1

Gestalt Psychology Reflection

Matthew Weitz

PSY 310

October 25, 2015

Shannon Kelly

2

Gestalt Psychology Reflection

Gestalt psychology was primarily founded by three people. The original founders include

Wolfgang Köhler, Max Wertheimer, and Kurt Koffka. Gestalt psychology foundations are

memory, learning and perception. The principles are isomorphism, reproductive thinking and

isomorphism. Gestalt meaning is a psychology term meaning “unified whole” and it is reference

to theories of visual perception. Gestalt is used in modern German to mean the way a thing has

been gestellt or “put together.” ("Kurt Koffka", 2014).

While Max Wertheimer was in law school at the University of Prague he found that he

was more interested in the field of Philosophy and Psychology so he changed his major. Along

with other founders he had a hand in beginning “the Journal of Psychological Research, which

became the official publication of the Gestalt Psychology School of Thought.” (Schultz &

Schultz, 2012, p. 267). In 1910 while riding a train the idea of apparent movement came to him.

He noticed the poles and far away houses seemed to be moving with the train. Apparent

movement explains how you see movement when there is no movement taking place. His

research was done after he left the train and went and purchased a toy stroboscope.

Wolfgang Kohler, another scholar and founder of Gestalt psychology, had a passion for

the study of chimpanzees. However, after many years of research on animals, he seemed to lose

interest in the research of animals. He then turned to writing and authored “Mentality of Apes”

which became a renowned book. Then in 1920, Kohler “published a book titled “Static and

Stationary Physical Gestalts” (1920), a book that won considerable praise for its high level of

scholarship. Kohler suggested that Gestalt theory was a general law of nature that should be

extended to all of the sciences.” (Schultz & Schultz, 2012, p. 267)

3

Kurt Koffka, another founder and perhaps the most ingenious when it came to Gestalt

psychology, became a writer and wrote a book about the development of children in psychology.

This book became successful in Germany and here in the United States. The book is titled “The

Growth of the Mind.” Together with Wolfgang Kohler and Max Wertheimer, Koffka set the

foundation for Gestalt psychology. They used the German word gestalt to describe their holistic

approach to human experience. ("Kurt Koffka", 2014).

The Principles of Perceptual Organization is how we perceive wholes and not clusters of

sensations, the elements interact to create a new whole which is the whole is different from the

sum of its parts.  "There are wholes the behavior of which is not determined by that of their

individual elements, but where the part-processes are themselves determined by the intrinsic

nature of the whole”. “It is the hope of Gestalt theory to determine the nature of such wholes",

("What Is Gestalt Psychology?", 2015)

Gestalt principles of Perceptual Organization are Proximity, Continuity, Similarity,

Closure, Figure/ground and Simplicity. An example of Proximity would be watching a movie or

motions and the movie is a rapid succession of just still images which is a seamless visual

experience. An example of Continuity would be me watching my nephew growing up and how

his behavior seems to change gradually that sometimes I hardly even notice. An example of

Similarity is when I hear different music from the cars that are waiting beside me, and I can pick

out a certain artist of that song. An example of Closure is a sign that half is broken on the right

side, and see it as a whole circle or stop sign. An example of Figure-Ground is me walking on

my leaves in my yard and thinking that there is a snake under those leaves, since my neighbor

and seen one under hers. Since I love music a example of Simplicity would be a Ballad or even

poetry, either of the two represents simplicity.

4

The contributions of Gestalt Psychology would be that it has had a permanent impact on

psychology, with the influenced of perception, thinking, learning, personality, motivation and

social psychology. It also was ground breaking for the field of cognitive movement, and also

fostered the interest in consciousness as the legitimate problem for psychology.

References

5

Schultz, D., & Schultz, S. (2012). A History of Modern Psychology (10th ed.). Belmont, CA:

Cengage.

Kurt Koffka. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Kurt_Koffka

What is Gestalt Psychology?. (2015.). Retrieved from

http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesmz/p/max-wertheimer.htm

6

7

8