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The objectives of this course are to introduce the developmental history of the subject of psychology, to prepare students to appreciate and use more advanced materials of psychology and to provide the basic and the most modern knowledge related to psychology. This lecture includes: Structuralists, Psychology, Experimentation, Introspection, Consciousness, Ideas, Feelings, Pleasant, Relaxed, Calm
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Lesson 14 STRUCTURALIST SCHOOL OF PSYCHOLOGY Before the arrival of the Structuralists, psychology was already being considered as the study of consciousness. This meant that the entire scope of psychology encompasses the study of man’s consciousness. The distinguishing feature of the Structuralists was that they added further to the definition of psychology being the study of consciousness; psychology to them was concerned with the study of the structure of consciousness. Therefore, Structuralists are philosophers/psychologist who defined psychology as the study of consciousness. Further, Structuralists also tried to solve the enigma of a definition of consciousness. It was imperative to give a definition of consciousness in order to substantiate the view point of psychology being the study of structure of consciousness. Therefore, Structuralists put forward the view that consciousness has a definite structure and it can be defined in terms of its structure. The concept of definite structure was given by this school named Structuralists. The structuralist school has many followers, but two of the very important names who belong to the Structuralist school of thought are Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Bradford Titchner. Wilhelm Wundt Wilhelm Wundt was born in 1832 and died in 1920. Thinking of man evolved with the passage of time as his surroundings change. Earth shaking events like the industrial revolution had caused man to shift towards empiricism. As a result of the work of Russians, Sechenov and Pavlov on discovering laws of learning by conditioning, through experimentation; the contributions of Darwin discovering the relationship between psychology and physical sciences; and Fechner discovering physical ways to measure psychological experiences, psychology was defined as the study of consciousness. Psychology had finally ceased to be a merely speculative science and was gradually becoming an experimental science based on facts and logical conclusions which were drawn through carefully conducted experiments and profound observations. But most of the credit goes to Wilhelm Wundt who recognized that psychologists must adopt a scientific outlook and adopt experimentation as the methodology, if psychology is to expand and flourish. As mentioned earlier, by this time, events like the French revolution and the Industrial revolution had changed the outlook of man. Man had become more logical in his approach and tried to find reasons for everything. Therefore, based on these grounds, Wundt based his proposition that since speculation could not be the mode of scientific investigation any more; therefore, psychology also has to adopt the new mode of investigation if it has to be become a science. Wilhelm Wundt is known for establishing the first psychology laboratory at Leipzig, Germany, in the year 1875. This was one of the greatest leaps in the transition of speculative outlook to the scientific outlook, facilitated by Wundt. Wundt defined psychology as the study of consciousness. He further argued, that if consciousness exist, which actually does, then it must have a structure. To elaborate his viewpoint further, he went on to explain the structure of consciousness. According to him, consciousness could be studied by three things:
This means that Titchner explained what consciousness is actually composed of. He then went on to elaborate the contents of consciousness.
The second contribution of Titchner is that he described the combination of contents of consciousness which means that, which contents get together to result in an activity.
The third contribution of Titchner is that he explained the connection between the contents of consciousness which means that consciousness is a product of contents being related with each other and working together. Unlike Wundt, who gave three methods to study consciousness, the subject matter of psychology, Titchner argued that since the only way psychology could be studied was introspection which he defined as systematic and controlled self observation. This is where he carried forward the view of his teacher, although he did not emphatically propose experimentation as the way of understanding consciousness. Titchner went on to say that introspection is a