What I would like you to do is to find a topic from chapter 7 that you were interested in and search the internet for material on that topic. You might, for example, find people who are doing research on the topic, you might find web pages that discuss the topic, you might find youtube clips that demonstrate something related to the topic, etc. What you find and use is pretty much up to you at this point. But use at least 3 sources.
Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the chapter, and why you are interested in it. Next, I would like you to take the information you found related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about it. At the end, please include working URLs for the three websites.
By now you all should be skilled at synthesizing the topical material you have obtained from the various web sites you visited. If you need a refresher please let me know.
Thanks,
The topic I am doing is the idea of functionalism. Functionalism refers to a general psychological philosophy that considers mental life and behavior in terms of active adaptation to the person's environment.
Essentially this description says that we actively change and adapt to new environments physically through evolution, but also mentally through adaptation. We look for the easiest way to solve a problem.
There is a problem with this however, and it comes in the form of social Darwinism. Social Darwinism is almost like divine right or even karma, meaning that it gives those in power a justification to be in power. Divine right states that God or a higher power gave them the right to rule, Karma states that the person's past good deeds are the reason they have the right to be in power, and now social Darwinism states that because they were given the best traits and succeeded the most, they now have the right through nature itself to be in power. Since functionalism is about adaptation, it fits in that the most successful people have adapted to their environment the best.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_psychology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_darwinism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology
The topic I choose is functionalism. This refers to a general psychological philosophy that considers mental life and behavior in terms of active adaptation to the person’s environment. Social Darwinism said that people who were in poverty should not be helped out because they were in lack of fitness. People who were rich shouldn’t be penalized just because they were fit. It was survival of the fittest after all. It fits into this chapter because it opposes structuralism, which is to describe the structure of the mind in terms of the most primitive elements of mental experience. It focused on the individual elements of concsiousness, how they organized more complex experiences, and how these mental phenomena correlated with physical events. I just find it interesting how people think about things and then use that to adjust to everyday life and the things around them.
The functionalists tended to use the term 'function' rather loosely. The term is used in at least two different ways. It can refer to the study of how a mental process operates. This is a major departure from the study of the structure of a mental process, the difference between stopping a train to tear it apart to study its parts (structuralism), and looking at how the systems interact while it is running (functionalism). The term 'function' can also refer to how the mental process functions in the evolution of the species, what adaptive property it provides that would cause it to be selected through evolution. Two strengths found in functionalism was first it influenced behaviorism and applied psychology and also influenced the educational system, especially with regards to John Dewey’s belief that children should learn at the level for which they are developmentally prepared. Even though functinalism never become a formal school, it was still a histroic link to evolution.
http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/structuralism.htm
http://www.psych.utah.edu/gordon/Classes/Psy4905Docs/PsychHistory/Cards/James.html
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/222123/functionalism
The main topics I chose to do further research on were trial and error and how it relates to connectionism. Trial and error learning was explored first by thorndike when realizing that cats and dogs do not learn or have conscious awareness, but infact what they do is learned by trial and error. Trial and error is learning by doing something. When working with the cats he realized when putting them in a puzzle box that the time did not drop dramtically but that time did decrease as the more times cats were in the box. Thorndike did not merely realize what it had to do to escape, but the connection between the animal's situation and the response that gradually freed him was stamped in. With these observations, Thorndike suggested that certain stimuli and responses become connected or dissociated from each other according to his law of effect
Connectionism is the second part of this study that is related. This aspect of learning is created by the “accidental success” that Thorndike refers to. Connections between certain stimuli and the identified reward trigger both animals and people to repeat the previous actions in the same sequence. In order to create these connections, some form of trial and error must be involved. Connectionism does not only refer to establishing new connections, but it can also eliminate current connections that are either irrelevant or no longer efficient.
http://www.tpub.com/content/administration/134t/css/134t_32.htm
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/thorndike.htm
http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/behaviorism/Thorndike.html
I decided to write about the field of ethology and also on imprinting. Ethology is the scientific study of animal behavior, and a sub-topic of zoology.It is a combination of laboratory and also field science, and behaviorists (animal researchers) are interested in animal behaviors rather than animals groups.
When watching the video on Lorentz and his duck study, he came to a conclusion that the ducks were doing something called imprinting, which is the primary of social bonds in infant animals. He also thought that innate behaviors played a huge role in the adaptation of organisms which then lies in our evolved behavior.
This could also explain the video of the kitten and the crow that was posted on here a while ago. Although the kitten was a bit older, it could have imprinted towards the crow, knowing very well it wasn't a crow, but feeling attached towards the crows actions.
One main characteristic for imprinting is that there is a critical sensitive period in which usually right after being born, animals will become attached to an object and follow that object. According to the genetic tendency, the first stimulus an animal has imprinted on will most likely be the same stimulus they follow in the future, rather than following their own species. I somewhat agree with imprinting with certain species, but not all. I think instinct will take over in the future of an animal.
http://www.animalbehaviour.net/Imprinting.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethology
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/lorenz.htm
I decided to do my topical on the concept of structuralism because it was one of the biggest topics in the chapter. It was started by Wundt, but Titchener, who was one of Wundt’s students, furthered it to become the first real school of psychology. Structuralism was an attempt to break down our consciousness and self into smaller elements and figure out what made up our mental processes much like how we can break down physical objects into smaller elements. The way that the psychologists at this time did this was through a process called introspection, where subjects were vigorously trained to record their ongoing mental processes as detailed as possible. For example, while using introspection, a person would have to describe an object they were sensing in it’s most basic terms—An apple might be described as cool, crisp, and sweet. But you could not describe something as itself, because it obviously wouldn’t be broken down that way and if a subject slipped and mistakenly described a process or object in that sort of way it would be known as a “stimulus error”
There were quite a few flaws, though, with structuralism and the experiments that coincided with it. First, what the psychologists were looking for was conscious mental processes that were based on the subject’s internalized thoughts—this is very hard to accurately measure. There was also hardly any interrator reliability within the studies because people perceive their surroundings in such different ways. It’s important in psychology for the observers to agree on the data in similar ways for the data to truly be valid and it wasn’t at all. This may be because the observers and subjects used in the studies were trained before-hand to do and learn introspection, which is a big “no-no” in psychology, because now most experiments use subjects who know as little as possible about the experiment they are participating in.
http://www.a2zpsychology.com/articles/schools_of_psychology.php
http://web.mst.edu/~psyworld/structuralism.htm
http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/structuralism.htm
For my topic this week I am doing Edward Thorndike’s Trial and Error Learning. Thorndike originally set out to study animal intelligence levels with the puzzle boxes. He wondered if the animals could learn through observation or not, so he tried having the animals watch others escape from the puzzle boxes, but the results showed that they did not learn through observation. It was a process of trial and error where the animals would try different ways of escaping until they found the right way, or combinations of levers/strings to release themselves. Once the animal has found a way out they are more likely to try the same process which was successful before in a quicker manner. This led to the development and further study of trial and error learning.
In my research I found that a lot of people contribute trial and error learning to being one of the starting grounds for the development of behavioral psychology. This initiated the idea that being rewarded for accomplishing a task, such as freeing oneself, creates a stimulus response that makes us, or in the case of the puzzle boxes, animals want to repeat the same action again and again. The idea led several more studies in the form of animal behavior to be conducted. Some of these studies led to more behavioral theories, such as Pavlov’s classical condition.
The video below shows a puzzle box of today’s world and a kitten learning to get out of it on her own. Once she has figured out how to release herself she is able to get free quicker and quicker each time. You can stop viewing at 2:00
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImzQ1qHrfNk
http://genetics.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de/behavior//learning/behaviorism.html
http://www.killology.com/art_beh_birth.htm
I decided to research functionalism further because it was such a dominant topic in the chapter.
According to our book, functionalism is how the mind serves to adapt the individual to the environment. So basically it is how our mind and behaviors adapt to our environments. We actively change physically through evolution and change mentally due to adaptation.
William James is considered the founder of functionalism, who was more concerned with the capability of the mind than with the process of thought. Functionalism is generally credited to two major universities; Chicago and Columbia. Most functionalists are heavily influenced by social darwinism, which is survival of the fittest. If we don't adapt- we don't survive. FUnctionalism is kind of like the opposite of structuralism which is analyzing the human mind and organizing it into it's elementary units. So basically, structuralism would be breaking down a watch to it's simplest untis to understand it, while functionalism would be looking at how all the parts of the clock interact with each other to understand how it works. I believe that functionalism was a good contribution to psychology because it inspired John Dewey to launch progressive education, which is teaching children to respond and problem solve in real life situations and creating an atmosphere which children learn by doing.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/222123/functionalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_psychology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_education
Functionalism studies how the mind helps to adapt the individual to the environment. Its stems from philosophy and has roots all the way back to Aristotle. It deals with the mental state and that it is determined by what it does, not what it is made of. The standford dictionary draws it to the thinking of Hobbes and it ties in with the soul theory.
Functionalism formed as a response to structuralism, where what we are is determined by our make-up. It focuses on the purpose of our behavior and stems from the work of William James and has influences from Charles Darwin and what came to be known as Social Darwinsim.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/functionalism/ .
http://www.iep.utm.edu/functism/
I think I forgot to include this last website
http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/structuralism.htm
I chose to do my topical blog for chapter 7 on functionalism. Functionalism was a response to Titchener's structuralism. Functionalists believe that the mind has the funciton of helping us adapt to the environment. Some of the more famous functionalists are William James, John Dewey, Harvey Carr, and John Angell. One of the most important legacies of functionalism is the study by John Dewey of advancing education. Dewey's view of pregressive education allowed for more interactive education to allow children to learn through experiences and doing. A big advocate to functionalism is Social Darwinism. The evolution theory plays a big role in functionalism as it explains how we adapt to our environments. William James is considered the founder of functionalism. He would not have considered himself a functionalist and did not like the division of schools in psychology. The schools majorly involved in functionalism are Chicago and Columbia. Functionalism is important to the history of psychology because it is an opposing theory to structuralism and further shows the questioning of each psychology studied before this time. Psychology shows evolution in itself and functionalism is one of they main studies in it.
http://research-education-edu.blogspot.com/2009/01/theory-of-functionalism-in-education.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_psychology
http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/block/papers/functionalism.html
I wanted to explore into the concept of the reflex arc a bit more. I was interested in this concept and what it is made up of. The reflex arc is associated with functionalism because it’s helping us to understand what reflexes are how they work to come about. The reflex arc is a neural pathway that controls or encourages a action to be produced. The reflex arc is composed of three different components. First, the stimulus producing a sensation, second the central processing creates an idea, and last the act or the actual motor response to the stimulus. These components are all related and united which creates the reflex arc.
The stimulus producing a sensation is highly reliable upon vision. Vision is an important aspect to seeing a stimulus. Seeing stimulates another act most of the time. Eye and arm coordination create are a major factor in the producing a sensation stage. In the next stages, the movement of a part will either reinforce or change the meaning that is created by seeing the stimulus. This shows that motor neurons don’t go directly to the brain. They go through the components of the reflex arc. Most neurons are received through the synapse of the spinal cord.
There seem to be two types of reflex arcs monosynaptic and polysynaptic. In monosynaptic there are only two neurons in the reflex arc. In muscles, monosynaptic is simply the stimulation to a muscle spindle, which causes a contraction in the effected muscle. In polysynaptic reflex arcs, one or more interneurons connect sensory and motor signals. Many of the reflexes, except for the most simple reflexes, are polysynaptic.
http://74.125.67.100/imgres?imgurl=http://webanatomy.net/anatomy/reflex_arc.jpg&imgrefurl=http://webanatomy.net/anatomy/neuro_notes.htm&usg=__JbGG_IZCKkDrtt0PMd1oOAIUjug=&h=448&w=600&sz=72&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=xSBnRSgvNhy9VM:&tbnh=146&tbnw=196&ei=qe9nTca8JJS5twfe_6XoAw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dreflex%2Barc%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26biw%3D1350%26bih%3D503%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=493&vpy=138&dur=6825&hovh=194&hovw=260&tx=142&ty=100&oei=qe9nTca8JJS5twfe_6XoAw&page=1&ndsp=12&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/dewey03.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflex_arc
I chose to write my topic blog about functionalism. Functionalism was a main part of the chapter because it replaced structuralism and the new school of thought in psychology. I chose it because I think that understand functionalism is important to understanding the history of psychology. Structuralism was the first school of thought in psychology for a long period of time. Structuralism focused on breaking down the mind into basic components and studying these components to better understand mental processes. Introspection was the main method used in understanding these mental processes.
Functionalism replaced structuralism as the main school of thought in psychology. Functionalism came around from Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and the works of William James. Darwin’s theory that all aspects of a species have a specific function and purpose sparked the idea that our mental processes serve specific functions and purposes too. After James wrote his first book, he became the spokesperson for functionalism.
http://www.psych.utah.edu/gordon/Classes/Psy4905Docs/PsychHistory/Cards/James.html
http://www3.niu.edu/acad/psych/Millis/History/2004/functionalism.htm
http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/structuralism.htm
For this blog I chose to research Edward Thorndike’s puzzle box learning. This fits into the chapter because it related to structuralism and functionalism which makes up a bit part of Chapter 7. This topic was interesting to me because he was one of the first people to do experiments on animals other than chicks or rats. Thorndike created more systematic experiments to test animal intelligence. During this time he studied more than one case, repeated experiments, and managed all of the animals involved in the tests. A simple way to describe his puzzle box sketch is clean cut and neat. But his actual contraptions he made looked like torture devices. Although these boxes seemed inhumane, he actually had a method to his madness. He had thirteen cats and a series of different boxes. Each cat was placed in at least a few of the different boxes. He was testing to see how the cats would respond in these stressful situations. At first they would react randomly. They would bite, scratch and claw until they would accidentally respond correctly to free themselves from the box. Even though their behaviors were occurring so quickly, they still remembered which behavior it was that got them out of the box. When they were placed in a different box after successfully getting out of the first one they would be less likely to react in a way that they would have the first time. The learning model Thorndike formed from this finding is known as connectionism which forms after trial and error learning. Towards the end of these experiments, cats were able to escape from the boxes in a matter of seconds. Even though none of the boxes had the same escape route, the cats gradually learned what behaviors were productive and which ones were not.
Thorndike tried several other methods to get the cats to escape from these boxes on their own. He created one box that combines three previous escape routes from the boxes and the cats were unable to escape. To him this meant that cats were unable to put together what they had learned previously into a more complex problem. He also tried to have one cat observe another cat being tested on how to escape the box. He was hoping the observer cat would see how the other cat escaped and mock its behaviors. This was not successful. He even tried to physically move the cats’ paws through the correct motions to escape and this also seemed to have no effect on their learning.
These findings lead to Edward’s Law of Effect which states that rewards are more effective than punishments in producing learning. He also created the Law of Exercise that suggests practice makes perfect for some types of learners, but repetition is usually not called for when it came to higher forms of learning.
Thorndike wrote in a dissertation, ‘‘When the crude beginnings of this research have been improved and replaced by more ingenious and adroit experimenters, the results ought to be very valuable”. I think he came up with substantial findings through his experiments. Even though an experiment like this would not be approved of today because of animal cruelty laws, I still think he created an awesome experiment, even though I am against animal cruelty. The cats probably weren’t harmed that bad, if at all and were probably smarter after the experiment.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/thorndike.htm
http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/jeab/articles/1999/jeab-72-03-0433.pdf
http://www.simplypsychology.org/edward-thorndike.html
I decided to learn more about Titchener and see if I could find anything interesting about him. One thing I did not read about in the book was his core-context theory. A core-context theory is a “new mental process acquires it’s meaning from the context of other mental processes within which it occurs.” This theory is still used today by psychologists, so even though structuralism is not put into practice much in the present, there are theories of Titchener’s still used.
One legacy of Titchener is his Experimentalists Society, which is still in existence today but called the Society of Experimental Psychologists. They actually keep it very similar to Titchener’s such as by keeping the setting casual and informal so people can freely discuss ideas. Also they keep membership low, which makes it a honor to be asked to join. There have been several changes made to it though since Titchener’s death. Women are now allowed to join, which was voted in the year after he died. There are also social and developmental psychologists in the membership. Titchener was very narrow-minded about psychology and only wanted structuralists to be a part of his group at the time.
I found an example of introspective testing that Titchener used. It dealt with hearing and was made to show how sometimes when we hear two tones, we also hear a third one, called a difference tone. They had the test up on the internet for one to do themselves. I went through part of it and tried to listen to the difference in tones. In the experiment a person is to listen to two tones separately and get accustomed to how they sound. Then they are to listen to them together and hear how they combine with each other. I am taking Psychology of Music right now and I think these tests tie into it. In that class we have learned about the different overtones in music, which are the sounds one hears that are separate from the fundamental pitch. It makes me wonder if the difference tone is created from the different overtones combing with one another. This experiment looked more at how one is to introspectively train and did not give an answer as to why these difference tones happen. Overall I came to find out that Titchener really did have a lasting effect on psychology and was an important part of it’s history.
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?id=1271
http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/TitchDemo030417.htm
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/titchener.shtml
I decided to do research on social Darwinism or better known as survival of the fittest or national selection. It is also known to be linked between races and ethnicity. Basically getting at the superior races will live on and the strong the person they will pass their "good" genes. Social Darwinism was termed by Herbert Spencer and he had the theory that we all adapt to our environment. He had the theory that process of reproduction to pass on being the fittest. His theory was also found to be linked to Aristotle in his thinking in terms of survival of the fittest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism
http://library.thinkquest.org/C004367/eh4.shtml
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/spencer-darwin.html
I found the topic of imprinting to be pretty interesting so I decided for this topical blog I would look up things to learn more about imprinting. Imprinting is when young animals bond with something they have immediate contact, whether visual, auditory, or physical, and then mimics whatever this stimulus is and continues to follow whoever or whatever they imprinted on. Generally, this happens with young animals like ducklings or chicks and they will follow their mother. However, imprinting has also been seen in some mammals, insects, and fish. Konrad Lorenz is one of the founders of ethology, the study of animal behavior, and he is credited for the first of the studies done about imprinting. Imprinting is both genetic and environmental. Genetics come into play with the fact that immediately after a duckling has hatched it will imprint on whoever raises it. Environment comes in based on the fact that a duckling will imprint on whoever raises it, so it could be its mother or it could be a human being. Lorenz also discovered that they will imprint on inanimate moving objects. However, there is a “critical period.” In this time it is necessary for the bonding to happen effectively, otherwise it isn’t going to happen at all.
http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n14/experimento/lorenz/index-lorenz.html
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/284209/imprinting
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/family/howardsh/imprint.htm
I decided to look at social Darwinism. I chose this because I thought that it was an interesting perspective on how life is and how they believe it is evolving. Social Darwinism followers believed that forces in live are natural and inevitable meaning that the strong survive while the weak should be allowed to perish. The founder of this idea is Herbert Spencer. He used Darwin's theories and adapted them into his own. In its most extreme forms people who follow this theory believe that it was morally wrong to help those they deemed weaker than oneself. This thought is also linked to eugenics in which selective breeding occurs to create certain traits and has been associated with sterilization laws that have been created in the past. This theory can be seen across history and has been the bases for numerous people's justification for the killing of others.
http://library.thinkquest.org/C004367/eh4.shtml
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Social_Darwinism.aspx
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Eugenics
I chose to write about the reflex arc discussed in chapter seven. John Dewey was the man behind this. He was a Functionalist. An article called “Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology” got people in Chicago at the time thinking about reflexes in a “traditional manner.” Dewey wrote this. When looking back (further than Dewey) at reflexes you can look at Bell and Magendies separation of reflex into separate sensory and motor pathways. This is the way that people thought about the reflex arc at the time. There were three elementary components: the stimulus producing the sensations, central processing producing an idea and the act or motor response. Dewey thought that that the reflex was more “integrated” than that. He did not think it was that simple. The book explains this using a child and a candle example, kid reaches his hand into fire and gets burned so he pulls his hand away. They then give an explanation for why Dewey thought this was wrong, something like, when the child learns fire burns you they perceive fire differently from then on. I attempted to understand this explanation but couldn’t so I chose to research it for my topical blog. Here goes. An easy way to explain Dewey’s view on the reflex arc is it isn’t an arc…. It is a circle. The child withdraws their hand (this is where the arc would usually end) but he child’s view of the flame changes, making it a circle. Basically because we can learn the arc doesn’t make sense, it has to be more like a circle.
http://faculty.frostburg.edu/mbradley/psyography/datelines_johndewey.html
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2708977
http://www.iep.utm.edu/dewey/
Reflex arc, john Dewey, Functionalist, Bell and Magendies
The topic I chose to research was Edward Thorndike's study on learning. Being a mechanist, he thought that learning consisted of making associations between stimuli and responses. He believed that learning occurred through trial and error learning. He believed that all mammals learn in the same manner . He studied this by using a puzzle box and cats as the study subjects. Also, food was placed outside of the door for motivation to escape. If the cats made the correct response, a door would open and they could escape. The point of the study was to see how long it would take the animals to escape from the box. The cats would make many responses to being placed in the box. At first, they would move about restlessly as well as meow continuously and could not figure out what to do. Eventually, they would complete the task accidentally and were able to escape. Sooner or later, the cats would learn to repeat the same actions that got the desirable outcome.
Thorndike explained this type of learning through his Law of effect. This law states that animals tend to repeat behavior that resulted in a pleasing effect and tend to avoid behaviors that have previously resulted in an unpleasant outcome. This was considered to be the earlier version of what B.F. Skinner calls positive reinforcement. Thorndike believed that when an animal caused a positive result through a certain behavior, that they would create a bond between the stimulus and the response. More and more exposure would result in a faster correct response. This is the Law of Exercise which states that bonds between stimuli and responses are strengthened through frequent exercise. This law wasn't very widely known and died out but did have an effect on early education. He created learning curves in his experiment which were S shaped curves that showed an animal doing poorly at first then improves quickly and eventually levels off. He found that different animals varied in how fast they learned and where performances would level off, but that each still resembled an S shape curve.
Thorndike's work on animal behavior and the learning process led to the theory of connectionism and made a contribution to the foundation for modern educational psychology.
I found this concept to be interesting because even though it was work done on animals, it represents what we as humans do to learn as well. There are many times we create associations in order to learn. Also, we learn many things through trial and error especially when we are young. For example, we learn to not touch the stove when it is hot because of a bad experience. This topic fits into the chapter because it involves learning behavior which has always been a large part of psychology and always will be.
Terms used: Edward Thorndike, trial and error learning, puzzle box, Law of effect, Law of Exercise,
connectionism
http://www.intropsych.com/ch08_animals/thorndikes_puzzle_box.html
http://psyed.org/r/lrn/ld/thorndike.html
http://www.child-development-guide.com/edward-thorndike.html
This chapter was really interesting to read especially when it first started talking about E.B Titchner. I like it how he approached structuralism and functionalism to psychology. He stated that structuralism is just like anatomy, where the whole purpose is analysis. When dealing with structuralism, it is a school of psychology that Titchner identified the structural elements of human conscious experience, primarily through basic laboratory and introspective methods. On the other hand, when I read about functionalism, I came to find out that it was similar to physiology. Physiologist examine various parts of the body operate and functions they serve to help keep the individual alive. Whereas the functional psychologist study how the mind serves to adapt the individual to the environment. From what I’ve gathered, functionalism is focuses on the study of human conscious experience from an evolutionary perspective, concerned with studying the adaptive value of various mental and behavioral processes. Although Titchner’s system was never widely popular in America, yet he still had a huge impact on the nature of psychology in America.
In German laboratories students were able to learn procedures on their own and observe and question more experience peers. However, America came up with a different strategy known as drill courses. These drill courses enabled students to repeat classical studies and learn how to set up and become familiar with the laboratory. Its unique how time started to evolve and some students were not some knowledgeable about the new psychology. That’s when Edmund Sanford of Clark wrote a book that could explain how to train students in basic laboratory procedures. Students in the past work similar to the students today. The students in drill courses worked in pairs, alternating the roles of experimenter and observer. The observer would participate in an experiment; they would be observing their own mental processes and would give a description of these processes at the close of experiment.
Terms: structuralism, functionalism, drill courses, observer
http://psychcentral.com/classics/Titchener/lab.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuralism_(psychology)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_psychology
In researching for this blog I went back to the end of my reading blog to see what didn’t really make sense there. I found the Reflexive arc as told by John Dewey. Dewey wrote an extensive article called “The Reflexive Arc Concept in Psychology:. He wrote this while he was a professor at the University of Chicago. It was published in the Psychological Review in 1986 and was said to be his single most influential article. I found understanding the three parts of the one arc tricky, and in researching I found the actual article, which was kind of exciting.
Around this time there was a differing view. Sigmund Freud felt that energy was the primary disturber of an organism’s peace. In typical Freud fashion he also felt that self-interest drives energy. Dewey disagreed with Freud in many ways.
The reflexive arc, according to Dewey, is a circuit of three things, sensory stimuli, central connections and motor responses. They are three functions within a whole. Dewey felt that it was not a comprehensive, organic unity but a patchwork of disjointed parts. The underlying principle for Dewey was the fundamental characteristic that these things are physically united.
The difference between what Dewey proposed and what had been previously believed is that previously it was assumed that the sensory stimulus and motor response had distinct physical existences. This was the very thing Dewey was trying to disprove. He really emphasized throughout his entire article that what is so significant about the Reflexive Arc is the coordination of these three pieces. This is significant because of each of their part in maintaining this coordination. Within this coordination is the distinction of the stimulus and response, but only so that it can complete its own jobs. The example Dewey gave was of a child touching a candle. It does not first process pain of the flame and then jerk, it does it both at the same time. What was revolutionary about his ideas was the fact that the reflexive arc is in sync with the processing of the brain. It does not require the processes to go first. He called this a dualism of stimulus and response.
Dewey also believed that there was not one single cause for everything and that the response depends on how one views the situation. He did not believe people sat in a state of unrest until they were suddenly spurred into movement by the stimuli. Going back to the example about the candle, the child was not just sitting, comatose until the candle suddenly appeared. In order to notice that there was a candle the child would need to look around the room, move toward the candle, lift their arm and try to touch the flame. From a behavioral standpoint there are many different antecedents, behaviors and consequences for this situation, and as Dewey believed, any situation. For example, being in the room is the antecedent to looking around it, looking around the room is the antecedent to seeing a candle, seeing a candle is the antecedent to moving toward it, moving toward it is the antecedent for the curiosity that is the antecedent to try to touch the flame. These can all be interchanged with being the behavior and the consequence. In this way, Dewey explained the circuitry of the arc.
http://www.brocku.ca/MeadProject/Dewey/Dewey_1896.html
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/dewey.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey
http://www.philosophy.uncc.edu/mleldrid/SAAP/CLT/P45G.htm
The subject that i decided to blog about was John Dewey. i decided to research Dewey because i am going into the field of education and i wanted to learn a little bit more about his educational theories.
John Dewey wrote his first book about the psychology of children in 1897 titled "My Pedagogic Creed." This was followed by 4 more books about the same subject. One of the biggest parts of Dewey's ideas that i agree with is the idea that children learn through practice and actually experiencing something rather than just being told about something. Dewey believed this idea could be applied to all areas of learning, from using recipes and cooking to teach math to having the children experience similar circumstances to teach history (An idea that I believe would make history a significantly more interesting subject). Another interesting idea of Dewey's is that the teacher was not there to teach, but to help the students learn, by being there and facilitating learning, but not just being there to give information ,this idea is being stressed again today in teacher education courses.
During Dewey's stay at Chicago he created the Department of pedagogy, which focused on teaching teachers. This department was headed by Dewey, who was also the head of the department of philosophy at the time, and Dewey himself created most of the curriculum originally for it. This department, later to become the department of education, was considered one of the best in the nation. Dewey eventually moved from Chicago to Columbia university, continuing his work there. Throughout his life Dewey wrote 40 books, and over 700 articles, along with giving many lectures and other small writings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey
http://wilderdom.com/experiential/JohnDeweyPhilosophyEducation.html
http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/dewey/dewey.html