History and Systems of Psychology – PSY502 VU
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:
•Experimentation:
Experimentation was the most important mode of scientific investigation which according to
Wundt was the need of hour for psychology to develop. Psychologists therefore, needed to conduct
experiments which revealed the true nature of consciousness. In this regard, Pavlov was known for
his experiments that he conducted on dogs to discover the process of learning.
•Introspection:
Although Wundt believed that psychologists should adopt a scientific outlook, he did not reject
introspection as a method of gaining knowledge, because he regarded introspection as a mean of
looking into and understanding the structure of consciousness.
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