypothesis. For such a person, there
is no knowable difference between two states of mind unless there is a
demonstrable difference in the behaviour associated with each state (Graham,
2015).
ACTIVITY 8.1
Write a short note on Karl LashleyÊs alternative conception of a
nervous system as active.
8.2 CARTESIAN LINGUISTICS

The term Cartesian linguistics was coined with the publication of Cartesian
Linguistics: A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought (1966), a book on
linguistics by Noam Chomsky („Cartesian linguistics,‰ 2015). The book was
written with the purpose of deepening "our understanding of the nature of
language and the mental processes and structures that underlies its use and
acquisition‰. The central doctrine of Cartesian Linguistics maintains that the
general features of grammatical structure are common to all languages and
reflect certain fundamental properties of the mind.
Man versus brute is one of the main topics covered in Cartesian linguistics.
Certain mechanical factors of language function, such as response to stimuli, are
evident in both humans and animals; however, Chomsky cites from several 17th
century Cartesian experiments which show that the creative aspect of language is

specific only to human beings. This is, in essence, the Cartesian theory of
language production.
Chomsky writes, „one fundamental contribution of what we have been calling

ÂCartesian linguisticsÊ is the observation that human language, in its normal use,
is free from the control of independently identifiable external stimuli or internal
states and is not restricted to any practical communicative function, in contrast,
for example, to the pseudo language of animals.‰ „In short, animal ÂlanguageÊ
remains completely within the bounds of mechanical explanation as this was
conceived by Descartes and Cordemoy‰ and the creative aspect of language is
what separates humans and animals.
According to him, „language acquisition is a matter of growth and maturation of

relatively fixed capacities, under appropriate external conditions.‰ The 17th
centuryÊs amenable approach to language learning was very non-conforming, as
the overall perception was that knowledge arises on the basis of scattered,
inadequate data. Properties conducive to what is learned are attributed to the
mind. Theories of perception and learning were essentially the same, though it
was an acknowledged difference which would consequently become indistinct
during acquisition.
Chomsky (1959) detailed critique focused on SkinnerÊs analysis of language. He

noted that though the relationships between stimulus, response and
reinforcement are well-defined in laboratory setting, Skinner had failed to show
how to extend those principles to real-life behaviour. This created the illusion of
a rigorous scientific theory with very broad scope, although in fact the terms
used in the description of real-life and of laboratory behaviour were mere
homonyms, with at most a vague similarity of meaning.
After setting out SkinnerÊs notions of verbal behaviour, verbal „operant‰, „tact‰
etc., Chomsky commented that in each case, if their terms were taken in their
literal meaning, the description covers almost no aspect of verbal behaviour, and
if we take them metaphorically, the description offers no improvement over
various traditional formulations.
ChomskyÊs general assessment was that Skinner's stimulus-response theory (See:

behavioural psychology) was very limited to certain animals in highly
constrained laboratory conditions. According to him, the prediction of the
behaviour of a complex organism would require, in addition to information
about external stimulation, knowledge of the internal structure of the organism,
the ways in which it processes input information and organises its own
behaviour. Furthermore, the explanation of complex behaviour in complex

organisms will require a careful assessment of the contribution of the organism,

its internal organisation and principles of operation.
SELF-CHECK 8.1
Write in your words about Cartesian Linguistic theory.
8.3 EROSION OF THE FOUNDATIONS

Why has the influence of behaviourism declined? Perhaps the most complex
reason for behaviourismÊs decline in influence is its commitment to the thesis that
behaviour can be explained without reference to non-behavioural mental
(cognitive, representational, or interpretative) activity. Behaviour can be
explained just by reference to its „functional‰ (SkinnerÊs term) relation to or co-
variation with the environment and to the animalÊs history of environmental
interaction. Neurophysiological and neurobiological conditions, for Skinner,
sustain or implement these functional relations. But they do not serve as ultimate
or independent sources of behaviour.
Skinner in 1953 wrote that behaviours cannot be accounted for „while staying
wholly inside (an animal); eventually we must turn to forces operating upon the
organism from without‰. „Unless there is a weak spot in our causal chain so that
the second (neurological) link is not lawfully determined by the first
(environmental stimuli), or the third (behaviour) by the second, the first and
third links must be lawfully related‰. He wrote, „Valid information about the
second link may throw light on this relationship but can in no way alter it.‰ It is
„external variables of which behaviour is a function‰.
Skinner was not keen on supporting neuroscience. Neuroscience, for him was more
or less just identifying organismic physical processes that underlie animal or
environment interactions. Therein, it rides evidential or epistemic piggyback on
radical behaviourismÊs prior description of those interactions. „The organism,‰ he
says, „is not empty, and it cannot adequately be treated simply as a black box‰
(Skinner, 1976). „Something is done today which affects the behaviour of the
organism tomorrow.‰ Neuroscience describes inside-the-box mechanisms that
permit todayÊs reinforcing stimulus to affect tomorrowÊs behaviour. The neural box
is not empty, but it is unable, except in cases of malfunction or breakdown, to
disengage the animal from past patterns of behaviour that have been reinforced. It
cannot exercise independent or non-environmentally countervailing authority over
behaviour.

For many critics of behaviourism it seems obvious that, at a minimum, the

occurrence and character of behaviour (especially human behaviour) does not
depend primarily upon an individualÊs reinforcement history, although that is a
factor, but on the fact that the environment or learning history is represented by
an individual and how (the manner in which) it is represented.
Similarly, for many critics of behaviourism, if representationality comes

between environment and behaviour, this implies that Skinner is too restrictive
or limited in his attitude towards the role of brain mechanisms in producing or
controlling behaviour. The brain is no mere passive memory bank of
behaviour or environment interactions (Goff & Roediger, 1998). The central
nervous system, which otherwise sustains my reinforcement history, contains
systems or neuro-computational subsystems that implement or encode whatever
representational content the environment has for us. It is also an active
interpretation machine or semantic engine, often critically performing
environmentally untethered and behaviour-controlling tasks. Such talk of
representation or interpretation, however, is a perspective from which
behaviourism  most certainly Skinner  wished to depart.
One defining feature of traditional behaviourism is that it tried to free

psychology from having to theorise about how animals and persons represent
their environment. This was important, historically, because it seemed that
behaviour or environment connections are a lot clearer and more manageable
experimentally than internal representations. Unfortunately, for behaviourism, it
is hard to imagine a more restrictive rule for psychology than one which
prohibits hypotheses about representational storage and processing. Stephen
Stitch, for example, complains against Skinner that „we now have an enormous
collection of experimental data which, it would seem, simply cannot be made
sense of unless we postulate something like‰ information processing mechanisms
in the heads of organisms (Goff & Roediger, 1998).
A second reason for rejecting behaviourism is that some features of mentality and
some elements in the inner processing of persons  have characteristic „qualia‰ or
presentationally immediate or phenomenal qualities. To be in pain, for example, is
not merely to produce appropriate pain behaviour under the right environmental
circumstances, but it is to experience the pain (as something dull or sharp). A
purely behaviourist creature, a „zombie‰, as it were, may engage in pain
behaviour, including beneath the skin pain responses, yet completely lack
whatever is qualitatively distinctive of and proper to pain (its painfulness)
(Graham, 1998; Graham & Horgan, 2000).

The philosopher-psychologist Place, although otherwise sympathetic to the

application of behaviourist ideas to matters of mind, argued that phenomenal
qualia cannot be analysed in behaviourist terms. He claimed that qualia are
neither behaviour nor dispositions to behave. „They make themselves felt,‰ he
said, „from the very moment that the experience of whose qualia they are‰ comes
into existence (Graham & Valentine, 2004). They are instantaneous features of
processes or events rather than dispositions manifested over time. Qualitative
mental events (such as sensations, perceptual experiences and so on), for Place,
undergird dispositions to behave rather than count as dispositions. Indeed, it is
tempting to postulate that the qualitative aspects of mentality affect non-
qualitative elements of internal processing, and that they, for example, contribute
to arousal, attention and receptivity to associative conditioning.
The third reason for rejecting behaviourism is connected with Noam Chomsky.
Chomsky has been one of behaviourismÊs most successful and damaging critics.
In a review of SkinnerÊs book on verbal behaviour, Chomsky (1959) charged that
behaviourist models of language learning cannot explain various facts about
language acquisition, such as the rapid acquisition of language by young
children, which is sometimes referred to as the phenomenon of „lexical
explosion‰.
ChildrenÊs linguistic abilities appear to be radically underdetermined by the

evidence of verbal behaviour offered to the child in the short period in which he
or she expresses those abilities. By the age of four or five, (normal) children have
an almost limitless capacity to understand and produce sentences which they
have never heard before. Chomsky also argued that it seems just not to be true
that language learning depends on the application of reinforcement. A child does
not, as an English speaker in the presence of a house, utter „house‰ repeatedly in
the presence of reinforcing elders. Language as such seems to be learned without,
in a sense, being explicitly taught or taught in detail, and behaviourism does not
offer an account of how this could happen.
Paul Meehl (1978) noted more than three decades ago that theory in psychology
seems to disappear not under the force of decisive refutation but rather because
researchers lose interest in their theoretical orientations. One implication of
Meehl's thesis is that a once popular „Ism‰, not having been decisively refuted,
may restore some of its former prominence if it mutates or transforms itself so as
to incorporate responses to criticisms. What may this mean for behaviourism? It
may mean that some version of the doctrine might re-emerge.
Skinner claimed that neural activities subserve behaviour or environment relations

and that the organismÊs contribution to these relations does not reduce to
neurophysiological properties. But this does not mean that behaviourism cannot

gain useful alliance with neuroscience. Reference to brain structures (neurobiology,

neurochemistry and so on) may help in explaining behaviour even if such
reference does not ultimately displace reference to environmental contingencies in
a behaviourist account.
Psychology must use psychological terms. Behaviour without cognition is blind.

Psychological theorising without reference to internal cognitive processing is
explanatorily impaired. To say this, of course, is not to preclude that
behaviourism will recover some of its prominence. How to conceive cognitive
processing remains a heated subject of debate (Melser, 2004; Levy, 2007). But if
behaviourism is to recover some of its prominence, this recovery may require a
reformulation of its doctrines that is at tune to developments in neuroscience as
well as in novel therapeutic orientations.
SELF-CHECK 8.2
Briefly describe erosion of the foundations.
ACTIVITY 8.2
The following link would lead you to an article on the topic „On the Non-
Existence of Cartesian Linguistics‰. Read it carefully and try to
elaborate your knowledge on Cartesian linguistics.
http://people.ku.edu/~percival/CartesianLinguistics.pdf
" Humanistic psychology tends to look beyond the medical model of

psychology in order to open up a non-pathologising view of the person. This
usually implies that the therapist downplays the pathological aspects of a
personÊs life in favour of the healthy aspects.
" The term Cartesian linguistics was coined with the publication of Cartesian
Linguistics.
" The central doctrine of Cartesian linguistics maintains that the general
features of grammatical structure are common to all languages and reflect
certain fundamental properties of the mind.

" Contemporary psychology and philosophy largely share Hempel's conviction

that the explanation of behaviour cannot omit invoking a creature's
representation of its world.
Behaviourism Information processing

Cartesian linguistics Psychology
Erosion of the foundations Purposive behaviour
Humanistic psychology Verbal behaviour
1." Who were the critics of behaviourism from within? What was their
contention?
2." What was Chomsky's critique of Skinner's verbal behaviour analysis?
3." What is the "third force" in psychology and how does it challenge
behaviourism?
1." How does the information processing theory challenge behaviourism?

2." Discuss the main points of the erosion of behaviourism.
Bühler, C. (1933). The child and its activity with practical material. British Journal
of Educational Psychology, 3(1), 27-41.
Bühler, C. M., & Allen, M. (1972). Introduction to humanistic psychology.

Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Cartesian Linguistics. (2015). Retrieved from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_linguistics

Cherry, K. (n.d.) What is humanistic psychology? Retrieved from

http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/hist_humanistic
.htm
Chomsky, N. (1959). A review of BF Skinner's verbal behavior. Language, 35(1),

26-58.
Chomsky, N. C. L. (1966). Cartesian linguistics: A chapter in the history of

rationalist thought. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
Cudworth, R. (1996). A treatise concerning eternal and immutable morality: With

a treatise of freewill. New York, NY: Cambridge University.
Giorgi, A. (1986). Theoretical justification for the use of descriptions in

psychological research. In P. Ashworth, A. Giorgi, & A. de Koning (Eds.),
Qualitative research in psychology (pp. 3–22). Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne
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Topic  Revolutions in
9 Psychology
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1." Explain the concept of new structuralism;
2." Discuss new mentalism; and
3." Analyse the concept of professional psychology.
" INTRODUCTION
The revolution in psychology is the name for an intellectual movement in the
1950s that began what are known collectively as the cognitive sciences. It began
in the modern context of greater interdisciplinary communication and research.
The relevant areas of interchange were the combination of psychology,
anthropology and linguistics with approaches developed within the then-nascent
fields of artificial intelligence, computer science and neuroscience. A key idea in
cognitive psychology was that by studying and developing successful functions
in artificial intelligence and computer science, it becomes possible to make
testable inferences about human mental processes. This has been called the
reverse-engineering approach.
Important publications in setting off the cognitive revolution include George A.

MillerÊs article The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two (1956). In the
1980s, the cognitive revolution reached a new level of breadth with publications
by philosophers such as Daniel Dennett and artificial intelligence experts like
Douglas Hofstadter. By early 1970s according to some accounts, the cognitive
movement had all but „routed‰ behaviourism as a psychological paradigm, and
by the early 1980s, the cognitive approach had become the dominant research
line of inquiry in most psychology research fields.

172  TOPIC 9 REVOLUTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGY
In the following sections, you will be introduced to topic of new structuralism,

new mentalism and professional psychology.
Five Major Ideas from the Cognitive Revolution

In his book The Blank Slate (2002), psychologist Steven Pinker identified the
following five key ideas that made up the cognitive revolution:
(a)" „The mental world can be grounded in the physical world by the concepts
of information, computation, and feedback.‰
(b)" „The mind cannot be a blank slate because blank slates donÊt do anything.‰
(c)" „An infinite range of behaviour can be generated by finite combinatorial
programs in the mind.‰
(d)" „Universal mental mechanisms can underlie superficial variation across
cultures.‰
(e)" „The mind is a complex system composed of many interacting parts.‰
Response to Behaviourism
The cognitive revolution in psychology took form as cognitive psychology, an
approach in large part a response to behaviourism, the predominant school in
scientific psychology at the time. This school was heavily influenced by Ivan
Pavlov and E. L. Thorndike, and its most notable practitioners were John B.
Watson and B. F. Skinner. They proposed that psychology could only become an
objective science were it based on observable behaviour in test subjects. They
argued that because mental events are not publicly observable, behaviourist
psychologists should avoid description of mental processes or the mind in their
theories. Cognitive psychologists argued in response that experimental
investigation of mental states do allow scientists to produce theories that more
reliably predict outcomes.
This account of the „cognitive revolution‰ was challenged by Jerome Bruner who
characterised it as: „...an all-out effort to establish meaning as the central concept
of psychology [⁄]. It was not a revolution against behaviourism with the aim of
transforming behaviourism into a better way of pursuing psychology by adding
a little mentalism to it. [⁄] Its aim was to discover and to describe formally the
meanings that human beings created out of their encounters with the world, and
then to propose hypotheses about what meaning-making processes were
implicated‰ (Bruner, 1990).

TOPIC 9 REVOLUTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGY  173
9.1 THE NEW STRUCTURALISM

Structuralism originated in the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the
Prague and Moscow schools („Theorising Communication,‰). It appeared in
academia in the second half of the 20th century and grew to become one of the
most popular approaches in academic fields concerned with the analysis of
language, culture and society. The structuralist mode of reasoning has been
applied in a diverse range of fields, including anthropology, sociology,
psychology, literary criticism and architecture („Structuralism in Anthropology,‰
2013). The most famous thinkers associated with structuralism include the
linguist Roman Jakobson, the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, the
psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, the philosopher and historian Michel Foucault, the
Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser and the literary critic Roland Barthes. As an
intellectual movement, structuralism came to take existentialismÊs pedestal in the
1960s in France.
Structuralism argues that a specific domain of culture may be understood by

means of a structure modelled on language  that is distinct both from the
organisations of reality and those of ideas or the imagination  the „third order‰
(„Structuralism,‰ 2011). In LacanÊs psychoanalytic theory, for example, the
structural order of „the symbolic‰ is distinguished both from „the real‰ and „the
imaginary‰; similarly, in AlthusserÊs Marxist theory, the structural order of the
capitalist mode of production is distinct both from the actual, real agents
involved in its relations and from the ideological forms in which those relations
are understood.
According to Alison Assiter (1984), four ideas are common to the various forms
of structuralism. They are:
(a)" A structure determines the position of each element of a whole;
(b)" Every system has a structure;
(c)" Structural laws deal with co-existence rather than change; and
(d)" Structures are the „real things‰ that lie beneath the surface or the
appearance of meaning.
In the 1970s, structuralism was criticised for its rigidity and historicism. Despite
this, many of structuralismÊs proponents, such as Jacques Lacan, continue to
assert an influence on continental philosophy and many of the fundamental
assumptions of some of structuralism's critics (who have been associated with
„post-structuralism‰) are a continuation of structuralism.

9.1.1 History of Structuralism

The work of Ferdinand de Saussure on linguistics, along with that of the Prague
and Moscow schools, is generally considered to be the origin of structuralism
(„Structuralism,‰ 2011). Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, existentialism, such as
that propounded by Jean-Paul Sartre, was the dominant intellectual movement.
Structuralism surged to prominence in France in its wake, particularly in the
1960s. The initial popularity of structuralism in France led to its spread across the
globe.
The term „structuralism‰ itself appeared in the works of French anthropologist

Claude Lévi-Strauss, and gave rise, in France, to the „structuralist movement,‰
which spurred the work of such thinkers as Louis Althusser, the psychoanalyst
Jacques Lacan as well as the structural Marxism of Nicos Poulantzas. Most
members of this movement did not describe themselves as being a part of any
such movement. Structuralism is closely related to semiotics.
Structuralism rejected the concept of human freedom and choice and focused
instead on the way that human behaviour is determined by various structures.
The most important initial work on this score was Claude Lévi-StraussÊs 1949
volume Elementary Structures of Kinship. Lévi-Strauss had known Jakobson
during their time together in New York during WWII and was influenced by
both Jakobson's structuralism as well as the American anthropological tradition.
By the early 1960s, structuralism as a movement was coming into its own and
some believed that it offered a single unified approach to human life that would
embrace all disciplines. Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida focused on how
structuralism could be applied to literature.
Blending Freud and De Saussure, the French (post) structuralist Jacques Lacan
applied structuralism to psychoanalysis and, in a different way, Jean Piaget
applied structuralism to the study of psychology. But Jean Piaget, who would
better define himself as a constructivist, considers structuralism as „a method
and not a doctrine‰ because for him „there exists no structure without a
construction, abstract or genetic‰.
In much the same way, the American historian of science, Thomas Kuhn (1962)
addressed the structural formations of science in his seminal work The Structure
of Scientific Revolutions – its title alone evincing a stringent structuralist
approach. Though less concerned with „episteme‰, Kuhn nonetheless remarked
at how coteries of scientists operated under and applied a standard praxis of
„normal science‰, deviating from a standard „paradigm‰ only in instances of
irreconcilable anomalies that question a significant body of their work.

The definition of „structuralism‰ also shifted as a result of its popularity. As its

popularity as a movement waxed and waned, some authors considered
themselves „structuralists‰ only to later eschew the label.
The term has slightly different meanings in French and English. In US, for
instance, Derrida is considered the paradigm of post-structuralism while in
France he is labelled a structuralist. Finally, some authors wrote in several
different styles. Barthes, for instance, wrote some books which are clearly
structuralist and others which clearly are not.
Post-structuralism attempted to distinguish itself from the simple use of the

structural method. Deconstruction was an attempt to break with structuralistic
thought. Some intellectuals, such as Julia Kristeva, for example, took structuralism
(and Russian formalism) as a starting point to later become a prominent post-
structuralist. Structuralism has had varying degrees of influence in the social
sciences and a great deal in the field of sociology.
9.1.2 Structuralism in Linguistics

In Ferdinand de SaussureÊs (1959) Course in General Linguistics (written by
SaussureÊs colleagues after his death and based on student notes), the analysis
focuses not on the use of language (called „parole,‰ or speech), but rather on the
underlying system of language (called „langue‰). This approach examines how
the elements of language relate to each other in the present, synchronically rather
than diachronically. Saussure argued that linguistic signs were composed of two
parts, a „signifier‰ (the „sound pattern‰ of a word, either in mental projection 
as when we silently recite lines from a poem to ourselves  or in actual, physical
realisation as part of a speech act) and a „signified‰ (the concept or meaning of
the word). This was quite different from previous approaches that focused on the
relationship between words and the things in the world that they designate.
Other key notions in structural linguistics include paradigm, syntagm and value
(though these notions were not fully developed in SaussureÊs thought). A
structural „paradigm‰ is a class of linguistic units (lexemes, morphemes or even
constructions) that are possible in a certain position in a given linguistic
environment (such as a given sentence), which is called the „syntagm‰. The
different functional role of each of these members of the paradigm is called
„value‰ (valeur in French).
SaussureÊs Course influenced many linguists between WWI and WWII. In the
US, for instance, Leonard Bloomfield developed his own version of structural
linguistics, as did Louis Hjelmslev in Denmark and Alf Sommer in Norway.

SaussureÊs project continued in France with Antoine Meillet and Émile

Benveniste. Most importantly, however, members of the Prague school of
linguistics such as Roman Jakobson and Nikolai Trubetzkoy conducted research
that would be greatly influential.
The clearest and most important example of structuralism in the Prague school
lies in phonemics. Rather than simply compiling a list of which sounds occur in a
language, the Prague school sought to examine how they were related. They
determined that the inventory of sounds in a language could be analysed in
terms of a series of contrasts. Thus, in English, the sounds /p/ and /b/ represent
distinct phonemes because there are cases (minimal pairs) where the contrast
between the two is the only difference between two distinct words (for example.
„pat‰ and „bat‰). Analysing sounds in terms of contrastive features also opens
up comparative scope. It makes clear, for instance, that the difficulty Japanese
speakers have differentiating /r/ and /l/ in English is because these sounds are
not contrastive in Japanese. While this approach is now standard in linguistics, it
was revolutionary at the time. Phonology would become the paradigmatic basis
for structuralism in a number of different fields.
9.1.3 Reactions to Structuralism

Today, structuralism is less popular than approaches such as post-structuralism
and deconstruction („Philosophy,‰ n.d.). There are many reasons for this.
Structuralism has often been criticised for being ahistorical and for favouring
deterministic structural forces over the ability of people to act. As the political
turbulence of the 1960s and 1970s (and particularly the student uprisings of May
1968) began affecting academia, issues of power and political struggle moved to
the centre of people's attention. The ethnologist Robert Jaulin defined another
ethnological method which clearly pitted itself against structuralism.
In the 1980s, deconstruction and its emphasis on the fundamental ambiguity of

language  rather than its crystalline logical structure  became popular. By the
end of the century, structuralism was seen as a historically-important school of
thought, but the movements that it spawned, rather than structuralism itself,
commanded attention.
SELF-CHECK 9.1
What are the four ideas common to structuralism?

9.2 THE NEW MENTALISM

Extraordinarily simple, yet profound, mentalism is the doctrine that only one
Being, Cosmic Mind, is real; that all phenomena, including ourselves, exist as
temporary projections within that Mind; that the universe is a display of Mind, by
Mind, to Mind („Mentalism – A Philosophy of Science,‰ n.d.). Mentalism
discriminates between reality and existence, declaring that Mind is the only reality
– the changeless; that which always is. The existent comprises changeable
phenomena that are manifested and animated by Mind, their substance in its true,
original meaning. The universe exists, but is unreal as such; it derives its apparent
reality from that of the Mind that generates it.
Cosmic Mind's infinitely varied manifestations arise, are sustained from moment
to moment, and pass away within it. Such manifestations include all possible
objects, realms of experience, dimensions, parallel or divergent universes, „multi-
verses‰, space and time. All of these, and any conceivable or inconceivable
others, are ideas in that Mind, which is conscious and supremely aware through
its progeny, creatures like us, of all events, in all times and places,
simultaneously.
From our individual standpoint, all experience, without exception, is wholly and
entirely mental, including everything that we incorrectly assume to be
independent „matter‰ separate and apart from us. The belief that there is a
„real‰, „material‰, independent world „out there‰ is a misapprehension of
experience. There is only the One, Infinite Mind, in which we, like everything
else, appear to enjoy a temporary existence as its thoughts, but in which in
essence, as mind Itself, we are birthless and deathless.
We normally fail to perceive this because of the existence of the ego, defined here
as a strongly-held complex of ideas, focused on the body and the personality,
themselves ideas, which deceives the individual into believing that he or she is
uniquely and essentially different from all other people and things.
The similarity of our individual sensations is due to the fact that a common
Cosmic Mind is projecting them through us. There is no wholly isolated thing or
event. All are interconnected at the deepest level. If there were not this
underlying mental continuum, we could never become aware of each other.
The perishable individual ego is comparable to a wave on the ocean's surface.

Looking out at other waves, coming into momentary existence only soon to
disappear, the individual wave may perceive itself as unique, wholly separate
from and independent of all other waves and even mourn the appearance of

birth and death amongst its companions and as its own fate. Yet all such illusions
are dispelled once it realises its boundless essential nature, its true self, as Ocean.
9.2.1 The Phenomenon of Change

Heràkleitos observed that no man can twice enter the same river („Mentalism – A
Philosophy of Science,‰ n.d.). Kratylos noted that he cannot do this even once, as
he is himself always changing. It is a continuing wonder that humankind can be
aware of change taking place all around them, yet, blinded by familiarity, fail to
grasp its meaning. Everything is constantly changing. Nothing remains the same
for two consecutive instants. Moreover, anything that comes into existence at one
moment of time, be it an emotion or a planet, must go out of existence at another
moment of time. Obviously, there is no fixed, „material‰ reality.
Every atom, every sub-atomic particle of the table at which one writes, is a fresh
projection of mind each an incredibly tiny fraction of a second. The slowly
decaying table and the more obviously transitory environment, in which it exists,
are a continual succession of extremely rapidly-projected images. Just as one
ignores, the projector while at the cinema, accepting that the sounds and sights
on the screen truly represent „external reality‰ rather than a blended succession
of still images, so one is deceived by its continuity into believing that it remains
the same table.
Despite the fact that we know them to be impermanent, we nevertheless, because

of their very ordinariness, unthinkingly accept the false belief that „things‰ exist
as „matter‰, „outside‰ us, that somehow changes in time, not realising that the
entire panorama is only an enormous, complex event in consciousness, that is, an
idea. Otherwise inexplicable, the very fact of change requires a projecting Cosmic
Mind of which we are not normally directly aware and that itself is changeless.
The Psychology of Dream

There are two aspects of common, non-lucid dreaming. First, the individual
dreamer projects an entire dream universe, which can comprise anything that can
normally be experienced in the waking state: sun, moon, stars, crowds of people,
etc., together with the time and space in which they are perceived. The dreamer
may even take on a different dream body or personality. Yet, after waking, it
becomes clear in retrospect that the dream was the private product of the
dreamerÊs mind, and that the myriad of people and events were imaginary.
Secondly, however bizarre the events of the dream may be, the dreamer, while
caught up in it, is normally quite unaware of this at the time. He or she
confidently accepts its reality as unquestionable.

These are clear signals to warn the dreamer that waking experience may be
comparably unreal, creatively imagined through and imposed upon him or her
by a powerful Cosmic Mind. In effect, we dream that the world and we as
individuals independently exist and we are forced, owing to the overwhelming
power of Cosmic Mind's constructive imagination as compared to our own, to
believe that we are experiencing reality direct, rather than indirectly.
9.2.2 Obstacles to Acceptance of Mentalism

The primary difficulty faced by most people when they first encounter the
mentalist doctrine is that it appears too alien to their normal thinking, whereby
they judge the reality of things by what appears to be their „physical‰ and
„material‰ characteristics: accidents such as hardness, weight, colour, location,
etc. (Knowles, 2002).The apparent concreteness of „matter‰, coupled with its
apparent externality, persuades them falsely to equate mentalism with
insubstantiality.
Deceived by the „outsideness‰ of the „external‰ world, they overlook the fact
that every experience is a mental one by definition; that no experience other than
mental experience is even possible; and that what appears external to the body is
simultaneously internal to the observer's mind.
A more intractable problem is that, because of their innate, ego-centred

materialism, many people do not want mentalism. It is not to their taste and
actually terrifies them. They wrongly fear that mentalism will render valueless or
cause to disappear everything that they cherish, above all, their egos. Hence, they
refuse to believe that their limited personal existence, as an entity forever
separate and apart from all others, is illusory. They fail to see that, although their
present ageing body and changing personality are obviously perishable, in
essence they themselves are immortal.
9.2.3 Mentalism and the Paranormal

The paranormal has been defined as beyond what should occur if only the
known laws of cause and effect are operating (Dale & Rhea, 1977). Such „laws‰
are materialist concepts which assume that events are able to act upon other
events only because they precede them in time (Knowles, 2002). While they
normally appear that way, this is because of the limitations of our own
perceptions, not because that is how they truly are.

That mentalism can perceive all events as happening at once is demonstrated by

documented episodes of retro-cognition, precognitive dreaming and prophecy
and the experience of remote viewers, who have found time to be no barrier to
perception.
Given its basic postulate of a single, Cosmic Mind, that underlies, permeates, and
indeed is the whole of reality; mentalism is clearly consistent with every
manifestation of psi, including all forms of extra-sensory perception (ESP) and
psychokinesis (PK).
To mentalism, there is no such thing as pure coincidence. All „coincidences‰ are

meaningful, that is, quite literally, synchronicities, all of which further clearly
demonstrate the underlying mental nature of experience.
9.2.4 Areas of Emphasis

In addition to fundamental commitments concerning psychology as the natural
science of behaviour, early behaviourism was also characterised by a set of
distinctive emphases that followed, almost as corollaries, from its intellectual
commitments (Wozniak, 1994). Taken singly and with regard to their content,
these emphases were not unique to behaviourism. As a group, however, and
evaluated in terms of relative strength, they combined to give the behaviourism
of the 1920s its particular look.
The following are the areas of emphasis:
(a)" Animal Models

Behaviourism emphasised the identification of fundamental mechanisms in
animal behaviour (for example, trial and error learning and conditioning)
and use of such mechanisms without significant theoretical revision in the
explanation of human behaviour. This approach, which followed directly
from the commitment to phylo-genetic continuity, was largely unquestioned
among early behaviourists. Indeed, as behavioural research began to develop
in the late 1920s and 1930s, many of the most important studies focused on
animals and many core theoretical concepts came to be defined almost
entirely in terms of the procedures of animal behaviour research.
(b)" Ontogenesis
The study of development loomed large in the early behaviourist research
programme. This followed from the assumption that habits are elaborated
out of innate response systems (instinct, emotions) present in the newborn
infant and develop over the life course. As Dashiell (1928) put it, „life-
activities...vary by all degrees between the two poles of unorganised,
scattered, excess activity, and the smooth-running performance of routine

motions...in the development of the individual human from birth to
maturity, the central part of the story is the organisation of definite routine
actions drawn from the reservoir of the random, excess activities.‰
Development is a theme to which Watson returned again and again. Thus,

for example, in discussing research on instinct and habit, he informed his
readers that „...to study the details of hereditary response...we have to
adopt a genetic method. We have to start with the babyÊs advent...and
follow his development step by step, noting the first appearance of the
hereditary forms of reaction, their course and effect upon the moulding of
the childÊs whole personality; and the early beginnings of acquired modes
of response.‰ This was also a theme to be found in Dashiell, Weiss, Allport,
Hamilton and most early behaviourist texts.
(c)" Drive Reduction

Following their commitment to the principle that behaviour, as a process of
adjustment, results from a state of maladjustment between the organism
and its environment, early behaviourists emphasised internal drive states
(sex, hunger, thirst, etc.) and drive reduction theories of motivation. One
result of this orientation was an inclination to view the organism as passive.
All other things being equal, the organism was assumed to tend towards a
state of quiescence or non-response. As Dashiell phrased it: „No expression
without impression; no response without stimulation. A man does nothing,
is not active, in any manner involving the effectors...unless in some way he
is being influenced by energy-changes occurring inside or outside of him
which play upon his receptors...‰
(d)" Habit Formation

An emphasis on habit formation defined in terms of mechanisms of trial-
and-error elaboration of response and conditioned stimulus substitution
was probably the characteristic with which early behaviourism was most
closely associated. Behaviourism in the 1920s was first, last, and always a
psychology of habit formation. Acquired behaviour, no matter how
complex  thinking, talking, even scientific activity itself  could, in the
final analysis, be reduced to habit.
The trial-and-error mechanism involves the increase in random movement

upon confrontation with a problem situation, accidental success when
chance response alters the organism or the environment in the direction of
greater adjustment, and gradual, mechanical selection and reinforcement of
successful movement. It was usually employed to explain efferent
modification, the elaboration of the response itself. The conditioned

reaction was typically evoked to explain afferent modification  change in

the effectiveness of stimuli, including those that are purely social and
symbolic, in eliciting a given response.
Dashiell made it quite clear just why conditioning as a mechanism of habit

formation exerted such an appeal to behaviourists. Conditioning, he
pointed out, "yields...an account of learning (a) that is highly definite, and
(b) that is cast in wholly objective terms, in terms of biological processes
demonstrable in subhuman as well as human forms without any recourse
to or dependence upon reports of the matter by the subjects concerned."
Allport was just as enthusiastic: „No single law of human or animal
behaviour is of more far-reaching significance than that of the conditioned
reflex. Half of the process of education consists of transferring appropriate
responses to new and more finely discriminated stimuli.‰
(e)" Social Behaviour

An emphasis on social behaviour followed directly from one of early
behaviourismÊs most versatile assumptions – the notion that responses have
stimulus value. Whenever the organism behaves, its responses are also
stimuli  for itself and for others. „This principle,‰ as Watson correctly
recognised, „...is one of the most important in the whole of psychology. By
means of impulses from the muscles themselves man becomes partially
independent of the impulses from the so-called higher senses...We see the
final perfection of the process in thought where we have a substituted word
process for practically every object in our environment. These substituted
word processes can initiate general bodily movements exactly as do the
visual or auditory stimuli for which they stand.‰
Substituted word processes and other response-produced stimulation can

also affect the behaviour of other organisms. As Allport puts it, a „social
stimulus‰ is „any reaction, made by an animal (human or infra-
human)...which produces a response in another.‰ „Social stimuli,‰ he
continued, „involve behaviour in two ways. (1) They are in themselves
usually responses to stimuli either social or non-social in character. (2) They
produce responses in others.‰ Social behaviour, in other words, is a process
that combines reciprocal and self stimulation. Dashiell (1928) described
social behaviour in the following fashion:

„Just as a person is stimulated by and reacts upon such objects as a

chair, a stone, a bit of food, likewise he is stimulated by and he reacts
upon those more mobile objects we call his fellows. The principal
difference in the two cases is that environmental objects of the social type
are themselves animate and behaving organisms that are stimulable and
are reactive; and so the interrelations of a given person with them are
capable of very high elaboration and refinement ‰.
„Finally, a striking feature of human behaviour, especially, is the

manner in which the reactions serving to stimulate social objects come
also to stimulate the original actor himself; and there are built up whole
trains of behaviour consisting principally of self-stimulation and
response ‰.
(f)" Language
For behaviourists in the 1920s, self-stimulation and response were
intimately linked to language. For both, the self in thinking and the social
listener in communication, language responses were conceived as
substitute, symbolic stimuli and independent of the sensory attributes of
the original stimulus. In this role, they sub-served the related functions of
abstraction and generalisation. As Weiss, who pioneered this analysis,
asserted: „...many different receptor patterns representative of many
different sensory situations and relations, are connected to the same
language response and through this common path the individual may react
in a specific manner to all the objects, situations, and relations thus
concerned, even though there is very little sensory similarity between
them.‰
SELF-CHECK 9.2
Explain in your own words, the concept of new mentalism.
9.3 MAN INFORMATION PROCESSING

Information processing is the change (processing) of information in any manner
detectable by an observer („Information Processing,‰ 2015). As such, it is a process
which describes everything which happens (changes) in the universe, from the
falling of a rock (a change in position) to the printing of a text file from a digital

computer system. In the latter case, an information processor is changing the form
of presentation of that text file. Information processing may more specifically be
defined in terms used by Claude E. Shannon as the conversion of latent
information into manifest information. Latent and manifest information are
defined through the terms of equivocation (remaining uncertainty, what value the
sender has actually chosen), dissipation (uncertainty of the sender about what the
receiver has actually received) and transformation (saved effort of questioning −
equivocation minus dissipation).
Within the field of cognitive psychology, information processing is an approach

to the goal of understanding human thinking. It arose in the 1940s and 1950s. The
essence of the approach was to see cognition as being essentially computational
in nature, with mind being the software and the brain being the hardware. The
information processing approach in psychology is closely allied to cognitivism in
psychology and functionalism in philosophy although the terms are not quite
synonymous. Information processing may be sequential or parallel, either of
which may be centralised or decentralised (distributed).
The parallel distributed processing approach of the mid-1980s became popular

under the name connectionism. In the early 1950s, Friedrich Hayek was ahead of
his time when he posited the idea of spontaneous order in the brain arising out of
decentralised networks of simple units (neurons). However, Hayek is rarely cited
in the literature of connectionism. In the 1970s, Abraham Moles and Frieder Nake
were among the first to establish and analyse links between information
processing and aesthetics. As shown in Figure 9.1 man information processing is
different from computers.
Figure 9.1: Man information processing is different from computers

Source: http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/a/advancing_technology.asp

9.3.1 The Information Processing Theory

The following are the four main beliefs of the information processing approach
(Joseph, 2015);
(a)" When the individual perceives, encodes, represents and stores information
from the environment in his mind or retrieves that information, he or she is
thinking. Thinking also includes responding to any constraints or
limitations on memory processes.
(b)" The proper focus of study is the role of change mechanism in development.
Four critical mechanisms work together to bring about change in children's
cognitive skills: encoding, strategy construction, automatisation and
generalisation. To solve problems effectively, children must encode critical
information about a problem and then use this encoded information and
relevant prior knowledge to construct a strategy to deal with the problem.
(c)" Development is driven by self-modification. Like PiagetÊs theory of
cognitive development, the information-processing approach holds that
children play an active role in their own development. Through self-
modification, the child uses knowledge and strategies she has acquired
from earlier problem solution to modify his or her responses to a new
situation or problem. In this way, he or she builds newer and more
sophisticated responses from prior knowledge.
(d)" Investigators must perform careful task analysis of the problem situations
they present to children. According to this view, not only the child's own
level of development but the nature of the task itself constraints a child's
performance. Thus, a child may possess the basic ability necessary to
perform a particular task when it is presented in a simple form, without
unnecessary complexities. However, if extra or misleading information is
added to the same task, the child may become confused and be unable to
perform it.
9.3.2 Structure of the Information Processing System

In the store model of the human information processing system, information
from the environment that we acquire through our senses enters the system
through the sensory register.

The store model is a model of information processing in which information is

depicted as moving through a series of processing units, viz., sensory register,
short-term memory, long-term memory – in each of which it may be stored,
either fleetingly or permanently.
Let us look at the descriptions of the following series of processing units:
(a)" Sensory Register

The mental processing unit that receives information from the environment
and stores it fleetingly.
(b)" Short-term Memory

The mental processing unit in which information may be stored
temporarily; the work space of the mind, where a decision must be made to
discard information or to transfer it to permanent storage, in long-term
memory.
(c)" Long-term Memory

The encyclopaedic mental processing unit in which information may be
stored permanently and from which it may be later retrieved.
Cognitive psychology is an approach to psychology which focuses on the

relationship between cognitive or mental processes and behaviour („Cognitive
Psychology,‰ 2015). The cognitive psychologist studies human perceptions and
the ways in which cognitive processes operate to produce responses. Cognitive
processes (which may involve language, symbols or imagery) include perceiving,
recognising, remembering, imagining, conceptualising, judging, reasoning and
processing information for planning, problem solving and other applications.
Some cognitive psychologists may study how internal cognitive operations can
transform symbols of the external world, others on the interplay between
genetics and environment in determining individual cognitive development and
capabilities. Still other cognitive psychologists may focus their studies on how
the mind detects, selects, recognises and verbally represents features of a
particular stimulus. Among the many specific topics investigated by cognitive
psychologists are language acquisition; visual and auditory perception;
information storage and retrieval; altered states of consciousness; cognitive
restructuring (how the mind mediates between conflicting, or dissonant,
information); and individual styles of thought and perception.
The challenges of studying human cognition are evident when one considers the
work of the mind in processing the simultaneous and sometimes conflicting
information presented in daily life, through both internal and external stimuli.

For example, an individual may feel hunger pangs, the external heat of the sun,
and sensations of bodily movement produced by walking while simultaneously
talking, listening to a companion and recalling past experiences. Although this
attention to multiple stimuli is a common phenomenon, complex cognitive
processing is clearly required to accomplish it.
At its inception as a discipline in the nineteenth century, psychology focused on

mental processes. However, the prevailing structuralist methods, which analysed
consciousness introspectively by breaking it down into sensations, images and
affective states, fell out of favour early in the twentieth century and were
superseded by those of the behaviourists, who replaced speculation about inner
processes with the study of external, observable phenomena. Although
important inroads continued to be made into the study of mental processes 
including the work of the Würzburg School, the Gestalt psychologists, the field
theory of Kurt Lewin and Jean PiagetÊs theories of cognitive development in
children  the behaviouristsÊ focus remained dominant in US through the middle
of the twentieth century.
Since the 1950s, cognitive approaches have assumed a central place in

psychological research and theorising. One of its foremost pioneers is Jerome
Bruner, who, together with his colleague Leo Postman, did important work on
the ways in which needs, motivations and expectations (or „mental sets‰) affect
perception. BrunerÊs work led him to an interest in the cognitive development of
children and related issues of education, and he later developed a theory of
cognitive growth. His theories, which approached development from a different
angle than  and mostly complement  those of Piaget, focus on the
environmental and experiential factors influencing each individual's specific
development pattern.
In 1957, Leon Festinger advanced his classic theory of cognitive dissonance,

which describes how people manage conflicting cognitions about themselves,
their behaviour or their environment. Festinger posited that conflict among such
cognitions (which he termed „dissonance‰) will make people uncomfortable
enough to actually modify one of the conflicting beliefs to bring it into line with
the other belief. Thus, for example, the conflicting cognitions „I smoke‰ and
„smoking is bad‰ will lead a smoker either to alter the first statement by quitting,
or the second one by telling himself or herself that smoking is not bad.
In 1960, Jerome Bruner and George A. Miller established the Harvard Centre for
Cognitive Studies, which became influential in the „cognitive revolution‰. As a
result, an increasing number of experimental psychologists abandoned
behaviourist studies of rats and mazes for research involving the higher mental
processes in human beings. This trend in psychology paralleled advances in

several other fields, including neuroscience, mathematics, anthropology and

computer science.
Language became an important area of study for cognitive psychologists. In 1953,

the term „psycholinguistics‰ was coined to designate an emerging area of
common interest, the psychology of language, and Noam Chomsky, a professor
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, became its most famous proponent.
Chomsky argued that the underlying logic, or deep structure, of all languages is
the same and that human mastery of it is genetically determined, not learned. His
work has been highly controversial, rekindling the age-old debate over whether
language exists in the mind before experience. Other well-known studies in
cognitive psychology include that of D. E. BerlyneÊs work on curiosity and
information seeking; George KellyÊs theory of personal constructs as well as
investigations by Herman Witkin, Riley Gardner and George Klein on individual
perceptual and cognitive styles.
The emergence of cybernetics and computer science have been central to

contemporary advances in cognitive psychology, including computer simulation
of cognitive processes for research purposes and the creation of information-
processing models. Herbert Simon and Allen Newell created the first computer
simulation of human thought, called Logic Theorist, at Carnegie-Mellon
University in 1956, followed by General Problem Solver (GPS) the next year.
Other major contributions in this area include D. E. BroadbentÊs information
theory of attention, learning and memory as well as Miller, Galanter and
Pribram's analysis of planning and problem solving.
Despite skepticism that computer-generated „thought‰ will ever match human

cognition, the study of artificial intelligence has helped scientists learn more
about the human mind. In turn, this type of psychological research is expected to
aid in the development of more sophisticated computers in the future through
links between the psychological study of cognition and research in
electrophysiology and computer science. This subfield of cognitive engineering
focuses on the application of knowledge about human thought processes to the
design of complex systems for aviation, industry and other areas.
At one time, the study of cognitive processes was specific to cognitive

psychology. As research began to yield information regarding the applicability of
these processes to all areas of psychology, the study of cognitive processes was
taken up and applied in many other subfields of psychology, such as abnormal
and developmental psychology. Today, the term „cognitive perspective‰ or
„cognitive approach‰ is applied in a broader sense of psychology.

SELF-CHECK 9.3
Define the concept of man information processing.
9.4 PROFESSIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

To most people, the word psychologist conjures up an image of a therapist
listening intently while a client, perhaps stretched out on a couch, pours forth his
or her troubles. Many psychologists do in fact fit this image (though chairs are
more common than couches these days). Many others, however, do not.
The professional activities of psychologists generally fall into three broad

categories:
(a)" Teaching and doing research in colleges and universities;
(b)" Providing health or mental health services, often referred to as
psychological practice; and
(c)" Conducting research or applying its findings in non-academic settings, such
as business, sports, government, law and the military.
Some psychologists move flexibly across these areas. A researcher might also
provide counselling services in a mental-health setting, such as a clinic or a
hospital; a university professor might teach, do research, and serve as a
consultant in legal cases. Not all psychologists do clinical work. Many do
research, teach, work in business or consult.
The professional activities of psychologists with doctorates fall into three general
categories as follows:
(a)" Academic or Research Psychologists

Specialise in areas of pure or applied research, such as:
(i)" Human development;
(ii)" Psychometrics (testing);
(iii)" Health;
(iv)" Private practice;
(v)" Mental health clinics;

(vi)" Education;
(vii)" General hospitals;
(viii)"Mental hospitals;
(ix)" Industrial or organisational;
(x)" Psychology;
(xi)" Physiological psychology;
(xii)" Research laboratories;
(xiii)"Colleges and universities;
(xiv)" Sensation and perception; and
(xv)" Design and use of technology.
(b)" Clinical Psychologists

These psychologists do psychotherapy and sometimes research. They may
work in any of these settings:
(i)" Private practice;
(ii)" Mental health clinics;
(iii)" General hospitals;
(iv)" Mental hospitals;
(v)" Research laboratories; and
(vi)" College and universities.
(c)" Psychologists in industry, law or other settings

Do research or serve as consultants to institutions in the following issues;
(i)" Consumer issues;
(ii)" Advertising;
(iii)" Organisational problems;
(iv)" Environmental issues;
(v)" Public policy;
(vi)" Opinion polls;
(vii)" Military training;

(viii)"Animal behaviour; and

(ix)" Legal issues.
9.4.1 Psychological Research

Most psychologists who do research have doctoral degrees (PhDs or EdDs,
doctorates in education). Some, seeking knowledge for its own sake, work in
basic psychology doing „pure‰ research. Others, concerned with the practical
uses of knowledge, work in applied psychology. The two approaches are
complementary.
Applied psychology has direct relevance to human problems, but without basic
psychology, there would be little knowledge to apply. A psychologist doing basic
research might ask. „How does peer pressure influence peopleÊs attitudes and
behaviour?‰ An applied psychologist might ask, „How can knowledge about
peer pressure be used to reduce binge drinking by college students?‰
Research psychology is the aspect of psychology least recognised and

understood by the public. Ludy Benjamin (2003), bemoaning the fact that
psychology has never had a US postal stamp commemorating the discipline or its
founders (unlike dozens of other fields, including poultry farming and truck
driving), notes that the public „has minimal understanding of psychology as a
science and even less appreciation for what psychological scientists do or how
psychological research contributes to human welfare.‰
Here are just a few of the major non-clinical specialties in psychology:
(a)" Experimental psychologists conduct laboratory studies of learning,

motivation, emotion, sensation arid perception, physiology and cognition.
Do not be misled by the term experimental, though; other psychologists
also do experiments.
(b)" Educational psychologists study psychological principles that explain

learning and search for ways to improve educational systems. Their
interests range from the application of findings on memory and thinking to
the use of rewards to encourage achievement.
(c)" Developmental psychologists study how people change and grow over
time – physically, mentally and socially. In the past, their focus was mainly
on childhood, but many now study adolescence, young-adulthood, the
middle years or old age.

(d)" Industrial or organisational psychologists study behaviour in the

workplace. They are concerned with group decision making, employee
morale, work motivation, productivity, job stress, personnel selection,
marketing strategies, equipment design and many other issues.
(e)" Psychometric psychologists design and evaluate tests of mental abilities,

aptitudes, interests and personality. Nearly all of us have had first-hand
experience with one or more of these tests in school, at work or in the
military.
9.4.2 Psychological Practice

Psychological practitioners, whose goal is to understand and improve people's
physical and mental health work in mental hospitals, general hospitals, clinics,
schools, counselling centres and also engage in private practice. Since the late
1970s, the proportion of psychologists who are practitioners has steadily
increased; practitioners now account for over two-thirds of new psychology
doctorates; and members of the American Psychological Association (APA),
psychologyÊs largest professional organisation (APA Research Office, 1998).
Some practitioners are counselling psychologists who generally help people deal
with problems of everyday life, such as test anxiety, family conflicts or low job
motivation. Others are school psychologists, who work with parents, teachers,
and students to enhance studentsÊ performance and resolve emotional
difficulties. The majority, however, are clinical psychologists, who diagnose,
treat, and study mental or emotional problems. Clinical psychologists are trained
to do psychotherapy with severely disturbed people, as well as with those who
are simply troubled or unhappy or who want to learn to handle their problems
better.
In all most all states, a license to practice clinical psychology requires a doctorate.
Most clinical psychologists have a PhD, some have an EdD, and a smaller
number have a PsyD (Doctorate in Psychology, pronounced „sy-deEi‰), a degree
that began to be awarded in the 1970s. Clinical psychologists typically do four or
five years of graduate work in psychology, plus at least a year's internship under
the direction of a practicing psychologist. Clinical programmes leading to a PhD
or EdD, are usually designed to prepare a person both as a scientist and as a
clinical practitioner. They require completion of a dissertation, a major scholarly
project (usually involving research) that contributes to knowledge in the field.
Programmes leading to a PsyD, focus on professional practice and do not usually
require a dissertation, although they typically require the student to complete a
major study, theoretical paper or literature review.

People often confuse clinical psychologist with three other vocations:

(a)" Psychotherapist;
(b)" Psychoanalyst; and
(c)" Psychiatrist.
But these vocations mean different things. A psychotherapist is simply anyone

who does any kind of psychotherapy. The job is not legally regulated. In fact in
most states, anyone can say that he or she is a "therapist" of one sort or another
without having any training at all.
Meanwhile a psychoanalyst is a person who practices one particular form of

therapy viz., psychoanalysis. To call yourself a psychoanalyst, you must get
specialised training at a psychoanalytic institute and undergo extensive
psychoanalysis yourself. Until recently, admission to a psychoanalytic institute
required an MD or a PhD, but increasingly this requirement is being waived;
clinical social workers with Master's degrees and even interested lay people are
often now admitted.
A psychiatrist is a Medical Doctor (MD) who has done a three-year residency in

psychiatry to learn how to diagnose and treat mental disorders under the
supervision of more experienced physicians. Like some clinical psychologists,
some psychiatrists do research on mental problems instead of, or in addition to,
working with patients. In private practice, psychiatrists may treat any kind of
emotional disorder; in hospitals, they treat the most severe disorders, such as
major depression and schizophrenia. Although psychiatrists and clinical
psychologists often do similar work, psychiatrists, because of their medical
training, are more likely to focus on possible biological causes of mental
disorders and often treat these problems with medication. They can write
prescriptions and, at present, most clinical psychologists cannot. (Two American
states, New Mexico and Louisiana, have given prescription privileges to
psychologists who receive special training). Psychiatrists, however, are often
uneducated in current psychological theories and methods and unfamiliar with
current research in psychology (Luhrmann, 2000).
Other mental-health professionals include Licensed Clinical Social Workers

(LCSWs) and Marriage, Family, and Child Counsellors (MFCCs). These
professionals ordinarily treat general problems in adjustment and family conflicts
rather than severe mental disturbance, although their work may also bring them
into contact with people who have serious problems – violent delinquents, people
with drug addictions, sex offenders, individuals involved in domestic violence or
child abuse. Licensing requirements vary from state to state but usually include a

Master's degree in psychology or social work and one or two years of supervised
experience. As if this is not complicated enough, there are thousands of counsellors
who specialise in treating all kinds of problems, from sexual abuse to alcoholism;
there is, however, no uniform set of regulating standards. Just as not all
psychologists are psychotherapists, not all psychotherapists are clinical
psychologists.
Here are the major terms used to refer to mental-health professionals:
(a)" Psychotherapist
A person who does psychotherapy; may have anything from no degree to
an advanced professional degree; this job is unregulated.
(b)" Clinical Psychologist

Diagnoses, treats, and/or studies mental and emotional problems, both
mild and severe; has a PhD, an EdD or a PsyD.
(c)" Psychoanalyst
Practices psychoanalysis; has specific training in this approach after an
advanced degree (usually, but not always holding an MD or a PhD); may
treat any kind of emotional disorder or pathology.
(d)" Psychiatrist
Does work similar to that of a clinical psychologist but is likely to take a
more biological approach; has a medical degree (MD) with a specialty in
psychiatry.
(e)" Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW); Marriage, Family, and Child
Counsellor (MFCC)
Typically treats common individual and family problems, but may also
deal with more serious problems such as addiction or abuse. Licensing
requirements vary, but generally has at least a post graduate degree in
psychology or social work training. Some may even have taken nothing
more than a brief certification course.
Many research psychologists and some practitioners are worried about the
increase in the number of counsellors and psychotherapists who are unschooled
in research methods and the empirical findings of psychology, and who use
invalid therapy techniques (Beutler, 2000; Dawes, 1994; Poole, Lindsay, Memon,
& Bull, 1995). Critics trace this development to the rise of freestanding
professional schools, which are unaffiliated with any university. Although some
of these schools offer a quality education, others do not.

In a review of the evidence on graduate training in clinical psychology, Peterson

(2003) found that the poorer quality programmes are turning out more and more
ill-prepared graduates. „To deny an increased likelihood of incompetent practice
by insufficiently talented, properly trained psychologists,‰ Peterson (2003) wrote,
„defies all reason.‰ Many practitioners, on the other hand, argue that
psychotherapy is an art and that training in research methods is largely irrelevant
to the work they do with clients.
ACTIVITY 9.1
1." If someone is a psychologist, why cannot you assume that the
person is a therapist?
2." What is the difference between a clinical psychologist and a
psychiatrist?
9.4.3 Psychology in the Community

During the second half of the twentieth century, psychology expanded rapidly in
terms of scholars, publications and specialties. Today, the field is experiencing a
„knowledge explosion‰ (Adair & Vohra, 2003). The American Psychological
Association now has 53 divisions. Some represent major fields such as
developmental psychology or physiological psychology. Others represent
specific research or professional interests, such as the psychology of women, the
psychology of men, ethnic minority issues, sports, arts, environmental concerns,
gay and lesbian issues, peace, psychology and the law as well as health.
As psychology has grown, psychologists have found ways to contribute to their

communities in about as many fields as you can think of. They consult with
companies to improve worker satisfaction and productivity. They establish
programmes to improve race relations and reduce ethnic tensions. They advise
commissions on how pollution and noise affect mental health. They do
rehabilitation training for people who are physically or mentally disabled. They
educate judges and juries about eyewitness testimonies. They assist the police in
emergencies involving hostages or disturbed persons. They conduct public-
opinion surveys. They run suicide-prevention hotlines. They advise zoos on the
care and training of animals. They help coaches improve the athletic performance
of their teams and so on.

ACTIVITY 9.2
The following link will guide you to an exclusive website of psychology
and its practice. Try to prepare notes of few important facts related to
psychological practice.
http://www.guidetopsychology.com/psypract_menu.htm
" New structuralism covers the same terrain as the status-attainment

programme. However, this is from an explicitly critical standpoint, since it
emphasises the ways in which certain features of economic systems and
formal organisations enhance or constrain the distribution of opportunities
for particular categories of people.
" There is only one being, Cosmic Mind, self-born, self-generating; the
substance, in the true, original meaning, of the universe.
" Approach to the study of cognitive development evolved out of the

American experimental tradition in psychology. Information processing
theorists proposed that like the computer, the human mind is a system that
processes information through the application of logical rules and strategies.
Clinical psychologist Psychiatrist

Cognitive revolution Psychoanalyst
Linguistics Psychologist
New Mentalism Psychotherapist
New Structuralism Reality
Paranormal

Briefly describe the following:

(a)" History of structuralism.
(b)" Structuralism in linguistics.
1." What is the role of behaviourism in the formation of new mentalism?

2." Explain the structure of information processing system.
Adair, J. G., & Vohra, N. (2003). The explosion of knowledge, references, and
citations: Psychology's unique response to a crisis. American Psychologist,
58(1), 15-23.
American Psychological Association Research Office. (1998). 1997 APA directory

survey, with new member updates for 1998. Washington, DC: American
Psychological Association.
Assiter, A. (1984). Althusser and structuralism. British Journal of Sociology, 35(2),

272–296.
Benjamin Jr, L. T. (2003). Why can't psychology get a stamp? Journal of Applied
Psychoanalytic Studies, 5(4), 443-454.
Beutler, L.E. (2000). Empirically based decision making in clinical practice.

Prevention and Treatment, 3(1), 27.
Bruner, J. S. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Dale, L. A., & Rhea, A. W. (1977). Glossary of terms found in the literature of
psychical research and parapsychology. In Wolman, B. B., Dale, L. A.,
Schmeidler, G. R., & Ullman, M. (Eds.), Handbook of parapsychology.
Jefferson, MO: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Cognitive psychology. (2015). Retrieved from

http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/126/Cognitive-Psychology.html
Dashiell, J. F. (1928). Fundamentals of objective psychology. Boston, MA:

Houghton Mifflin.
Dawes, R. M. (1994). House of cards: Psychology and psychotherapy built on

myth. New York, NY: Free.
Information processing. (2015). Retrieved from

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_processing
Joseph, Arun. (2015). Information processing approach. Retrieved

from educationposter.blogspot.com/.../information-processing-
approach.htm
Knowles, J. M. (2002). Mentalism – A philosophy of science. Retrieved from

www.psychognosia.org/.../Mentalism%20Rev%20July%202002.pdf
Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago, IL: University

of Chicago.
Mentalism – A philosophy of science. (n.d.). Retrieved from

www.arborrdresearchgroup.org/
Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits
on our capacity for processing information. Indiana, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.
Peterson, D. R. (2003). Unintended consequences: Ventures and misadventures in

the education of professional psychologists. American Psychologist, 58(10),
791.
Philosophy. (n.d.) Retrieved from

https://books.google.com/books?id=NIJspscleLAC
Pinker, S. (2002). The blank slate: The modern denial of human nature. New
York, NY: Viking.
Poole, D. A., Lindsay, D. S., Memon, A., & Bull, R. (1995). Psychotherapy and the
recovery of memories of childhood sexual abuse: US and British
practitioners' opinions, practices, and experiences. Journal of Consulting
and Clinical Psychology, 63(3), 426.

Saussure, F. (1959). Course in general linguistics. New York, NY: Philosophical

Library.
Structuralism. (2011). Retrieved from

http://antoojames.blogspot.com/2011/06/structuralism.html
Structuralism in Anthropology. (2013). Retrieved from

http://faizataj.hubpages.com/hub/Structuralism-in-Anthropology
Theorizing communication: Reading across traditions. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1467240753
Wozniak, R. H. (1994). Behaviourism: The early years. London, England:

Routledge/Thoemmes.

Topic  Contemporary
10 Psychology and
the Rise of
Cross-cultural
Psychology
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1." Describe the culture of cognitive science;
2." Identify the challenges to psychology as a science; and
3." Elaborate on professional controversies in psychology.
" INTRODUCTION
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of the mind and how information,
for example, that concerning perception, language, reasoning and emotion, is
represented and transformed in the brain. It consists of multiple research
disciplines, including psychology, artificial intelligence, philosophy,
neuroscience, learning sciences, linguistics, anthropology, sociology and
education. It spans many levels of analysis, from low-level learning and decision
mechanisms to high-level logic and planning; from neural circuitry to modular
brain organisation. The term cognitive science was coined by Christopher
Longuet-Higgins in his 1973 commentary on the Lighthill report, which
concerned the then-current state of artificial intelligence research. In the

TOPIC 10 CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOLOGY AND THE RISE OF CROSS-  201
CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY
following section, you would be introduced to the culture of cognitive science

and several issues in contemporary psychology.
10.1 CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOLOGY

Contemporary psychology utilises numerous perspectives, from biological
psychology to social psychology. Today, the majority of psychologists do not
identify themselves with a single school of thought. Instead, they often focus on a
particular specialty area or perspective, often drawing on ideas from a range of
theoretical backgrounds.
This eclectic approach has contributed new ideas and theories that will continue
to shape psychology for years to come. Eclectic means the willingness to employ
the most effective methods available in solving a problem.
(a) Perspective in Contemporary Psychology

Every topic in psychology can be looked at from a number of different
perspectives. For example, consider the subject of aggression. Someone who
emphasises a biological perspective would look at the how the brain and
nervous system impact aggressive behaviours, whereas someone who takes
a behavioural perspective would look at how aggressive behaviours are
learnt.
A professional who stresses a behavioural perspective would look at how
environmental variables reinforce aggressive actions. Another psychologist
who utilises a cross-cultural approach might consider how cultural and
social influences contribute to aggressive or violent behaviours.
(b) Neuroscience
Neuropsychology is a branch of psychology that aims to understand how
the structure and function of the brain relate to specific psychological
processes. The brain is the main subject of research in this area.
(c) Cross-cultural
This involves the scientific study of human behaviour and mental process,
including both their variability and invariance, under diverse cultural
conditions. Community violence, domestic violence and substance abuses
are all found to be (at least) partially related to this aspect.
(d) Forensic
Forensic psychology is the area concerned with the application of
psychological methods and principles to the legal arena.

202  TOPIC 10 CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOLOGY AND THE RISE OF CROSS-
CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY
10.2 COGNITIVE SCIENCE

The modern culture of cognitive science can be traced back to the early
cyberneticists in the 1930s and 1940s, such as Warren McCulloch and Walter
Pitts, who sought to understand the organising principles of the mind.
McCulloch and Pitts developed the first variants of what are now known as
artificial neural networks  models of computation inspired by the structure of
biological neural networks. Another precursor was the early development of the
theory of computation and the digital computer in the 1940s and 1950s. Alan
Turing and John von Neumann were instrumental in these developments. The
modern computer, or Von Neumann machine, would play a central role in
cognitive science, both as a metaphor for the mind and as a tool for investigation.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, much of the cognitive science research focused on
the possibility of artificial intelligence. Researchers such as Marvin Minsky
would write computer programmes in languages such as LISP to attempt to
formally characterise the steps that human beings went through, for instance, in
making decisions and solving problems. This was done in the hope of better
understanding human thought and also in the hope of creating artificial minds.
This approach is known as „symbolic AI‰.
Eventually the limits of the symbolic AI research programme became apparent.

For instance, it seemed to be unrealistic to comprehensively list human
knowledge in a form usable by a symbolic computer programme. The late 1980s
and 1990s saw the rise of neural networks and connectionism as a research
paradigm. Under this point of view, often attributed to James McClelland and
David Rumelhart, the mind could be characterised as a set of complex
associations, represented as a layered network. Critics argue that there are some
phenomena which are better captured by symbolic models and that connectionist
models are often as complex as to have little explanatory power. Recently
symbolic and connectionist models have been combined, making it possible to
take advantage of both forms of explanations.
10.2.1 Levels of Analysis in Cognitive Science

A central idea of cognitive science is that a complete understanding of the mind
or brain cannot be attained by studying only a single level or entity. An example
would be the problem of remembering a phone number and recalling it later.
One approach to understanding this process would be to study behaviour
through direct observation. A person could be presented with a phone number,
asked to recall it after some delay. Then the accuracy of the response could be
measured. Another approach would be to study the firings of individual neurons
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while a person is trying to remember the phone number. Neither of these

experiments on their own would fully explain how the process of remembering a
phone number works.
Even if the technology to map out every neuron in the brain in real-time was
available, and it was known when each neuron was firing, it would still be
impossible to know how a particular firing of neurons translates into the
observed behaviour. Thus, an understanding of how these two levels relate to
each other is needed. This can be provided by a functional level account of the
process. Studying a particular phenomenon from multiple levels creates a better
understanding of the processes that occur in the brain to give rise to a particular
behaviour.
Marr (1982) gave a famous description of three levels of analysis:

(a)" The computational theory, specifying the goals of the computation;
(b)" Representation and algorithm, giving a representation of the input and
output and the algorithm which transforms one into the other; and
(c)" The hardware implementation, how algorithm and representation may be
physically realised.
10.2.2 Interdisciplinary Nature of Cognitive Science

Cognitive science, being an interdisciplinary field with contributors from various
fields including psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, philosophy of mind,
computer science, anthropology, sociology and biology, tends to view the world
outside the mind much as other sciences do. Therefore, it has an objective,
observer-independent existence. The field is usually seen as compatible with the
physical sciences and uses the scientific method as well as simulation or
modelling, often comparing the output of models with aspects of human
behaviour. Some doubt whether there is a unified cognitive science and prefer to
speak of the cognitive sciences in plural.
Many, who consider themselves cognitive scientists have a functionalist view of

the mind  the view that mental states are classified functionally, such that any
system that performs the proper function for some mental state is considered to
be in that mental state. According to some versions of functionalism, even non-
human systems, such as other animal species, alien life forms or advanced
computers can, in principle, have mental states.

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The term „cognitive‰ in „cognitive science‰ is „used for any kind of mental
operation or structure that can be studied in precise terms‰ (Lakoff & Johnson,
1999). This conceptualisation is very broad, and should not be confused with
how „cognitive‰ is used in some traditions of analytic philosophy, where
„cognitive‰ has to do only with formal rules and truth conditional semantics.
10.2.3 Areas of Study in Cognitive Science

The following are some of the areas of study in cognitive science:
(a)" Knowledge and Processing of Language

This is closely tied to the field of linguistics. Linguistics was traditionally
studied as a part of the humanities (therefore some psychology courses are
under the School of Arts and Humanities) including studies of history, art
and literature. In the last fifty years or so, more and more researchers have
studied knowledge and the use of language as a cognitive phenomenon, the
main problems being how knowledge of language can be acquired and
used, and what precisely it consists of. Linguists have found that, while
humans form sentences in ways apparently governed by very complex
systems, they are remarkably unaware of the rules that govern their own
speech. Thus, linguists must resort to indirect methods to determine what
those rules might be, if indeed rules as such exist. In any event, if speech is
indeed governed by rules, they appear to be opaque to any conscious
consideration.
(b)" Learning and Development

A major question in the study of cognitive development is the extent to
which certain abilities are innate or learned. This is often framed in terms of
the „nature versus nurture‰ debate. The nativist view emphasises that
certain features are innate to an organism and are determined by its genetic
endowment. The empiricist view, on the other hand, emphasises that
certain abilities are learned from the environment. Although clearly both
genetic and environmental input is needed for a child to develop normally,
considerable debate remains about how genetic information might guide
cognitive development. In the area of language acquisition, for example,
some (Pinker & Bloom, 1990) have argued that specific information
containing universal grammatical rules must be contained in the genes,
whereas others (such as Jeffrey Elman and colleagues in Rethinking
Innateness) have argued that Pinker's claims are biologically unrealistic.
They argue that genes determine the architecture of a learning system, but
that specific „facts‰ about how grammar works can only be learned as a
result of experience.

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(c)" Memory
Cognitive scientists study memory just as psychologists do, but tend to
focus more on how memory bears on cognitive processes and the
interrelationship between cognition and memory. One example of this
could be, what mental processes does a person go through to retrieve a
long-lost memory? Or, what differentiates the cognitive process of
recognition (seeing hints of something before remembering it, or memory in
context) and recall (retrieving a memory, as in „fill-in-the-blank‰)?
SELF-CHECK 10.1
Briefly describe „cognitive science‰.
10.3 CHALLENGES TO PSYCHOLOGY AS A

SCIENCE
The field of human psychology is a powerful force in modern society and its
influence is widespread − in language, law, the social contract and in our
perception of ourselves. Because legal decisions are sometimes made based on
psychology, decisions that might cause someone to be incarcerated or freed, it is
important to establish whether psychology is a science or a simple belief system.
We should determine whether psychology can be relied on to objectively support
the social and legal policies that are based on it. In modern times, such a serious
public burden can only be borne by a field that is based on reason, on science.
Which leads to our question: is human psychology steered by science?
10.3.1 Is Psychology a Science?

In order to consider whether psychology is a science, we must first define our
terms. It is not overarching to say that science is „what separates human beings
from animals‰, and, as time goes by and we learn more about our animal
neighbours here on Earth, it becomes increasingly clear that science is all that
separates humans from animals. We are learning that animals have feelings,
passions and certain rights. What animals do not have is the ability to reason, to
rise above feeling.
ScienceÊs goal is to create reasonable explanations (theories) with hard evidence

to describe reality − theories that rely, not on feelings or passions, but on
evidence. Science defines „evidence‰ in a special way that will seem rather strict
to someone only familiar with the legal definition. To science, evidence is

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gathered and evaluated (and sometimes discarded) according to some rigid

rules, rules meant to assure that a scientific theory reflects reality to the best of
our ability.
How strict are scienceÊs rules of evidence? Well, let us first compare science to
law. The legal definition of evidence is (as one example) a set of observations that
appear to associate a particular person with a particular event. Typically, legal
proceedings begin with an investigation meant to collect evidence, followed by a
trial that establishes whether that evidence meets a criterion − „beyond a
reasonable doubt‰ in criminal proceedings, and „according to the preponderance
of evidence‰ in civil proceedings (in the US). This, by the way, is why O. J.
Simpson was found innocent in criminal court, but found guilty in a subsequent
civil proceeding − using the same evidence, he was not guilty „beyond a
reasonable doubt,‰ but he was guilty „according to the preponderance of
evidence‰ (refer to Figure 10.1).
Figure 10.1: O. J Simpson

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._J._Simpson
In an embarrassing and tragic number of cases, innocent people have been placed
on death row (and sometimes executed) based on evidence that, notwithstanding
the innocence of the convict, met the „beyond a reasonable doubt‰ standard
when evaluated by a jury of 12 upstanding citizens, people whom we shall
charitably assume overlooked the colour of the defendant's skin. Relatively
recently, there have been new ways of gathering evidence like DNA testing
which have proven the innocence of a fortunate few death-row inmates while
others who might have gone unpunished have been arrested.

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The point here is that legal evidence is not remotely scientific evidence. Contrary
to popular belief, science does not use sloppy evidentiary standards like „beyond
a reasonable doubt,‰ and scientific theories never become facts. This is why the
oft-heard expression „proven scientific fact‰ is never appropriate − it only reflects
the scientific ignorance of the speaker. Scientific theories are always theories,
they never become the final and only explanation for a given phenomenon.
As to the ever-popular expression „scientific law,‰ this is often an earnest effort

by scientists to bridge the gap between the level of certainty required in science
and that accepted in ordinary life. In fact and strictly speaking, there are no
scientific laws, only theories about which we are very certain, like entropy and
gravity. If they were to be tersely expressed in everyday language, they would
read: „Eventually it will break, and when it does, it is going to fall.‰
About scientific evidence, philosopher John Stuart Mill said, „No amount of
observations of white swans can allow the inference that all swans are white, but
the observation of a single black swan is sufficient to refute that conclusion‰ (as
cited in Taleb, 2007). This saying aptly summarises the difference between
scientific evidence and every other kind of evidence and it dramatises the
difference between science and ordinary human thinking.
This very strict evidentiary standard is essential for science to provide its riches,
and it is no problem for people who have been properly educated. But in the
lives of people for whom „evidence‰ means „he said, she said,‰ certain problems
are inevitable.
Apart from being filtered through all possible explanations, scientific theories
have another important property − they must make predictions that can be tested
and possibly falsified. In fact, and this may surprise you, scientific theories can
only be falsified, they can never be proven true once and for all. That is why they
are called „theories‰ as certain as some of them are. It is always possible they
may be replaced by better theories, ones that explain more, are simpler or that
make more accurate predictions than their forebears.
It is very simple, really. If a theory cannot make testable predictions, or if the

tests are not practical or cannot lead to a clear outcome that supports or falsifies
the theory, the theory is not scientific. This may come as another surprise, but
very little of the theoretical content of human psychology meets this scientific
criterion. As to the clinical practice of psychology, even less meets any reasonable
definition of „scientific‰.

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10.3.2 Present Day Human Psychology

One might think the dismal history of psychology and the recent revolution in
psychoactive drugs might cause more than a few psychologists to wonder
whether their field means anything at all. But the absence of a scientific
foundation for psychology means that, like religion, it can prevail in the face of
overwhelming evidence that it has no fixed, testable content.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (PSM) and its
companion, the International Classifications of Diseases, Mental Disorders
Section (ICD) are significance to the practice of psychology and psychiatry and
because of what it claims are valid mental illnesses.
As an example, in the current edition of DSM/ICD, the following conditions are

defined as mental illnesses:
(a)" Stuttering;
(b)" Spelling disorder;
(c)" Written expression disorder;
(d)" Mathematics disorder;
(e)" Caffeine intoxication or withdrawal;
(d)" Nicotine use or withdrawal;
(e)" Sibling rivalry disorder; and
(f)" Phase of life problem.
Putting aside for the moment the nebulous "phase of life problem," – "sibling
rivalry" is now a mental illness? Yes, according to the current DSM/ICD. It is
wrong to brand as mentally ill those who (frequently) cannot accurately choose
from among "site," "cite" and "sight".
The content of the volume, a cornerstone of the practice of contemporary

psychiatry, has become so ridiculous that professional psychologists have begun
openly deriding it. Professors Herb Kutchins of California State University and
Stuart A. Kirk of the University of New York found "...there is ample reason to
conclude that the latest versions of DSM as a clinical tool are unreliable and
therefore of questionable validity as a classification system.‰

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Table 10.1: Years and the Number of Conditions Identified as

"Mental Illnesses" in the DSM
Year Number of Conditions
1952 112
1968 163
1980 224
1987 253
1994 374
Based on Table 10.1 and extrapolating into the future using appropriate
regression methods, in 100 years, there will be more than 3600 conditions
meriting treatment as mental illnesses. To put it another way, there will be more
mental states identified as abnormal, than there are known, distinct mental states.
In short, no behaviour will be normal.
Those who created the DSM intended to standardise diagnostic criteria, so that
two clinicians similarly trained, when confronted by the same patient, would be
able to use the DSMÊs guidance to produce the same diagnosis. This ambitious
goal, had it been achieved, would have greatly improved the image of
psychology as a science. But, notwithstanding the DSMÊs gradual increase in size
and weight, this goal is as remote as ever. Even many of those charged with
responsibility for creating and editing the DSM acknowledge that it is not the
hoped-for validation of clinical psychology's standing as a science.
Tom Widger, who served as head of research for DSM-IV, says „There are lots of
studies which show that clinicians diagnose most of their patients with one
particular disorder and really do not systematically assess for other disorders.
They have a bias in reference to the disorder that they are especially interested in
treating and believe that most of their patients have‰. Also, because of clinical
psychologyÊs supposed status as a science, the patients do not typically object to
the diagnosis they are given. Indeed, some of them embrace the diagnosis,
however implausible, and proceed to exhibit all the symptoms the clinician
expects to see.
Many conditions have made their way into the DSM and nearly none are later
removed. Homosexuality was until recently listed as a mental illness (after
1960s), one believed to be amenable to treatment in spite of the total absence of
clinical evidence. Then a combination of research findings from fields other than
psychology and simple political pressure and social rights movement resulted in
the removal of homosexuality from psychologyÊs official list of mental illnesses.

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Imagine a group of activists demanding that the concept of gravity be removed

from physics. Then imagine physicists yielding to political pressure on a
scientific issue. But in psychology, this is the norm, not the exception and it is
nearly always the case that the impetus for change comes from a field other than
psychology.
ACTIVITY 10.1
Is the DSM becoming more or less reasonable as time passes? Decide for
yourself as shown in Table 10.1. The table shows a list of years and the
number of conditions identified as „mental illnesses‰ in the DSM for
that year.
10.4 CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY

Cross-cultural psychology is the scientific study of human behaviour and mental
process, including both their variability and invariance, under diverse cultural
conditions. Through expanding research methodologies to recognise cultural
variance in behaviour, language and meaning, it seeks to extend, develop and
transform psychology. Central themes, such as affect, cognition, conceptions of the
self and issues such as psychopathology, anxiety and depression, are all re-
examined in cross-cultural psychology in an attempt to examine the universality of
these concepts. Critics have pointed to methodological flaws in cross-cultural
psychological research and claim that serious shortcomings in the theoretical and
methodological basis used impede rather than help this scientific search for
universality. Cross-cultural psychology is differentiated from cultural psychology.
The latter is the branch of psychology that holds that human behaviour is
determined by unique individual cultures that can be compared with each other
only to a very limited extent. In contrast, cross-cultural psychology includes a
search for possible universals in behaviour and mental processes.
Various definitions of the field include: „the scientific study of human behaviour
and its transmission, taking into account the ways in which behaviours are
shaped and influenced by social and cultural forces‰ and „the empirical study of
members of various cultural groups who have had different experiences that lead
to predictable and significant differences in behaviour‰. Culture may also be
defined as „the shared way of life of a group of people‰. They also outline
various aims and goals of cross-cultural psychology including a challenge to the

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limited cultural perspective that may result if one only studies cultural variables
within oneÊs own society.
Early work in cross-cultural psychology was suggested in Lazarus and Steinthal's

journal Zeitschrift fur Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft (Journal of
Folk Psychology and Language Science) which began to be published in 1860.
More empirically-oriented research was subsequently conducted by Williams
Rivers (1864-1922) who attempted to measure the intelligence and sensory acuity
of indigenous people residing in the Torres Straits area, located between
Australia and New Guinea.
It is quite common for cross-cultural psychologists to take one of two possible

approaches − the etic approach which emphasises similarities of cultures and the
emic approach which emphasises differences between cultures. Generally
speaking, it is received wisdom that traditional agriculture-based societies have
more collectivist cultures than modern „information societies‰.
10.4.1 Methodology in Cross-cultural Psychology

Cross-cultural psychology has made use of traditional psychologyÊs inductive
emphasis on comparisons of samples (and generalisation to populations). Cross-
cultural psychology has been a part of general and differential psychologies. In
contrast, the cultural psychology that has developed in parallel with cross-
cultural psychology on the basis of anthropology and developmental psychology
has been built upon the notion of systemic causality and on the basis of
developmental assumptions. There is an overlap in the practical work of cultural
and cross-cultural psychologists  cross-cultural evidence can be used in cultural-
psychological theorising. Both disciplines share the focus on interdisciplinary
cooperation and are haunted by the usual limits on inductive inference that
plagues all contemporary social sciences.
Culture implies some constructive modification of the natural course of affairs –

the cultivation of „nature‰ by human efforts results in culture. This can take the
form of some kind of goal-directed modification of features or properties of
objects. The crucial tension in psychologistsÊ discourse about culture lies in
treating it as an existing entity (for example, „culture is X‰), and a process of
becoming (for example, „culturing leads to X‰). Our lives are constantly shaped
by the creation of something new: new fads and fetishes, technologies and
prejudices are constantly being created in any society. All these phenomena are
cultured (verb)  and hence become cultural artifacts (see the contrast of objective
and subjective culture in Triandis, 1972).

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The „three meanings‰ is the notion which implies that culture has had a long
history in social thought (Jahoda, 1993). Presently the notion of culture as used in
psychology has these three meanings as follows.
(a)" First, it has been used to designate some group of people who „belong
together‰ by value of some shared features. This form of making sense of
person and culture – person „belongs to‰ culture – simultaneously denotes
the commonality of such belonging (the descriptive or classificatory role of
the use of the term) and some usually unspecified causal system that
guarantees the relative similarity of all the persons who „belong to‰ the given
culture. This meaning prevails in cross-cultural psychology and is consistent
with the way anthropologists use the term as well as the laypersonÊs
everyday conception of the term.
(b)" Secondly, culture can be seen as a systemic organiser of the psychological

systems of individual persons – culture „belongs to‰ the person. Here,
culture „belongs to‰ each individual person. It is irrelevant to which ethnic
group or country the person „belongs to,‰ since culture functions within the
intra-psychological systems of each person. Culture is part of self-
organisation, in ways that are functional for the personal life (Hermans,
2001).
(c)" In the third meaning of culture, we can say that the term „belongs to‰
means how the person and the environment are interrelated. Of course the
meaning of „belonging to‰ here breaks down  there is no specifiable
„owner‰ (or „carrier‰) of the culture. Instead, culture becomes exemplified
through different processes by which persons interact with their worlds.
This perspective requires conceptual separation of the person and the
world  a step that often becomes criticised as „dualism‰. However,
analytically, differentiation of the parts of a whole  as long as the whole is
maintained in place  is not a case of constructing a „dualism‰ but
elaborating the functioning structure of the whole. To use a recurrent
example that psychologists have thought of over a century, the quality of a
whole („water‰) is not devalued by the fact that this whole (substance)
entails the duality of hydrogen and oxygen  and its link  in its chemical
composition. If chemistry as science were to be worried about „dualism‰
inherent in any chemical substance, no science of chemistry could have
emerged from its historical basis of alchemy.

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ResearchersÊ analytic strategies have two kinds of distinctions. Thus, there are
two ways of making a distinction: „exclusive‰ and „inclusive‰ separation. These
two ways are described as follows:
(a)" Exclusive Separation

Exclusive separation leads to atomistic separation of elements out of the
whole (with the loss of the whole). All reduction of complex wholes into
their elementary constituents is of that kind. PsychologyÊs reliance on the
use of statistical methods has socially prescribed the practice of „exclusive
separation‰ of elementary units from a complex whole (for example, items
on standardised tests assumed to reveal the same whole  qualities such as
„collectivism‰ – while being independent of one another).
(b)" Inclusive Separation

In contrast to the former, the „inclusive separation‰ is a strategy of
distinguishing parts of the whole  enabling the researcher to look at the
relations between the „inclusively separated‰ parts of the whole.
10.4.2 Culture within the Tradition of Cross-cultural

Psychology
Cross-cultural psychology has much in common with traditional psychology in
that it often involves comparisons between two or more groups of individuals
(Valsiner, 2003). It is often considered to be a major method of inquiry concerning
the ways in which culture affects human thought and behaviour. The groups
compared are different ethnic, geographic or administratively united groups
which are labelled „cultures‰. Cross-cultural psychology mostly uses the first
model outlined above (person „belong‰ to culture). As such, „cultures‰ in cross-
cultural psychology have the following properties. These assumptions fit with
those made in non-developmental psychology about groups of persons (united
by some characteristics, for example, male versus female).
This is understandable, since from its inception, cross-cultural psychology has

been based on the non-developmental premises in psychology:
(a)" Qualitative Homogeneity

It is assumed that each and every „member of the culture‰ (that is, a person
who „belongs to‰ that culture) shares with each and every other member
the same set of cultural features. There can be inter-individual differences
in the quantitative side of such sharing (some persons share more of the
given feature than others), yet all of them share many or most of the same
features. However, because most nation-states (cultures, societies) are quite

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heterogeneous, cross-cultural psychologists realise how important it is to

define the nature of the samples that are selected in research.
(b)" Temporal Stability

It is assumed that the set of cultural features (shared by the persons who are
„members of the culture‰) is the same over time  even as the membership of
persons in a culture changes from generation to generation. Even if historical
changes take place in a given society, culture is characterised through focus
on its stability. Thus, the guillotines of the French Revolution, the political
homicides of Stalinist Russia, Pol PotÊs Laos, the nuclear „mushrooms‰ over
Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the collapse of World Trade Centre in New
York after the 9/11 attack are not assumed to dramatically modify the
cultures involved. Without any doubt, such tragic events destabilise the
previous social order, but whether or not they lead the societies onto new
developmental trajectories is characteristically not investigated when
temporal stability is assumed. History here becomes viewed on the side of
continuity, rather than change.
Additionally, cross-cultural psychology is also interested in why and how

cultures change over time, even if such changes are relatively minor over
short periods. Here the focus of cross-cultural psychology follows the lead
of non-developmental psychology at large  sharing the recognition of
change and lacking explicit conceptual tools to look at development
(compare with Kurt Lewin's efforts to „define the field at the given time‰ in
Lewin, 1943).
10.4.3 Psychologist Strategies to Deal with Inter-

group Differences
People, of course, are very different within any society. Inter-individual
differences between persons from the given society who are said to „share‰ or
„participate in‰ a „culture‰ are viewed as quantitative. These are a matter of
degree rather than of another quality. The characteristics by which the groups are
contrasted with one another are seen as ontological givens rather than being
open to development. Thus, homogeneous „culture‰ groups are often compared
with one another in cross-cultural psychology. For example, „the American
culture‰ might be represented by a sample of college undergraduates and be
compared with „the Italian culture‰ represented by a sample of university
students from Palermo.

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It should be obvious that the reason why groups (called „samples‰ from a
„culture‰) are often contrasted in such ways is because the groups in question
include individuals who are relatively similar between themselves in the group
in terms of interesting features. Surely most (or all) university students from
Palermo have interesting features in common such as expectations as to what a
„normal mid-day meal‰ is and most (or all) of them may differ from an
analogous similarity of such „shared expectations‰ within the sample of college
undergraduates in the US. The researchers here are at crossroads on whether to
emphasise the relative similarity of the sample (consisting of individual persons)
or to focus on the inter-individual variability within each sample. Whichever
road is preferred at that junction of construction of the research perspective, it
sets up the scope of the knowledge that becomes available to them in their
subsequent data derivation.
There are three basic strategies used by social scientists to deal with differences:
(a)" Constructively Ignore Them

Treat groups (of notable inter-individual variability) as if these are
qualitatively homogeneous. This allows researchers to talk about abstracted
homogenised entities such as „individualist‰ (or „collectivist‰) cultures,
„male‰ (or „female‰) gender roles, „developed‰ versus „developing‰
societies, etc.
(b)" Focus on Inter-individual Differences

Whenever the differences within a sample are noted (and not ignored), it is
imperative to transform the existing research question into that of
"individual differences„ (by which the differences between individuals in a
sample at a cross-section of historical time is indicated). Here relative
stability of the interesting phenomena is assumed to apply within each
person  while there is variation between persons.
(c)" Focus on Intra-individual Differences (Development)

This strategy (in contrast to the other two) is based on developmental
assumptions. There is no longer the assumption of relative stability in place
for individuals  just the contrary  each individual is expected to change
in some direction in ways that become temporarily stable; yet lead to
further change. Relative stability here is temporarily relative stability 
persons who may be for a long time „similar‰ in some feature (for example,
Italian students preferring certain foods) may (over time and change in
conditions, for example, emigration) change their food preferences in
individually specific ways. Or, within a society that may have been unified
through acceptance of one religion under social turmoil individuals convert
to a variety of new religious belief systems.

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Of the three strategies, cross-cultural psychology has mostly utilised the first two,
separately, or in some combination. This is fully in line with psychology at large,
where ontological questions have dominated issues of emergence of novelty.
What Kinds of Generalisations are Made in Cross-cultural Psychology?

In Figure 10.2, the basic structure of knowledge about culture in psychological
issues is presented. Let us begin from an admittedly simplified hierarchical
structure of societies, which entails individual persons, social institutions,
societies themselves and an over generalised notion of „humankind‰ at the
ultimate top of the hierarchy. This picture is simplified as it overlooks a number
of existing intermediate levels within the hierarchy  those of transient social
groups (between individuals and institutions) and government bureaucracies
(which, as institutions themselves introduce sub-hierarchy into the institutions
and societal connection of levels). Nevertheless, the simplified picture illustrates
the complexity of the social hierarchy and the ways in which cross-cultural
psychology constructs its knowledge.
The hierarchy is shown in Figure 10.2.
Figure 10.2: Creating generalised knowledge through sample-to-population

inference in cross-cultural psychology
Source: http://www.wwu.edu/culture/Valsiner.htm

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The hierarchy in Figure 10.2 highlights multiple connections. The same

individual person can be a participant in more than one social institution (for
example, individuals X, Y, V) and some can even simultaneously belong to
institutions of different societies (Z). The specific ties with specific institutions
may change over the person's life course. A politician in the government
(institution S) of society A may be simultaneously a member of the central
intelligence agency (institution T) of country B. Children who have at times lived
in one country and experienced its formal schooling institution, may migrate to
another society and encounter a very different schooling environment. As a
result, the children may develop self-systems adapted for both societies
differently.
Cross-cultural psychology often employs the traditional strategy of group

comparisons in establishing knowledge about culture. The particular societies (A
and B in Figure 10.2.) become re-labelled as culture A and culture B. Individual
persons on the bottom of the social hierarchy become members of the culture (A
or B). After such semantic change, it becomes meaningful in cross-cultural
psychology to establish knowledge about culture A and culture B by comparing
the two on the basis of psychological data derived from their members.
Cross-cultural psychologists are also wary of two-group comparisons because, it

can be argued, such limited comparisons can be quite ambiguous. Thus, using
three or more samples from different societies in most research is considered
advisable, and in empirical work within cross-cultural psychology one often
finds many samples from different countries carefully compared. Yet the number
of samples in such comparisons does not change the logic of generalisation that
necessarily includes homogenisation of the information extracted from the
samples, per „culture‰.
Since the set of members in A (as in B) is considered qualitatively homogeneous,

it is possible for cross-cultural psychology to think in terms of random sampling
from the pool of culture members in an effort to let the sample data represent the
abstraction called „population‰. However, truly random samples of individuals
from any social setting are extremely difficult and basically impossible to get.
This has been seen as an ongoing methodological problem that is of major
concern to psychology in general and cross-cultural psychology in particular. The
problem can be solved easily, however, if the notion of non-random sampling is
accepted. The only reason why psychologists need to convince themselves and
their audience that their samples are „random‰ is to make the generalisation to
populations legitimate.

CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY
Population is the abstract full representation of all members of the given social
unit (society, community, ethnic group − „culture‰). It is hoped that the data that
characterise the population (as taken from the sample) can characterise the
culture („population‰ = culture A). Hence it makes sense in cross-cultural
psychology to make comparisons between populations (= cultures) A and B, of
the general kind: A is (or is not) different from B.
Such kind of knowledge is the end result of inductive generalisations made in

cross-cultural psychology. It can empirically map out psychological differences;
dependent upon the methods used  between different groups of persons,
labelled culture members considered to be a homogeneous set. The empirical
reality is that of comparisons between samples, generalisation from it moves
instantly to abstracted claims about differences of cultures.
SELF-CHECK 10.2
Explain the cross-cultural psychology.
" The research methods used in cognitive science are in tangent with the latest
technologies in medical science for a better understanding of the workings of
the brain and its connection to psychological functioning. The methods
include brain imaging, computational modelling and neurobiological
methods.
" There have been challenges to psychology as a science because of its
emergence and mergence with the field of philosophy.
" Most of the controversies centre on social control and manipulation, the
perceived differences between one group of people and another and our
beliefs about human nature.
" The field of cross-cultural psychology has been discussed as a novel way of
looking at patterns of research in the field of psychology. It is the scientific
study of human behaviour and mental process, including both their
variability and invariance, under diverse cultural conditions.

CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY
Contemporary psychology Inductive generalisation

Cross-cultural psychology
1." Discuss the emergence of cognitive science.

2." What are the levels of analysis of cognitive science?
3." Discuss the areas and research methodologies in cognitive science.
4." What were the challenges to psychology as science?
1." How can one think of culture in ways that avoid the notion of possession
(„belonging to‰) in our theoretical constructions?
2." How are inter-individual and intra-individual differences treated in
psychologyÊs theoretical structure? What are the implications of different
ways of looking at differences for making sense of culture in psychology?
3." Why is inductive generalisation from samples to populations limited in its
knowledge construction value?
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K. (1996). Rethinking innateness: A connectionist perspective on
development. Cambridge, MA: MIT.
Hermans, H. J. (2001). The dialogical self: Toward a theory of personal and

cultural positioning. Culture & Psychology, 7(3), 243-281.
Jahoda, G. (1993). Crossroads between culture and mind. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University.

CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY
Kutchins, H., & Kirk, S. A. (1997). Making us crazy: DSM: The psychiatric bible
and the creation of mental disorders. New York, NY: Free Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind
and its challenge to Western thought. New York, NY: Basic.
Lewin, K. (1943). Defining the field at a given time. Psychological Review, 50(3),
292.
Longuet-Higgins, H. C. (1973). Comments on the Lighthill Report. In Artificial

intelligence: A paper symposium. London, England: Science Research
Council.
Marr, D. (1982). Vision. Cambridge, MA: MIT.
Pinker, S., & Bloom, P. (1990). Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral
and Brain Sciences, 13(04), 707-727.
Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in thinking. New York, NY: Oxford University.
Shweder, R. A. (1990). Cultural psychology: What is it? In J. W. Stigler, R. A.

Shweder, & G. Herdt (Eds.), Cultural psychology: Essays on comparative
human development (pp 1-43). Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University.
Taleb, N. N. (2007). The black swan: The impact of the highly improbable. New
York, NY: Random House.
Triandis, H. C. (1972). The analysis of subjective culture. New York, NY: Wiley.
Valsiner, J. (1997). Culture and the development of children's action: A theory of

human development. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
Valsiner, J. (2003). Culture and its transfer: Ways of creating general knowledge
through the study of cultural particulars. Retrieved from
http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1013&context=
orpc
Wertsch, J. V. (1998). Mind as action. New York, NY: Oxford University.

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Faculty of Applied Social Sciences

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Copyright © Open University Malaysia (OUM)

Module Writers: Dr Chavi Bhargava Sharma

Enhancer: Kelvin Chong

Moderator: Dr Wong Huey Siew

Developed by: Centre for Instructional Design and Technology

First Edition, April 2011

Copyright © Open University Malaysia (OUM)

Topic 1 Historical Background of Psychology 1

Topic 2 The Psychology of Consciousness 24

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Topic 3 The Psychology of the Unconscious Mind and the Psychology of

Topic 4 From Consciousness to Behaviour 74

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4.2 New Directions in Animal Psychology 88

Topic 6 Psychologists in Social Controversy 115

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Topic 7 Theories of Learning 132

Topic 8 Challenges to Behaviourism 156

Topic 9 Revolutions in Psychology 171

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9.2.2 Obstacles to Acceptance of Mentalism 179

Topic 10 Contemporary Psychology and the Rise of Cross-cultural

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Copyright © Open University Malaysia (OUM)

Copyright © Open University Malaysia (OUM)

COURSE GUIDE DESCRIPTION

The course is intended to introduce the history and philosophy of psychology.

As an open and distance learner, you should be acquainted with learning

Copyright © Open University Malaysia (OUM)

Table 1: Estimation of Time Accumulation of Study Hours

1." Describe the history of psychology;

2." Evaluate the major theoretical systems of psychology;

3." Discuss the philosophical issues in psychology;

4." Describe the major methodologies in psychology; and

5." Evaluate the need for cross-cultural psychology/indigenous psychology.

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Topic 1 gives an introduction of understanding psychology as a science and also

Topic 2 discusses Wilhelm Wundt's psychology, Edward B. Titchener's

Topic 3 examines Freud's psychoanalysis, Darwinism, William James

Topic 4 explains functional psychology, new directions in animal psychology and

Topic 5 explains the definitions, foundations, psychology and science of

Topic 6 describes intelligence testing, psychology in everyday life and work.

Topic 7 examines experimental analysis of behaviour, thinking, artificial

Topic 8 discusses humanistic psychology which includes a discussion on

Topic 10 explains contemporary psychology, cognitive science, challenges to

TEXT ARRANGEMENT GUIDE

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Self-Check: This component of the module is inserted at strategic locations

Activity: Like Self-Check, the Activity component is also placed at various

References: The References section is where a list of relevant and useful

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TAN SRI DR ABDULLAH SANUSI (TSDAS) DIGITAL

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Psychology is a quest, involving a curiosity to know and comprehend our own

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1.1 UNDERSTANDING PSYCHOLOGY

In the process, psychologists spend a considerable amount of time devising the

Psychology can be defined as a „scientific discipline‰. Psychology can also be

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Explain the meaning of psychology in your own words.

1.2 UNDERSTANDING PSYCHOLOGY AS A