History of Psychology 2007

Lecture 9

Professor Gerald C. Cupchik

Office: S634

Email: cupchik@utsc.utoronto.ca

Office Hours: Wednesdays 1-2 pm

Thursdays 12-1 pm

T.A: Michelle Hilscher

Office: S150

Email: hilscher@utsc.utoronto.ca

Office Hours: Thursdays 11-12; 3-4 pm

Course Website: www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~cupchik

The Rise of American Psychology

Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911)

- Wealthy half-cousin of Darwin and was both a geographer and explorer (Africa).

- He was also interested in meteorology and produced the first weather maps of the British Isles.

- As a result of his extensive travel, his interests turned toward anthropology.

- He observed differences between (1) cultural groups and (2) people within a culture.

- His goal was to evaluate individual differences among people using precise measurements.

- This was the start of the field of psychometrics which is defined as the application of statistics to measure individual differences with reference to behavioural variables.

Beyond the special skills recognized by the faculty psychology of the times (music, math, athletic skills), Galton insisted on a primary general intellectual ability that he believed was inherited.

This implied that:

(1) behavioural and mental traits could be inherited and

(2) differences between individuals could be measured.

He offered the following proof for his argument:

He selected men of outstanding ability and looked at the frequency of success among their relatives.

i. 31% had illustrious fathers

ii. 48% had eminent sons

He concluded that outstanding ability is inherited.

Problem: Galton used a restricted sample. In Victorian Englandselection for professions depended on connections and this applied both to education and entry to key jobs.

Note that Galton did not include either women or successful businessmen from industry and commerce.

So: He over emphasized hereditary factors and under emphasized environmental factors.

Also, elementary education was only made compulsory in 1880 by the Liberal Party in England.

In 1884, at an International Health Exhibition in London, Galton introduced an Anthropometric Lab with equipment of his own invention where he started mental testing and collected individual difference data of diverse attributes:

1. Body measurement and muscular strength

2. Sensory capacities such as the ability to discriminate between different intervals of pitch

3. Reaction time

Galton’s Lab

Galton had a young American assistant, J.M. Cattell, who had studied with Wundt and he carried Galton’s work to the USA in 1888. Cattell carried out extensive pioneer work on mental tests and one of his pupils, E.L. Thorndike, was a major test developer. So Galton was the source of the American testing movement.

Summary of his contributions:

1. Correlations

2. Rating scales

3. Questionnaires

4. Use of the normal curve

5. Mental tests

COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Darwin had directed people’s attention to the problem of explaining animal behaviour (e.g., how do animals adjust to their environment?)

Descartes had viewed animals as complicated automatons. But, do animals have the capacities for learning new habits? Do they vary in intelligence? How do they compare with humans?

The British started the field of comparative psychology which considers animals in relation to humans.

Douglas Spalding (1840-1877)

1. He demonstrated instinctual behaviour in small chicks who reacted defensively by flying away and hiding upon first being shown a hawk. This innate fleeing response was independent of learning or imitation.

2. He also demonstrated imprinting. Very soon after emerging from the egg, chicks demonstrated a following response for objects or even humans.

G.J. Romanes (1849-1899)

He combined the experimental method with systematic theory. He regarded adjustment as dependent on the ability to discriminate and classify stimulus from the senses.

Lloyd Morgan (1852-1936)

He provided the classic cannon for research in animal behaviour.

“In no case can we interpret an action as the outcome of the higher faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower in the psychological scale.”

So careful observation either under (1) experimental circumstances or (2) in the field, were the only acceptable data. It is essential to avoid any form of anthropomorphism which is attributing human traits to animals.

He distinguished between innate and acquired behaviour.

He formally defined instincts which are an aspect of innate behaviour.

(1) Common to all members of a species

(2) Fairly uniform and repetitive in nature

(3) Made in response to a specific stimulus

(4) Have a clear connection with the anatomical structure and physiological functioning of the animal

Morgan disagreed with any implications of mysterious “inner powers” or unknown neural mechanisms.

He laid the foundation for later work on animal learning.

He used the terms:

(1) “trial and error” to describe how responses which do not achieve the end required are dropped from the sequence.

(2) “reinforcement” of successful modes of response through the pleasure-pain mechanism.

So:

(1) He introduced many of the ideas underlying behaviourism and

(2) used the word behaviour to indicate the main data of psychological research.

Darwin and his followers, through their observation of phenomena, emphasis on behaviour and openness to new ideas, had a strong influence on the development of psychology in the USA.

PSYCHOLOGY IN THE USA

The earliest teaching of psychology in the USA was undertaken by philosophers who adhered to the beliefs of the Scottish School and used the texts of Thomas Brown and Thomas Reid.

A distinctive tradition emerged in the USA which broke free from British Empiricism in theory and German experimentalism in method, resembling more closely Galton and Darwin.

American psychology dealt with the mind in use - a pragmatic and functional approach. By 1910, the earliest American psychology included: (1) experimental human, (2) experimental animal, and (3) mental tests, and they were becoming aware of Freud.

It may be noted that the first lab in Canada was established at the University of Toronto in 1890 by Alfred Baldwin.

Why did American psychology deviate from the German pattern? Many had travelled to Leipzig to learn from Wundt and were enthusiastic about the experimental method and laboratory techniques. But ultimately they evolved from a description of the generalized mind to the assessment of personal abilities in the successful adjustment of the individual to the environment.

The determining factor was the American adoption of ideas about evolution. But why then did the English lag behind the Americans? The answer is that America was ready for ideas about evolution because it was a pioneer country and the strong pioneer would be the only person able to survive. This stress on individualism pushed the philosophy of pragmatisim (do what works) and functionalism (what works, is!). From the perspective of pragmatism the validation of any knowledge must be in terms of its consequences, values and utility.

This represents a modern form of the sources of change present in the Renaissance.

(1) forces against hereditary right and for the recognition of personal achievement.

(2) forces against theological dogma and for scientific inquiry

(3) forces reinforced by the discovery of new land and wealth in the New World and Far East.

THE AMERICAN SCHOOL OF FUNCTIONALISM

What and why did the functionalist movement grow up in America? How was it replaced by behaviourism?

Definition: What is a functionalist psychology?

According to Woodworth (1948), “A psychology that attempts to give an accurate and systematic answer to the question “What do men do?” and “Why do they do it?”

More specifically, it is concerned with the function of an organism’s behaviour and consciousness in its adaptation to its environment. So a concern is displayed for the utility of consciousness and behaviour.

William James (1842-1910)

He was the father of American psychology. He was an intellectual force who demonstrated that there is a science of psychology and illustrated its scope and method. He came from a wealthy and gifted family. Henry James, the novelist, was his brother.

He set up a laboratory at Harvard University in 1875-76 and taught the relations of physiology and psychology.

Major contributions:

(1) He opposed the rigidity and narrowness of Wundt’s German experimentalism.

(2) He sketched out fruitful lines of development which pointed ahead to the two American movements of functionalism and behaviourism.

(3) He laid the foundation for individual psychology typical of personality and clinical psychology (as distinct from psychometrics).

(4) He made the biological sciences the main foundation and model for psychology.

William James’ Approach

Approached materials free from the straight jacket of sophisticated theories or questions based on technical jargon. He avoided structuring raw data in terms of hidden assumptions.

Wundt, for example, pressed his data into an elaborate framework constructed to conform to abstract and fashionable canons of “scientific method”.

James’ desire to view data as raw and unprocessed reflected the biological scientist’s insight that a natural history phase precedes a more sophisticated laboratory experiment phase in the development of life sciences.

As psychology was just beginning, James wanted simple description and classification of basic facts together with the definition of crucial problems. This attitude determined (1) the wide variety of data in his books and (2) his freedom from the philosophical theories behind British Empiricism and German experimentalism.

So James collected a wide variety of empirical data including experimental results, anthropology and clinical reports, physiological and zoological knowledge. This directed his thinking toward:

(1) defining the problems that arise directly from such interrelated data.

(2) showing what are the gaps in empirical evidence related to a specific problem and

(3) suggesting what sort of data are relevant toward filling them in

He always avoided unobservable operations or processes which cannot be even indirectly tested. He stuck close to his facts.

Discipline versus Problem Orientation.

He disposed of all fashionable theories about the nature of the “mind” as irrelevant to psychology and argued that “there is an unmediated correspondence between the succession of states in consciousness with the succession of total brain processes.” This affirmed the biological nature of psychology.

He studied the purpose of consciousness (its biological use). Conscious choice versus habit. Consciousness becomes involved when there is a new problem and a need for a new adjustment.

So, in sum, he treats psychology as a natural science concerned with the living organism as it strives to adjust to its environment.

Psychological functions are refinements of basic biological functions. Mental life is a biological function which enables man to adjust to the environment.

He distinguished:

(1) peripheral sensory system

(2) perceptual organization of sensory stimuli (afferent process)

(3) cognitive function as the refinement of perceptual organization

(4) movement, the afferent process, is a basis for the treatment of instinct, emotion and voluntary action.

Note also the ideomotor theory whereby sensory and ideational processes spontaneously express themselves in action unless inhibited.

Hugo Münsterberg (1863-1916)

He was a pupil of Wundt who strongly emphasized motor activity as against sensory processes… this is the forerunner of behaviourism.

He comments on the Wundtian approach: “A world of impressions and ideas exists in us entirely independently of our actions and, when they are complete and perfect, they send their message to some motor apparatus which carries out the order.”

He points out that “In every moment the motor situation decides the possibilities in the sensory sphere. Our ideas are a product of our realities of our readiness to act…”

He distinguished between scientific and humanistic psychology.

(1) scientific psychology stresses physiological processes and experiments(2) humanistic psychology is concerned with problems in which value judgments are unavoidable (e.g., mental health and norms about appropriate behaviour)

Münsterberg was a pioneer in applied psychology who distinguished between:

(1) experimental or statistical study of basic problems arising from practical affairs

(2) the application to practical activities or methods and techniques developed in psychology (selection of personnel, vocational guidance, psychotherapy).

He initiated the study of the effects of advertising on purchasing habits, personnel skills tests, efficiency in industrial work, criminology.

He also wrote popular articles in weeklies and magazines dealing with psychology.

THE CENTRE OF FUNCTIONALISM: THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO - 1892

John Dewey (1859 - 1952)He was a leading philosopher who did not intend to but in fact founded the school of functionalism.

It was:(1) a reaction against Titchener’s Structuralism and(2) clarified early tendencies of James and others.

He wrote an article in Psych. Review (1897) called The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology

He argued against breaking down activity into parts or elements which are then interrelated. Rather, activity is continuous so that stimulus and response or sensation and movement are artificial units.

These concepts merely show that different phases in a continuous process serve different functions. In fact, the process taken as a whole can only be defined in terms of its final result or function which the activity achieves.

Why distinguish between “sensation” and “movement” since one has visual sensations only as a result of “looking at” or discriminating part of the environment.

The stimulus - response relation is a hold over of the mind - body dualism. The stimulus can be related to the perceiving mind while the response is associating with an acting body.

In addition, responses or behaviour must be considered in context (e.g., gun fire associated either with (1) sentry duty or (2) the start of a race.

How a stimulus affects ongoing activity depends on the context.

1. We must think about the S-R sequence in terms of the consequences of the response for the needs and adaptation of the organism. So we see behaviour from the point of view of function and this is the start of the Chicago School.

2. Molar units of analysis should be used to prevent too much elementaristic analysis (this is similar to the basic assumptions of Gestalt psychology).

J. R. Angell (1869-1949)

He studied with James and Wundt and disagreed with their approach to psychology. Functionalism deals with the basic operations rather than the abstracted “contents” of consciousness.

One should ask about:(1) what an operation accomplishes rather than about the mental elements and(2) under what conditions.

The function continues but the specific contents of consciousness change.

So functionalism studies the total relation of the organism to the environment including all mind-body functions including unconscious behaviour.

The functionalist emphasis on the study of the utility of actions in their total context led to attempts to study practical problems (e.g., education)

It also encouraged flexibility in the design of lab experiments during simple problem solving.

The experimenter observes whether the subject succeeded or failed in the task along with what variables facilitated or inhibited success. Subjects were also encouraged to think aloud while solving the puzzles. As a consequence of this strategy, the Americans were less rigorous but more interesting than the Germans.

The functionalists adopted a more inductive viewpoint than the Germans by emphasizing empirical findings over theoretical constructs.

In conclusion: We observe a shift from the study and analysis of perceptual data toward the study of actions and their effects on the subjects’ relations to their environment.

(1) adaptive acts(2) empirically demonstrated functional relations

Each act must be explained in terms of the immediate situation and the animal’s organization with reference to it.