PSYCH 240 LECTURE 2 (STERNBERG)

Structuralism: William Wundt

• Introspective subjective to be trained to analyze sensory experiences

• Put focus on immediate and direct, as opposed to mediated (interpreted), conscious experience.

• Focused on elementary sensations

Structuralism: Edward Titchener

• believed that all consciousness can be reduced to three elementary states:

• 1. sensations-the basic elements of perception;

• 2. images-the pictures we form in our minds

  to characterize what we perceive;

• 3. affections-the constituents of

  emotions such as love and hate.

• overtime, functionalists say that structuralists had proposed too many sensations.

Structuralism: Functionalism

• The Question: What do people do, and why do they do it

• (1) the study of mental processes

• (2) the study of the uses of consciousness

• (3) the study of the total relationship of the organism to its environment.

  
  

• Viewed humans as more actively engaged in their sensations vs passively in structuralism thought

• Open to diverse methodologies to solve researcher’s questions

Structuralism:

Understand the structure of the mind by analyzing the mind’s respective components/contents

Pragmatism: John Dewey

• To learn effectively, through picking which problems to tackle to see a point in education + its practical use (uncommon idea to have at time) of it

• Do so by experimenting and not just taking an answer for an answer

• motivation in education is when they have inspiration to learn

Pragmatism: William James

• Function of consciousness helped people adapt to environment + choices on how to operate within that environment

Pragmatism:

• concerned not only with knowing what people do, but also with what we can do with our knowledge of what people do

Behaviorism: Watson

• psychology should only be abt behavior

• Watson focused on animal subjects because he can better control their behaviors and to establish stimulus-response relationships

• argued environment alone can shape any individual regardless of innate talent.

Behaviorism: Skinner

• applied operant reward/punishment principles to all human behavior, language, and society

• environment controls behavior, the setting in which a person is raised determines what he or she should do.

Behaviorism

Rejection of unobservable internal thoughts in favor of strictly observable stimulus-response behavior

Gestalt Psychology

• Gestalt psychology argues that mental events are understood best as organized, unified wholes rather than collections of isolated parts.

• Psychologists analyze holistic structures while simultaneously breaking down the precise mental mechanisms and cognitive processes that create those whole experiences.