Reading Activity Week #8 (Due Tuesday)

After reading this week’s chapter I found three interesting subjects. The first one is the drill courses that Tichener created. While I was reading about them I was thinking about how many college courses are offered at universities and I was basically reading about how one started. For our liberal arts we have to take a science with a lab. Tichener started the idea of teaching students psychology hands on and by actually doing the experiments instead of reading how to do them. The next thing that I found interesting was social Darwinism. I had no idea that people who believed in this believed that the government shouldn’t aid poor people because they were poor because they weren’t “fit.” I was shocked to read this especially because as a social work major I approve of government funding to the poor. I just don’t think that it is fair to assume that because you are poor you are not fit to survive. It kind of relates to eugenics which is an absurd idea also. The last interesting point I wanted to point out is progressive education. I found it interesting how John Dewey actually took the time to experiment and find the best ways kids learn. Kids learn in all different fashions. That is more prevalent today than back then. With more kids being diagnosed with ADHD and other disorders and the no child left behind law some of our kids are falling through the cracks. The teachers teach to the test instead of trying to find the best way to just teach the kids. The subject that I found least interesting was the reflex arc. It seems like classic science stuff that doesn’t really stand out and is hard to relate to which makes in uninteresting to me.
I think the most useful topic in this chapter in the regards to the history of psychology is how to do an experiment. Experiments are the basics of science. We learn from experiments and trial and error. The history of psychology would not be what it was today if it wasn’t for experiments. In past chapters we have learned about the branches of psychology and this chapter we are learning about another one, structuralism and functionalism. I would like to learn more about the experiments that are done to see the different ways kids learn. I think it is important to teach kids the best way they learn. That means we need to find out those ways. While I was reading this chapter I was thinking about how in my high school if you were in a science class you had to do this assignment. No matter what science class it was we had to do this assignment. You had to create an experiment and write down your findings and the variable and all that stuff. I think that it was a good thing to do because it taught me the basics of an experiment which is helpful now taking psychology classes.

Terms: Tichener, drill courses, social Darwinism, John Dewey, ADHD, structuralism and functionalism

The first thing that I found interesting was Thorndike’s puzzle box. I have heard about this before in my behavior modification class and I still find it interesting now. He developed the puzzle box so that he could measure animal’s intelligence. The way that he did this was by putting hungry animals into an enclosure that they could escape from when they learned how to do the simple act. Some of the options for release included a loop of a cord, a lever, or stepping on a certain platform. He mainly used cats in these experiments and would put them in a box. At first the cat would just make random acts and one of those random acts would happen to open the door. This can be considered trial and error learning or according to Thorndike trial and accidental success. Thorndike noticed that each time the cat was placed in the box it was able to get out sooner. That to me was one of the most fascinating things about this study.

We talk about independent and dependent variable, but I guess I never really knew where it came from. So the second thing that I thought was interesting to learn about Woodworth and how he came up with correlational research. He developed independent variables which were the manipulations of a factor that was the main focus of the study, and dependent variables which were the variables that would have its effect on some measure of behavior. He may not have invented these terms, but I think that it is interesting that he was the first to use them in this fashion. He also used the experimental method, but that wasn’t very much accepted in his time.

Thorndike’s two theories called Law of Effect and Law of Exercise were the third thing to interesting to me. These theories were as a result of his puzzle box findings. Law of Effect is that when behaviors were effective in problem solving that they would be strengthened in there memory, while behaviors that were not effective would be weakened in there memory, while the Law of Exercise is that the connection between stimulus situation and response would be strengthen with practice. I find this interesting mainly because I think it is important to remember and that he was able to see this all happening with cats getting out of box.

One thing that I didn’t really find interesting was the part on promoting experimental psychology at Cornell. I think it just felt too much like a history lesson. When reading about history I like to know what happened, but I don’t necessarily need the deep information that I will never remember. For example I will never remember all of the names of the books that Titchener wrote and published. That to me is just meaningless. If you wanted to tell me the grand total of books and journals he published then that would have some meaning to me.

I think that learning the differences between structuralist and functionalists is important when learning the history of psychology because in this time there really were two sides to things. Structuralism is important to understand because it is the analysis of the human mind and how it organizes information, while functionalism is important to remember and understand because it is how the various parts of the body operate and the functionalist hey serve to help keep the person alive. Functionalism also serves to better understand how the mind helps us survive in different environments.

This chapter relates and builds off the last because it is the next generation of psychologists. I say that because some of the people that are talked about in this chapter were students of the people that were talked about in the last chapter. It is also going more into America and how this country played a part in the development of psychology and experiments. In the other chapters they have little pieces about American, but this is the first that focuses on people doing their work in America.

The first thing that I found interesting was about Thorndike’s puzzle box. I would like to learn more about that because I found that interesting it was a safe way of using animals in experimentation and for that it is one thing that I wouldn’t mind learning more about that concerned animals. I am curious what animals he all used and if anyone uses this method anymore today. When reading this chapter I thought about how it would be hard to be in the position of people not accepting your work. I mean to think that you really have found something amazing and then all of your co-workers or peers turn it down because they don’t agree with it. I think that would be hard because of the fact that it would be hard for someone to get there courage back up to maybe supply a different theory. One thing that I also thought about was how ironic it is that people back then came up with theories that people rejected, but now those theories are famous because they actually were right. For example, (non-psych related) how the world was round and how it revolved around the sun.

Terms: Thorndike, puzzle box, behavior modification, trial and error learning, trial and accidental success, experiments, Woodworth, dependent variables, independent variables, manipulations, correlational research , experimental method, Titchener, psychology, Cornell, Structuralist, functionalists, functionalism, structuralism, Law of Effect, Law of exercise,

There were several things within chapter 7 that I found to be interesting. First, I enjoyed reading about E.B. Titchener and his many accomplishments that helped moved psychology forward in America’s society. Specifically, I admired Titchener’s love for the laboratory and experimental psychology. His drill courses and manuals showed great insight and initiative. In Germany, students would learn laboratory procedures on their own. However, Titchener believed that there should be more training before allowing students to “run loose.” Thus, drill courses and the manuals were born. American students would repeat classic studies before starting their own, new laboratory research. Many instructors had little training and knowledge of the new psychology that was growing in America. For this reason, Titchener revised the first manual written by Edmund Clark. The manuals provided information to guide the reader in their laboratory investigations. The manuals had 2 volumes and there was a set for teachers and a set for students. The teachers’ set was much more extensive for it was one thing to be able to run a laboratory but another thing to be able to teach it as well. Titchener’s work with the manuals was modest and it symbolizes, to me at least, that he knew his work would be very influential and longstanding. He wasn’t only looking after his cohort of psychologists but also cohorts to follow. Today, students partake in courses very similar to the “drill courses” of that time—familiarizing us to the work done in laboratories; such as psychological statistics and research methods.

Secondly, because of Titchener’s love for the lab, I found his use of systematic experimental introspection to be interesting and surprising. Until this part of the book, we have learned about several influential psychologists—each being a fan of one or the other. Titchener, however, seemed to realize the importance of using both, together. Titchener was well aware of the problems associated with introspection, as the book says, “It is impossible to have a conscious experience and reflect on it at the same time.” To fix this problem, Titchener turned introspection into retrospection, meaning one would not recall the event until after it has already passed, relying mainly on memory. Titchener also broke the event being tested into steps, to make the recalling easier and more accurate. Thirdly, Titchener coined the term introspective habit. This simply means that an observer ( subject ) in an experiment should be highly trained for introspection, so trained that any recalled account of the stimulus would almost always be spoken in introspection, whether on purpose or not. In the book’s “close up” section for this chapter, we learned how detailed Titchener and his colleagues wrote to each other, about everyday life, in the form of introspection—it had become ingrained into their functioning.

Lastly, I found the work of John Dewey to be very interesting. I really liked how Dewey used his educational background and expertise in psychology to campaign for educational reform and women’s suffrage. Dewey’s most recognized work within the field of psychology would be his work on the reflex arc. Until this time, reflexes were explained with a structural analysis. Dewey transformed this explanation into a functional analysis. To Dewey, the reflex is “an integrated, coordinated whole that serves the function of adapting the organism to its environment. Dewey also believed that one’s reflexes are influenced by their experiences. Thanks, in part to Dewey, psychologists started asking “what for?” rather than “what?” This is still the case today. Getting back to what I originally said about Dewey, he was significant in starting the movement for progressive education. Dewey believed that children learn by doing and that school systems should allow their students to interact with the environment. While reading this section, I thought of the snow day video we watched. The educational system will always be evolving and it is important to integrate subjects and experts of all kinds, in order to evolve effectively.

I found the section about James R. Angell to be least interesting. Angell was very similar to Dewey and I felt as though some of the information was repetitive. Angell, however, was important in furthering the definition and understanding of functional psychology. His work, “The Province of Functional Psychology” outlined that functional psychology is not a separate entity of the field; rather it is a point of view. This, I think helped me understand why today we have several subcategories of psychology and why there are so many theories about each thing we learn—because every expert psychologists that we learn either about or from has their own point of view.

This chapter helped me understand the history of psychology immensely; it is starting to all “come together” for me. As I just mentioned, the reasons for several subcategories in psychology became more prevalent to me. However, even more so, I understand the importance of experiments, labs, and introspection to psychology better than I did before. Titchener’s work with the manuals shows that lab work will always be used in our field and that it is important to understand the ins and outs of laboratories in order to progress in psychology and in order to make break through discoveries. Also, the book has talked about structuralism and functionalism several times before in previous chapters but this chapter explained it in much greater detail and it is now more concrete to me.

While reading this chapter, I wondered how I could use my psychology background to aid my education major friends in their pursuit of successful teaching. For this reason, I would like to learn more about John Dewey and his work with progressive education.

Terms used: Titchener, John Dewey, introspection, retrosepction, progressive education, structuralism, functionalism, Angell, laboratories, drill courses, manuals, reflexes.

The first interesting topic in chapter 7 was E.B. Titchener, who came up with the terms structural psychology and functional psychology. Through laboratory studies he believed structuralism was important in order to analyze the human mind and organize it into simple units. With functionalism, Titchener could see how the mind helps people adapt to their environment. Titchener believed In order to study the function of the human body, there first needed to be an understanding of how the mind worked. Just like other psychologist, Titchener was influenced by Darwin’s theories, evolutionary psychology, and comparative psychology. While attending Oxford University, titchener became fascinated with laboratory work. It was interesting to know he became friends with John Watson, although he disagreed with his ideas, he still admired his experimental work as a laboratory scientist. Titchener was given the opportunity to work on his doctorate in Germany with Wundt. In 1892, he was offered a position at Cornell University. Once he was there, Titchener helped bring awareness about German psychology by translating Wundt’s work into English. He was then inspired to create his own texts. Experimental psychology was done differently in America than in German laboratories. Instead of conducting their own research, American students had to do a drill course, where they were taught to use research instruments while repeating classic studies. Titchener was also interested with introspection and how are conscious awareness affects our memory. He wanted his students to learn the introspective habit, where they focus on specific mental thoughts while performing experiments. This was to ensure students would avoid stimulus errors, by having their own conscious thoughts interfere with the experiment. However, his ideas on introspection would fail for many reasons, but mainly because he wasn’t open to other ideas. Titchener’s main accomplishment was establishing a pure scientific laboratory and studying the structure of human consciousness.

The second interesting topic was functionalism, and how Herbert Spencer promoted his own insights on evolution. He was the one responsible for coining the term “Survival of the fittest.” Spencer’s idea of survival takes us back to ancient Rome, where gladiators had to be fierce in order to win the battle. This knew Americanized version of survival was known as Social Darwinism. Many people believed the force of evolution was a natural cycle that could not be stopped. This view suggested when people fail it is because they are not “fit.” Spencer also viewed economic status, such as poverty, as a sign of not being fit enough to survive. Unfortunately, this reasoning gave an excuse for dominant white males to think they were more superior and that women and minority were to be inferior.

The third interesting topic was Edward L. Thorndike and connectionism. I found it interesting that he was considered “a pioneer in comparative psychology,” because of his psychological testing of animals, especially cats in which he studies how they escape his puzzle maze boxes. Thorndike was also interested in behaviorism and studied Pavlov’s conditioning techniques. Thorndike later became a leader in the functionalist movement. He wanted to improve human conditions by studying how a person adapts to their environment. Thorndike’s original experiences were simple; he created a maze by standing books up and placing them side by side. He first observed if baby chicks could find their way out. Thorndike discovered at first they were confused and would get lost in the maze, but eventually over time they learned how to find a way out. Thorndike earned a fellowship to Columbia University, where he impressed others with his comparative psychology and research on animal intelligence. There he was able to use a wide a variety of animals for his experiments. Although he was best remembered for studying how cats escape form one of his homemade wooden pallet boxes. Thorndike often used trial and error learning, by placing a cat in one of his boxes and observed their panicky attempts of escape. He observed after a while the cat were able to escape after making a connection between stimulus and response, this learning model is sometimes known as connectionism. However some other psychologist disagreed with Thorndike’s study of confined animals. It was decided among fellow researchers that animal behavior needed to be studied in a natural environment, this new field of research would be called ethology. Thorndike eventually used his research on learning and would apply it on humans; he became a leading force in educational psychology.

This chapter relates to previous chapters by explaining how the new profession of psychology was still being established in America, structuralism and functionalism was the new scientific approach when it came to analyzing the mind.

Sense I am an animal lover; it would be interesting to learn more about ethology, and the more humane way of studying animal behavior in their own natural environment.

Terms used: E.B. Titchener, functionalism, structuralism, drill course, introspective habit, stimulus error, Herbert Spencer, Edward L. Thorndike, connectionism, trial and error learning, ethology

Chapter 7

The first thing in chapter 7 was the structural elements of human conscious experience. It talks about how our body reacts to different sensations. Different sensations have different attributes which describe the sensation. I really like this idea because it makes it easy for us to understand. I agree with the notion that we would attend a concert for the sensory elements and not to just fulfill the need for pleasure. In the end, we may now that we well obtain pleasure from the concert but the senses are what drive us to go there. So, in a way, senses can be tools to evoke different feelings or emotions in humans. It is important to realize the importance of our senses and how they relate to our conscious and unconscious processes.
The next thing I found to be very interesting was the idea of social Darwinism. It exists everywhere in our society today. It states that evolution should be left unchecked. I really feel like this relates to such laws as the helmet law for motorcyclists. I do not think that the government should try to protect us from ourselves. It keeps evolution from happening at a natural rate. If someone chooses not to use a helmet, and they die, this is a form of evolution. If they are not smart enough to understand the risks, then this is a form of social darwinism or survival of the fittest. The ones who were there helmets survive more crashes and live to produce more offspring. This is not to say that there are not other factors involved in wearing a helmet, but this is just an example of social darwinism. It seems somewhat immoral, or wrong, but it directly effects the rate of evolution, whether that is good or bad is another debate.
The last thing I found really interesting was the idea of progressive education. It somewhat goes against the idea of social darwinism, but also makes some great points. Dewey thought that conventional education makes students want to avoid the classroom rather than thrive in it. I tend to agree with this notion. We should focus more on making school educational and enjoyable so that students will be motivated to learn. I think Dewey's field of study is very important because we want our children to have an optimum level of learning. We should be doing more studies on how children learn instead of forcing this conventional system of them. It can turn out to be aversive.
I did not really like how this chapter kept throwing different ideas at us. It was hard to remember who thought of what but maybe that really is not what is important. I thought it would be better if these ideas were spaced out a little more so we were not just jumping from one to the next. The one advantage of this though is that we can easily compare and relate each thought.
The thing that will be most useful is the guidelines and examples of good experiments such as Thorndike and his puzzle boxes. This can inspire and keep us aware on different ways that we can experiment with behavior and learning.
This chapter builds on the others by offering other theories about learning and behavior. It shows how Darwin inspired a whole new way of thinking and a new concept call social darwinism. It shows us that we can learn and build on things that previous psychologists have studied in order to further our knowledge of psychology.
I would really like to know more about progressive education and what spurred rapid integration of it into our society. I want to know where it was successful and how it reinforced us that it was the right thing to implement.
I had many ethical ideas when I was reading the sections on social darwinism and progressive education. It leads us back to the classic question. Should we make laws that protect us from ourselves? And should we have programs that, in a way, reinforce failure in society? These are great questions with many different forms of answers.

terms: social darwinism, Darwin, Thorndike, puzzle boxes, progressive education, sensory elements, attributes, conventional system, sensations, evolution, rate, pleasure, emotions

One section I found interesting was ‘the manuals’ which stemmed drill courses; from my understanding Titchener didn’t care for so he devised his own known as the basically had the students working together alternating between experimenter and observer, so on and so forth. But this stuck out to me because in the video we just watched from Thursday’s snow day we learned all about new techniques in learning, and necessarily what is learning. This section kind of branched off of this because it’s easy to sit in a lab and do everything that your professor tells you to do, it becomes almost robotic; but when you’re put into a lab and have to figure out what to do given a set of instructions, that’s learning. I got a sense from the section on Titchener that if he didn’t like something he did something about it rather than complaining. He didn’t like the manuals so he revised his own, he didn’t care for the APA and the way it functioned so he created his own known as the experimenters.
Another topic I found interesting was introspective attitudes, I actually read the grey box, which as the chapters carry on I’m finding out that they actually contain valuable and interesting information; so if anything I will take away from this class is grey boxes will no longer be emitted from my readings. Anyways, although the introspective attitude concept I didn’t fully grasp I did get that it was a way of learning for those psychologists. The thesis done by Dallenbach, which looked at our attention and over loading, was really boring and I think that’s why the theory isn’t studied anymore today but yet it was still interesting. More importantly though I see the works done on this topic to be informational in the sense that the psychologist conducting the experiments on themselves were able to observe and then learn from themselves- Self-learning. My favorite and most surprising example was Lightner Witmer who studied pain, but by throwing himself off of a horse onto his head and shoulder, and then continued to use his arm ( which still had a lot of pain) for future experiments. To me this is just, cool, it could be seen as inhumane had he done it to a participant but he did it to himself.

I really enjoyed reading about the Thorndike puzzle box learning, I understand that it can be seen as being inhumane given that the animals were starving, but I also see these periods in time where society didn’t have certain laws to be a learning period for society; Im not going to go into detail on my beliefs so Ill just leave it there. With the Puzzle Box though Thorndike wanted to see the process a starving cat would go about in order to escape from the box, which after looking at the picture looks like a 7 year old build. Soon after running the experiment many times the cats learned that instead of clawing around the box all they had to do was pull a lever to get out- trial and error learning. My interests for this subject went beyond the puzzle box and into my everyday life, I use trial and error every day, I don’t necessarily realize it but I do. It’s also something that I remember practicing in my early years of education, now if it was a learned behavior, or a biological one, or possibly a mixture I’m not certain; but it was interesting to see such a concept come about in the field of psychology and know that I still use it today. Which also reminds me of the video we watched (again) because when learning shouldn’t we have trial and errors, when you’re wrong it doesn’t mean anything but that you get to try again; instead of failing a test. That’s how I see it, and how I see what learning should be.

Something I didn’t care for in this chapter was the section on functionalism, with the emphasis on James Angell, I felt like this section was just a branch off of Dewey, and as a whole ( the chapter) I just don’t find all the publications and places studied at to be informational to me. Actually I have an attendancy to not remember anything I read once information like this is presented because it all seems the same to me. I would rather read about what they studied, what was going on in their life, how life at their given campus was like and how it influenced them in their works/writings.

I think this chapter helped me realize that lab work, experiments, est. is essential in the field of psychology, I’ve kind of gotten annoyed in the past with the lab aspect of psychology and saying I want person-to-person interaction because I want to help people. Now I’m realizing that the lab work does help people, I mean how a therapist can help someone if they don’t have procedures or whatever it may be backed up by facts. I guess prior to this chapter I didn’t really care about lab work, and was more focused on patient care, but now I realize that they both go hand in hand.

Chapter 7 builds off the prior chapters in many ways, but I would say one of the big points here is psychology is evolving or expanding from the last ‘psychologist’s’ findings and or studies. To me this chapter showed America as a new and upcoming development in Psychology and for it to succeed it needed to present psychology to the public in an applicable or relatable manner. The previous chapters seemed to be spanned out longer time wise than this chapter, going from hundreds of years to only a few decades this chapter just shows how quickly psychology was evolving. Not to mention after reading about Spencer and his application of Darwinism to humans, perhaps he’s the reason Darwin is either loved or hated today. Another important way this chapter builds is that Titchener, being a German in America, was able to translate the works of Wundt and Kulpe into English. In other words I felt like this chapter builds off the other chapters because it’s a new generation of psychologists.

I personally would like to know more about structuralism, I know quite a bit about functionalism; and I would have to say that has and will be my main area of interest but I figured given that I don’t know a whole lot on structuralism I might as well learn more about it.

I found it funny that Titchener gave a how to fail manual for the qualitative experiments, maybe more manuals of that type should be included in textbooks today. I’m being semi-sarcastic here, in a sense though most students know how to pass a course; almost every syllabus I ever had told me what I would need to do in the course, well why not include what students shouldn’t be doing. If I read a sentence that says “attend class for in class points” Im going to moan and groan because I think that’s stupid; but if I read a sentence saying if you want to possibly fail the course don’t attend class, to me that is almost more motivating to go to class. In a sense I don’t care if I get in class points, until the end of the semester when I realize those in class points add up and I fail.
Terms: Darwinism, Spencer,titchener, qualitative experiments, the manuals, drill courses, introspective attitude, wundt, kulpe, Dallenbach, witmer, Thorndike, Puzzle Box Learning, trial and error learning, Angell, Dewey,

This chapter was a nice change from the past chapters, I felt like we finally got to a new topic. Structuralism and functionalism is an interesting topic that played a large role in the development of psychology. The three topics that I found interesting is this chapter is the structural approach by E.B. Titchener, the development of psychology in education, and Edward Thordike’s study on connectionism. Titchener was just all around interesting. He was the first person that I have not heard about before and everything I learned was new. He also seemed to be a person that tested the limits and I find that really important to the development of psychology. He stated that we need to understand anatomy before we can get into functionalism, and he is the first to express that. He also believed that people adapted to the individual environment to survive. The last chapter explained Darwin in-depth so it was interesting to see how others took what he did and furthered it.They built on the previous chapter by giving more detail on evolution and how social Darwinism came about. He also studied through experimentation instead of relying on observation. I do think that the use of systematic experimental introspection is a little wacky, but he figured it out as he went on. Giving detailed reports while doing a task is not efficient to say the least. His following use of introspective habit is also an issue for the data collected by trained observers. He continued to make progress and that is what is important, that is probably the most important thing I learned from this chapter to understand psychology. John Dewy is interesting to me because he progressed the education of psychology. I did not know that Chicago was a large part in the development, and I thought that was interesting to learn. The text states that he took the question of “what” to “what for” and I think that sums up why I think he is interesting. He pushed psychology further, taking our information and observations and putting reason to them. The text gives an example of seeing and grasping as a complex action that is underrated. He might have not done much besides the reflex arc theory but it was the first to push further. And the final thing I found interesting was Edward Thorndike and his study on connectionism. His focus on behaviorism and human condition interests me. I like to think of studies back from the past without all of our rules and regulations and think about how much information you could collect. The thing that he is remembered for is the cat study with a maze and the first step towards comparative psychology. I just cant imagine thinking to study the similarities between human and animal. That is so genius. The transition from comparative to behaviorism is owed to him. He also kept improving and further understanding.

The areas that I did not find interesting was the in detail explanation for each persons life before their progress. Yes, it is nice to know where they went to college and their educational path. But learning about where they are from and how their parents viewed them is just unnecessary. I would prefer the author to start with a hook of what they did! I would like to learn more about the APA now. After hearing about how all these people contributed to it makes me curious about their timeline and the discoveries, publishings, and people involved would be fun to know. I also think learning about it as it is today would be good to know.

Key Terms: structuralism, functionalism, connectionism, Titchener, Thorndike, systematic experimental introspection, introspective habit, John Dewy, Reflex Arc, social Darwinism.

The thing I found most uninteresting in chapter seven was the introduction. I realize they have to start somewhere and giving us brief background on what the chapter will be about his necessary, however we have already learned the definitions of structuralism and functionalism so it did not thrill me to learn about them again. Also I did not find the background information on Titchener very interesting because it seemed like a list of his talents/schools he attended.
One subject I did find interesting in chapter seven was about Titchener and his founding of the experimentalist group. I liked this passage because it showed his true passion for psychology and in a way it showed his rebellious side. He was not happy with the way the APA was organized so he resigned his membership. He didn’t like that they refused to censure a member who was plagiarizing Wundt’s books, he didn’t think they represented a true experimental psychology format, and he didn’t like how the meetings were conversation based. Because of all of this he formed his own group and he wanted it to have an English club feel: no women and smoking was accepted. This part of the chapter tied in with other chapters because it expanded more on Titchener and also it touched base again on sexism and provided that Titchener was not sexist because almost half of his graduate students were female.
The next concept I found interesting was on Titchener’s three types of elementary mental processes: sensations, images, and affections. I liked this section because he takes simple aspects of our lives and puts science and reason behind it in a way that made me think outside of my box. HE says that with sensations and images there are four attributes including quality, intensity, duration, and clearness. With Images though he believes the qualities, especially intensity and duration, were less noticeable. He also states that the elements of our emotional life differ from sensations and images in that they can be measured on whether or not they are pleasant or not and also that the attributes portray quality, intensity, and duration but lack clearness. With this he explains that we must attend to the sensory elements not the feeling of pleasure or the feeling will disappear. This notion rejects James-Lange’s theory of emotion but it puts a very new idea into my head that makes complete sense.
One last concept I found interesting to learn about was Thorndike’s puzzle box learning. We have all learned of this before in intro classes however never in so much detail and I think that is why I enjoyed this section so much. Thorndike was very critical of contemporary comparative psychologists because they relied on nonrepresentative anecdotal data to support claims of learning in animals. To disprove these researchers Thorndike developed a more systematic procedure to test for animal intelligence. He would study more than one case, repeat the experiments, and then control the learning history /environments of each animal studied. Thorndike described the behaviors as trial and error learning by connection to previous events. He also came up with two laws the law of effect (the connection between a stimulus and response will improve with practice) and the law of effect (rewards are more effective that punishments in producing learning).
After reading this chapter one person I would like to learn more about would be Harvey Carr. The book didn’t really go into much detail about this person other than saying he studied the new psychology and laboratory procedure and devoted his research to the perception of space and maze learning. They elaborated a little bit on his mazes but I find him interesting and would like to learn even more either on his personal life or some of his research.
One thing I found myself thinking about a lot during this chapter was what all of these psychologists do in their free time. We read all about these people and there psychological studies and advancements and then we hear about how they continued to teach/research their whole life. I kept asking myself, how can someone love one thing so much that they spend their whole life doing it? I would like to know whether or not these people had families/hobbies that didn’t include research.
I think the most important thing we learned in this chapter is the basis of structuralism and functionalist psychologists because I know throughout the rest of the semester we will be learning about psychologists who have each of these styles and it is important to remember what they mean and the differences between the two. Also this concept builds off of previous chapters too because we have learned about this before but now we are adding new psychologists to the mix. Also we are expanding even further into America’s psychological history and expanding on maze learning too.
Terms: structuralism, functionalism, Titchener, experimentalists, three types of elementary mental processes, attributes, James-Lange’s theory of emotion, Thorndike, trial and error learning, connectionism, law of effect, law of exercise.

After reading Chapter 7 one thing that I found interesting was how E.B. Titchener went about teaching his students at Cornell. The thing he did that was different from the other teachers was he helped develop what is called drill courses. A drill course for these psychology students was to take research that had already been done and repeat these classic studies. The reason for this approach was to get all the kinks worked out and in general become acclimated to the laboratory before they did their own experiments. The reason I found this interesting was because of the snow day video we had to watch for Monday. Titchener found a new way to educate people, even in some cases with inadequate professors, and make it so they could understand the material a little bit easier. This is the same concept that Titchener used a new way to teach people because time was moving on and I found this very coincidental with the video we watched on Monday.
The second thing that I found interesting in this chapter was when Titchener was forming a “club” of sorts with other psychologists calling them the Experimentalists. The reason I found this interesting was because the group of people who would gather to introduce their ideas and experiments to other psychological peers were in fact all males. The reason for this was because when they met men typically smoked and women were not usually in rooms where men were smoking. The men believed that there was no possible way that men and women could get together in an informal meeting and freely speak their minds without the women taking offense. I find this interesting because not only were women not able to partake in scientific discussions for some time after that but it made me think about the gender differences today. What was funny was how women and men do act differently in groups of their own gender than in groups of women and men mixed and it interests me to see what kind of discussions would be active if this behavior wasn’t present.
The final thing that I found interesting in this chapter was John Dewey’s reflex arc contributions. The reflex arc was a spin on the reflexes being put into three steps ranging from the stimulus producing sensation, central processing producing an idea, and then the act or motor response. I found the example interesting and good at clarifying the information by using a child reaching for a candle and getting burnt. Dewey took it a step further by saying that due to this the child would adapt to the environment due to the experience and know the light was associated with pain. This was kind of a conditioning technique is what it seemed like.
The thing that I didn’t find interesting in this chapter was the thought of what is considered “fit” and what is not in the argument of survival of the fittest proposed by Herbert Spencer. This was interesting because they made the statement that something was “fit” by not accepting outside variables other than the person. It’s kind of hard to explain but it says someone is not fit when they fail in business just for the mere fact that they weren’t fit enough to succeed. So if you succeed in business does it necessarily make you fit? This was just some rich white man’s definition of how we can kind of use double talk to rationalize the gap between the rich and the poor. This was odd because it doesn’t make a lot of sense but people just seemed to accept it. I just didn’t really like this concept because it really couldn’t be explained very well.
This chapter builds onto the other chapters by moving from Germany and more into the United States era of doing psychological work and how we did these at our universities. The previous chapters talked about the people in the foreign countries, now it is going to build off of what the people in our country learned from them. A topic that I would like to learn more about would be the reflexes portion because I think it has a lot to do with behaviorism and from taking that class last year I found it interesting and easy to learn about. One idea that I had while reading this chapter was the thought that Darwin didn’t come up with the statement “survival of the fittest”. I always thought that Darwin came up with this but it was in fact Herbert Spencer.
Terms: E.B. Tichener, Cornell, drill courses, psychology, research, laboratory, experiments, Experimentalists, scientific, gender, behavior, John Dewey, reflex arc, stimulus, sensation, central processing, motor response, conditioning, Herbert Spencer, variables, Germany, United States, behaviorism, Darwin.

The first thing I found interesting while reading this chapter was the concept of Social Darwinism. Social Darwinism extends the idea of natural selection from just the physical adaptations to social, political, and economic issues as well. In its simplest form, Social Darwinism follows the mantra of "the strong survive," including human issues. This theory was used to promote the idea that the white European race was superior to others, and therefore, destined to rule over them. I found this to be an interesting example of how the social and cultural ideas of certain time periods were able to sneak into scientific theories. Here is an example of a theory that, at the time, made sense and confirmed popular belief.
The second thing I found interesting in this chapter was Thorndike’s puzzle boxes. Thorndike wanted to test animal intelligence by placing an animal, while hungry, in a box that was escapable through a simple task like stepping on a lever. I do not know why I found this so interesting because Thorndike found exactly what you would expect: that through trial and error learning, cats were able to escape the boxes more and more quickly each time. I think the reason that I liked this section is because it is a prequel to Skinner and operant conditioning, and shows that Skinner was not the first one to test these theories. Thorndike’s theory is called connectionism because it shows that the animal is able to connect the correct behavior to the response stimulus and ignore previous, failed behaviors. On the very first try, these animals are able to connect which behavior worked. I find this discovery very interesting.
The third thing I found interesting in this chapter was introspective attitude. I normally skip over the grey boxes but for some reason I felt like I should read it. The experiment with the metronomes really intrigued me. I especially loved Lightner Witmer’s account of letting himself be thrown from a horse in order to study the psychology of pain.
I did not care for the section on the development of structuralism. It seemed like these pages were just filled with useless, boring information that could have been exempt from the text with no real long term effects. I simply felt like we did not really need to know how it progressed from Oxford to Leipzig to Cornell, etc. This section just really bored me.
I think the most influential part of this chapter had to do with Social Darwinism. It really got me to think about how theories are influenced by the ideas of the time period in which they were released. It is also a clear period where what was once applied to only animals is now being applied to humans and the social intricacies of human nature. I feel like this was a big step forward for the science. I would really like to read more about Introspective attitudes. Although they were interesting to me, I still do not fully comprehend all that they entail. I feel like it would make an interesting discussion to examine this area of Psychology.

Terms: Social Darwinism, Thorndike, Puzzle Boxes, Trial and Error Learning, Operant Conditioning, Connectionism, Introspective Attitude

BR

In chapter seven I found many interesting things while reading. The first interesting topic was the section about structuralism and functionalism. Titchener in his journal wrote that structuralism is just like anatomy, because the purpose it analysis. This was compared to analysis in the sense that an anatomist organizes knowledge about the body into certain structures in comparison a structural psychologist would analyze the human mind and organize it into its elementary units. This makes sense and is interesting to me how biology and the psychology aspect of organization are connected or similar. Functionalism is defined to be more like physiology. The comparison between physiology and psychology in this aspect is that physiologist examine how the various parts of the body operate and the functions they have to help keep one alive. The psychologist side of functionalism is similar to this in regards that they study how the mind serves to adapt the individual to the environment. This is interesting and makes sense how they are connected because they are both studying how the mind helps the body function physically and regarding one’s situational factors.

Another thing I found interesting from this chapter was the section about John Dewey and his views on education. He thought that schools needed to be reformed, he thought we needed to deviate from the normal school structure of emphasized rote learning, drill and practice and strict discipline. This is interesting to me especially since he was a schoolteacher that he would want this to change back in the day because discipline was such a big thing back then in school as well as their structure in school, so find it kind of refreshing that someone realized that wasn’t the way to do it. The problem with having the classrooms like this was that they were a place to avoid instead of learn. I know if I went to school at this time and it was structured like that I would hate it and I would dread having to go to school. I thought it was interesting that Dewey took the initiative by creating a Laboratory School to research how children learn best. He came up with the result that children learn by interacting with their environment, they learn by doing. I would definitely agree! This point made me refer to the Mitra video we had to watch for our snow day. Mitra believed that children need to take learning into their own hands and they need to be allowed to explore answers to questions on their own and just have the teachers their to raise questions. Dewey was correct in his findings and his ideas were smart, and Mitra thinks the same ideas which is interesting that we are still needing to reform our schools today.

One topic I didn’t find very interesting was the section about James Angell. The information about him seemed repetitive and it didn’t keep my interest or my focus. He was being compared to Dewey too much but I enjoyed reading about John D. and his ideas about education, on the other hand; Angell didn’t have very much contribution in my opinion. It was all about what he published and that stuff to me is something that I won’t remember or that won’t stick in my brain so it was useless for me.

This chapter builds off of previous chapters in the way that certain topics such as functionalism and structuralism were talked about in earlier chapters but were elaborated on more in this one. Also some of the names of people discussed, for example Darwin, in this chapter are ones we learned about in previous ones and are being tied into how their ideas continued to influence those after them.

I would like to learn more about the ideas of Dewey in education. I would like to learn how his studies or research were conducted in his Laboratory School, and what types of tests the children engaged in. I would be interested in learning the whole process that led him up to his conclusion that children learn better when interacting in their environments.

Some ideas I had while reading were mostly when I was reading about Dewey and I was relating his ideas back to Mitra’s video assignment we had. I kept thinking how it was interesting that even back in the day someone (Dewey) knew that education needed to be changed. Today education is still not up to par and it needs to be more of the children’s freedom to learn on their own.

Terms: Titchener, structuralism, functionalism, Dewey, Laboratory School, James Angell, Darwin, education

The first thing I found interesting about this chapter was the section on social Darwinism. The phrase "survival of the fittest" was created by Herbert Spencer. He was the first person to discussing humans being winners. If you were a winner, then you had access to the limited resources that were available and were able to live and procreate. If you were not able to access these resources, you were deemed unfit, and you would die from lack of resources. This idea went along with the feeling in the United States at the time and was generally accepted.

This idea influenced society heavily during the 19th century. For evolution to occur properly, all people should be left to their own devices. Therefore, the government should not step in to give assistance to the poor, the rich should be allowed to keep all their money, etc. It was believed that if you helped someone who would not be able to make it on their own, they would continue to procreate and create children who are unable to survive without assistance. With assistance you would be creating more and more people who are unfit to live in modern society. Evolutionary fitness was used to explain the gap between the rich and poor at this time as well.

I find this section interesting because there are still times where this comes up. If you are watching a TV show, like America's Funniest Home Videos, and someone does something stupid and hurts themselves, you might think to yourself, survival of the fittest. Most people, however, do not believe that this is a good rule to follow. People now understand that someone's situation is not always based on their skills or "fitness". Someone who is rich may be very dumb, but lucks into a fortune. Also, someone who is poor may be this way not because they are dumb, but because they may have had some great misfortune fall upon them. There is more to a person than evolutionary fitness, and anyone could end up in any position if certain events were to occur.

The second part I found interesting was the section on John Dewey. Dewey was born in Vermont and went to the University of Vermont after graduating high school at age fifteen. He then taught high school himself, before going back to school at John Hopkins University. He studied philosophy, but was also exposed to psychology. After graduating, the then taught philosophy and psychology in Michigan. He used the notes he compiled at this time to write a book, entitled Psychology.

Dewey then went to Chicago, where he established the city as the center of functionalism. During this time he reevaluated the idea of the reflex arc. At this time the reflex arc was thought of us three separate components. Dewey believed that the three components were actually one continuous circuit.

Dewey also made contributions to education reform and started the movement that was later known as progressive education. Dewey had been a schoolteacher previously, and didn't agree with the normal approach to teaching. He believed that students shouldn't be drilled information, that learning by rote was not an effective way, and that punishment was too strict. He believed these measures made school difficult to enjoy, and did not foster learning.

I found Dewey interesting because he was interested in and influenced several areas of science. He used his knowledge as a psychologist and combined that with his experience as a teacher to understand what increased learning and what discouraged it. He was also the first to consider that the reflex arc idea was incorrect.

The final section I found interesting was the section on puzzle box learning. Edward L. Thorndike was fed up with all the attention that animals attaining feats received. He believed that people during this time were not recognizing all the times that animals were unable to do things, and only focused on the few times they were able to accomplish something extraordinary.

Thorndike believed he could get a better idea of an animal's capabilities by running a series of tests on them. This is where the creation of the puzzle box came into play. The puzzle box was a box in which a cat would have to perform a specific task in order to open the box and escape from it. There would be several boxes with different tasks, and then a box where all the tasks were combined. At first, the animals were unable to get out of the box, and would react randomly, but they then figured out what actions were needed to escape, and would do those actions right away. This was called trial and error learning, because the cats needed to try multiple things in order to figure out which ones worked. This way of learning is also called connectionism.

This section interests me because it shows us how animals learn, and that they are actually capable of learning. Sometimes people think that animals are born with certain abilities and cannot learn. This test shows that animals can learn, and are capable of putting several different techniques together. I wonder at what age a child would be able to make the connections the cats did.

One area I did not like was the section on James Angell. Angell went to school at Michigan University, where his father was the president.There he took several classes from Dewey. Angell then went to German to get his doctorate. After receiving his doctorate he took at position at Michigan and taught psychology and philosophy. He eventually became the president of Yale. He contributed research to reaction time, sound localization, and imagery. He was also a spokesperson for functionality. In his years as a teacher he mentored John Watson, and several others who went on to make a difference in psychology.

I wasn't interested in Angell because I feel like he didn't actually achieve very much. He was a president of a University, but so were thousands of others in history. He contributed to some areas, but didn't create anything new or make any significant discoveries. I think he was a smart man, but I don't think he was important enough to be mentioned in this book.

I think that the social Darwinism section will really help us to understand the history of psychology. You have to realize the mindset of people during this time to understand the decisions they made. This idea is why women and minorities were not really included in psychology. They were seen as unfit, and were not thought of as important. The ideas of structuralism and functionalism also helped to shape psychology, as did education reforms.

I would like to learn more about social Darwinism, because I want to better understand the mindset of these people and the implications it had.

While reading this chapter I thought a lot about how my grandparents their parents and grandparents were taught in school and how that differs from how we were taught. A lot of the education reforms helped to make schools a more enjoyable place to be, and encouraged us to learn. When my grandparents were in school, it was okay to spank or hit students. Teachers were supposed to be tough and strict, whereas now they are supposed to be more caring and understanding.

terms: social Darwinism, survival of the fittest, Herbert Spencer, evolutionary fitness, John Dewey, Psychology, functionalism, reflex arc, continuous circuit, progressive education, education reform, puzzle box learning, Edward Thorndike, trial and error learning, connectionism, James Angell, reaction time, sound localization, imagery, John Watson,

There were a lot of interesting things within chapter seven, but there were three things that stuck out the most to me.
The first was E.B Titchener's difference between structuralism and functionalism. Structuralism, like stated in the book, is like anatomy, analyzing the human mind and organizing it into its units. Functionalism, like physiology, studies how the mind serves to adapt the individual to the environment. These two terms, to me, are like a chicken or the egg argument, meaning which one comes first and is therefore more important. Many would say that you must understand the human mind before you can see how it works, putting structuralism first and functionalism second. I agree with this statement. Like in this history class, you must understand the history before you can understand the present. However, it can be said that although understanding the structure of the human mind is necessary before studying its function. It's hard to determine the sequence of these two terms, for both have great reasoning, like the chicken or the egg argument.
The second thing I found interesting was the section on drill courses. Drill courses occur when the student is not producing new research, but repeating old research and learning to use the "brass instruments". Later, they formed groups of two, the observer and the experimenter. The observer is what we would call the research subject now. I find this interesting because my chemistry teacher has a similar set up to her classes my sophomore year of high school. We were grouped into groups of threes, the teacher would show the experiment to the class with no explanation, and we were to reproduce the experiment through trial and error. Through this teaching method, the class learned that "failing" was not a failure at all, but just a wrong way to do the experiment. I learned this way a lot better and find it interesting that this teaching style has a name, not just something my teacher developed on her own.
The third thing I found interesting was Dewey's progressive education. I liked the idea that children learn by interacting with their environment and doing, because I am a prime example of this. I have found that I learn a lot better when I am hands on with the subject I am learning, and don't do well reading instructions or watching. I find this section interesting mostly because this seems to be the "ideal school", however, this does not exist. Many teachers, especially in college, believe in the strict discipline, drill and practice approach. Though I believe if any school throughout one's education, that college should be the hands on type, for college is the school that is preparing us for our future the most.
There really wasn't one thing I disliked. Though I have found the history of each individual to be the most boring. However, like this class, learning the history is important to understanding their background and where they are coming from.
This chapter is helpful in understanding the history of psychology mainly due to the fact it involves the school system. We have all experienced school in some shape or form, and is important in today's society. Therefore, understanding some fundamentals, such as progressive education and drill courses allows us to have an understanding of the education we are receiving.
One thing that builds on the previous chapter was Herbert Spencer's social darwinism. Social darwinism believed that evolutionary forces were natural and inevitable and that messing with these forces was harmful. This idea builds on Darwin's natural selection. Darwin believed that certain traits are passed down to offspring. Social darwinism is kind of the same thing, just that these are predetermined and should not be messed with or altered.

Terms Used: E.B Titchener, structuralism, functionalism, drill courses, observer, Dewey, progressive education, social darwinism, Herbert Spencer

The thing I found most interesting in this chapter was Thorndike’s puzzle box experiments. I’ve read about them in other classes and find it intriguing that cats could figure out how to operate levers and know that they could get out that way. I also thought it was cool that he measured their intelligence by the reduction of the amount of time it took for the cats to figure out how to escape. It was confusing to me that just because he saw no glints of realization physically, he thought they did not realize what they were doing was leading to their escape. However, I think that it is possible that there could have been something different going on inside the cats’ minds. Maybe they are more intelligent than we think, but how can we test that? His theory about trial and error learning and connectionism was pretty ground-breaking, I think. One tries random acts until they finally come up with a good solution to their problems.

I’ve also watched videos on YouTube of experiments like his which are quite interesting to watch. Another thing I found interesting was the field of ethology, which is the study of animal behavior in its natural surroundings. From another paper I wrote about animal behavior and in what ways we can study it, I thought that ethological studies would be best. There is nothing to alter their natural behavior; one simply observes it as it occurs in nature, thus giving us an intimate look at what occurs and how things change over time. A third item I found interesting in chapter seven was the design of curricula in higher education. Woodworth and Thorndike saw flaws in the current curriculum, which did not benefit many students in their prospective majors. For example, zoology students did not really gain anything by studying Greek. I think that their notice of these flaws could relate to design of new curricula now; I have taken classes that are required in college that have nothing to do with Psychology, nor will benefit me in my future career. I was simply told these classes were to make me more “rounded” as a student. What if those who believe this are wrong? What if I wasted time that I could have been studying for my future career? This is how I feel about it anyway.

One thing that did not interest me as much was John Dewey and his Reflex Arc. I’m thinking it was kind of a spin-off of other psychologists’ ideas, which isn’t really a bad thing, it just reiterated a lot of what I’ve heard in other theories already. I would like to learn more about the design of new curricula and maybe think of new ways to associate it with today’s flaws in our education system. I want to know how we can improve and better it from what I’ve experienced because I have seen some of these flaws first hand as an upper level student.

Terms: Thordike, puzzle box, experiment, theory, trial and error, connectionism, ethology, animal behavior, study, natural behavior, curricula, Woodworth, psychology, John Dewey, reflex arc, psychologist