The Start of Modern PsychologyOn this page, you will find information regarding the start of the scientific field of modern psychology. You will become acquainted with psychologists Wilhelm Wundt and William James and with the psychological approaches of Structuralism and Functionalism. Essential questions:
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- Structuralism
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)
For a long time, questions of human motivation and behavior were considered a part of philosophy. Philosophers asked many of the questions that underlie psychological study today--particularly, the debate over whether behavior and personality are shaped more by nature or nurture goes all the way back to the Greeks. But philosophers didn't go about answering these questions in systematic or scientific ways. Their theories couldn't be proven right or wrong because they were based only on casual observation.
Psychology really got going as a discipline when two men decided to take the principles of scientific research and apply them to the study of human behavior. Wilhelm Wundt was a German scientist who took a structuralist approach to psychology. William James was an American who took a functionalist approach. We'll take a closer look at both men and their approaches in order to more thoroughly understand psychology's foundation as a science.
Wilhelm Wundt's laboratory for psychological research, founded in 1879, in Leipzig, Germany, was the first of its kind anywhere in the world. Thus, he quickly earned the title as the "Father of Psychology." In his lab, he conducted research using his "structuralist" approach, which sought to identify the building blocks of all psychological experiences. Other sciences had been broken down in this way before; chemistry had its periodic table of elements, and physics had its fundamental laws. Wundt sought to do the same for psychology, establishing a series of fundamental relations (or structures) that could be used to explain all behavior.
Wundt and colleagues, like student Edward Titchener, used a method called introspection to learn what was going through people's heads as they completed various tasks. Wundt was especially interested in how people processed sensory stimuli, and he was the first to draw a distinction between sensation (a stimulus' effect on one of our senses) and perception (our brain's interpretation of the stimulus). He discovered this by realizing that when he asked people to listen to a sound and respond as soon as they heard it, they were much faster than when they had to also say what sound they heard. The processing and categorizing of sound took longer than the hearing of it, indicating that perception is a process that is separate but related to sensation. This is a fundamental concept for psychology that Wundt was able to discover through subjects' introspection.
The problem with introspection is that people's descriptions of their own feelings and reactions are often wrong. Let's say a psychologist like Wundt was trying to figure out the softest sound a person could hear. First, he would play a sound and then ask if they could hear it, relying on their introspection to determine how good their hearing was. But if they expected to hear a sound, they might think that they heard one, even if they didn't -- and Wundt would conclude that humans can hear much softer sounds than they actually can. People are inaccurate about all sorts of things; even our memories are full of inaccuracies and exaggerations. So, while introspection was valuable as an attempt to apply a scientific method to studies of the mind, some of its results suffered from our inability to accurately report our thoughts and feelings.
Psychology really got going as a discipline when two men decided to take the principles of scientific research and apply them to the study of human behavior. Wilhelm Wundt was a German scientist who took a structuralist approach to psychology. William James was an American who took a functionalist approach. We'll take a closer look at both men and their approaches in order to more thoroughly understand psychology's foundation as a science.
Wilhelm Wundt's laboratory for psychological research, founded in 1879, in Leipzig, Germany, was the first of its kind anywhere in the world. Thus, he quickly earned the title as the "Father of Psychology." In his lab, he conducted research using his "structuralist" approach, which sought to identify the building blocks of all psychological experiences. Other sciences had been broken down in this way before; chemistry had its periodic table of elements, and physics had its fundamental laws. Wundt sought to do the same for psychology, establishing a series of fundamental relations (or structures) that could be used to explain all behavior.
Wundt and colleagues, like student Edward Titchener, used a method called introspection to learn what was going through people's heads as they completed various tasks. Wundt was especially interested in how people processed sensory stimuli, and he was the first to draw a distinction between sensation (a stimulus' effect on one of our senses) and perception (our brain's interpretation of the stimulus). He discovered this by realizing that when he asked people to listen to a sound and respond as soon as they heard it, they were much faster than when they had to also say what sound they heard. The processing and categorizing of sound took longer than the hearing of it, indicating that perception is a process that is separate but related to sensation. This is a fundamental concept for psychology that Wundt was able to discover through subjects' introspection.
The problem with introspection is that people's descriptions of their own feelings and reactions are often wrong. Let's say a psychologist like Wundt was trying to figure out the softest sound a person could hear. First, he would play a sound and then ask if they could hear it, relying on their introspection to determine how good their hearing was. But if they expected to hear a sound, they might think that they heard one, even if they didn't -- and Wundt would conclude that humans can hear much softer sounds than they actually can. People are inaccurate about all sorts of things; even our memories are full of inaccuracies and exaggerations. So, while introspection was valuable as an attempt to apply a scientific method to studies of the mind, some of its results suffered from our inability to accurately report our thoughts and feelings.
Functonalism
William James (1842-1910)
At Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, in the late 1880's, William James was busy building the first psychology lab in the United States and working out a functionalist approach to solve some of the previously mentioned problems with structuralism. For his efforts, he became known as the "Father of American Psychology."
James thought that Wundt's method of trying to understand complex mental processes by subjects' self-reports was ultimately futile. The method of measuring would always change what psychologists were trying to measure. James, heavily influenced by Charles Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection, preferred instead to question why we behave the way we do. He wanted to understand behavior in terms of its function in our lives; how it helps us or hurts us and why certain behaviors are more common than others. As Darwin answered questions about physical features - like which advantages humans gained by evolving to stand upright - James answered questions about behavioral features - like why humans experience jealousy.
James' functionalism gave rise to the modern field of evolutionary psychology. This branch looks at various behavioral and personality traits in terms of how they improve fitness. Evolutionary fitness refers to the likelihood of passing on genetic material to the next generation--a person's likelihood of having lots of children. A man who acts jealously is more likely to worry about protecting his wife from the advances of other men and therefore has a better chance of ensuring that all the children she has are actually his. His jealousy improves his fitness because preventing his wife from having other men's babies allows him to have more with her.
Quick Review
James thought that Wundt's method of trying to understand complex mental processes by subjects' self-reports was ultimately futile. The method of measuring would always change what psychologists were trying to measure. James, heavily influenced by Charles Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection, preferred instead to question why we behave the way we do. He wanted to understand behavior in terms of its function in our lives; how it helps us or hurts us and why certain behaviors are more common than others. As Darwin answered questions about physical features - like which advantages humans gained by evolving to stand upright - James answered questions about behavioral features - like why humans experience jealousy.
James' functionalism gave rise to the modern field of evolutionary psychology. This branch looks at various behavioral and personality traits in terms of how they improve fitness. Evolutionary fitness refers to the likelihood of passing on genetic material to the next generation--a person's likelihood of having lots of children. A man who acts jealously is more likely to worry about protecting his wife from the advances of other men and therefore has a better chance of ensuring that all the children she has are actually his. His jealousy improves his fitness because preventing his wife from having other men's babies allows him to have more with her.
Quick Review
- Wilhelm Wundt and William James were some of the first psychologists to study the mind scientifically.
- Wundt founded the first psychology lab to carry out his structuralist experiments.
- Structuralism relied mainly on introspection, which William James objected to because it was too subjective.
- James' functionalism sought instead to explain behavior in evolutionary terms, to understand why certain behaviors were helpful to survival and evolutionary fitness and others were not.