January 12th,
2000
Greek philosophers dealt with psychological ideas. They evaluated ideas by whether or not they sounded good. The problem is that great ideas are hard to distinguish from bad ones.
Ex. Palmistry – can make it sound good if you try.
Psychology failed to make advances, or gain the respect, that other sciences attained (late 1800s).
So, psychologists emulated other sciences à badly. The approach was called Structuralism. The method was: trained introspectionism. Wanted to break thought into basic elements à as a result, would have a science of thought (psychology).
This was analogous to what chemists might do.
Ex. Theory might be that when you see green, you really see blue and yellow and combine the two in your head to create the experience of green.
Scientists would ask subjects to stare at a green object and tell what their basic thoughts are. The would use grads -> they tend to be more suggestible (i.e., they want to get their degree) and understand what is wanted. Grads would be around for a while and give the faculty what they wanted (i.e., in line with their theory).
Obviously, there are lots of problems with this approach. Whatever the theory is à it is supported by subjects. Different, even competing, theories, get supporting data.
Structuralism’s failure continued to make it hard to distinguish good psychology from bad ideas.
This led to the emergence of Gestalt psychology in Europe.
Basic idea: whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Rejects the notion that sub-thoughts matter. Total experience is what matters.
The approach was Phenomenological: perception/experience of the person is what matters.
Ex. So, if you see green, that is what matters…. The individual total experience of seeing green, not how it is combined in the head.
There was a different approach in the US at this time: Behaviorism (a la Watson, around 1912-1918).
Behaviorism denied the importance of the mind. Thoughts don’t matter!!
Watson: “People don’t have thoughts, they only think they have thoughts”.
Behaviorism was:
(1) Anti-mentalistic: more or less the opposite of phenomenological.
(2) The emphasis was on objective stimuli and responses. We can’t get at what’s in the head. What do we see? *What happens and *what occurs.
Behaviorism drove out all other viewpoints, except à Social Psychology (although, it wasn’t well respected). Why did it make it while other approaches to psych didn’t?
· predicting complex human behavior is not as easy as predicting rat behavior
· While behaviorists felt that social psychologists didn’t “get it”, they brought in money to universities because people were interested in and wanted to take social classes.
Behaviorism ruled for over 40 years until challenged by:
1.
WWII
a. Gestalt psychologists fled Europe for the US
b. Psychologists got drafted – they had special skills. Military/govt. wanted to know: “Who is leadership material? How can we keep radar operators awake? What caused the rise of Nazism? What kinds of propaganda should we drop?” Psychologists given a choice; help us out and no fighting. Otherwise, off to the front it is with you. After the war, these psychologists no longer had the behaviorist orientation.
2. Development
of the computer
a. Provided a metaphor for studying the mind. What happens between input and output? Gave us a way for looking into the ‘black box”.
b. Information Processing Approach: treat human mind as if it is a computer.
c. Computer gave social psychologists new toys for research. Now their labs were cool too.
3. Influential
book review
a. BF Skinner writes book applying S-R to language. This was supposed to appease Social psychologists because language is the most complex mental process and if behaviorism could explain it, then so be it.
b. Noam Chomsky gives the book a scathing review. People reached the conclusion that behaviorism just didn’t cut the mustard when it came to explaining complex human behavior.
The study of complex social behavior blossomed and “mindful” Gestalt approach blended will with the emerging science of thought and judgment called Cognitive psychology.
Why Lewin was important:
Although his field theory was based on a strange solar system metaphor (Life Space), he did emphasize some very important principles.
Lewin said that perceptions matter more than objective stimuli. After all, it is how we see our world that dictates how we behave in it. Lewin gave us the formula: B = f (P, E); where B is behavior, P is the person (their character and perceptions), E is the environment (situational and social factors).
See Figure 1.1 in book for how it all works together.