Response 5

Tichener’s life presents some odd contradictions. He was clearly influential among his students (you know, none of you have offered to wash my car), and his control level over their lives was clearly high.

1. Is it a contradiction that Titchener supported women’s progress through graduate school and supported hiring them as faculty, and yet refused to allow them into meetings of the Experimentalists? How can one person be so clearly contradictory? I think that this is contradictory. How can he support women in some circumstances then when it comes to things that could involve their opinions he excludes them. A person’s bias can play the key role in viewing the powers that some people should have which has been exemplified through prejudice in the past.
2. How is the mechanistic spirit from philosophy evident in Titchener’s approach to introspection? It is evident in the images of the observers who supplied data in his labratories .
3. What does the failings of introspection teach us about doing good research today (see “Criticisms of Introspection,” pp. 136-138)? Good research involves the variables of obsevation, which involves someone observing a experiement on something that can be observable. Having a stucture and function of information allows the research to be more reliable and relevant.

Response 4

1.Ebbinhaus’ famous “Curve of Forgetting” is printed on page 110, and shows that most forgetting happens within about an hour of learning. This work is largely based on memorizing nonsense syllables such as “GUK,” “MER,” and “NIQ.” So, does the Curve of Forgetting represent the kind of forgetting that ordinarily happens to you, like when you forget your keys or an assignment? Why or why not? I think that for a fact this happens to me all the time. Sometimes when you are first learning something it is hard to concentrate and pay attention. Learning later on your own time is when we tend to learn more and remember more. 2. Now that you have read more about Wundt’s version of psychology, would you say his views are mechanistic in nature? Why do you think so? I think that Wundt’s version is more possibly than not a mechanistic approach. I think this is exemplified through his theory on mental processes and how they connect to one another. 3. Wundt’s version of psychology began to unravel pretty quickly, due to other theorists who were saying things like: The proper subject matter of psychology is mental activity; for example, the mental act of seeing rather than the study of mental content (F. Brentano) Psychology should examine the phenomena using introspection to study experience as it occurs. (C. Stumpf) Thinking can occur without any sensory or imaginal content. (O. Kulpe) Pick one of these three that resonate best with you as to why Wundt’s approach was limited. What about Brentano’s, Stumpf’s, or Kulpe’s counter-arguments to Wundt make him the most sensible to you? I think that Brentano has the best reason to the limitations to Wundt’s approach in psychology. I think that the counter arguments made by these two men were just to simply conflict with his theories, which were considered by many to be the only logical explanation for psychology.

Response 3

1. You can still find palm readers, but usually not phrenologists. Take a look at Daniel Robinson’s quote, on page 70: “. . . . Impact per se establishes nothing regarding the validity of adequacy of works.” In other words, because it’s popular doesn’t make it true. Can you think of any other examples, in psychology or the popular culture, of movements that have since died off, like phrenology, or ones that you suspect eventually will? I think that eventaully most past experimental studies due to new studies will soon be forgotten if not already. People are looking ahead for information which can be a punishing threat to information in the history of psychology.  2.Would there be a psychology today if Weber and Fechner had discovered a one-to-one correspondence between changes in the stimulus and changes in the sensation? Why or why not? (Careful with this one–it trips up a lot of students.) I think that there would still be a psychology today reguardless of their discovieries. Both of these men had their own ways of perceiving psychology, as well as the others who studied it and made the history.

Response 2

In your judgment, what aspects of philosophy hindered the development of psychology as a science?  I think that the major glitch in the limitations to developments in psychology was due to a mechanistic approach. Experiments were limited to certain subjects and until different theories were developed, everything was explained simply based on theories of different scientists.

You have had one or more courses in psychology. Are there any contemporary theories or approaches to psychology that you can think of that may be partially or wholly mechanistic in nature? (There’s a little more on the mechanistic spirit in ch. 3 on page 72.) I think that Physics could be the one thing that is a mechanistic approach to nature. Things such as Newton’s law of gravity were a new beggining in the way that things were perceived in space. T