This presentation gives an insight about structuralism and contribution of Wilhelm Wundt in the field of psychology

1. Made By
SIMRAT

2. •Introduction
•Aims and Goals
•Wilhelm Wundt
Introduction
Life
Publications
Contributions
State of Conscious Experience
Immediate and Mediate Experience
Introspection
Elements of Conscious Experience
Organizing the elements of Conscious Experience
Criticism
•References

3. FIRST SCHOOL OF THOUGHT IN PSYCHOLOGY
 Emerged in around 19th century
 Referred to as Introspective Psychology
 It remained in the only form of psychology for about 2 decades
in Germany
 Two Prominent Names in this school of thought are
Wilhelm Wundt(The Founder)
Edward B. Titchener(The Developer)
 It is defined as psychology as the study of the elements of
consciousness.
 It involved breaking down and analyzing the mind into the
smallest possible parts.

4. Structuralism is considered as a theory of consciousness which
was suggested by Wilhelm Wundt and developed by his student
Edward Titchener.
Structuralism is also considered as a school of psychology which
seeks to analyze the components of an adult mind. It seeks to
analyze the simplest thoughts of a mind that bring about the more
complex experience that we go through in our day to day life.
The idea is that conscious experience can be broken down into
basic conscious elements, just like any physical phenomenon can
viewed as consisting of chemical structure.

5. Psychology was considered to be a kind of chemistry of
Consciousness.
The primary task of the psychologists was to discover the
nature of elementary conscious experiences and their
relationships with each other.
Method used to study these conscious experiences–
INTROSPECTION
 Purpose --- The Introspective Analysis of Human Mind
 AIM OR STUDY MATTER– TO ANALYSE CONSCIOUSNESS INTO
ITS COMPONENT PARTS AND THUS DETERMINE ITS STRUCTURE

6. •Wundt was a self-conscious
systematizer
• Referred to as Father of The New
Experimental Psychology
•Established the first formal Lab of
Psychology at University of Leipzig in
1870
•Believed psychology could and must be
Experimental.
• Described psychology as the Science
of conscious Experience

7. • Laid down principles of the method used to study psychology
that is Introspection
(Wundt called it Selbsbeobachtung)
•Also explained what needs to be included in the subject matter
of psychology that is Conscious Experience that is Immediate
Experiences and not Mediate Experiences
•Wundt conceived of the problem of Experimental Psychology as
threefold:--
1. To analyze conscious processes into elements
2. To discover how these elements were connected
3. To determine the laws of connection
• Wundt also gave the starting point of Cultural Psychology

8. Spent early years in Mannheim,
Germany
•Had a lonely childhood, elder brother
in boarding
•Had a fantasy of becoming a famous
writer
•Always had poor grades in school
•Father was a pastor but always kept
scolding him for his poor performance
•At the beginning of 2nd grade- his
education was turned over to Vicar
(father’s assistant)
•Got very attached to him and stayed
with him till 13 years of age
•Strong tradition of scholarship prevaled
in family- could not live up to it
• Spent more time daydreaming

9. •Finally started working on his Intellectual
abilities
•Graduated at 19 years and started preparing
for University Studies
•Decided to become a physician, took
medical training at University of Tubingen
and University of Heidelberg
•Studied Anatomy, Physiology, Physics,
Medicine and Chemistry
•Did not like medicine, so started studying
Physiology
•Did one semester in University of Berlin
under Johannes Muller
•Completed his doctorate in 1855
•Lecturer in University of Heidelberg in 1857
to 1864 and associate professor since 1864
• Started his independent study on
Psychology as an Experimental Scientific
Discipline

10. •Book– “Theory of Sensory Perception” – Published in sections
1858 to 1862
•Described his new method(which he applied in a lab, he made
at his house)
•He called them apt for a new psychology --- using the term
EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY for the first time
•Published his lectures “Minds of Men and Animals”, which
talked about reaction time and psychophysics(Importance
realised later after Wundt’s death)

11. • Published a book– from his lectures– “Principles of
Physiological Psychology” , published in 2 parts 1863 and 1874.
Revised 6 times in over 37 years. The last edition was published
in 1911.
The book established psychology as an Independent lab science
with its own problems and methods of experimentation
Book served as a Storehouse of Information and a record of
psychology’s progress for experimental psychologists.
(Physiology meant experimental , as per the teaching and
lectures of Wundt)

12. STUDY OF CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE
Wundt relied on experimental methods of natural science, particularly
techniques used by physiologist for NEW PSYCHOLOGY
Subject Matter of Psychology– Consciousness
Consciousness included many different parts and could be studied by the
method of analysis and reduction
It majorly included Immediate Experiences
Labelled his system as VOLUNTARISM(derived from the word volition, defined
as the act or power of willing.)
Voluntarism refers to the power of the will to organize the mind’s contents into
higher-level thought processes.

13. MEDIATE AND IMMEDIATE EXPERIENCES–
Task of psychology is to study of this immediate experience in
itself
Immediate Experiences is unbiased or untainted by any
personal interpretations.
Immediate Experiences are experience per se.
Mediate Experiences means experience used as means of
knowledge about something other than the experience itself.
Mediate Experience--- used to acquire knowledge about the
world
Wundt’s goal to analyse the mind into its elements like natural
scientists breakdown the physical world

14. Physicist study Mediate Experience
Psychologist study Immediate Experience
Study of these experiences is done by Introspection
(Only trained introspections were of use to the field of
psychology)
Example– When we describe our own feelings of discomfort from
a toothache (these form the states of consciousness) thus
referred to as Immediate experience, whereas when we say “I
have a toothache”, this is mediate experience.
Observing an apple and then calling it red shiny and round is this
an immediate experience or mediate experience??
Now try Introspecting a white board duster or a chair

15. INTROSPECTION
The method of a scientific psychology concerned with the
observations of conscious experience
Only the person having such an experience can observe it
Defined as the examination of one’s own mental state . Wundt
referred to this method as internal perception.
Method originated at the time of Socrates
Wundt’s innovation was the application of precise experimental
control over the conditions under which introspection was
performed.

16.  Introspection, or internal perception, as practiced in Wundt’s laboratory at the
University of Leipzig, was conducted under Wundt’s explicit rules and
conditions:
• Observers must be able to determine when the process is to
be introduced.
• Observers must be in a state of readiness or strained
attention.
• It must be possible to repeat the observation several times.
• It must be possible to vary the experimental conditions in
terms of the controlled manipulation of the stimuli.
Introspection is done in physics and Physiology as well.
Do you think is there any difference from what is done in psychology??
Introspection only done by trained introspectors is considered valuable for the
field of psychology.
Only quantitative knowledge and judgments--- about size, intensity, and
duration of various physical stimuli is of use to psychology

17. ELEMENTS OF CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE
Wundt described there are majorly two elements of conscious
experiences
1. Sensations
2. Feelings
Sensations are aroused whenever a sense organ is stimulated and the
resulting impulses reach the brain.
Sensations include
•Intensity
•Duration and
•Sense Modality
Feelings are the subjective complements of sensations but do not arise
directly from a sense organ. Sensations are accompanied by certain
feeling qualities; when sensations combine to form a more complex
state, a feeling quality will result.

18. ORGANIZING THE ELEMENTS OF CONSCIOUS
EXPERIENCE
When we look at objects in the real world, our perceptions have a unity or
wholeness.
Appreception- The process of organizing mental elements into a whole is a
creative synthesis (also known as the law of psychic resultants), which
creates new properties from the building up or combining of the elements.
Wundt wrote, “Every psychic compound has characteristics which are by no
means the mere sum of the characteristics of the elements”
Worked on the principle of Chemistry(and not Gestalt Psychology)
For example:-- When we look outside the window- we see a tree not
individual sensations or conscious experiences of brightness , color or shape
that trained observers in a lab report as a result of the introspections.
In everyday life , we see tree as a whole, not as the sensations and feelings
that constitute the tree .

19. Introspection
Different observers provided different results, no criteria to decide
who is right or wrong , or what to accept and what to reject.
( As Wundt called it self-observation).
Disagreements could not be solved by repeating observations
Wundt realised the fault but only said more training can help to
reach desired information

20. His Personal opinions on political matters
Especially on World War 1 – blamed England defended Germany’s
invasion of Belgium as an act of Self-Defense
Thus turning many American psychologist against him and his
psychology
It is also is considered to cost him Nobel Prize ( he was nominated
twice 1907 and 1909)

21. •A History of Modern Psychology in Context by Wade
Pickren and Alexandra Rutherford
•A brief History of Psychology by Michael Wertheimer
•A history of Modern Psychology by Duane P. Schultz
and Sydney Ellen Schultz
•System and Theories in Psychology by Melvin H. Marx
and William A. Hillix