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TASK 5: Experimental Psychology (The university reform in Germany German…

- - - - a) Psychophysical methods to study the connection between physical stimulus and their conscious states
      - b) Measurement of the duration of simple mental processes
      - c) Accuracy of reproduction in memory tasks
    - - Historical method = studying the human mind by investigating the products of human cultures (in time and space)  well suited to investigate the “higher” functions of the mind
      -  “Völkerpsychologie” (psychology of the people)
      - Because of this work Wundt is also sometimes considered as the founder of anthropology
  - - - functionalism = examining the practical functions of the human mind inspired by evolutionary theory
        
        • Defended introspection as the best available research method
        
        • Strongly influenced by evolutionary theory. Sought to outline the functions of the human mind for survival. As such, he was one of the fathers of functionalism.
        
        • Saw continuity between animal behaviour and human behaviour and, therefore, was receptive to comparative psychology.
    - - Structuralism = consists of trying to discover the structure of the human mind by means of introspection
        
        • Studied with Wundt
        
        • Promoted structurallism
        
        • Not very influential because of criticism from three sides
        
        • Defended introspection as the main research method thought participants had to be trained to do this properly was strongly influenced by empiricism and associationism
        
        Wurzburg school and Binet: humans are not aware of many thought processes and cannot report them, let alone dissect them
        
        Functionalists: not enough practical advantages in knowing the precise structure of the mind
        
        Gestalt psychology: humans are more than the sum of their individual sensations (e.g. in perception, interpretation is added to the stimulus)
  - - - theocratic stage: animistic/religious explanations of natural phenomena
      - metaphysical stage: theories based on philosophical systems (Psychology)
      - positivistic stage: theories based on empirical observation and verification
      - The first person to question this view was Théodule Ribot (1839-1916)
        
        o Professor at the Sorbonne in Paris
        
        o 1870: publishes the book English Contemporary Psychology
        
        that introspection was a reliable research method when it was combined with a more objective research method
    - - Hypnosis: Charcot became interested in it because he thought it was related to hysteria  symptoms from the latter very much resembled the behaviour that could be elicited from individuals under hypnosis
      - criticized for his ideas and physicians who already practiced hypnosis claimed that it’s not a disorder but a sleep-like state
      - Delboeuf was one of the first to stress demand characteristics after witnessing one of Charcot’s experiments who was announcing in front of the patients what was going to happen next
    - - worked as an assistant for Charcot but after all the negative reactions he distanced himself from that work and devoted his time to research
      - and with the change that primary education became compulsory in France 1882, there was the need for a measurement of intelligence to classify which children should get which type of education
        o Together with his student Théodore Simon he started to develop the first type of an intelligence test with norms for normally developing children (Binet-Simon Test)
        
        developing children can solve problems of increasingly difficulty
         Mental age was then compared with chronological age
  - - - o Neurologists: name used at the end of the 19thcentury by physicians who were interested in the treatment of milder forms of mental problems outside the asylum
      - psychological treatment (= consist of conversations between the patient and the therapist)  previous treatments: medial or educational
    - - According to Freud, hysterical symptoms were due to repressed sexual childhood experiences
        
         treatment: bringing the unconscious memories into the patient’s consciousness and freeing them from their emotional energy
        
         Psychoanalysis
        
        Freud’s research method
        
        Case study: intensive study of an individual patient within the context of his/her own world and relations, to understand and help the individual patient
        
        Introspection: patients talk about their thoughts, dreams and feelings
        
        o Freud: what the patients said was of little value because the patients did not have access to their own unconscious drives
        
        o Therapist should reinterpret the contents of the introspection according to psychoanalytic theory
        
        o Manifest vs. latent message in dream analysis
  - - - University of Oxford is the oldest in the UK and one of the oldest in the world
      - University of Cambridge
        
        James McKeen Cattell: first to try to establish psychology at Cambridge, after obtaining PhD in Wundt's lab. Sadly he failed
        
        William Rivers: made the second attempt in 1893 and was given a room in 1897 to start psychological research
        
        Charles Samuel Myers: took Rivers’ lab over in 1912
        
        William McDougall: was one of River’s students and left Oxford in 1920 and experimental psychology would be almost absent until 1935
      - 1826 the University College London (UCL) was founded (women, Jews, etc. were also able to get a diploma)  much more interested in natural sciences and the empirical study of the human mind
        
        Establishment of the Grote Chair (i.e. a professorship in psychology)
        
        James Sully: founded the first lab in the UK in UCL in 1898
        
        London has been the place where most modern statistical techniques were discovered
        o Pearson’s coefficient correlate