Gestalt Psychology

Strong interest in animals’ abilities in late 1800s
- Influenced by Darwin
Clever Hans
- Owned by Herr von Osten
- Add, subtract, multiply, and tell time
- Answered questions by tapping hoof
Researchers
- Possibly provide subtle cues to participants
  - Humans or animals

German word for “whole” “shape” and “form”
Stressed perceptual organization
- Small items grouped into larger units
Stressed molar approach
- Goal-directed behavior
Interested in many fields
- Perception
- Learning
- Child Development
- Social Psychology

Studied under Carl Stumpf
Phi Phenomenon
- Movement of still, but changing objects
- Only understood as whole
Gestalt Psych…
- Perception > Sum of sensations
- Pattern perception
Structuralism…
- Perception → Sum of sensations
Perception is active and organized
Gestalt Grouping Laws
- Explains how parts are organized together
5 Gestalt Grouping Laws
- Similarity
  - Similar things are grouped together
  - Can occur by shape, size, and orientation
  - Vertical columns of dots
  - Stimuli
    - Physically close to each other grouped together
- Proximity
- Closure
  - Tendency to fill-in or complete missing parts
  - Create perceptual whole
- Familiarity
  - Smaller stimuli form groups if stimuli are meaningful
  - Faces → Meaningful
    - Rocks and trees form faces
- Common Fate
  - Stimuli moving in same direction group together

Studied under Carl Stumpf
Appointed to lab in Canary Islands
- Study problem-solving abilities in chimpanzees
- Stayed longer due to WWI
Investigated insight learning
Comparing types of learning:
- Edward Thorndike
  - Learning → trial-and-error process
    - Dependent on reward and punishment
  - Animals performed mechanically and didn’t reason
- Wolfgang Kohler
  - Animals might reason
  - Thorndike no tools for reasoning
  - Allowed animals to see all patterns of problems
Chimp Experiments
- 4 Characteristics
  - Animals saw al parts of problem
  - Performed in animals’ homes
    - Felt comfortable
    - Show intelligent behavior
  - Tested animals in group
    - Observation learning
  - Results reported descriptively
    - Better approach than using statistics
Insight learning
- Intelligent behavior that leads to a goal
- Aha! Experience
  - Learning happens at once
  - Trial-and-error learning
    - Slow and gradual
- Doesn’t depend on rewards
  - Solve problem before reward
- Answer generalizes to other problems
Kohler’s Transposition Task
- Pigeons reinforced after pecking 3-cm circle

Studied under Carl Stumpf
Fluent in English and introduced Gestalt psychology to UK and USA
Applied Gestalt psych to development psych
- Behaviorist view: Experiences lead to learning
- Gestalt view: Gestalt principles
  - Guides how child interacts with world

Student of Koffka
Researched how Rorschach inkblots diagnose mental disorders
After WWII, nazis had pathological personalities
- Administered tests to Nazis, with no evidence of pathology
Social situations lead to atrocities

Student of Stumpf
Found of experimental social psychology
Mentored future social psychologists like Bluma Zeigarnik
3 main areas
- Field theory
  - Behavior determined by interaction
    - Personality traits
    - Environment
  - Life space
    - All forces acting on individual personality traits, motivations, environment
  - Different people, different life spaces
  - Civilians may see shady paths as good spots of picnics, but soldiers may see it as an ambush
- Action Research
- Group dynamics
Action Research
- Goal was to see how to enact social change
- WWII had a meat shortage
- Educated housewives o how to conserve meat
- 3 Steps to affect social change
  - Unfreeze behaviors
    - Educate people on importance of changing behaviors
  - Introduce new behaviors
  - Refreeze new behaviors
    - Reinforce behaviors until they become inhabitual
- Studied leadership style
  - Students designed masks
    - Group 1:
      - Researcher was democratic
      - Provided more students choices and answered questions when asked
      - Students had more cooperation
    - Group 2
      - Researcher was authoritarian
      - Gave specific instructions and criticized
      - Students had higher levels of aggression and scapegoating
Group Dynamics
- Prejudice didn’t affect sales at a store
  - Preferred stores with knowledgable clerks

Studied under Kurt Lewin
Studied memory for complete and uncompleted tasks
Zeignarnik Effecto
- Waiters remember details about table if unpaid bill
- Unpaid bill lacked closure and created tension
- Paid bill provided closure and decreased tension and erased memory

1920s
- Gestalt Psych became a major school of psych
- Germany devastated by WWI
After WWI
- Nazis came to power
- Dismissed Jewish professors
Gestalt psychologists emigrated to USA