Updated: July 24, 2002

Fall 2000

WEEK EIGHT ASSIGNMENTS FOR EVERYONE

PLEASE NOTE STUDENTS ARE EXPECTED TO READ THE CHAPTERS BEFORE CLASS DISCUSSION AND BRING THEIR WRITTEN RESPONSES TO THE CLASS DISCUSSION DURING WEEK 8 (OCT.14 -. 18)

8.1 Please read Brennan, Chapters 11 and 12 prior to class. Submit your answers to the following questions and be prepared to discuss these questions on Monday, October 13th. (two to three pages)

a. What social conditions in Germany led to the emergence of modern psychology in Germany? Describe the diverse ideas supporting modern German psychology.
b. Trace the similarities and differences between the structuralist's and functionalist's view of psychology.
c. Identify and describe five foreshadows of mainstream American psychology in the functionalist, structuralist and Bretano's Act Psychology. Why was functionalism short lived in America and how is behaviorism tied to this era?
d. Can you trace any functional or structural psychological influences in your personal life map? Describe and detail!

8.2 Service Learning Project Reflections

8.3 Begin discussion about final course project

SOME CLASS NOTES ON FUNCTIONALISM OF WUNDT

1. Poor at math because his tutor was a minister who helped out Wundt's sick father. His poor math became a problem late in life. He studied it later. One of his teachers encouraged him to become a rural mailman.
2. He had a tendency to daydream a lot through his early life. At an early life, when learning how to read, he fanaticized how to write a book about religion.
3. He tended to move from one subject to another. He knew he did not want to be a minister like his father or a teacher (he never liked them)…he had several false starts in high-school but for one reason or another he could not complete his schedule. His inability to settle down with one topic followed him throughout his life after graduation. He had several false starts as a profession and was not paid much.
4. William James said Wundt was hard to take seriously because Wundt wanted to be an expert in everything. He referred to Wundt as ".. a Napoleon without genius and with no central idea which if defeated brings down the whole fabric in ruin…" "while his confreres make mincemeat of someone of his views by their criticism, he is meanwhile writing a book on an entirely different subject." Wundt P.42
5. Due to Wundt's inability to develop a central thesis, his work is spread throughout the work of Freud. He was the first to integrate Darwin's theory into psychology.
6. Introduced the law of the logical evolution of the soul" --- believed he could penetrate the barriers of unconscious mental life to uncover the origins of psychic constructions and the particular principles of their development.

James and Wundt 1879

1. Common themes -Both agreed older psychologies were closed systems in that they already had all the answers. Many of the old answers were built on philosophy and logic, mechanics and biology.
2. Wundt's objection was the intellectualism of th eold school, they broke down all the mind parts into cognitive processes (this later became part of the congnitive psychology.
3. James - the interests of the individual became important -Wundt - the affective component of experience became important.

FOUNDING PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology was founded three times:

1. Psychology of consciousness - introspective study of the mind. Derived from the traditional philosophical psychology and made it more rigorous by applying scientific principles. Wundt stands at the head of this tradition.

Wundt and others Least durable of the psychologies. Wundt institutionalized psychology through his work at the German Universities.

Napolean's victory led to the creation of the research university. Berlin University became on of the world's leading university where many American psychologists studied with Wundt and others.

Wundt viewed the Americans and English as part of the Gesellschaft -the whole existence of man on earth as a sum of commercial transactions which everyone makes as favorable as possible for himself. Wundt excoriated them for being egotistical and materialistic. The GERMAN WAS SEEN AS SACRIFICE AND SERVICE TO A GREATER WHOLE. German intellectuals never supported WW1 1933 Hitler reunited the country.

Wundt founded psychology as a science within philosophy. He was torn between the atomistic view of consciousness and the wholistic vision of the universe. He argued consciousness was composed of elements but they were unified into larger wholes by the synthesizing power of the human will. At the machines took over it became more difficult to reconcile science and humanistic values.

The Gestaltists attempted to find in nature, in the brain and in consciousness organized wholes.

Wundt was the founder of institutional psychology. His ideas were not orginal - his innovations were social rather than intellectual.

The original definition of psychology was the study of the soul. When psychology and natural science tried to work together it was impossible to study the science of the soul. The soul was substituted by the study of the nervous system as the basis of all mentality and by making psychology the study of conscious events - we could study this framework. Physiological psychology laid the network for reductionistic thinking.

James saw Wundt as wanting to be a Napolean of the mind, with no central idea or genius which if defeated brings down the whole fabric in ruins. Cut him up like a worm and it continues to live.

2.The psychology of the unconscious - Freud introduced mankind to the dark side of the mind. This offended some and inspired others. It seems to complement Wundt's consciousness model.

3 . Psychology of Adaptation - William James Psychology of Adaptation does not see the problem of psychology to be philosophically motivated dissection of the consciousness or the exploration of unconsciousness. It began as an introspective study of the mind but moved on to study the activity itself, behavior.