Reading Activity Week #8 (Due Monday)

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Please read chapter 7. After reading the chapter, please respond to the following questions:

(Note: to help with organization points please keep the numbering)

1a) What topic did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?

2a) What person did you find interesting?
2b) Why were they interesting to you?

3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?

4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?

5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?

6a) What topic would you like to learn more about? 
6b) Why?

7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?

8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.

Let us know if you have any questions,

--Dr. M

88 Comments

Chapter 7

1)What did you find interesting? Why?
I found John Dewey to be an interesting person. Dewy was interested in pedagogy, teaching, while he was in Chicago during 1894. Here he published an article called “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology.” Reflex arc is the stimulus producing sensation, central processing producing an idea, and the act or motor response. Dewey believed that dividing the reflex into these elements was artificial, so instead Dewey proposed a model of the reflex that substituted a functional for a structural analysis. In the example of a burning candle and a child, the old method was seen as “a series of stimulus-response elements, seeing the flame, reaching for it, feeling the heat, and withdrawing. Dewey says it as so: seeing and grasping are bound together, however the second part of the event, being hurt by the flame and removing the hand, is a part of a new meaning. From that point on seeing a burning candles is now seen as “seeing-of-a-light-that-means-pain-when-contact-occurs.”

2)What did you find interesting? Why?
I thought James R. Angell was interesting to read about because he was in a seminar with Dewey that used William James’s new Principles of Psychology as the text. Angell later said that the text “unquestionably affected his thinking for the next 20 years more profoundly than any other. Angell established the differences between functional and structural psychologies. He exclaimed that structural psychologist were interested in the mental contents, or the “what?” of a conscious experience, while the functional psychologists wants to study the mental operations, or the “how?” and “why?” of the consciousness.


3)What did you find interesting? Why?
I enjoyed reading about Harvey Carr. He was interesting in that he improved the situation substantially by inventing a type of maze that came to be called the “Carr maze,” which I think is a really cool name, each maze had a different solution, but the number of choices per maze held constant. I think it was interesting that he while studying the sensory basis for the mazes he did two of them with John Watson. I just love how he is also intertwined with another psychologist just like James R. Angell.

4)What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Why?
I did not like the beginning of this chapter. I found it dull, even though I know that the information is very relevant to psychology and its history, it did not grab my attention and I instead found the second half of the chapter to be far more interesting. I loved diving into the second chapter and reading about all the psychologists and how their lives intertwined into one another.

5)What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I thought it was very useful and interesting to know that many of these psychologists work with other famous psychologist that I have already learned about. I think it is useful to know this to see how the influences work in their lives and how they helped make them make an impact in psychology.

6)How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter directly built on the last chapter through James Angell. He was taught through the book written by William James. I think that is so neat. I wrote about William James last week and this week I get to see how his text book influences yet another psychologist. Not only did it influence Angell, but Dewey must have enjoyed it a lot in order to want to use it in his lecture that Angell was in. I think that is really neat to see history in action.

7)What topic would you like to learn more about? Why?
I would like to learn more about James R. Angell. I found it so cool that his life intertwined with two other psychologists. I would like to see how they affected his life more and the types of influences that had on him as a psychologist. I want to know if he liked studying under Dewey and how the switch of professors affected him.

8)What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?


9)Terminology: John Dewey, James R. Angell, Harvey Carr, Reflex Arc, Structural Psychology, Functional Psychology, Carr Maze.

1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Though he had a small part in this chapter, I found Edward Thorndike to be interesting. The main reason I found him interesting was because he was an educational psychologist and I found his study dealing with cats and puzzle boxes to be neat. He relied on anecdotal findings heavily and studied trial and error. He did a study and came up with the law of effect and then later did a different study dealing with exercise and came up with the law of exercise.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Robert Woodworth studied alongside Thorndike and developed dynamic psychology. His dynamic psychology approach took the place of an S-R model that had an S-O-R framework and specialized in motivational influence and behavior. He also wrote a textbook that talked about methodology. The “Columbia Bible” specified the differences between experimental and correlational studies. It also helped to determine the difference between independent and dependent variables in those experimental studies.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Structural psychology was interesting because it was founded by E.B. Titchener. The main purpose of structuralism is to determine how the human conscious experience certain elements and how they turn those elements into a mental process. Titchener was a huge advocate for experimental psychology and promoted a laboratory dedicated to this approach. He formed a group of fellow researchers, who were later known as the Experimentalists. They would meet once a year and go over each of their ongoing studies. Titchener’s main focus on structuralism was to determine how the adult mind could generalize elements and combine others to make a more complex phenomenon. He also wanted to obtain an explanation of how mental processes work by better understanding how the brain and nervous systems function.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I did not find much of the beginning of the chapter to be interesting. I found one section of the beginning to grab my attention and much of the second half of the chapter. The first half was mundane and lacked enthusiasm. The second half of the chapter grabbed my attention because it tied other psychologists together and went into better detail about certain studies and findings.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think that by understanding how psychologists can branch off of one another is useful. Many psychologists get their influences by previous psychologists and I find it interesting how they continue to build off of their work. I also think it will be useful because later in future classes, if these psychologists are mention I will have a better understanding of their work and be able to build off of what I have previously learned.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
There was one part of the chapter that tied William James (chapter 6) with another psychologist. James R. Angell spoke in a seminar with John Dewey. During this seminar, they discussed William James’s Principles of Psychology. This book had a huge impact on Angell and later he came up with differences between structuralism and functionalism.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would like to learn more about structuralism and functionalism. I think learning the differences between the two and the different studies that were done on each will be beneficial. I also think it would be interesting to learn about the different psychologists who impacted these different approaches and helped to differentiate the two.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I thought about previous classes I have taken and how some of this chapter has been mentioned before. I also thought about Titchener’s studies about mental processes and how our conscious plays a role in that.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
E.B. Titchener, James R. Angell, Edward Thorndike, Robert Woodworth, Structuralism, Functionalism, Experimental Psychology, Law of Effect, Law of Exercise

J.P.

1a) What did you find interesting?
I found the “How to Fail in Psychology” interesting.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I liked it because it was funny and it showed that Titchener had a sense of humor. The reasons he mentioned hit home with me because I always talk about personal things in class. It was nice to give his students tips on how not to fail and showing a lighter side to him while doing so.
2a) What did you find interesting?
I found Robert S. Woodworth interesting to read about.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
The main reason why I liked Woodworth was because I liked that he was a modest, nice man. I liked that he didn’t think he would be remember but yet he was remember for numerous different reasons. I also thought it was interesting that Woodworth narrowed the definition of experiment. It was also interesting to know that he was the first Psychologist to use the terms independent and dependent variable the way we use them today.
3a) What did you find interesting?
I thought reading about the experimentalists group was interesting.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought it was cool that Titchener took the initiative to start the group. I also think it is interesting to see who was in the group. I like that as you read farther on in the chapter, you read about more Psychologists that were involved in the group. I also loved the fact that it was less formal than the APA and they had discussions related to what they loved. It was great to read that they talked about how they tried to keep the spirit of pure laboratory Psychology alive.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
The one thing I found the least interesting was structuralism and Titchener.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
One reason I didn’t like reading about him was because he seemed arrogant and obnoxious. I also like the functionalism view more than the structuralism view. I thought most of the things related to Titchener were boring, such as the manuals/drill courses and the talk of introspection. I also don’t see why he was so famous in Psychology because his work didn’t seem to be liked by many others.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think the most useful thing that I learned in this chapter was the section on structuralism vs. functionalism. I think this was the most useful part of this chapter because it was one of the most talked about sections. It is important because every Psychologist mentioned was on one side or the other. It showed the split in Psychology. It also showed that Titchener was practically all by himself on the structuralism side.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter builds off of the last chapter quite well. At the end of the last chapter, it mentioned Titchener and structuralism. It also mentioned Chicago and functionalism. In this chapter, Titchener and structuralism were mentioned quite a bit. Also, Chicago was mentioned in this chapter as a new leading center that taught functionalism.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about the group of experimentalists.
7b) Why?
I thought they were fascinating because they kind of seemed to me like a group of rebels. At least, Titchener, who I didn’t like much, seemed like a rebel in starting his own group even though he didn’t want it to seem like his group was competing with other groups. I think it would be interesting to learn more about the difference between that group and other groups, such as the APA.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
The only thing I can think of is when I was reading the “How to fail in Laboratory Psychology.” It reminded me of when I am in class and I talk and am noisy. It also reminded me of others in class who disrupt the class when they talk too much.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Titchener, Robert S. Woodworth, Experiment, Independent variable, Dependent variable, Laboratory Psychology, Structuralism, Functionalism, Introspection,

1) What I found interesting in this week’s chapter was the quantitative and qualitative experiments that were set up under Titchener’s lab and performed by his students. I found this interesting because the experimenter is relying on the sensations and perceptions of others rather than physical evidence to prove a conclusion. I became interested in this because I wanted to know more about reaction time and our sensory skills that we possess. For example, in Titchener’s qualitative experiments, observers would experience some sensory, perceptual, or affective event, give an introspective account of it, and then answer some questions in their notebooks. Olfactory sensations were studied by using a double olfactory. The glass tube would be shoved up the participant’s nose and the cylinders would hold various amounts of odor substances. The cylinders would move back and forth which would control the sensation of the smell. Participants were later asked questions such as did this smell overwhelm you? In quantitative experiments he focused on reaction time. When a stimulus was presented the telegraph key would be released by the participant in order to numerically test their time. Another incident with the lip key involved using a voice reaction in experiments. When participants opened their mouths to respond to the stimulus, the contacts on the device would be broken and then reaction time would be recorded.

2) I was also interested in the concept of drill courses. These drill courses were set up so that student’s would repeat past experiments done by other students. Now this would make sense but where does the creativity lye if the end result is already known? I became interested in these drill courses because I remember in high school chemistry that we would repeat experiments over and over so why was this relevant? Couldn’t someone produce new experiments for individuals to try? Students in these drill courses would learn how to use “brass instruments” and in general become acclimated to the laboratory. I did also find that even Titchener was worried about his training of the experiments and how he was teaching others in his classroom. Titchener went on to write Experimental Psychology: A Manual of Laboratory Practice in order to have some common means of laboratory practice. I do think that repeating the experiments is good in order to show the validity of it but I would also encourage as a teacher to try other ones that have not yet been attempted by students but by the teacher. These drill courses did prove beneficial to him as he did produce some of the greatest minds in American psychology.

3) I would the idea of structuralism versus functionalism to be very interesting as well. I thought it was interesting because there are so many ways to view our brain. For example, structuralism organizes information and knowledge about the body and separates it into its basic units or basic sensations. On the other side of the spectrum, functionalism, examines how the various parts of the body functions in order to keep that person alive. Titchener argued that it would be futile to study function before understanding the structure of the human mind. Titchener’s structuralism system was never widely popular here in the United States so I came to find out. His ideas on structuralism would play an important part though into the modern psychology that we have today.

4) I would say one of the most boring sections in the chapter deals with Titchener’s transition from oxford to Leipzig to Cornell. The reason I found this uninteresting is due to the fact that I am more interested in concepts rather than a detailed history of travel for an individual. Although, it is relevant to the chapter so that we can get a background on how Titchener came to America. I felt it was drawn out more than what it should have been. This man was interesting to learn about but I think the transition could have been more appealing to the readers if it was related somehow personally to them in some shape or form.

5) I think the field of ethology will prove to be most useful to learn about when trying to understand the history of psychology. Ethology is the study of animal behavior in its natural surroundings. I think over the course of time that psychologists have greatly benefitted from studying animals because based off of what we learn from their experiences we can in ways apply them to our lives. Many researchers studied animals in their natural habitat and examined their reactions to certain stimuli in the environment. I think that also independent and dependent variables will help in our understanding of the history of psychology. Every good researcher uses both in his/her experiment in which they manipulate a variable and then measure the result of it. Without these defining features experimentation would not be as useful or credited as highly.

6) In previous chapters, we have discussed that animals do not possess a significant ability to barter, trade, and perform complex tasks. We learned that only by trial and error is the phenomenon possible for animals to open gates such as in the dog experiment. Thorndike preferred the term trial and accidental success and developed a learning model known as connectionism. Thorndike found that some of his cats, after learning to escape from one box and then being put into a box with a similar but no identical escape mechanism, the cat learned more quickly than a cat without this experience. These results build on the idea that once the trial and error had been performed the animal’s reactions would be random but would see some improvement over time if conditioned in a way to do so.

7) I would like to learn more about this movement named progressive education. Solely because this type of progressive education got away from the common disciplines and started making the classroom a place to be rather than avoid. I would like to learn more about John Dewey’s contributions to progressive education and how it has impacted students today by having this type of progressive movement. I would also be interested to see the societal impact of this movement and what types of regulations were changed on teachers during this time period. What caused the need for this type of progressive education movement? I feel that this research would be relevant as I am going into teaching myself and would like to learn the best teaching methods out there for teaching a classroom.

8) This chapter got me thinking about chapters related to Darwinism. In this chapter the book discusses Social Darwinism or as spencer referred to it as “survival of the fittest.” Social Darwinists believed that evolutionary forces were natural and inevitable and that any attempt on the part of humans to alter these forces was misdirected and harmful. Spencer thought that evolution should be left unchecked which brought about some strong social, political, and economic implications during this time. For example, he thought that if a business failed that government should not interfere with their practices. Spencer believed that they were solely not “fit.” He also believed that if someone obtained a great deal of wealth that they should not be regulated on their wealth but it shows how “fit” they actually are. This concept also stretched to say that the government should not help the poor because it was a result of their “fitness” that got them where they are. Social Darwinists believed that “if fit, therefore successful” and “if successful, therefore fit.” These types of concepts could also be applied to species. If one died out then they were seen as not being “fit” and were not meant to survive on this earth as it is put. I was curious if this type of thinking would be beneficial to our world but it seemed very controversial.

9) Structuralism, functionalism, drill courses, social Darwinism, progressive education, connectionism, trial-and-error learning, ethology, independent variable, dependent variable, E.B. Titchener

1a) What did you find interesting?
- Systematic Experimental Introspection: Form of introspection, associated with Külpe and Titchener, in which the experience of complex mental events was followed by detailed introspection descriptions; a more elaborate form of introspection than Wundt's

1b) Why was it interesting to you?
- "Introspection: The process of "looking inward" and examining one's self and one's own actions in order to gain insight. This was a central component to the early days of psychology during the Structuralist period. Wundt and other psychologists had people introspect and then report on their feelings, thoughts, etc. Of course, the problem with introspection is, if you are having some feeling and then you have to stop to think about and report on the feeling, you've just changed the experience and therefore, the feeling itself (alleydog.com)."
The idea of introspection is one that is puzzling to me; what was the purpose of introspection, besides recalling a conscious experience? How was this used in the laboratory? Why does someone's conscious experience during a task matter? Wundt used introspection as more of a descriptor whereas Külpe's and Titchener used it as more of a retrospection technique, having their participants recall the memory of the task. The idea of introspective habit answers some question, but why does training to note ones conscious attitudes matter? I don't understand how preventing similes error can be possible because you have to recall the events, therefore altering the process no matter what. It simply isn't possible to measure conscious experience without outside influences.

2a) What did you find interesting?
- Reflex Arc: Basic unit of behavior, reduced by physiologist into the stimulus producing sensation, the central processing producing an idea, and the motor response; analysis rejected by Dewey, who argued that the arc should be seen instead as a coordinated unit that adapted the individual to the environment.

2b) Why was it interesting to you?
- "Dating from Bell and Magendie's separation of the reflex into separate sensory and motor pathways. Physiologists thought of the reflex are in terms of three separate elementary components: the stimulus producing sensations, central processing producing an idea, and the act or motor response(Goodwin)."
Dewey was concerned with how psychologists viewed the process of reflexes, and behaviors in relation to learning. He the example of a child reaching for a lit candle. The child would see the light and reach for it (a behavior that had been commonly reinforced). However, when the child touched the 'light' they would experience the pain and immediately associated pain with the light. The child would always think of the pain when they saw the candle flame. This is taking a more macro view to the idea of reflexes than psychology was use to. I think this is interesting because it is relevant to every day life. The learning processes is similar to trial-and-error learning. If the flame had been reinforcing the child would continue to touch it (just as the child reached to grasp the flame, because of its prevalent association with reward). However, because it was aversive the child will not reach for the flame again.

3a) What did you find interesting?
- S-O-R Model: Proposed by Woodworth to recognize the importance of the organism intervening between stimulus and responses. 

3b) Why was it interesting to you?
- I think that this is an interesting concept because he is saying to understand the behavior emitted by the stimulus is a direct representation of who/what the organism is/believes. To understand the response you must understand the organism. I don't think that this is necessarily true, but I see how it could influence some findings. I wonder if he considered generalization. Who has time to understand and study each participant in research?

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
- Independent and Dependent Variables.

4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
- Because these are so frequently covered in psychology. However, it was interesting to see who pioneered the idea of these important variables.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
- The Law of Effect, and the Law of Exercise.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
- This chapter builds of the last because we are beginning to see psychology in America move more towards experimentalism, as well as developing their own ideas and concepts.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
- Reflex Arc

7b) Why?
- Because I think this is an interesting topic, I would be interested in understanding more about it because of its general idea.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
- One thing that really bothers me about this book is its lack of description; what good is it to know about these things if I can't understand their practical uses. Why these techniques were being employed is potentially more interesting, and useful, to me that just knowing the name, and definition of the term. Knowing who created the technique, and what they were using it for is all fine and good, but I want to know why they were interested in it, what they were hoping to measure, and how we have evolved from it. The chapters in this text act as a stand alone, the relation between chapters if focused on people rather than important psychological concepts.

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Systematic Experimental Introspection, Introspective Habit, Stimulus Error, Reflex Arc, Trail-and-Error Learning, S-O-R Model, Independent Variable, Dependent Variable,

Please read chapter 7. After reading the chapter, please respond to the following questions:
Next you will be asked what three things from the chapter that you found interesting?
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found the reflex arc and John Dewey to be interesting. I found these to be interesting because before his add-ons with the reflex arc it seemed like it was a three step process. People see, they act then they have a reflection based on that action. Then the process was done, which Dewey seemed to pick up that there was a step missing, which is the most important step in my opinion. The most important step is the learning step, the actions are performed and then in result the stimuli is then learned and either repeated or avoided. For example in the book, some one sees fire, they touch fire, and then they remove their hand from the fire. With the extra step that Dewey had stated then they subject would learn that fire is hot and they would no longer touch it.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Another thing that I found to be interesting was Herbert Spencer and social Darwinism. This was interesting because of relating the survival of the fittest to people. Not every experiment has to be done with animals, to get a better understanding apply it to people. He explains that the gap between poor and rich should not be supported by the government because the gap is created by social Darwinism and survival of the fittest. I agree with this, but I also found it to be interesting because I found evolution to be interesting also. Basically no matter how the world is going to change and evolve, those that are meant to survive and have the most resources are not just picked out but those who evolved with the environment and are better with survival of the fittest.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I like the section of different mazes, or “Carr Mazes”. I found this to be interesting because Harvey Carr found examples of mazes to be wrong due to how the experiments were set up. I think that is interesting because it shows that even though jobs may seem to be complete, there are still alterations that can be done and different way and results can occur. He had his “Carr Mazes” which were his own design, they were just so all the mazes were different but with the same number of choices. I think this is also a good way to study because then they are not looking at the differences between the difficulty of mazes, but can record what is being done in each maze is due to the rat being conditioned to be able to learn its way through the mazes.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I did not fully like the section about Thorndike due to the part on p.225 where they were disclaiming the things he was doing. He was not constructing the experiments and making the mazes look exactly how they should. I just did not understand using him in a section to provide examples of the mazes in an American psychology sense, but then in the next paragraph put down his experiments. I just do not think that anyone that had anything to do with psychology in the period was not a setback or did their experiments wrong. Even when the experiments can be proven wrong, overall each psychologists ends up providing more information or examples of what not to do for the next generation of psychologists to build off of.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think that the most useful thing to understand the history of psychology was that all of the psychologists went to get education from Germany still even though American psychology was expanding. It looked good to get an education from these schools which is why they did this, even though the theories in American psychology was expanding to different ideas than Germany and the ideas were claimed to be better for receiving good education, this was due to the emphasis put onto functionalism and why things occur.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter related to the previous chapters on Darwinism and Evolution. Although this chapter builds off of these ideas, we now run into the term social Darwinism which compares survival of the fittest to social aspects or people. I think that this was more interesting to learn about than evolution from Darwin, especially in the part of social Darwinism that explain why the gap between poor and rich exist.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would like to learn more about Thorndike and his mazes. I think it would be nice to know more about this this topic because there has already been a lot of things done with maze experiments. I would like to know what he is looking for that is different than what has already been done and all of the alterations that he did to the mazes. I know that there are some differences, but I would like to know how the differences effected all of the subjects but also if there was a different approach to recording information or different results that he looked at.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
One of the questions that I had relating to this chapter was, “how are all of these professors making theories and experiments that are becoming well known, but still have the time to do both?” I have always thought that the job of being a professor and the psychologists that had their own theories and experiments were separate, but according to a lot of the chapters that we read they are both. I just do not understand how they can find the time to fulfill both jobs and be successful in both.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Social Darwinism, Evolution, Survival of the Fittest, Thorndike, Functionalism, Carr Mazes, Harvey Carr, Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, Reflex arc

1) I liked reading about Titchener's view of the importance of structuralism. He saw the analysis and understanding of structuralism as a very important step in understanding functionalism. Structuralism organizes the mind into its elementary elements so functionalists can understand how the mind reacts and adapts to the changes in the environment. He stressed that it was important to know how the brain is organized before trying to figure out why its function. He criticized functionalism for not taking these steps and became a firm advocate of careful experimental psychology.

2) Titchener's How to Fail in Laboratory Psychology provided a nice dose of humor in the reading. I thought this was very interesting because it shows a humorous side to him while at the same time he was a proponent of sticking to details and being very specific and organized in laboratory work. Furthermore, it made little jests at certain forms of psychology for not being scientific enough- based on anecdotal evidence rather than experimentation.

3) Social Darwinism was interesting to read about because it stressed the individuality that is so profoundly expressed in America's culture. From its beginnings, America has been seen as a place where an individual can pursue one's own interests and by hard work, move up the social ladder and live the American dream. Evolution and Social Darwinism supported this: the strongest work hard and climb their way to the top and the weak fall and wither away. Thus, it created a chasm between the rich and poor and formed the attitude that if one did not gain wealth, it was his or her own fault. I don't fully agree with this because it tends glorify the pursuit of money, fame, and greed and undermines character. Still, it is a fascinating topic.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I didn't care for the explanation of the attributes of human consciousness because it became too arbitrary for my personal taste. Terms like quality, intensity, duration, and clearness just made this topic more murky for me. There was much disagreement in this area among psychologists, and the concept didn't seem all that important to me.


5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think Titchener's contributions in experimental psychology, namely his writing of the manuals to be very important. Though his work was later mostly discarded, it did serve the purpose to challenge functionalism to improve and support its progress. Thus, by providing opposition, he encouraged others to be more detailed and thorough in their research.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter further talks about the differences between introspection and analysis and then how the body reacts to the environment and adapts to it. This ties in anatomy and physiology, as discussed in previous chapters.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I'd like to learn more about how Social Darwinism impacted American society: politically, economically, and socially. This is such a controversial topic and interesting to consider.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I am amazed by how much time and effort psychologists put into their experiments, where tedious detail drives me away. Keeping controls constant is often a very difficult thing to maintain. I definitely would not make it inside the laboratory.

9) Titchener, structuralism, functionalism, social Darwinism, attributes, quality, intensity, duration, clearness.

1)What did you find interesting and why?

I thought it was neat that the entire chapter kept revisiting the differences between structuralism and functionalism. Obviously, these two terms are very important in understand different “schools of thought” in psychology. Titchener said that structuralism is like anatomy, in the sense that the purpose is analysis. He said that we should analyze the mind and organize it into elementary units. Functionalism, on the other hand, he said is more like physiology. Similar to how a physiologist studies how different parts of the body function to keep the individual alive, functional psychologists study how the mind adapts to help the organism survive in its environment.

2)What did you find interesting and why?

I thought Titchener was a pretty interesting character. He had an eye for detail and is said to have loved the preciseness needed in the psychology lab. He complete his doctorate degree with Wundt in 2 years, and then went on to teach. He later wrote The Manuals, which were basically step-by-step instructions in how students should conduct themselves in the lab, how to set up experiments, and he even included a section on “how to fail,” hoping that students would understand it as a “what not to do” section. He addressed experiments that collected both qualitative and quantitative data, and his manuals (even after his death) contributed a lot to psychology labs.

3)What did you find interesting and why?

Something I have been noticing in this chapter and in previous chapters, is the fact of how young these people are when the finish their doctorate studies. This person graduated high school when he was 15, so-and-so had hid Masters when he was 18, and someone else was in college no more than two years and had their doctorate. I know the curriculum was not the same as it is today, so it just makes me wonder what school was like back then. I wonder if these people could come back and try to get their degrees with today’s standards of course curriculum, would they still receive as high of degrees as quickly and easily? It makes me wonder if these men were geniuses, or if it may have been easier to get a higher level education back then (not taking into account the cost).

4)What did you find least interesting and why?

I thought the section on Thorndike was a little bland, just because we had already learned about him and his puzzle boxes last week in Behavior Modification. I already knew that he did not have a knack for construction, so his mazes and boxes were very crude and not very well put together. However, despite this deficit, he still had great contributions to the world of psychology in terms of operant conditioning and learning.

5)What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?

I think remembering who Titchener was will be important for understanding psychological history. As E.G. Boring put it, “the clear-cut opposition between behaviorism and its allies, on the one hand, and something else, on the other, remains clear only when the opposition is between behaviorism and Titchener, mental tests and Titchener, or applied psychology and Titchener.” As one can see here, it is clear to see the advantages or disadvantages to something by contrasting them to structuralism, the main dogma of Titchener.

6)How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?

I think the 19th century was a very interesting time. Psychology had moved its way to the United States, and education was almost surpassing that of Germany’s Wissenschaft education system. Big discoveries were being made based off of prior research, which is good because it is crucial to build off of what has been previously found.

7)What topic would you like to learn more about and why?

I think I would like to learn more about Woodworth’s S-O-R model in dynamic psychology. It was mentioned in the textbook, but I think it should have been expounded on more to really understand the importance of his contribution.

8)What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?

Like I mentioned earlier for something I found interesting, I couldn’t help but notice how incredibly young all of these white males were when they completed their degrees. I was wondering while I was reading if it was due to how incredibly intelligent they were or if the curriculum was just so different from that of today’s schools that one could graduate in less time.

9)Terms: structuralism, functionalism, Titchener, anatomy, physiology, The Manuals, qualitative vs. quantitative data, Thorndike, puzzle boxes, operant conditioning, learning, Wissenschaft, Woodworth, S-O-R model

1a) What did you find interesting?

I was interested by that bit about Herbert Spencer and Social Darwinism.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
This interested me for a number of reasons. I am a firm believer in evolution and a big fan of Darwin’s. For the most part I’ve always felt social Darwinism was a shitty way of thinking about things. People born into families with fewer resources available are to be condemned to poverty or mediocrity whereas children born into wealth are given every chance to prosper, and if they don’t it doesn’t matter to them at all. I do think if a company fails it shouldn’t be bailed out, but that’s because they had opportunity and their incompetence screwed things up (I’m referring to the banks at this point). I found it comforting to hear that Darwin was not the one who coined “survival of the fittest” and that these were not his views. I am upset, however, that these views were attributed to him as they made an eponym out of him regarding a belief that he never held.

2a) What did you find interesting?
I thought the Thorndike-Mills controversy was pretty interesting.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I liked reading about this controversy because I can rationally understand both sides of the debate. I like Thorndike’s approach toward everything and his ability to dispute any criticism thrown his way. He made a very good case saying that animals that seemed more panicked picked up the desired behavior at the same rate as the cats that were more sanguine about being placed in the box. I also understood Mills claim that we cannot deduce anything about the natural learning of an animal if they are put in such artificial settings. I can imagine that his ethology may lead to more natural solutions, but I feel you may be stuck to observational studies. The moment you start manipulating the environment or circumstances to test animal behavior, you are introducing unnatural settings. I feel that science would do best to incorporate ethology into it’s animal testing, but only to the extent of making a more natural environment. My proposal would be something similar to an exhibit at a zoo. Its obviously not their natural habitat, but the animals can somewhat act as if it is.

3a) What did you find interesting?
The S-O-R model proposed by Woodworth was pretty interesting.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
It was interesting because he rejected the basic S-R model. I liked that because I don’t think anything can be that simple, especially when relating to mental processes. Woodworth proposed the O be entered into the model, giving motivation a foothold. If something were observed to be a rewarding stimulus to a subject, then they could generalize the stimulus leads to a positive response. However, if the particular person, or animal, is not compelled the same way by the stimulus, there would certainly be a different response.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? 

I was least interested in reading about the schools in Chicago and Columbia.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
It wasn’t interesting to me because it wasn’t relevant to the beliefs, ideas, or experiments of psychologists. It was just talking about the differences between two schools.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Until now I was actually unaware that Woodworth was the guy who made the claim that correlation does not imply causation. Prior to him, correlational studies and experimental studies were grouped in the same category, and Woodworth made the distinction noting that experimental studies allow for causal statements.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
I find it harder to answer this question with each progressing week. I find it difficult to distinguish already learned knowledge from my recent pool of knowledge as I try to synthesize things as I learn them. I know that they talked about Thorndike in earlier chapters, and they referenced Morgan in this one with his trial and error learning theory.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? 

I suppose I would like to learn more about modern ethology.
7b) Why?
Because it seemed like a good concept that you would have to study animals in a natural setting to deduce natural behavior, but it also seems flawed because I feel you would have to manipulate things greatly in order to structure an experiment where you find out anything of real interest. I would like to look more into this to see how they do things and if they still feel natural or if they feel like an outdoor science lab.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
While I was thinking about this chapter I was thinking about how much money these guys made from writing textbooks coming out with new editions with over 5 years between the new ones. I thought about how much money the textbook writers of today are making. Then I got upset. I told myself it would be cool if I wrote a textbook that was accepted by colleges that I could offer free online. I don’t think I would be able to write a textbook though. They are really long and I suck at citing things in text.

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Herbert Spencer, Social Darwinism, eponym, ethology, Edward Thorndike, Wesley Mills, S-O-R model, Robert Woodworth,

1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?

One thing I found interested was trial-and-error learning. I found trial-and-error learning interesting because I have learned about it before in my behavior modification class. I really enjoy learning about behavior modification and how we can manipulate behaviors. Rereading about Thorndike and his ideas regarding this puzzle boxes kept my attention and kept me interested in what was being discussed in this chapter. Trial-and-error learning is sometimes also referred to as connectionism.

2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?

One thing I found interesting from chapter 7 was Titcherner’s ideas about consciousness. I found his ideas regarding consciousness interesting because I like reading about different theories involving the conscious and how the mind is broken down into the unconscious and conscious. I enjoyed reading about systematic experimental introspection as well because it showed how Titcherner developed his more advanced procedure with introspection. As well as, he developed three solutions to the problems that he came across while developing introspection.

3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?

Another thing I found interesting in this chapter was Robert S. Woodworth and his ideas regarding the S-O-R model. I found Woodworth and his ideas involving the S-O-R model interesting because the text discusses how this model is about not only focusing on the stimulus and response but the organism as well. He talks about how the organism is important because the organism is the one producing the behaviors. Basically discussing ancentents and consequences, such as what causes behaviors to happen.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? 
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?

One thing I didn’t find that interesting was structuralism and functionalism. I found these two concepts least interesting because they’re simple concepts to remember and they’re also touched on in many classes I’ve taken. I just got tired of reading about functionalism and structuralism in this chapter, I related more to the behavioralism towards the end.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?

I think reading about all the different people who made contributions to the field of psychology will be the most useful to understanding the history of psychology. I think these people will help me better understand the history of psychology because they all made small to big contributions to the field in some way that has impacted the way psychology is today.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?

This chapter builds off of other previous chapters because it talks about structuralism and functionalism as it does in other chapters. It also talks about consciousness and Darwinism as well. This chapter touched on many topics we have read about in previous chapters.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? 
7b) Why?

I would love to learn more about Thorndike and his ideas regarding behaviorism and trial and error. The reason why I would like to learn more about Thorndike and his ideas involving trial and error because I like learning about humans behavior and how we modify those behaviors. As well as, manipulating the stimuli that cause the behaviors to occur and the consequences of those behaviors.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?

Some ideas that I thought about while I was reading Chapter 7 were mostly about Thorndike and his ideas regarding behavioralism. Where would we be today without Thorndike’s ideas involving trial and error? What would Woodworth’s Dynamic Psychology be without the influences of Thorndike? I thought about how connected all of the theorists of the time were, and how many of their theories build off of one another. Without one of those discoveries would some not have been discovered? Or not discovered so soon? Would psychology be changed in certain ways then others?

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.

Terms: Woodworth, Dynamic Psychology, Thorndike, trial and error, S-O-R model, behavioralism, functionalism, structuralism, Darwinism, consciousness, connectionism, puzzle boxes, Titchener, introspections, stimulus, and systematic experimental introspection.

1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?

I found E.B. Titchener to be an interesting psychologist. Like many of the scientists that were from this time period, Titchener had to overcome hardships to get to his adult life. His father passed away when he was just thirteen years old. He was raised by his grandfather who taught him how to be an English gentleman. The textbook gives a little insight on what the English thought of the American lifestyle by stating he still lived the way he was raised even after living in America. I believe Titchener is important because he is bringing lab work back into the spotlight. William James had hated working in the lab. Titchener was the opposite and even started drill courses at Cornell. In these courses, students would conduct experiments previously done.

2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?

I found John Dewey to be interesting because of his contributions to teaching and education. Dewey believed that an educational setting that was traditional and relied on strict discipline was not the way to go. He started a movement, progressive education, where children would learn by doing things, exploring their environment to think critically and creatively. This emphasized students having an active role in their own learning. This is important because it’s what is being taught today to all of us teaching majors at the University of Northern Iowa. We are being taught not to be the “read the textbook” and “do the questions” type of teacher, but to have a more inclusive classroom where all students are involved with the material. Dewey seemed way before his time when it came to educational reform.

3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?

James R. Angell is the type of person that kind of sums up how all these scientists and psychologists are interacting with each other and learning from one another. Angell was taught by Dewey and used Dewey’s own textbook. Then, while still studying under Dewey, he used William James’ text. Angell went to Germany wanting to study under Wundt but ended up under Ebbinghaus. He went on to become the president of Yale University and of the A.P.A. Angell is important because he is a prime example of how a psychology education went back in this time period. It usually starts with studying in America but then studying overseas to come back and do your own work in America.

4a) What didn’t you find interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?

I would say Edward L. Thorndike and his puzzle box for cats did not interest me. I have never been a big fan of testing studies on animals. Researching why a cat does what it does when confined to a puzzle box doesn’t do much for me. I am not a PETA person by any means but one can see where these animal studies are leading to and it is not a pretty picture.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?

I think the whole structuralism and functionalism ideas will be the most useful when learning the history of psychology. In this chapter, we learn of the key figures when it comes to these two fields. Titchener wrote that structuralism is like anatomy whereas functionalism is like physiology. Structuralism is like an anatomist organizing knowledge of the body’s structures whereas functionalism is like a physiologist examining how the body parts operate and what are their functions. Dewey looked at it this way: a structuralist would ask “What is consciousness?” but a functionalist would ask “What is consciousness for?”

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?

This chapter builds on the previous chapter because it is expanding on what is going on in American psychology. It goes into depth on how these psychologists are intertwined with each other through education and studies. It also builds on previous chapters because we are still seeing many Americans going to Germany to study and then returning to America and becoming leaders in their fields.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?

This will most likely be my topic for the blog post: I would like to learn more about John Dewey and the laboratory school he created in Chicago. In this lab school, he could study how children learned in school. I think this is important to know what he was studying and why. We can relate what was happening back then and see if it is still in practice today.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?

Going back to John Dewey, I was thinking about my own education in the 70’s and 80’s, my college education in the 90’s, and my college education now. It’s interesting to think about how education has changed just in my lifetime. I think it would be educational to see how it has changed since Dewey started his laboratory school. I had teachers in middle school that I remember to this day. I also have teachers who I cannot recall their name or face. I think we all want to be the teacher who has such a positive force in a student’s life that we are remembered years later.

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.

• E.B. Titchener
• William James
• John Dewey
• James R. Angell
• Edward L. Thorndike
• Drill courses
• Puzzle box
• Structuralism
• Functionalism

1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you? One thing I found interesting was the table on how to fail in laboratory psychology. I thought that it was funny to read through since some of the things that he mentions whether he was actually half serious about or not, actually occur today with students. I also think it is interesting that he put it as what not to do as opposed to what to do in laboratory psychology.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you? Another thing that I found interesting was the section on Social Darwinism. It reminded me of something I had read in humanities about poverty being inevitable and these ideas that social Darwinists had about not having the government help out the poor because their poverty was believed to result from a lack of fitness. It made me wonder how many people believed this and if it was mostly white males that believed this since they were the only ones that had complete freedom in society at the time?
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you? A third thing I found interesting was the section on John Dewey, and more specifically, his contributions to educational reform and launching the movement known as progressive education. I thought this was fascinating that he had thought to use psychologists to help improve education since they were knowledgeable about the mind. It made me curious about his findings and what he found to be most effective. It also makes me wonder if we use any of his ideas on education today.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? 
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you? Something that was not interesting for me was the section on The Manuals. It seemed like the section was very long and drawn out and the fact that Titchener’s system of psychology faded rapidly after his death made me think that it stopped for good reason.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think that Titchener setting up psychology labs and researching conclusions through controlled conditions in his experiments is very useful in understanding the history of psychology. Without having controlled conditions, there is a greater allowance for error and makes one unable to repeat the experiment. Without being able to repeat the experiment, one cannot see if they get the same results and if one doesn’t know if they get the same results, how will they know their conclusion(s) are accurate?
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter relates to previous ones as Titchener has been mentioned in other chapters and refers back to information about what we learned about him already. Also, social Darwinism would not have been a concept without Darwin and his influence on psychology that was mentioned a couple chapters back. Also in the section about Titchener, they bring up George Romanes, who he was close to and comparative psychology, which was mentioned in chapter 5. In this chapter, there are still schools that do not allow woman in and they talk about the Experimentalists group. Titchener ran this group and his desire was to have it be an all gentlemen group so that they would be able to talk about whatever they wanted without having to be concerned about behaving “properly” in the presence of women.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? 
7b) Why? I would like to learn more about the educational reform because the section about it only included a bit of information. It made me wonder if this is when more women and minorities were also accepted into more schools and what exactly was the most effective route to take with teaching and lastly what psychologists were finding during the time about learning based on their knowledge of the mind.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I wondered what percent of psychologists were social Darwinists? Was the government helping the poor at the time? What is pedagogy? Did they do more research with the law of exercise? Was this a time when there was a lot of poverty?
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Laboratory psychology, Social Darwinism, John Dewey, Progressive education, pedagogy, the manuals, Titchener, Darwin, George Romanes, Comparative psychology, and Experimentalists group.

Please read chapter 7. After reading the chapter, please respond to the following questions:
Next you will be asked what three things from the chapter that you found interesting?
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I think social Darwinism was interesting to learn about, especially as it relates to the United States. Essentially social Darwinism is the idea that those who work hard will rise to the top, and those who are lazy will fail. “Survival of the fittest” is a term that is often used to describe Darwinism and I thought it was interesting to learn that Darwin himself was not the person who came up with that term. While I believe in evolution, I do not think social Darwinism accounts for socioeconomic situations as well as personal situations, but it is still interesting to read about.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
John Dewey was extremely interesting to me because he disagreed with the education system as it stood. His research had to do with the reflex arc, but I think his work with education is awesome. He believed that children should learn by experience and started the progressive education movement. This is interesting in part to me because I think most good teachers and professors follow Dewey’s line of thinking.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
James R. Angell is interesting to me because of how many other famous psychologists he learned from and interacted with. John Dewey, a psychologist who started the progressive education movement, actually taught Angell, who was using William James’ textbook at the time. When furthering his education in Germany, he studied under Ebbinghaus. Angell’s work was not especially interesting to me, but the way he learned from other psychologists who made significant contributions is.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I did not enjoy reading about the SOR Model and Robert Woodworth. Woodworth invented a new model while studying stimuli reactions. His theory was that the stimulus produces a response that directly correlates with the organism. Therefore in order to understand the response, you must understand the organism. I was just not particularly interested in this topic and do not agree with Woodworth’s theory.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think learning about the people who are making these original contributions to the field of psychology is important because, as we have seen, psychologists learn from other psychologists. Because we know about Woodsworth, for instance, we will be able to understand any other psychologists he taught or influenced.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter continues to discuss how psychology travelled from Europe to the United States, which was a major point of the last two or so chapters. We also learn about social Darwinism and I think in order to understand that, it is important to understand Darwin’s work. Finally, we are continuing to see how psychologists like William James and Wundt are influencing other psychologists such as Angell.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would like to continue to learn about John Dewey and his research in education. The textbook briefly mentioned his work with a lab school in Chicago so I would be interested in looking into that.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I am curious as to what Darwin would think of the current interpretations of his work. I also thought about how professors have been using some of the same tactics to get students to pay attention, apparently, since Tichener’s How To Fail Lab Psychology.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Social Darwinism, evolution, Angell, Dewey, progressive education, Ebbinghaus, William James, SOR model, Woodworth

1a) What did you find interesting?
Harvey Carr

1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought Carr was pretty interesting. I found it interesting that he had gone to the University of Colorado, so he didn’t go to Michigan, Harvard, Columbia, or Chicago like everyone else did in this chapter. Instead he studied in Colorado, which has a more personal connection to me since I will be interning out there in the spring. He did end up going to the University of Chicago and eventually was hired there as well. I thought it was interesting that he helped maze research to become a legitimate form of research. He helped standardize the mazes so that the results could be performed again to discover if the results were significant. Because he was the first to develop these standardized mazes they were named after him and called “carr maze”. He also some influential textbooks and had many graduate students in his labs, which is a beneficial experience.

2a) What did you find interesting?
John Dewey

2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I had never heard of John Dewey, but I thought he was pretty interesting. He must have been a very bright kid. Just thinking about graduating at the age of 15 in insane to me, and even if it was a different time period, I still think that’s crazy. He studied under Stanley Hall in his laboratory, so he studied with prominent people of the time period. He went to Chicago and was a functionalist by far, he helped make Chicago a very functionalist school. He also did a lot of work with reflexes and the reflex arc. Dewey created his own though on the reflex and felt in was a coordinated whole. I also enjoyed his thoughts and his research with progressive education. He wanted to see how students learn best, and so he created a laboratory school to determine that. He learned that students learn best by interacting with the environment and learning “hands on”.

3a) What did you find interesting?
Edward Thorndike

3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I had learned about Thorndike a little bit in Behavior Modification and had learned about the puzzle boxes. In my notes his section was filled with information, so he must have had many things to contribute to psychology which does make him pretty interesting. I thought it was really funny that he did research under William James and was so influenced by him, but he also conducted a research project and this project meant that he would have to have chicks that had to be placed in William James’ house. So I enjoyed learning about the connection between these two famous psychologists. It was also interesting to learn where trial-and-error learning come from which can also be called connectionism, because the species learns the connections between stimulus, behavior, and the result. It did makes sense that Thorndike’s Law of Effect was similar to operant conditioning, especially considering I had learned about Thorndike in a class that is all about behaviorists. His Law of exercise also makes sense. That that connection can keep growing with more and more practice. He contributed much more than I had originally thought to psychology.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Structuralism

4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I guess structuralism wasn’t even very popular back in the time period the structuralism and functionalism debate was going on, at least it seems there weren’t many influential supporters. It just seems like many more people believed in the ideas that functionalism has. It is good to know the other side of this debate, but I think even then that it just wasn’t necessary. Since structuralism wasn’t a very accepted thought why should we even learn about it then?

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think learning about the impact of functionalism and the support it had is important. We learn that this is the thought of how people explained things in that time period. People used a functionalist thought to view behaviors and things. I also think it is interesting to see the impact that one book had on psychology and how that can create more and more interest in a subject.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
I think the biggest influence on this chapter was James and his book the Principles of Psychology. It was such an influential book and you learn that in this chapter. You see how much of an impact James had on the psychologists of the next generation and then you see why he was called the father of new psychology.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Thorndike-Mills Controversy

7b) Why?
I actually forgot to touch on this, but I would like to learn more about the Thorndike-Mills Controversy. I am curious to know if they ever learned to get along. I think it also may be more than a difference of opinions. I just found it interesting how critical of Thorndike’s work Mills was. I also want to learn more about Mills and what he contributed to the field.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
What did Mill contribute? Did Mills and Thorndike ever get along? What caused Carr to standardize the mazes? Why was Principles of Psychology so influential for this generation of psychologists? How did Dewey end up running his classrooms?

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Structuralism, Functionalism, John Dewey, Edward Thorndike, Harvey Carr, Carr Maze, Law of effect, Law of Exercise, Connectionism, Trial-and-Error Learning, reflex arc, progressive education, William James

1a) What did you find interesting?

Structural elements of human conscious experience
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Titchener identified 3 types of mental processes: sensations, images, and affections. I thought it was really interesting to read about these three processes. I liked learning about how to differentiate between the different processes.
2a) What did you find interesting?

Connectionism
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I have love animals and learning about them since I was a child. So learning about how Edward Thorndike studied animals such as cats and baby chicks was incredibly interesting.
3a) What did you find interesting?

Chicago Functionalists
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I really liked learning about the functionalists in Chicago because I love that city and it was interesting to learn how it came about. I only wish that there were more on the rise of functionalism in Chicago.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting
Learning about the individual psychologists.

4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
For some reason I really do not like learning about the individual psychologists. These are the sections in the text that I always find hardest to read and pay attention to.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think that the sections heavy on structuralism and functionalism are of most importance.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
It is giving the reader a deeper and richer understanding of the history of psychology, which all the other chapters have done as well.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Edward Thorndike

7b) Why?
I would like to learn about him and some of the experiments that he conducted because of how much he liked animals, I think that the concept is incredibly interesting.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I was thinking about how I had heard of structuralism and functionalism a lot but hadn’t learned a whole lot about it. Through this chapter I learned a lot about the history of the ideals.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Conscious, mental process, sensation, images, affections, Titchener, Edward Thorndike, connectionism,

1a) I found John Dewey to be of interest to me.
1b) John Dewey is the first time this book get's into the psychology of teaching, and teaching methods known as pedagogy. I hope to follow Dewey's footsteps someday as someone who teaches at a high school level, researches and studies pedagogy, and (as an added interest) study societies influence on American school children. So, on a personal level, I found a lot of interest in this man's work. I also enjoyed his input on the reflex arc and the idea that we shouldn't question "what" (however, I see it could still be important to know the make up of the parts), but "what for". I'm a fan of evolutionary theory, as well. No one says you can't be a Christian and a scientist as well. :P And what John mentions about adapting to the environment through our senses could easily fall under the idea of evolution.

2a)E.B. Titchener's gift to Psychology.
2b) It wasn't a fact that I liked hearing about the boring structuralism that interested me in Titchener's splendor, but rather the contributions, that the book explains, he made that helped scientific psychology advance. I may have lost interest a time or two while I read about structuralism, but when his laboratory procedures were mentioned, my ears perked a little. The portion about "the manuals" interested me, because it is here that you discover why Titchener truly is a key player in Psychology. So maybe he didn't discover something useful about the brain and how it works, but he is the reason why so many psychologists after him did! I enjoyed reading about Experimental Psychology: A Manual of Laboratory Practice.

3a)I enjoyed the paragraph about Herbert Spencer and "survival of the fittest".
3b)I think many believe, thanks to the coined term social Darwinism, that Darwin came up with Herbert Spencer's quote...discrediting Darwin with raciest characteristics. Not saying Darwin didn't have a belief that the color of his skin was superior to others, but his work wasn't intended to prove that superiority. "Survival of the fittest" and Herbert Spencer are a great example of how history was the world and not specific people. I say this because anyone could read about the times back then and discover that Spencer's social Darwinism was a perfect steroid for the time he was in. It strengthened the argument of racial superiority (even class superiority). This interested me because I'm beginning to notice a pattern. Many things during this time frame had a lot of connotations of race and a lot of justifications for inequalities (i.e. eugenics, raciest science, social Darwinism).

4a) E.B. Titchener's Structuralism.
4b) Like mentioned above, I didn't find much interest in this probably because it seems irrelevant to the field of psychology today. Maybe it isn't and I just don't know of the areas where it is. Either way, once it mentioned it as a dead theory, I fell asleep for two hours and was almost late for my Civil War class...where I ended up getting another good hour of sleep.

5)I think the key figures in Functionalism will benefit my understanding of psychology in the future. A lot familiar names were spit out in this chapter. All of which are people I heard about way back when in high school. Plus, I hear about them in almost every other psychology class I have. Titchener, Spencer, Dewey, Thorndike, and Carr are all characters I have heard about when discussing things in the first few weeks of a psychology class.

6) This chapter really builds upon the last chapter (Chapter Six). Especially when it get's into Spencer and Dewey's spotlight. It goes back to the minorities and women's rights thing. All of which became hot spots beginning to blister at this particular time.

7a) I really want to discuss more about pedagogy.
7b) I want to talk about it more because I think the history of teaching methods relates closely to practical psychology. The idea of researching how younger adults learn better, and researching methods to use in the classroom. As a future teacher, I see education as a gateway to success no matter who you are or how you think. Yes, some are slower than others when it comes to different subjects, learning to utilize those differences relays on scientific psychologies ability to understand how the brain works.

8) As you can see, I had a lot to think about during this read. I thought about the advances of pedagogy in today's society, the civil rights and unionist movements, and how I may one day help with the advancement of them all.

9)Social Darwinism, Herbert Spencer, Thorndike, Dewey, Pedagogy, Structuralism, Functionalism, Titchener, "The Manuals"

B.H.
1a) b) I found the way that German students learned compared to American students interesting. It was interesting to me because it gave me insight to how education is taught in other areas around the world. In German laboratories, learners were educated on laboratory procedures on their own, by running studies and by observing and questioning their more experienced nobles. In American universities, teachers established drill courses, which did not yield new research but would repeat the typical studies. Titchener was known teaching drill courses, which consisted of laboratory work and occasional lectures. Most instructors were adequately trained but weren’t knowledgeable about the new psychology. So Edmund Sanford of Clark developed a text standardizing laboratory instruction in drill courses, the text operated as a manual.

2a) b) The experimentalists group started by Titchener interested me because he was highly involved with the American Psychological Association then went against the grain to develop the experimentalists. After resigning and rejoining multiple times due to personal problems. He was an outside who violated “proper” behavior and was accused of plagiarizing other scholars work. Titcheners experimentalists group was proposed to create an informal club that provided a better means for researchers to present their work to others. They only met 3 days every spring but discussed research, tinkered with apparatus, and tried to keep pure laboratory psychology alive and well. Titchener’s creation of the experimentalists was not to compete with APA but have a structured group that was not as criticized.

3a) b) Herbert Spencer’s system of social Darwinism brought interest to me because Spencer invented the phrase, “survival of the fittest.” Social Darwinism believed that evolutionary forces were to remain natural and inevitable and that any attempt on the part of humans to alter theses forces was misdirected and harmful. Government should not interfere with certain business practices because losers in business fail because they weren’t fit. Wealth on individuals should not be taxed because it was simply a sigh of their fitness. Servicing the poor was also frowned upon because their lack was a lack of fitness. If people remained unfit, the lack of fitness would spread and everyone would soon remain unfit. This idea was enticing to me because I just think about law and government and how regulation would affect us now if we all took social Darwinism into play.

4a) The prime goal for psychology was to analyze human consciousness into its basic elements or structural components. I know human consciousness is important, but I am getting worn out reading about it. The topic is being dragged on in every chapter it seems like and I am just not interested or involved in it anymore, it bores me.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology? Structuralism and functionalism were among the first psychologies that took in considerations of experiments and influenced behaviorism to make what we know nowadays more knowledgeable.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters? Human consciousness was analyzed into its basic elements and structural components just like in the other chapters. We were further into introspection and educated ourselves more on the structural elements of human conscious experiences.

7a) what topic would you like to learn more about? Social Darwinism

7b) Why? Because the evolutionary mind-set leads to interests in studying individual differences, animal behavior, development, abnormal behavior and much much more. Darwinists seem to have some pretty off the wall views and theories and I would just like to be further educated on their processes and beliefs.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter? Social Darwinism popped into my head because I was thinking about survival of the fittest. You would think the world would be a horrible place with regulation and law. The government shutdown going on right now relates to Social Darwinism, government employees are now working for nothing and trying to survive without interference of the government.

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post. Structuralism, functionalism, the manuals, drill courses, the experimentalists, introspection, social Darwinism, Titchener

Please read chapter 7. After reading the chapter, please respond to the following questions:
Next you will be asked what three things from the chapter that you found interesting?
1a) What did you find interesting? Social Darwinism
1b) Why was it interesting to you? I liked the beginning section in which is described America at the dawn of psychology. I enjoyed reading the history aspect of it because, for me, it helps me makes sense of why people studied what they did and why. A great example the textbook used was Herber Spencer’s theory of social Darwinism. This type of thinking lent itself well to what Americans wanted, they wanted to think that they were “the fittest” of the whole world. These ideas also helped justify many racial stereotypes that were occurring during this time period. It also promoted the popular idea of economic and government and its lack of interference, known as laissez-faire.
2a) What did you find interesting? functionalism
2b) Why was it interesting to you? I found this more interesting that Titchener’s structionalism, because just focusing on the adult mind and not looking at individual differences is just kind of boring to me. I also find it more interesting because its heavily based on evolutionary thinking, which as I described above I find to be interesting because of its strong hold in United States culture during this time. It’s just interesting to see another aspect of social Darwinism in the psychology realm.
3a) What did you find interesting? John Dewey
3b) Why was it interesting to you? I liked learning about John Dewey and the Reflex Arc because it interacts with new ideas occurring in America. Reform was the key to the progressive era, where people started to believe the government needed to step in to correct many different problems in the United States. I enjoyed reading about his aim to discover more about children’s education and how children learn. There was a general movement toward learning about, well, learning known as progressive education which was become very popular during the time. There was a big shift in changing how children should be taught; no longer should they sit quietly listening to lecture after lecture in a very strict and controlled atmosphere. Dewey knew that educational reform was necessary.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Titchener and The Manuals
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you? I didn’t really care to read about the drill courses and how laboratory schools should be instructed and ran. I just didn’t really care to learn about how the classes were taught, and once they started talking about the olfactory senses and glass tubes, I pretty much zoned out. However the section on “How to Fail in Laboratory Psychology” was pretty entertaining.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology? Honestly, I think the most important thing I learned in the chapter was about social Darwinism. I say this because I feel like social Darwinism was so important to so many different aspects of psychology during the time period and beyond. In order to understand why psychologists studied what they did, I think you have to know what was important to the people during the time period.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters? This chapter builds on the pioneers of American psychology from the last chapter, and it also discusses the importance of laboratory psychology which was also talked about in the last chapter.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? Progressive educational reform
7b) Why? As an education major I believe it is important to learn about the different types of reforms that occurred in education. It is also important to see different theories on how to educate children.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter? I thought about the different psychologists who changed ideas on education and who made impacts on how people learn. I was thinking about different psychologists that I learned about in my other education classes. I also thought about things I learned in my history class about the progressive movement that I actually just finished studying.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Social Darwinism, Herber Spencer’s, social Darwinism, functionalism, structionalism, John Dewey, Reflex Arc, progressive education, Titchener, The Manuals, drill courses

1a) The first thing that I found interesting in this chapter has to do with Thorndike and his puzzle box.

1b) This topic is interesting to me because of the creativity involved in making the actual puzzle box itself. It also is an interesting topic because he developed a system that could document the decisions made by the individual animals. The method of this method he used is called trial-and-error learning or connectionism. The animals he studied would start off by figuring out the puzzle by accident but later on would start to learn the behavior as a result of repetition. Thorndike stated this phenomena in his Law of Effect which basically states that as the animal performs an action and it is followed by success, they will be encouraged to perform the action again. He also developed a second law that accompanied this thought. The Law of Exercise states that the connection between the positive response and the animal would be strengthened through practice.

2a) I really was interested in John Dewey and his contribution to education.

2b) I was interested in his approach to education because I think we have reverted to those ways of education in our schools and universities. He looked knowledge as the key to advance in life but wanted it to be something that was looked forward to and not dreaded. I feel like many teachers these days are so stuck in their ways that they can’t think outside the box to look for new and better ways of getting young people interested in learning and expanding their knowledge. Dewey really encouraged learning by actively being involved in whatever subject they were studying. I wish this approach was more common in the universities because I personally learn better by doing instead of cramming for an exam, which I am going to forget everything the second after I walk out of the test. I can’t believe Dewey’s ideas are over a hundred years old and we’re still stuck on the same methods of education that have been proven to yield poor results.

3a) I was interested to learn about Herbert Spencer and the ideas he contributed to America during the 1900’s.

3b) I am interested because he built his ideas off the evolutionary thoughts that were talked about in this class just a few chapters ago. He built an idea of how survival of the fittest applied to the progression of a nation. His idea has come to be known as social Darwinism. He proposed that evolutionary forces applied to both the natural realm as well as social structures like businesses, government, and every other institute that helps form a nation. His idea was that they are all in competition to get the biggest and become the most successful. He also believed that the struggle between these entities should not be regulated in order to let the evolutionary process run its course.

4a) I really didn’t enjoy reading about E.B. Titchener.

4b) I really don’t like the researching/experimenting side of psychology. I know it is a vital part of the field but I plan on working in the social work side of psychology and find topics that relate to that type of work more interesting. It is just really hard for me to follow along in the ideas that these researchers has as far as setting up their experiments. Also, learning about how they observed the findings and how they came to the conclusions they did becomes tiring for me. I like to know the facts without having to try and understand how they came up with the findings.

5) I think the idea of progressive education will be most useful. I believe that as the education system in America continues to decline, we will see the topic continue to resurface. There is just too much information out there on how to better educate a nation than the ways we are doing so now. Eventual people will get fed up with the amount of resources we are putting into a faulty education system with the poor results we have. People are going to look back on people such a Dewey and realize that ideas like these are a reality and that we can provide the next generation with a sound education even if that means that we have to find new and better ways to go about it.

6) This chapter builds on the evolutionary ideas that we learned in chapter 4 and 5. It also shows the progression in the psychological field that came as a result of interest of researchers and academically inclined individuals in America during the 1900’s.

7a) I guess I would like to learn more about functionalism, and more specifically I would like to learn more about the minds functionalism.

7b) I would like to learn more about the topic because I think many of the reasons our mind and body react and adapt to things in the ways that they do are due to this concept. While the chapter gave a good overview of the subject, I feel like its way to deep of a topic to cover in the context of one chapter.

8) I was really stuck on the ideas of progressive
education and how we as a society can improve the standard and methods we have presently. I know that in behavior modifications this past spring we touched on the subject as well. It is an interesting subject that I feel is important to the future of our country.

9) Terms: Thorndike, puzzle box, trial-and-error learning, connectionism, Law of Exercise, Law of Effect, progressive education, evolution, social Darwinism, functionalism.

1.I found the idea of drill courses to be kind of interesting due to the fact that it gave the students the opportunity to learn and gain experience in the field without making up an experiment and guessing weather the answer was right or wrong. In this situation the drill courses gave the students the idea to know that their experiment went the way that it was supposed to and if they got the wrong findings then they could look back and see what they did wrong and fix it the next time around if they had the chance.


2.Another piece of information that I find interesting is figure 7.1. The title is the basis of failure; it states How to fail in Laboratory Psychology; that just gives the idea that someone could even fail in an area such as that. When I first read that I did not know what the figure was going to be about besides the fact that I thought a college book was going to teach me how to fail at laboratory psychology.


3.The idea of social Darwinism I have heard plenty about but every time I read about it I get interested in it more and more. Just thinking that evolutionary forces were natural and anytime a human would act upon these forces it would be counted as harmful. I have never really thought about this but it catches my attention every time.


4.Reading more about the drill courses and learning about the whole participant and observer area was quite annoying because like I say in every one of my blog posts it gets repetitive with the things that I have already learned or that I already know. I wish I could read more about some things that I do not already know.

5.Even though this might not help with understanding and knowing the history of psychology knowing that Titchener’s encyclopedic manuals can be used today is quite the piece of information to know just because if someone needs to look back at something or need the extra boost to understand sensory and perceptual phenomena.


6.This chapter builds on the previous chapters in the book by restating functionalism and stating more about it. It kind of gave us more information about who all was involved with functionalism.

7.I think I would like to learn more about introspective habits. The concept sounds kind of interesting. Even though it sounds like such a bland topic to think more deeply about it gets my mind thinking about how we can behave in such an automatic way that we cannot stop ourselves.


8.I really did not have any ideas that had popped into mind while reading this chapter honestly. It did not spark any big questions in my mind to write down.

9.Drill Courses, sensory and perceptual phenomena, Titchener, Laboratory Psychology, introspective habit, Social Darwinism, functionalism

1a) What did you find interesting?
Titchener’s laboratory psychology manuals
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
In my humble and ill-informed opinion these manuals should share the same pedigree as James and psychologies first textbook. Titchener’s two volume manual set, Qualitative Experiments and Quantitative Experiments, made several impacts on the psychological community. First, it spread his interpretation of German psychology; the most important aspect being the idea of a laboratory that follows a strict code of conduct. Titchener was known for being adamant about his structualism and his methods he used in his laboratory. He absolutely despised anecdotal evidence. Whenever another psychologist made a claim using methods not approved by Titchener’s manuals he would openly question them. When they would respond to Titchener he would simply tell them to prove it. Beyond that the manuals showed students and professors how to set up and run a lab, which is obviously crucial to the spread of these labs. These techniques, or at least the idea of a well run, precise laboratory outlived Titchener and any other contribution he made to psychology. His manual was the last nail in the coffin of anecdotal research. And of course his “How to Fail in Laboratory Psychology” section was fantastic to read.
2a) What did you find interesting?
Social Darwinism
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
It is always interesting to see how scientific ideas influence other social ideas and vice versa. Often when scientific ideas are adopted to other aspects of society they are misinterpreted. Such is the case with Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. For instance, those involved in America’s free market believed the market should be left alone by the government. They believed that failed businesses were the result of not being fit for the free market environment; reversely businesses that were absolutely massive thrived quite swimmingly were considered fit for the free market. But according to the book Darwin preached that if the organism was fit it could be successful. However economics believed that if the business was successful, it must be fit. This began to play into other areas as well, like welfare. Many believed if the government aided the poor, they would be able to populate instead of dying off as they “should” have. White men used this to establish superiority over minorities and women. One good thing to come from social Darwinism is how it influenced evolutionary and educational psychology. It led to the formation of functionalism, which asked questions like “why would this certain ability, behavior, or cognitive process aid survival?” Functionalism was an American branded psychology and successfully ended structuralism.
3a) What did you find interesting?
The Thorndike-Mills Controversy
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Open disagreements in science is what confirms or disproves theories most efficiently, concretely, and publically. This particular controversy had a few exchanges that not only attacked ideas, but personal integrities. I will preface this with fact that I like Thorndike’s attitude. For whatever reason people who are confidence and border arrogance attract my attention, possibly because of their similarity to myself. Anyway, Mills was questioning and rejecting Thorndike’s cat puzzle box experiments. He claimed they were artificial and that cats would never find themselves is such contraptions in the wild. This idea is an example of internal and external validity. Mills stated that humans and cats alike would act a little crazy if confined in a small area that had only one way to escape. Thorndike replied by saying that animal psychology was in a poor state relying mostly on anecdotal evidence, and that if Mills would have been a real scientist and replicated his studies he would have understood their behavior.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Titchener’s structuralism system
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
There is some value to be found in old psychological systems, but anything with introspection immediately turns me off. I cannot believe it had as long of a run as it did because it seems like a terribly unreliable way to measure mental processes. Titchener also limited his research. Like not studying children or individual differences.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
How these American institutes and those that ran them influenced how psychological studies are carried out today. Titchener made a rigorous effort to spread the psychological laboratory around America. Thorndike encouraged others to replicate studies. And Woodsworth began coined terms like S-O-R model, independent variable, and dependent variable.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
These Americans are taking some German ideas, but this is the first blossoming of American psychology. But seriously this is like the 5th chapter in a row that has mentioned Leipzig.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
S-O-R model
7b) Why?
I understand what it is. What I want to know is how Woodsworth came up with it. Was is purely a philosophical idea or did he do some sort of research that would test and prove his model?
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I want to know why Titchener did not accept more ideas from other psychologists outside his specific field. Sharing ideas in science is as important if not more important than creating said ideas. Pushing your brand of psychology without listening to other brands only isolates yourself. I guess that is why Titchener’s ideas did not outlive him.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.

Thorndike, Titchener, structuralism, functionalism, Experiment Psychology: A Manual of Laboratory Practice, introspection, social Darwinism, Mills, Woodsworth, S-O-R model, independent variable, dependent variable,

1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
The first topic that really stuck out at me as interesting in this chapter was social Darwinism and Herbert Spencer. Herbert Spencer is credited with coming up with the phrase “survival of the fittest” while referring to evolution. I thought this was interesting because I had always thought that Darwin himself had come up with the phrase, when in fact it was someone else. Along with this piece of information the phrase also holds a different meaning than what Darwin had intended. I found social Darwinism to be interesting because it concerned the belief that evolutionary forces were natural and inevitable and that any attempt on the part of humans to alter these forces was misdirected and harmful. This means that people should not interfere and try to “save” those that were unfit. Spencer’s idea of survival of the fittest supported this concept because it stated that the survivors were winners of battles for limited resources. This means that the best won out, rather than how Darwin had meant it in the sense that the more important skill for survival would carry on throughout the lifespan of a species. I found these differences to be very interesting because this was a topic I did not completely know about beforehand and without reading, I would have made the wrong assumption about it. I learned a lot from reading this small section.

2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
The second topic I found interesting in this chapter was on that carried on throughout most of the chapter. This topic concerned the debate and differences between functionalism and structuralism. Our book defines structuralism as being like anatomy, meaning its purpose is to analysis. This means that structural psychologists “analyze the human mind and organize it into it elementary units” like basic sensations. Structural psychologists try to figure out why people think and feel the way they do based on the way that they describe these emotions. Functionalism, on the other hand, focuses more on how things function the way they do based on their actual parts. I found it really interesting to learn about both of these topics and how they related to or opposed each other. I also enjoyed learning about the different psychologists that supported both ideas. It was interesting to see how the topics and their supporting evidence changed over time. I thought that the authors of this book did a good job of showing the evolution of these two types of psychology and the outcomes of their work. Much of the information in this chapter was interesting to me because most of it related back to the battle between these two fields.

3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
The final topic I found interesting in this chapter dealt with Chicago and its functionalists. This part of the chapter did not have a lot written about it, but what was written was interesting to me. Chicago is close to where I am from so it kind of had a personal effect on me. I remember hearing about the Chicago fire many times, especially when I was younger, but one thing I never remember learning is how Chicago bounced back after that tragedy. This section in the book helped explain those events in an interesting way. From reading this section I learned that John D. Rockefeller aided in the reestablishment of this city. He did so by helping out a college that soon had one of the best psychology programs in the country. One of the members to join the University of Chicago’s philosophy department became John Dewey. John Dewey later wrote a paper that is often viewed as the beginning of functionalism in America. I think that this topic was interesting because it showed how a great era in psychology began. I also think that it was interesting to learn about some of our country’s history and how it related to the history of psychology rather than constantly learning about the people that influenced the field of psychology.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
The topic that I probably found the least interesting in this chapter was the section on Robert S. Woodworth. It was very difficult for me to find something in this chapter that I did not find a little bit interesting. This is true for even the information on Woodworth because I did not find the whole section on him uninteresting, just a couple points. Overall I found this chapter to be enjoyable to learn about but the section on Woodworth seemed the most dull. While he did help in the field of psychology, I did not find much of his work interesting. To me it seemed pretty mundane. Even Woodworth agrees with me, being quoted as saying “I rate my achievement very low, believing that I am one of the sort whose name will soon be forgotten, though of service during his lifetime.” To me that pretty much sums up the way I felt while reading about Robert S. Woodworth. I found that his work did contribute to psychology but that it was not very interesting to read about.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think that in chapter 7, the information I found to be most useful in understanding the history of psychology dealt with E. B. Titchener. The whole first part of this chapter is dedicated to this man, as I believe it should be. Titchener did a lot in the field of psychology and he enjoyed what he did as well. Titchener brought in the theory and ideas behind structuralism and without this we would not have had the structuralism versus functionalism debate. One of the greatest pieces of work that Titchener contributed to the science of psychology was his manuals. Titchener’s manuals helped to set standards for drill courses and really helped solidify the proper way to run and teach an experiment. His manuals were used for years and really helped set a standard in the science and history of psychology. I think that without Titchener and his ideas, we would never have the greatest understanding as to what the basis for research in psychology really is, nor would we understand the true meaning of functionalism and why it works so much better than structuralism.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
I found that this chapter related to previous chapters in two main ways. The first was how much the chapter talked about research dealing with animals. As we have read in previous chapters, animals have played a pretty big role in the history of psychology especially along the lines of comparative psychology and anthropomorphism that we learned about in chapter 5. Chapter 7 also dealt with animals by talking about ethology which is the study of animal behavior in its “natural” surroundings. I think it is interesting to see how much of psychology, the study of the human mind, first started off as people also looking into the minds of animals as well.
The second thing I found that this chapter related to previous chapters with was how much the people in all the chapters relate to one another. In every chapter I read, I feel like I am just finding out more and more ways all the brilliant psychologists were connected. Many people in chapter 7 were students or had students or were friends with people we have learned about in different chapters. I find this pretty interesting and would be curious to see an image or diagram drawing out exactly how everyone is connected in the history of psychology.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
One topic that I found myself wondering about more was that of the experimentalists. I thought it was interesting to read the information already presented in the chapter about this group and would like to learn more about them. I think it would be interesting to learn about how long they lasted or what their family members are up to now. I think it would also be interesting to learn more about all the activities they did together and the exact ideas they discussed. I think it would be interesting to go back in time and try to listen in on one of their meetings to see exactly what all took place amongst these brilliant people.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
While reading this chapter I thought about the research done in the field in psychology in general. I wondered exactly how much goes into it and what it all involves. I also thought about what I would be interested in researching in psychology. Another thing I thought about is how the field of psychology in America would compare to places like Germany and Britain today, contrary to the past. I think both of these topics would be interesting to look more into.

Terms: Herbert Spencer, social Darwinism, functionalism, structuralism, Robert S. Woodworth, E.B. Titchener, manuals, ethology, experimentalists,

1a) What did you find interesting?
How to Fail in Laboratory Work

1b) Why was it interesting to you?
To just mention a few:
-Do not accept any general explanation, under any circumstances. Cherish the belief that your mind is different, in its way of working, from all other minds, and that you must be individually treated.
-Call upon the instructor at the slightest provocation. It he is busy, stroll about the laboratory until he can attend to you. Do not hesitate to offer advice to other students, who are already at work.
-Work as noisily as possible. Converse with your partner, in the pauses of the experiment, upon current politics or athletic records. Get thoroughly roused up and excited before you proceed with your work.
explain when you enter the laboratory that you have long been interested in experimental psychology, describe the telepathic experiences or accounts that have aroused your interest
-Make it a rule always to be a quarter of an hour late for the laboratory exercise. In this way you throw the drudgery of preliminary work upon your partner, while you can still take the credit to yourself for the regularity of your class attendance.
I found these really more funny than interesting really.

2a) What did you find interesting?
Titchener’s structualist system

2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Edward B. Titchener founded the theory of structuralism. Because he was a student of Wilhelm Wundt at the University of Leipzig, Titchener's ideas on how the mind worked were heavily influenced by Wundt's theory of voluntarism and his ideas of association and apperception (the passive and active combinations of elements of consciousness respectively). Titchener attempted to classify the structures of the mind, like chemists classify the elements of nature into the periodic table.
Titchener said that only observable events constituted science and that any speculation concerning unobservable events has no place in society.
Titchener believed that the goal of psychology was to study mind and consciousness. He defined consciousness as the sum total of mental experience at any given moment, and the mind as the accumulated experience of a lifetime. He believed that if the basic components of the mind could be defined and categorized and why they interact in the ways that they do was the basis of reasoning that Titchener used in trying to find structure to the mind.
I think this a very interesting way of looking at things and on a very basic level it makes a lot of sense to me. Figure out the small components of a machine, and you will be able to tell anyone how it works.

3a) What did you find interesting?
Functionalism

3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Functionalism formed as a reaction to the structuralism and was heavily influenced by the work of William James and the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin. Functionalists sought to explain the mental processes in a more systematic and accurate manner. Rather than focusing on the elements of consciousness, functionalists focused on the purpose of consciousness and behavior. Functionalism also emphasized individual differences, which had a profound impact on education.
This interested me because functionalism influenced behaviorism and applied psychology. It 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.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Everything in this chapter, except what was mentioned above.

4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
There seems to be really only two main points, functionalism, and structuralism. It does go into the history of both and describes the contributions made towards psychology but everything else just seems like filler.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
To help us understand the history of psychology we need to know many of the ideas that are taught, where they come from, who contributed it, and how they themselves stumbled upon the discovery or reasoning.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
There seems to be major influences from chapter to chapter. Each discovery or improvement was made off of what someone before them did. What was discussed in the chapter was strongly influenced by William James, Wundt, and Darwin.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Thorndike and the mazes.

7b) Why?
I want to know more about how he improved on the mazes and specifically what h was attempting to study when he went ahead and changed/improved the “puzzle boxes”, and of course get more information on the behaviorism aspect.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
My mind kept going back to how to fail in laboratory work. I found it very amusing and how he was given specific directions on what he could and couldn’t say so he worded it differently.

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Introspection, attributes, Darwinism, structuralism, functionalism, progressive education, connectionism

Chapter 7

1) What did you find interesting? Why?
John Dewey was an interesting person. Dewy was interested in pedagogy, teaching, while he was in Chicago. While in Chicago he published the article called “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology.” The Reflex arc is the stimulus producing sensation, central processing producing an idea, and the act or motor response. Dewey thought that dividing the reflex into these elements was non-natural, so instead Dewey proposed a model of the reflex that substituted a functional for a structural analysis. In the example of a burning candle and a child, the old method was seen as “a series of stimulus-response elements, seeing the flame, reaching for it, feeling the heat, and withdrawing. Dewey says it as so: seeing and grasping are bound together, however the second part of the event, being hurt by the flame and removing the hand, is a part of a new meaning. From that point on seeing a burning candles is now seen as “seeing-of-a-light-that-means-pain-when-contact-occurs.”

2) What did you find interesting? Why?
I was also interested in the concept of drill courses. Drill courses were set up so that student’s would repeat past experiments done by other students. Drill courses are interesting because in science we tend to repeat experiments multiple times. Students in these drill courses would learn how to use brass instruments and in general become acclimated to the laboratory. Titchener was worried about his training of the experiments and how others were learning in his classroom. Titchener wrote Experimental Psychology: A Manual of Laboratory Practice. I do think that repeating the experiments is good in order to show the validity of experiments and for students to learn how to act within a lab setting.

3) What did you find interesting? Why?
I found the section on Carr Mazes to be interesting. I found this to be interesting because Harvey Carr found that mazes could be wrong because of how the experiments were being set up. He had his Carr Mazes which consisted of his own design, they were set-up so all mazes were different but consisted of the same number of choices. I think this is a good way to conduct studies when they look at the differences between the difficulties of mazes, but can record what is being done in each maze due to the rats being subject to conditioning in being able to learn the mazes.

4) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Why?
I think the section dealing with Titchener’s transition from Oxford, to Leipzig, then to Cornell to be dull. The reason I found this uninteresting is because I enoyed reading into his concepts or ideas s rather than a history of how he traveled. Although, it is relevant to Titcheners background and how he made it to America, I felt it was drawn out. Titchener was interesting to learn about but I think the transition could have been more appealing if it was related more to psychology and now it’s history of the concepts, maybe how he came up with these ideas while traveling now just he traveled.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I found that learning how each psychologist worked with other famous psychologist to be useful. Learning about how these men and women were related to each other shows how their works would influence each other. We can also understand how the psychologist of the past influenced the psychologist of this period and how they will influence the people in the future.


6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter directly built on the last chapter through James Angell. He was taught with a book written by William James. I learned a lot about William James last week in class from other students and this week I got to see how he had a direct influence on another impressionable to be psychologist. Not only did it influence Angell, but James R. Angell spoke in a seminar with John Dewey. During this seminar, they discussed William James’s Principles of Psychology.

7) What topic would you like to learn more about? Why?
I would like to learn more about how James R. Angell was influenced by other psychologist and how he influenced them. I think we can see first had the history happening here because of how the psychologist worked together. I think it would be cool to see how this worked so well then and how it is still acting today in modern psychology.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I thought about the fact that all the men who were obtaining their degrees were young and I thought about how they were not much older than me really. The bigger thing I thought about was how the men when they did their lab settings were extremely detailed. They must try to remove all the different variables and keep everything controlled; this must be tough for them now if it still is today.

9) Terminology: John Dewey, James R. Angell, Harvey Carr, Reflex Arc, Structural Psychology, Functional Psychology, Carr Maze.

Late because the site would not let me post it last night,I emailed Dr. MacLin.

Sorry about the website being screwy - It won't be counted as late :-)

posted for K.K.

1a) what did you find interesting?
Titchener’s psychology: structuralism
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this interesting because it remaindered me what the difference was between structuralism and functionalism. I am always interested in learning about terms dealing with psychology. Since this whole chapter focuses on the difference between the two, I found this important. E. B. Titchener was known as a laboratory psychologist who had ideas about the “new psychology”. Titchener wrote an article that discusses an approach known as structural psychology. He used this to express what he noticed all around him. Later Titchener is able to define structuralism. Structuralism is defined as “being like anatomy which is the purpose is analysis. This is focused on the human mind and how it organizes into basic sensations. Titchener stood only on believing in structuralism. Functionalism was more based around physiology. Functionalism focuses on how the mind serves to adapt. Titchener took time to study between the two. Later he concludes that “a thorough understanding of the structure of the human mind was a necessary prerequisite to the study of function”. Titchener is known as having incredible impact.
2a) what did you find interesting?
Herbet Spencer (social Darwinism)
2b) why was it interesting to you?
I found this interesting because we previously discussed Charles Darwin. I was interested in learning if this had anything to do with his theories. This section discussed how Americans were attracted by Spencer’s views on evolution. Spencer is known as the creating the phase, “survival of the fittest”. He was trying to imply that survivors were winners of intense battles for limited sources. This phase later developed into a system known as social Darwinism. This took place during the 19th century. Social Darwinism is known as evolution forces being natural and predictable. It indicates that any efforts on the part of humans to change these forces are misdirected. Evolution should not be messed with. I really enjoyed the given examples about social Darwinism. One of the examples I enjoyed was, “Those who accumulated large wealth should not in any way be regulated or penalized (taxes).
3a) What did you find interesting?
John Dewey: The Reflex Arc
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this interesting because it discusses John Dewey background. I enjoyed reading about his background because I have not read about him before. Also this section discusses a little more about functionalism. Dewey became interested in “new psychology” after he enrolled to study philosophy. The new psychology was included in his philosophy schedule. Later Dewey graduated and moved to teach both philosophy and psychology. During this time Dewey worked his lectures into a text, which was later used on several campuses. This booked discusses all the principles dealing with psychology. Later Dewey moved to Chicago where he has as a functionalism. During this time the reflex arc concept became known. This is known as describing three separate elementary components. Dewey did not agree with what was published and proposed his own model of the reflex. The reflex is than defined as, “the best conceieved as an integrated, coordinated whole that serves the fuction of adapting the organism to its environment.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
The Chicago functionalists
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
This was a brief little section in this chapter. I didn’t think it was interesting because I didn’t find the information provided useful? It briefly discussed when the University of Chicago opened and how functionalism was brought to maturity there.. I just did not find this useful for anything at all.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think this chapter helps you realize more how individuals didn’t always agree. However they took what they and branched off to use for their own theories. I think this chapter focuses on the importance of the individuals. It is also important to understand the difference between structuralism and functionalism. This chapter was focused around this two terms and how the applied to psychology. This helps you have a better understand of what was believed then versus now. What new theories or information have been found, etc?
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter builds on to previous chapters dealing with structuralism and functionalism. These terms were briefly described in the beginning of the chapter. However these terms before more important during the 19 centuries. Individuals are starting to have their own options and theories based around these terms. Also it talks about individuals from previous chapters. Individuals are starting to work together and help each other. This shows that psychology is an ongoing process and new things are constantly being developed.
7a) what topic would you like to learn more about?
Thorndike (Box K)
7b) Why?
I found Thorndike’s experiments towards animals and their behaviors interesting. He invented his own boxes to challenge animals to escape. I was especially interested in learning about box K which focuses more on cats. Thorndike wanted to see how fast the cats could escape. Thorndike used 13 different cats during this experiment. Thorndike also focused on how the cats first behaved being in the box. Some of the cats were clawing, biting, and etc. Thorndike later referred this to the trial-and-error learning.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
While reading this chapter I thought more about structuralism and functionalism. This was discussed briefly in previous chapter; however I was more interested in it this time. This also made me question why I wasn’t interested in these terms before. Next I thought about the experiments done by Thorndike. I just kept thinking about observing numerous cats trying to get out of a box. When though is seems like of cruel, I think it would be interesting to watch!
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
E. B. Titchener, structuralism, functionalism, Herbert Spencer, social Darwinism, Charles Darwin, John Dewey, the reflex arc, Thorndike, and trial-and-error-learning

Posted for M.K.

Chapter 7

1) What did you find interesting? Why?
John Dewey was an interesting person. Dewy was interested in pedagogy, teaching, while he was in Chicago. While in Chicago he published the article called “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology.” The Reflex arc is the stimulus producing sensation, central processing producing an idea, and the act or motor response. Dewey thought that dividing the reflex into these elements was non-natural, so instead Dewey proposed a model of the reflex that substituted a functional for a structural analysis. In the example of a burning candle and a child, the old method was seen as “a series of stimulus-response elements, seeing the flame, reaching for it, feeling the heat, and withdrawing. Dewey says it as so: seeing and grasping are bound together, however the second part of the event, being hurt by the flame and removing the hand, is a part of a new meaning. From that point on seeing a burning candles is now seen as “seeing-of-a-light-that-means-pain-when-contact-occurs.”

2) What did you find interesting? Why?
I was also interested in the concept of drill courses. Drill courses were set up so that student’s would repeat past experiments done by other students. Drill courses are interesting because in science we tend to repeat experiments multiple times. Students in these drill courses would learn how to use brass instruments and in general become acclimated to the laboratory. Titchener was worried about his training of the experiments and how others were learning in his classroom. Titchener wrote Experimental Psychology: A Manual of Laboratory Practice. I do think that repeating the experiments is good in order to show the validity of experiments and for students to learn how to act within a lab setting.

3) What did you find interesting? Why?
I found the section on Carr Mazes to be interesting. I found this to be interesting because Harvey Carr found that mazes could be wrong because of how the experiments were being set up. He had his Carr Mazes which consisted of his own design, they were set-up so all mazes were different but consisted of the same number of choices. I think this is a good way to conduct studies when they look at the differences between the difficulties of mazes, but can record what is being done in each maze due to the rats being subject to conditioning in being able to learn the mazes.

4) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Why?
I think the section dealing with Titchener’s transition from Oxford, to Leipzig, then to Cornell to be dull. The reason I found this uninteresting is because I enoyed reading into his concepts or ideas s rather than a history of how he traveled. Although, it is relevant to Titcheners background and how he made it to America, I felt it was drawn out. Titchener was interesting to learn about but I think the transition could have been more appealing if it was related more to psychology and now it’s history of the concepts, maybe how he came up with these ideas while traveling now just he traveled.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I found that learning how each psychologist worked with other famous psychologist to be useful. Learning about how these men and women were related to each other shows how their works would influence each other. We can also understand how the psychologist of the past influenced the psychologist of this period and how they will influence the people in the future.


6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter directly built on the last chapter through James Angell. He was taught with a book written by William James. I learned a lot about William James last week in class from other students and this week I got to see how he had a direct influence on another impressionable to be psychologist. Not only did it influence Angell, but James R. Angell spoke in a seminar with John Dewey. During this seminar, they discussed William James’s Principles of Psychology.

7) What topic would you like to learn more about? Why?
I would like to learn more about how James R. Angell was influenced by other psychologist and how he influenced them. I think we can see first had the history happening here because of how the psychologist worked together. I think it would be cool to see how this worked so well then and how it is still acting today in modern psychology.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I thought about the fact that all the men who were obtaining their degrees were young and I thought about how they were not much older than me really. The bigger thing I thought about was how the men when they did their lab settings were extremely detailed. They must try to remove all the different variables and keep everything controlled; this must be tough for them now if it still is today.

9) Terminology: John Dewey, James R. Angell, Harvey Carr, Reflex Arc, Structural Psychology, Functional Psychology, Carr Maze.

Posted for K.S.

1a) What did you find interesting? Structuralism and functionalism
1b) Why was it interesting to you? I found this part interesting because of the way they used metaphors to explain how structuralism and functionalism work together. Titchener used a metaphor to state how structuralism is like anatomy. A person studying anatomy looks at the component structures of the body and the a structural psychologist looks into the human mind and how it is organized. And similarly functionalism is likened to physiology. They examine how the parts of the body operate and the functions they serve to keep the body working. These were used to show how one should always study structure before function, whether it be regarding the body or the mind.
2a) What did you find interesting? The manuals and drill courses
2b) Why was it interesting to you? I found the pay this schooling was done to be very interesting. Instead of regular lecture classes they would have drill courses that were similar to imitation studies of classical research. These students often did this as undergrads as juniors and would be given instructions to simply learn more about the lab and how things were operated. This is where the manuals came into play. The instructions for these students were thought to lack quality. So some of titcheners best work were simply these improved manuals to help these students learn more and learn about the complexities of the investigations.
3a) What did you find interesting? Trail and error learning and connectionism
3b) Why was it interesting to you? Thorndike had really interesting ideas regarding animal mazes and how this phenomena of trail and error learning was trail and accident learning because the motions that the cat for instance did in order to figure a way out of the box was completely random, and the same went for the dog opening the fence. However the connectionism is what stuck. Although he thought that this was accidental he did note that when given a similar situation with not quite the same outcome the cat was still able to get out of the box significantly faster than the cat that had never had such an experience.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Titcheners third goal of psychology
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you? He wanted to know how the nervous system worked to produce the cognitive processes and the sensory behaviors. This was mentioned a lot so I didn’t find it very interesting; he himself didn’t do a lot of work regarding such things. The section also mentioned how he did a majority of his work on consciousness and synthesis and since this didn’t have anything to do with his other goals it was not as interesting.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology? Obviously in this chapter the most usful thing would be titcheners influence to psychology. He did many great works in the school system along with his own research and consciousness and synthesizing the brains functions to process using cognition.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters? Well titchener was mentioned in chapter 1 talking about consciousness and its effect in psychology today. But also I found the talk about cornell and the school systems way of learning interesting because of all the talk in the last chapter about how our universities were founded and how they have evolved.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? I think I want to learn more about trail and error and connectionism
7b) Why? I think it is interesting in both humans and animals to discuss things regarding how we learn and how the brain works for animals even just relying on instinct to guide them.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter? How long are animals able to keep this information from connectionism with them? Also which were the most popular classical studies done in the universities that did work with drill courses?
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post. Drill courses, structuralism, functionalism, consciousness, manuals, observer, connectionism, trail and error learning

I tried to post last night, however, the website would not load on my computer.

1) What did you find interesting? Why?
I thought that reading about Titchener was interesting. I thought that reading about his background growing up would give me a better understanding for him and the ideas he believed in. One of these ideas I enjoyed the insight on was the “gentleman” tradition he was trying to carry on in his Experimentalists group.

2) What did you find interesting? Why?
Another thing I found interesting was Spencer’s idea of Social Darwinism. I do not agree with Spencer on this topic. Research has shown that if money is invested into a low-income/crime-ridden neighborhood, the crime will eventually decrease and the “curb-appeal” will increase. I have seen this first hand in a neighborhood near my house. I also thought the sentence, “Those who accumulated enormous wealth, on the other hand, should not in any way be regulated or penalized-their wealth was simply a sign of their fitness,” was interesting. First of all, I feel that man may work to achieve their status, but others do not. They are given that status by their parents, but no not strive to achieve it on their own. Secondly, I feel that this is continuing the vicious circle. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. We need to start thinking about the general welfare of ALL residents, not just ourselves.

3) What did you find interesting? Why?
The last thing I found interesting in this chapter was Thorndike’s puzzle boxes. I found the section on him very informational. I am currently in Behavior Modification and we just read over the section on him last week. However, I found this section to be more detailed than the one in our text for BMod. I thought it was nice to have some additional information about him and his research. I also thought it was helpful to discuss the Law of Exercise from Thorndike’s perspective.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Why?
The part of the chapter I liked the least was Titchener’s structural elements of the human conscious. I did not like that section because it seemed to be more of a philosophical concept. I enjoy reading about ideas that are more concrete and can provide answers (like mathematics). The concept of consciousness can only answer questions with additional questions. I tried to read quickly thought this part of the chapter.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think that the switch to focusing on the functions rather than the structure of the brain has had a huge impact on psychology. I think that by studying the functions of each structure, we can begin to learn more about both the individual structures and the brain as a whole. This has helped us make tremendous progress in the field of science. I think that this change also helped to solidify the bond between biology and psychology.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
I thought it was interesting to read more about Titchener’s work and laboratory. After learning about Calkins and how he took credit for one of her ideas, it was interesting to see his side. I don’t feel my opinion of his has changed any. When reading this chapter, we learn that he wanted to continue the tradition of gentlemen’s clubs (The Experimentalists) where women were not allowed. I am glad that he allowed women in his lab to research; However, I find that it frustrating that he could not believe that women wouldn’t take offense to educational debates.

7) What topic would you like to learn more about? Why?
I think I would like to do more research on Thorndike’s puzzle boxes. Reading about him makes me want to make a box for my cat and put him through the test. I really enjoy reading about experiments and how animals react (unless it is harmful to the animal, then I don’t like it). I think it would be interesting to read more in depth on him and how he came up with the idea of the boxes.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
When the text described Titchener training his participants, all I could think about was “How many errors were made in his research?” and “How many of his significant findings were actually due to chance?” Once again this text is reminding me to take the historical approach when reading these chapters.

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Titchener, Experimentalists, Spencer, Thorndike, puzzle box, Law of Exercise, historical approach, function, structure

1a) What did you find interesting?
E.B. Titchener
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
He was interesting because like many of the other men we have discussed he also earned a PhD and studied with Wundt at Leipzig. After studying there he came to America and developed what we know today as structuralism, unlike functionalism it analyzed the human consciousness into the many mental processes.
2a) What did you find interesting?
The Experimentalist
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this interesting because it sounded like so much fun, Titchener basically formed a men’s club that many of his students can to converse freely about any subject. They frequently smoked and had a good time but also excluded women so the group didn’t last very long.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Social Darwinism
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this interesting because Herbert Spencer adapted it from Darwin’s research and also coined the term, “survival of the fittest”. Although Darwin believed that any attribute that contributed to survival could constitute fitness, Spencer said fittest also depended on fierce battles for limited resources.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
John Rockefeller spending money.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
The section about John Rockefeller being really rich and just wanting a Baptist college was important but just was not interesting to me, although many great men studied at his college I just did not need the background for it.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think getting a good background on structuralism and functionalism will go a long way into understanding how we study psychology today. There are many different fields within psychology and thus many different approaches to research so it is good to know all the avenues of approach.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
Like many of the other chapters this one included men that studied with and under Wundt in Germany and brought what they learned as well as new ideas to America and expanded what we know today.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
The experimentalists
7b) Why?
They seemed like a fun group of guys that just wanted to get together and talk and try to further their understanding of the world around them.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I thought about the women who may have felt left out from the little men’s club, the book said Titchener’s students were nearly half women but none were allowed to be in the club because the men didn’t want to offend them.
Terms: structuralism, functionalism, experimentalist, social Darwinism

1a) What did you find interesting?
I found Thorndikes puzzle box learning.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
His theory was interesting because he said he knew he could do better. He did this so that he could test animal intelligence. Thorndike also did this with multiple cases instead of just one single case. For his experiments he controlled the environment and then he would repeat the experiment. The overall picture of this study was that he would put animals in this puzzle box when they were hungry and they would have to figure out how to escape by pulling a cord or lever. He then recorded how long it took them to escape as well as what their behavior was like.
2a) What did you find interesting?
Thorndikes trial and error learning was also interesting.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this idea interesting because it related to the puzzle box learning and it didn’t come up until he was explaining the behavior of the animals in this experiment. Trial and error learning is also something Thorndike called trial and accidental success. In the experiment with a cat he thought that the cat learned to make connections between the stimuli in the box and the escape responses. He believed that the first solution that the cat figured out was accidental. The connection made is what he called trial and error learning.
3a) What did you find interesting?
I obviously found Thorndike as interesting because my previous two topics are about Thorndike but I also found a term in the section of Thorndike and Mills controversy interesting. The term is ethology.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this term interesting because I didn’t know what this idea was actually called. Ethology is the study of animal behavior in its natural surroundings. I didn’t read much about this in the book but it is something I would like to research.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
The section on experimental psychology at Cornell was least interesting.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
This section was least interesting because I couldn’t find anything in this section that stuck out to me.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding Cognitive Psychology?
I think that Thorndikes idea’s of law and effect and law of exercise and trial and error learning will be most useful in cognitive psychology because I think that in other situations other then Thorndikes experiments we can experience these types of learning.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
Titchener has been talked about in a previous chapter but not as thouroghly as this chapter. So this chapter builds on what we learned in a previous chapter about Titchener.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
There are a few topics I would like to learn about. I think I would like to learn more about Thorndike but mostly his law of effect and law of exercise as well as his trial and error learning.
7b) Why?
I find these topics interesting because of how they went about researching animals behaviors so I would just like to find more information about it if possible.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
The term ethology came up which is the study of animal behavior in its natural surroundings and I was thinking about other studies that have studied animal behaviors in its natural surroundings. I could think of a few but I want to research others that may have been done.
9) Ethology, Thorndike, trial and error, law of effect, law of exercise, trial and error learning, puzzle box learning, Cornell, Titchener,

1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found Dewey to be very interesting because as a teaching major, I’m very interested in education. He was the one that suggested a type of teaching that seemed to be very beneficial, but yet the school system is just starting to use it and in a very minimal way. He was very smart, and made great points on how people and children should be taught, but yet our education system never seemed to catch on which is a shame.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found the topic of social Darwinism to be pretty interesting because it is something that has stuck throughout time. We still believe this theory even if it’s not technically considered to be factual or proven. It makes sense and it was a theory that explained how we have evolved in a way and how certain animals and plants have either survived or died off.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Lastly, I found drill courses to be extremely interesting because it goes back to me being a teacher. I think it’s awesome that the students were able to learn the experiment because they didn't have to make it up because they were past experiments. This allowed the students to understand why they got the experiment right or why they got it wrong. It allowed the students have a deeper understanding of the experiment.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
The part about Chicago functionalists seemed to be the least interesting to me because it was dull information that didn't seem to be that important to me. Yes, it’s important that this took place, but I think there are way bigger things in this chapter that took priority of knowing details about this.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
That new ideas might be frowned upon but they are important to creating the history of psychology. It made it obvious that it’s important to stray from the status quo in order to be extremely successful. I also think from this chapter, it showed that trying different things will allow other people to build on those ideas too, therefore allowing psychology to expand more!
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter built from the other chapters because it keeps bringing up the importance of new ideas that people bring to the table in psychology and even in education.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would love to learn more about John Dewey because of the material he covers. As an education major, I would love knowing more about how he thought classrooms should be structured and taught because they seem to be beneficial. It is kind of like this class in being progressive and I truly believe it to be the best way to have a classroom structure for maximum learning even though there isn't many classrooms like that. I’m going to be doing my topical blog in order to learn more about Dewey as well.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I related very much with John Dewey because of my major in Education. I want to be a teacher that thinks outside of the box and who changes lives of children, especially children with special needs. I related to him on a deeper level because I truly believe that his methods would work in the classroom, but there are hardly any teachers that would pursue this type of education because everyone has always stuck with the structure, which clearly isn't working. So, this chapter directly correlated to my interest in what I want to do when I’m older and have my own classroom.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
John Dewey, Chicago functionalist, Progressive Education, Social Darwinism, Drill Courses

AS

1a) What did you find interesting? Structuralism
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Structuralism was considered the first school of psychology. Applied knowledge was not emphasized, only the structure of knowledge was emphasized. Structuralism was brought forth by one of William Wundt's students; Edward Bradford Titchener. This was interest to me because this was the foundations of different types of psychology people study at school. Titchener's had experimentalists which were a group much like a psychology club and women were not allowed. The main goals for a structuralist psychology, according to Titchener, were to achieve a complete analysis of the generalized adult mind, show how elements could be combined into more complex phenomena, and provide an explanation of mental processes by understanding workings of the brain and nervous system. This was another step where psychologist began to focus on the brain, mind, and consciousness.

2a) What did you find interesting? Conscious experience
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Titchener had much different vocabulary for things he was studying with the brain. In his definition, consciousness was the sum of our experiences as they exist at a given time. Mind was the sum of our experiences experienced over a lifetime. During the experiments, training was needed to avoid the stimulus error, a tendency to describe a meaningful stimulus instead of direct conscious experience of the stimulus. This was only for introspects or "self-observers". The three main elements of the conscious experience were sensation, image, and affection. These three elements are still valid today and for this to have happened 100+ years ago with the resources they have is amazing.

3a) What did you find interesting? Functionalism
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Functionalism was a very interest’s topic to learn about. This was more psychology where physiologists examine how the various parts of the body operate and the functions they serve to help keep the individual alive; and functional psychology studies how the mind controls the brain. Most American psychologists influenced by evolutionary theory or social Darwinism was more interested in the functions of consciousness than in its structure. The interesting part about this category of psychology was that is really only widespread at the University of Chicago because John Dewey. He developed a theory called the reflex arc which was the connection between sensory stimuli, or motor responses that can't be separated. It was not mind over body in this case, it was mind and body. Reflex arc was the opening shot of functionalism

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Lab school
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
This did not disinterest me as much as it made me question the reason why functionalism stayed in Chicago. This was a radical concept by John Dewey and it was a very monotone taught class. This more than likely disinterests the students taking the class and could have been a reason why functionalism was a big topic at the University of Chicago.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology? Learning about structuralism and Titchener's theory of consciousness was very useful because this is one of my main interests. But on the other hand learning about why the people do what they do because of their brain is a main interest of mine as well. Going into sports psychology, I will need the knowledge of both of these topics.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters? This chapter is still relaying off of the American pioneer chapter and teaching us about the beginnings of all the varieties of psychology and how they come about.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? John Dewey
7b) Why?
I would just like to know what he was thinking when starting lab schools and why they were so boring. Could have been a major factor in the slow spread of functionalism

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I wonder why Titchener didn't further the research to children or animals and if he thought structuralism had limited uses.

Terms: structuralism, functionalism, social Darwinism, Lab school, consciousness, John Dewey, Titchener

1a) & 1b)
Figure 7.2 was interesting. It was cool to see which showed the floor plan of Titchener’s domain on the top floor of Cornell’s Morrill Hall. Figure 7.5 was cool to see as well, showing some experimentalists. Its neat to see photos and get an idea of what everything looked like back then. I also thought it was interesting how Titchener excluded women from the group as they would interfere with smoking. I had no idea that social mores of the day excluded them from rooms where men would be smoking.

2a) & 2b)
It was interesting how the “observers” in the drill course pairs would be what the participant is today. They observed their own mental processes and made accounts on behalf of themselves. It seems like they never used participants back then and did stuff mostly on themselves in order to collect data. Kulpe created the procedure of systematic experimental introspection where observers would give detailed reports of the conscious events occurring while completing some tasks like word association. Another thing I found interesting was how Boring once ran a human maze learning study and stated that the only significant outcome was that he became infatuated with one of the maze runners and eventually married her.


3a) & 3b)
Titchener resigned from APA because it violated his strict code of proper behavior and didn’t think that it advanced psychology. This is funny as APA is such a big thing that remains today. He also excluded from his definition of psychology all research using children, animals and the insane as they could never introspect properly. He also omitted industrial and education psychology from his definition of the field. All of these as well play such a big role within the field now. I thought it was interesting how Thorndike first did research in animal psychology, not because he knew animals or even cared for them but because he thought he could do better than what was being done.


4a) & 4b)
I didn’t really like the section titled Titchener’s structuralist system. It talked about understanding the process of synthesis and got too complex. It also discussed analysis, descriptions of mental phenomena and the nervous system. When things get too much into science I get turned off. I also thought the part talking about introspective habit and retrospection was confusing.


5)
Through this chapter we got to see how structuralism and functionalism all started, grew and who was responsible. This chapter talked quite a bit about how they collected data back then, describing instruments and how they worked which was very informative. What was going on in the world at the time such as the Civil War or whatever it may be plays a big role in the growth of the field and what was taking place at the time. The book used the statement, “this emerging prototype of American pragmatic individuality was consistent with evolutionary thinking.” Another thing useful within the chapter was how it discussed Social Darwinism and how this led to interests in studying individual differences. The individuals discussed throughout the chapter taught us a lot about earlier factors within the field. “Titchener was responsible for making psychology scientific - for setting psychology up in the laboratory and reaching his conclusions through experiment, under controlled conditions.” It is such a big part of what we learn today and constantly hear in every psychology class we take. John Dewey wrote a paper which is considered the starting point for functionalism in America. He also created the reflex arc and launched a movement which came to be known as progressive education. Woodworth is responsible for independent and dependent variable terms which are extremely important today. We also saw that Titchener developed the group now known as the experimentalists. We hear the term often but it it cool to see how it all began.


6)
This chapter surrounded E.B. Titchener who we continue to hear about throughout previous chapters. This chapter mentioned his fascination with evolutionary biology and Darwinism which we learned about in an earlier chapter and George Romanes from chapter five, along with comparative psychology. Titchener’s first doctoral student was Margaret Washburn who we saw in chapter six. This chapter discussed introspection which we saw in chapter four a little bit. This chapter also mentioned how Titchener rejected the James-Lange theory which we saw in the previous chapter. Another concept brought up within the chapter was that of the imageless thought problem which we briefly saw in chapter four.


7a) & 7b)
This chapter discussed how it was Herbert Spencer and not Darwin who invented the phrase “survival of the fittest.” I always thought it was Darwin. It was Spencer’s system which came to be known as social Darwinism. I’ve heard the term but did not know what it meant to an extent so it was interesting to read some of its criteria. The book discussed how it regards evolutionary forces as natural and inevitable and that any attempt on our part to alter such forces was harmful. It went into more detail, explaining how losers within the business field for example failed simply because they were not fit. It also had the example of wealthy individuals not being penalized or taxed. It got into as well how the government should not provide services to the poor. I’m a social work major as well so this goes against a lot of what I learn about everyday.


8)
We’ve seen it in previous chapters but I think throughout this one we really got to see how much psychology ties in within science and physiology. I liked how this chapter explained Titchener’s nasty comments towards Hall which we saw in chapter six. I wondered why he said such things and even wrote about it in my previous reading activity. Titchener knew a second language, once again like all of the other individuals we have been learning about. They all seem to have been very heavily educated. He also died of a brain tumor. The individuals we have been learning about all seem to come down with bad illnesses as well. It also mentioned his encouragement to Kulpe who we saw in chapter four. All of these individuals seem to be interconnected with each other.


9) Terminology: Structuralism, Functionalism, Drill courses, Observer, Systematic Experimental Introspection, Introspective Habit, Social Darwinism, Reflex Arc, Progressive Education, Independent Variable, Dependent Variable.

1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
One thing I found interesting was learning about structuralism versus functionalism. It was interesting because it is different ways to study psychology. I also liked the analogies they gave. For structuralism they compared it to anatomy because the purpose of it is analysis. For functionalism they compare it to functionalism because the purpose of it is to look at the functions of everything.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I liked learning about how Titchener ran his labs. He ran drill courses and made his students take an introductory course so they could get use to how to work in the lab properly. It is interesting because instead of doing new research and writing more articles he would just have his students do the same experiments that he had done before so they could get practice. It transitioned from using his students for research, to teaching his students so they could do their own research one day.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Another thing I found interesting was learning about the three types of elementary mental processes that Titchener identified: sensations, images, and affections. All of these sensations have attributes of quality, intensity, duration, and clearness. This was interesting because it is all parts of the human conscious experiment and it is interesting to me to learn about stuff like that.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
Reading about social Darwinism wasn’t that interesting mainly because I have learned about it before so it wasn’t anything new to learn about. I find it more interesting to learn about things that I have never been taught before or things that I have never thought about.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
All of the contributions that Titchener made to psychology that we learned about in this chapter will help me understand the history of psychology because things that he has contributed have influenced other contributions. Knowing what he contributed will help us understand how people came up with other ideas.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter describes different ways to look at psychology and while the other chapters might have been structuralism this chapter shows the other side to studying psychology, and that’s functionalism.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
Thorndike on puzzle box learning was interesting and I would like to learn more about it because I have never heard of it because and it was an interesting technique. Learning more about it would just be for fun and something cool to know.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
While reading this chapter I just started to think about any subject and how you could study it in a structuralist or functionalist point of view.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Functionalism, structuralism, drill courses, Titchener, attributes, social Darwinism, Thorndike

1a) Manuals

1b) I was interested in this because of how big of a role they have played in psychology as a science. I really liked how Titchener used them to help students and instructors learn how to act in an experiment setting. Titchener had these things called drill courses, which would have the students conduct experiments, not new ones though, but some of the famous ones. This would give them practice on what to do and what to look for while doing the experiments, while giving them some great experience in the lab. Titchener then realized his friends made these things he called manuals that would be an outline of what to do. He wanted to make some for his experiments, so he sat down and wrote all of these processes on how certain people should act during the experiment. I think that it is really cool because he used them in his classes and it has been really helpful in shaping laboratory investigation for many years. I thought it was a very smart move by making the students be in pairs and switch off between experimenter and the observer, so they would learn what it is like to be on both sides. I really enjoyed reading this because I had no clue that someone sat down and made a manual about how to conduct experiments.

2a) The structural elements of human conscious experience

2b) I found this interesting because I didn’t know that the human consciousness could be broken down all the way to 3 elements. Titchener described the 3 elements as sensations, images, and affections; he said that these are the building blocks of our consciousness as humans. I was shocked how Titchener decided that these were the 3 basic elements of our whole consciousness and that they couldn’t be broken down any further, after I read that sentence I was thinking there has to be more because they are pretty broad words. As I did read on he said that each element were made up of certain attributes as he called them. I also found it interesting that images and sensations had the same four attributes as each other. I think what Titchner did with this topic was very interesting, but I do think that it could have been broken down into one more element for each or maybe have a bunch of sub elements that make up the big 3.

3a) Puzzle Box Learning

3b) I found this very interesting because of how big of a topic it was for a long time, if animals could remember certain situations or stimuli and learn from it. I liked what Thorndike did with the studies, at first he was very skeptical, which in my opinion is one of the best ways to start because you’re going to do the experiment over and over until you get your bias opinion; but if it doesn’t come you’re going to realize you were wrong. I think that is how Thorndike went into this experiment and it got me excited to read about his results. Like I said about him having a bias, I think for any human they will have a bias one way or another before anything, but it’s what you do with it, he was a very great researcher, so he didn’t settle for one answer, and he made sure to test it over and over again. What he found was interesting, he found the trial-and-error learning in the cats, or what is sometimes called connectionism, meaning when the cats were first placed in the boxes they didn’t know what to do, but after a while they finally started to learn how to get out of the box. Then after many of these tests he came up with two of the most famous laws in science, Law of Effect and Law of Exercise; Law of Exercise states that the connection between a stimulus and a reaction get stronger with practice. Law of Effect is closely related to operant conditioning.

4a) The Reflex Arc

4b) I just honestly couldn’t get into this section of the book, I think it might have been because of having previous encounters with reflex earlier in the semester. I think there is only so much you can do with testing reflexes that it’s hard to read basically the same stuff over again, but I do know that each time they bring something new to the table.

5) I think the most important thing that we read was the difference between structuralists and functionalists and the difference in thinking between the two.

6) This chapter builds on previous ones by bringing new ways of thinking and bringing in new people and experiments. Like how the influx of women into the science scene was talked about, this chapter talked about more changes being made in the sciences.

7a) I would like to learn more about Thorndike

7b) I want to because he was such an influential psychologist and I would like to learn more about what he did in the field.

8) I kept wondering if there were other scientists researching the same thing at the same time as some of these other scientist in the book and if they were really mad/jealous that they didn’t get the recognition. It’s tough for those people because they were so close to getting their work published, but someone beat them to the punch.

9) Manuals, Titchener, Thorndike, Law of Effect, Law of Exercise, attributes, structuralists, functionalists, Reflex Arc, puzzle box learning, trial-and-error learning, connectionisim

1a) What did you find interesting?
The first thing I found interesting was the idea that Titchener had when combining the study of structuralism and functionalism.

1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Titchener believed that in order to fully understand the mind, one first needed to learn the structure before moving on to learn the functions. I thought this was a good idea and I also think it would be very beneficial to study one before the other to fully understand and retain the information we learn in classes for example. In most of my classes however, we do start out vague and then go further into learning, but some I have also experienced too much being taught at once and it makes it very difficult to fully understand the differences between similar structures.

2a) What did you find interesting?
The second thing I found to be interesting was the introduction of drill courses.

2b) Why was it interesting to you?
The first component that I thought was very interesting was the fact that in these laboratories they did not research their own questions, but would learn by familiarizing themselves with the lab by duplicating studies from the past. In addition to this, I thought it was interesting that the first laboratory textbook was produced during this time as well, to further understanding in laboratories where the teachers were not as qualified.

3a) What did you find interesting?
The thing I found very interesting was the approach Lightner Witmer took to study pain.

3b) Why was it interesting to you?
The story that was told about how he let himself get thrown from a horse so he could experience pain and use it as a guide for his lectures.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
The part I found to be least interesting was the section describing the elements Titchener used to define an individuals “conscious experience”.

4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I thought this section was very drawn out and way to in depth to then later read that this method of testing is not realistic to most of the study subjects and therefore is not frequently used.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think understanding the laboratory process that Titchener introduced. The manuals he produced led to more students being able to produce the same learning experience in the laboratory and made it possible for instructors who were not as experienced and qualified to those similar to Titchener.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter builds on the previous because it shows the development of education and curiosity, and the basis for laboratory research expanding, when laboratories were just being introduced in American in the previous chapter. It also shows that times were changing in means of productivity, having texts to guide one through a laboratory, instead of having to learn from a very prestigious professor.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to know more about Edward Thorndike.

7b) Why?
I thought he mindset during the time was very interesting and I have always been exceptionally drawn towards behavior studies. I am very interested in learning more about his contributions that may still be used today.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
During this chapter I thought a lot about how these psychologists were playing huge roles in the educational system and the made many of the resources back then that are still part of our everyday lives (e.g. lab manuals, trial-and-error learning, or law of exercise).

9) Terms: Titchener, structuralism, functionalism, drill courses, Lightner Witmer, Edward Thorndike, trial-and-error learning, and law of exercise


1a) I think my favorite thing of this chapter is Angell’s idea on how functionalism relates to American psychology in every aspect. In one paragraph he was able to relate many concepts into a particular area of study in psychology, which to me basically explained where the areas came from.
1b) I often think about where certain things started. Like why we began to study certain areas for example. I know it is mainly curiosity, but how we developed all these sub areas is interesting to me. Since I am a psychology major, and have been interested in psychology for as long as I can remember, I liked that he was able to put down what I feel is the beginning thought for some of these sub areas.

2a) I liked Herbert Spencer’s “Social Darwinism”. Spencer believed that we shouldn’t interfere with people, that there was an evolutionary force that shaped the outcome of peoples live and if we interfere, we are messing things up. He believed in ‘survival of the fittest’, where only the best survive and are able to reproduce to carry their genes onto further generations. If we interfere with the evolutionary forces, we are allowing people to continue on who are not ‘fit’. An example would be the government should give assistance to poor people, because if they do they are allowing the poor to reproduce and have poor children which should be weeded out, and not be able to continue on.
2b) The topic of social Darwinism was discussed in a documentary we watched in class about the great monkey trial. During most of the video, I was annoyed with the prosecution attorney William Bryan and his extreme religious views. I felt they were outdated and you simply cannot decide not to teach children scientific facts because it goes against religion. Later in the film it explained why he opposed the views so much was not simply because it went against the bible, but because of social Darwinism. He felt that if people felt that way- that ‘inferior fit’ people needed to be weeded out, it would in fact harm society. After hearing that I didn’t dislike him as much, and understood where he was coming from. Still I have to disagree, you can’t keep the truth from people in hopes to keep them safe.

3a) Another topic I found interesting in this chapter was John Dewey and his idea of progressive education. Progressive education was a sort of reform of how education was taking place. He felt education gave people an equal chance to excel in life and that it shouldn’t be somewhere that people want to avoid, rather somewhere where people want to go. He didn’t agree with how the education system worked and studied how children learned in order to reform it into what worked best for the learner.
3b) I love that there were people willing to step forward and say that they didn’t think things were working out. I’m sure other educators had to know that what they were doing wasn’t working, but nobody stood up and said anything, maybe because they didn’t know what could be done. I think this shows that being an educator was much more than a job to Dewey. He must have whole heartedly cared about the future of people, and believed that an education was the key to success. This was especially important during the time of social Darwinism. While people thought we needed to rid society of the poor and the unfit, education was the only way a person could get ahead, which made public education that much more important.

4a)The least interesting thing to be would probably be Titchener’s idea on introspection. Titchener had a problem with how introspection was done, and was the first to say that the introspection people were engaging in wasn’t really introspection, but rather retrospection. He explained you cannot consciously take notes on observations as you are in the act, and you rather think back about it which would make it retrospection and not introspection. He had such a problem with the idea of what people thought was introspection that he started a whole new way to do it, called the introspection habit. He felt it was very important thing to be able to do it correctly, and spent much of his time and energy on the topic.
4b) I at first thought this man was awesome. That he was able to take a term coined years before and turn it around and do it correctly. Then after reading further into it, and learning it created an even more bias outcome, I felt like I wasted my energy on reading about it. I felt like I was brought up to be let down, that he wasn’t awesome after all, rather spent too much time in an area without realizing or wanting to admit it wasn’t right. Maybe after you devote yourself to something so much you don’t want to admit to yourself you’re wasting your time.

5) Reading Angell’s thoughts on the function of consciousness really made me think. He explained how everything can be brought back to functionalism. If you can’t adapt- leads to abnormal psychology, how people adapt different- leads to individual differences, training to adapt- educational psychology. All these things to me is where it starts. All the things I’ve read so far in this book, and this one paragraph brings so much together for me. I think this is the simplified version of why we study these things in the first place, and where these ideas came from.

6) Throughout our text, we have gone through multiple areas of study in psychology. We’ve discussed times much further back like the enlightenment, and through the times of advanced human anatomy. We discussed the people in the beginning of the psychology field in other countries, and came to who was a part of the American psychology ‘movement’. Here we are discussing the movement in America in further detail; education to narrow it down. We have covered multiple people over the last 7 chapters, and we are now at the people who paved the way for what we are all participating in right now. If not for these people we would not be able to study psychology in a formal educational way. These people are those who felt psychology had an important place in the education system.

7a) I would like to know more about social Darwinism, along with Herbert Spencer. I would like to know where this idea came from and more about Spencer’s background, like the type of family he came from and his upbringing. I’m curious to know how well off he was as a child, and his religious background.
7b) I just think this topic is interesting. I’m sure many people still believe this idea is okay. I’m interested to know what kind of family Spencer grew up in, or how well off his family was financially. Usually people who think this way are better off and either fear losing what they have, or feel it is unfair to feel like they should help others out because they have worked so hard. I’m guessing he came from a wealthy very well off family and never himself had to struggle for anything. I’m interested to know what he would think of himself if he were to lose everything he had and be put in the ‘unfit’ category of society, and if he would still think people should stay away and let evolutionary forces do their thing.

8) While reading this chapter I thought back to many previous educational experiences. Herbert Spencer and his social Darwinism made me think of the famous monkey trial, and the documentary we watched in class. The things about Dewey and his education reform made me think of your class, and how you teach unlike most teachers. I had a high school history teacher that taught different than the norm, and I loved his class. It’s not often in education you’re given the chance to learn a different way, one that may possibly be more rewarding than any other. I thought a bit about Chicago, one of my favorite cities, and couldn’t believe I had never heard about the world’s fair held there in 1893. I absolutely love that city. If I get some spare time I will definitely be looking more into that.

9) Titchener, Introspection, Introspection habit, Retrospection, Herbert Spencer, Social Darwinism, Progressive Education, John Dewey, Functionalism,

1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?

Social Darwinism: I thought this topic was interesting because it seemed like for the example that Spencer argued that government should not interfere with businesses that fail because they were simply not fit is more of a capitalistic view. I think the government can do some things so not one person can run a monopoly just like the royal family use to do. Social Darwinism is also the believe that if we attempt to alter these forces we will only be misdirected and harmful outcomes. He also believed that the government should not help the poor for their lack of fitness.

2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?

Introspective Habit: is a tendency that people have a habit to expect something from perceiving it. It is like a biased opinion on a subject because of your experiences with the subject. The same thing happens when you try to perceive the subject and your natural reaction is to have a introspection which comes into habit.

3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?

Trial and error learning and connectionism: I thought these were interesting because to be able to connect things that go together, you need to learn things that do not connect together. When someone finds a connection to learning something they learn how a object works and what all it can do or what you can do with it. Usually this is learned by trial and error initially.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?

Independent and dependent variables: I did not find these topics very interesting because all my psychology, and any science classes talk about independent and dependent variables. The independent variable you test for that you think affects our mind in some way or behavior and the dependent variable measures your behavior or some chemical in your body like cortisol levels.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?

Social Darwinism: This made me think more about history of psychology because we learn from our mistakes and if we still thought that social Darwinism is purely right then we wouldn’t have various things to help out with poor people because now days there are more variables that make one poor or lose a job. We are not just competing other people now, more and more machines are putting people out of work and soon there will be less jobs out that are available from both machines and over population for what society deems right.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?

The last chapter had a little bit about introspection in it and this chapter went further in introspection. One way it had gone further is explain how we can have an introspective habit, in a way we perceive from what we can associate with what we think we are perceiving. Social Darwinism also goes along with genetic psychology, just that social Darwinism believed that even in our social live it was genetically predisposition.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?

I would like to learn more about structuralism and functionalism and how they are different. I think they can go hand and hand together like the structure of part of the brain is able to determine your function of consciousness or ability to do certain things. If a part of the brain is damaged one’s ability to function right can be hindered. This can happen at birth or during an accident. These theories are based more on from the start of a regular humans consciousness. Functionalism thinks that our ability for what we are conscious about is evolutionary based. Structionalism is how we are able to perceive things that lets us be conscious about.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?

One Idea I have is how could our perceptions affect evolutionary things. If we can change our cognitive abilities with ways of thinking different perceptions of any given situation would that be an adaptive behavior in us as a society as a whole, which intern turn to evolutionary means for our future societies.

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.

Social Darwinism
Introspective Habit
Independent variable
Dependent variable
Trial-and-error learning
Connectionism
Structuralism
Functionalism

1a) What did you find interesting?
Classifications for mental deficiencies
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
In my lifetime there are terms that have always been used, much like terms in previous generations. One is mentally retarded, although this is slowly being changed to be more politically polite and correct. However, in the chapter this was not a way to define somebody’s mental capabilities and instead classifications were divided into three subsections, idiot, imbecile, and debiles. This stood out to me and its always interesting to see the changes from past to present, and present that is being changed for the future.

2a) What did you find interesting?
Kallikak Study
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
For starters the origination of the study’s name, it being taken from Greek meaning both good and bad to looking at a person’s heredity and the vast amount of discourse that the family tree took was interesting. The second part that was interesting was the amount of information they went into to look at the heredity lines and to draw a conclusion based on faulty assumptions from information that they thought they had, this led to showing how misconceptions or bias’s in a study can alter the findings and reportings.

3a) What did you find interesting?
Lewis Terman Gifted Study
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
It was quoted in the book as being the longest longitudinal study that had ever been done, and to my knowledge it has not changed. Beyond that, the resources taken to look at these gifted kids, and see where they ended up in life is fascinating. In my opinion, a kid that is young in age may have matured mentally faster and will show up as a false positive and can even out later in life and not necessarily be gifted. In any case, this study was quite extensive and led to some breakthroughs on the IQ testing.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Munsterberg
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
The section on him wasn’t exciting to read about and it didn’t really interest me in the slightest. This could also be because it was towards the end of the chapter.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
The most important thing in the chapter is the studies and tests done on such a wide spread basis. These tests, regardless of the outcome, launched the practice of psychology around the nation and made it relevant in most aspects of life.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
Previous chapters show the start of psychology labs and studies in America. This chapter shows the start of some studies done in America across many different areas such as IQ testing on Ellis Island for immigrants, and IQ testing for the army to determine where to place cadets. These tests although faulty launched psych as a major player and science in America and led to widespread success and emergence of the study.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Gifted Study done by Lewis Terman
7b) Why?
The book had a quality right up on the overview of the study, but it did not go into depth on the multiple follow ups done to see where the gifted students ended up in life. I want to see what happened to these kids.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
One idea was that most of the famous psychologists have degrees from a very limited source of colleges, these being Ivy League and very prestigious schools. I wonder if back then a degree from these colleges meant as much, or more, than if one were to get a degree from these same colleges. So does a degree from Clark mean the same thing in 1900 as it does in 2014.

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Kallikak Study, Lewis Terman, Gifted Study, Munsterberg

1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?

One thing I found interesting was the differences between the German laboratories and the American laboratories. German students learned laboratory procedures on their own. They would participate in ongoing studies, and observe their peers. American laboratories were the opposite. Americans used what is known as drill courses. Students in the course repeated classic studies instead of making their own research. They learned to set up the tools, and familiarized themselves more with the laboratory. Titchener taught a yearlong drill course to undergraduates. The class was mainly composed of juniors, after the completion of his introductory course. This is interesting to me because it is fascinating to see the difference between different countries and their education systems.

2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?

The next thing that I found interesting was James R. Angell. He was born in Vermont, and his father was the president of the University of Vermont. In 1871, James Angell’s father took a job opening at the University of Michigan, and the family moved to the Midwest. Angell went to school at his father’s university. He studied philosophy and natural sciences. Dewey taught Angell’s first psychology course, which was an introductory course. This course used William James’s Principles of Psychology as the official textbook. Angell was pleased with James’s work, and went to Cambridge to spend a year under James’s wing. Then he decided to earn a German doctorate. He wanted to go to Wundt’s laboratory, but it was all filled up, so he briefly studied with Ebbinghaus. He finished the work for his doctorate, but never finished the final version. He accepted an offer at the University of Minnesota to teach. There he aided numerous prominent psychologists to get their doctorate, but he never finished his own. Angell is interesting to me because he landed himself on the cover of Time Magazine in 1936. I have never heard of any prominent psychologists getting a spot on the cover of such an inspirational magazine.

3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?

The last thing I found interesting was Edward L. Thorndike. His impact was primarily located in the fields of educational psychology and psychological testing. He is most famous for his experiment for studying how cats escaped from puzzle boxes. He was the leader of the functionalist movement. His father was a Methodist minister. They moved frequently due to reassignments to other congregations. Due to the frequent moves, Thorndike became really shy, but was still able to maintain his grades. He was accepted into Wesleyan University in Connecticut and graduated with honors in 1895. Like Angell, he was interested and inspired by James’s textbook, and went to Harvard to experience him directly. Thorndike first researched instinct and intelligence in baby chicks. He would put them in mazes constructed of books set up on end. The most interesting point of Thorndike’s career, in my opinion, was that he completed some of his research in William James’s cellar because his landlord evicted his animals, so James took them into his own home. This is interesting to me because, not too many people could say they performed some of their research in William James’s basement.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? 
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?

I thought the section regarding Robert S. Woodworth was the least interesting because there is so much information regarding him. It was hard to stay focused on the information, and retain the information the textbook flooded us with. I think he needed a paragraph or two regarding his childhood and education, the preceding paragraphs could be about his accomplishments. One thing in the section that did interest me was that he was the one to establish the terms independent and dependent variables.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?

I think knowing how that all of the psychologists were linked in some sort of way is the most useful fact to take out from this chapter. All of the research builds on each other, and each chapter, a different psychologist brings something new to the table.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?

This chapter builds on to the previous chapters because it is all connected in some way. The researchers in previous chapter inspired the researchers in this chapter, and they took old ideas, created ideas of their own. For example, Angell and Thorndike were both inspired from William James’s textbook, The Principles of Psychology, and it was what made them interested in the field of psychology. Both of these researchers went to Cambridge to work with James. Angell also wanted to be involved with Wundt’s laboratory in Germany, but it was all filled up and ended up working with Ebbinghaus instead. All of the researchers are connected, and they play off of each other and inspire new hypotheses and findings in their research.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? 
7b) Why?

I would like to learn more about structuralism and functionalism. Considering that this chapter was titled after those terms, I believe the book did not do a good job incorporating the theme of the chapter throughout the chapter.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?

While reading this chapter, I thought about how much it connected with all of the previous chapters. It mentioned prominent psychologist that we learned about in chapters prior to this one, and it tied in their findings with the new information. It was intriguing to see everything fit together, and how the researchers played off of one another.

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.

Drill courses, James R. Angell, Titchener, John Dewey, William James, structuralism, functionalism

1a) What did you find interesting?
Tichener’s Structuralist System
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I find this to be interesting because systematic experimental introspection is a more elaborated procedure of introspection that was first talked about by Wundt. It is not being expanded upon by Tichener. With this new detailed approach, observers would give detailed accounts of what were the conscious events that were happening during a task.

2a) What did you find interesting?
Introspection was impossible
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this to be interesting because it actually makes sense. Titchener actually recognized this problem and came up with three tips to help solve it. His first tip was, to rely on your memory and this would be the best tool. It is important to delay introspection until the process had run its course and then use your memory to reflect back.

3a) What did you find interesting?
Progressive education
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
This movement was led by John Dewey. I find this interesting because I am an education major and it is neat to look at how the education system and the approach to education has changed overtime. John Dewey created his own laboratory to study how children learn. I think that this is very important for education because children learn in all different ways.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Titchener experimental laboratory
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I just found this information to be drier. Titchener created detailed manuals for psychology that was given to students and instructors. It’s very important that this was done but I find the information to boring and not as fascinating as like the progressive and changing education.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Introspection, I find this section to be useful because it shows how psychology is growing and is being improved over time. Theories are still being tested to see if they hold up and new ideas are forming and I think that is important for psychology.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
I think this chapter builds on the other chapters in showing that the psychology field is changing and how also the education system was changing. Psychology was going into education and I think that it shows how psychology was growing and being used in a very beneficial way.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Progressive education
7b) Why?
I think to see how education and approaches to education have changed overtime. Also see if these approaches are still used and held up today would be very interesting to find out. The evolution of education I think would be very fascinating to research and learn more about.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
When reading this chapter I thought about some of my education classes that I have taken before. We have learned about different ways students learn and that was the same thing Dewey was researching so I made that connection when reading this chapter.

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Tichener, systematic experimental introspection, progressive education, John Dewey,

1a) Titchener and the laboratory
1b) Titchener compared structural and functional psychology. Titchener was a major component to the history of psychology. He focused on biology and physiology and worked within laboratories for years. His research wasn’t necessarily accepted by America at first, but it did make way for new research to be further done. Titchener taught what is known as ‘drill courses’ in which a class is taught over and over again to perfect experimenting.. This allowed students to understand the research process and not continually produce new experiments without making the present research as best as it possibly can be. In Titchener’s time, observers and experimenters would exchange positions throughout the research process.

2a) John Dewey
2b) Studying at John Hopkins, John Dewey became interested in the new psychology by learning about the philosophy first. He then moved on with his life to another university where he was able to teach psychology for years. He even wrote a book about psychology, which was used for multiple years within the university scene. Dewey was interested in what is known as pedagogy. By this, studying the reflex arc concept became a large part of Dewey’s life. Dewey believed more in the functional part of things. Multiple parts were in place in order for an end action to occur. Dewey discouraged the traditional way to teach individuals. It was dry and didn’t allow for creativity to flow.

3a) Thorndike
3b) Thorndike contributed quite a bit to the psychology realm. He focused on how animals behave in different situations. He is most famous for his puzzle box inventions. Thorndike made way for more research to be done on the intelligence levels of animals. Based on his puzzle boxes, Thorndike studied cats and dogs and their ability to find the way to escape from the box. It was a maze, and a challenge, but it was accomplished. Through multiple studies, it was learned that animals do have specific intelligence levels. Thorndike and his studies on human behavior established trial-and-error learning.

4a) The part about Chicago Functionalists.
4b) Unfortunately, I didn’t find much interest in learning about the development of the universities in Chicago that allowed functionalism to flourish. The university allowed for Chicago to start over after a rough history. John Dewey was hired to work at the new university in Chicago. Here he was able to open laboratories and educate others about research and all it entails.

5) Each psychologist seems to build off one another. A psychologist may have studied reaction time, but multiple other psychologists have studied this particular topic before. As time goes on we become more educated and learn more about the situation allowing us to disprove or provide more significant information to previous research.

6) Most of the individuals in chapter seven were students of the previous people mentioned in chapter 6. These psychologists were educated by the prestigious men in history and continued to be educators themselves.

7) I would like to learn more about Structuralism. I haven’t really studied this topic much before and I think it could be beneficial for me to look more in depth about this topic.

8) I thought about previous classes that have talked about the individuals within this chapter. I have heard so much about Thorndike, in my Behavior Modification Class, Biopsychology class, and of course my Introduction to Psychology class. It is interesting how we build on the information though that I have already previously learned. Reiterating it allows me to continue to understand the importance of these individuals within the psychology realm.

Structuralism, functionalism, observers, experimenters, reflex arc, pedagogy, trial and error learning, puzzle boxes

1a&b) Titchener’s drill courses & manuals. Titchener’s idea to have his undergraduate students recreate famous experiments as a means of learning methodology was an excellent one in that it allowed the students to learn how to use equipment and follow the experimental design while being able to check their work and have an idea as to what their results should resemble. As this design became more popular Edmund Sanford saw the need to standardize how these drill courses should be taught and developed the first manual on the practice of teaching them, which Titchener later improved upon in his own version. As someone who aspires to be teaching psychology at a university someday I find history of psychology and its development at the university level particularly interesting, in this example it was interesting to see how the drill courses influenced the creation of the manuals.
2a&b) Dewey’s reflex arc. John Dewey, a psychologist from Vermont, challenged the view of physiologists of the time that reflexes were not separate in distinctions of sensory and motor pathways. Dewey suggested that instead that instead of an ‘arc’ reflexes operate more closely to what we would consider a circuit, or moving in a continuous instead of back-and-forth pattern which the arc model suggested. This was interesting to me because it showed another step forward for psychology in that Dewey was challenging ideas that had existed for years. These sorts of stories always feel somewhat inspirational to me because it shows the dynamic side of psychology and that there are always ideas to be questioned and new information to be found.
3a&b) Thorndike’s puzzle box learning: I found Thorndike’s puzzle box experiment interesting on principle, but it became increasingly so the more I read into the section. Thorndike’s experiment was an effort to disprove comparative psychologists of the time who attested that animals were capable of higher level thought. In his experiment he took cats and placed them in puzzle boxes to see how quickly they could escape to test if they indeed had reasoning skills. While Thorndike was a talented experimental psychologist he apparently wasn’t very good at building his puzzle boxes or other mazes he used for testing animal behavior. I thought it was interesting that the book would mention this and, to me, shows a lack of bias in the writing that I found refreshing.
4a&b) I found a lot of the history in this chapter interesting but there was a bit of information that felt superlative to me. Was the floor plan of Titchener’s area at Cornell really something we needed to know? I’m all for illustrations and pictures that enhance the learning experience, and there were some in the chapter that were useful in understanding the material, it just seems to me that that particular bit could have been omitted without any great losses to the understanding of the formation of functionalism and structuralism.
5) I think the most important thing to take away from this chapter in regards to the history of psychology would be the various sections that detail the changing of the teaching of psychology at the university level. I believe that it is very important to understand as students where and how the things that you are learning came to be, and that is what this chapter brought to the reader in sections such as Woodworth’s work on textbooks and Titchener’s drill courses. By understanding the past advances in the teaching of psychology we can hopefully be able to understand what we are learning currently in context with that history, and obtain a more comprehensive understanding.
6) This chapter built on the others in its elaboration of the development of the teaching of psychology that has been mentioned in the past few chapters. It also is a continuation of the perspective of the history of American psychology that the book is now focused on. More broadly, it gives the reader a sense of time in the building blocks of various movements or schools of thought within psychology, and builds on the historical understanding attributed by previous chapters.
7a&b) While this chapter presented many good examples, I am still interested in learning more about university labs and their growth and research during this time period. As I have mentioned before, I am interested in the teaching of psychology at the collegiate level because I one day hope to be among those doing the educating. I also find this particular time period in psychology to be of interest because it seems like a very dynamic period in the discipline in which many discoveries and revolutionary experiments were taking place.
8) Some thoughts I had while reading this chapter ranged from curiosity to jealousy. I think it would have been thrilling to have been at the universities in which these studies were taking place, under the direction of the leading psychologists of the era who helped fundamentally shape psychology education and experimentation. It also in a way reminded me to be appreciative that I am able to study the discipline of my choice at a university, and be taught by experts in that discipline. I also wondered how widespread psychology education was at this time; were there only a few, large institutions that held instructors? How available was this education? And how was this discipline viewed in terms of validity within the collegiate community?
9) terms* E.B. Titchener, drill courses, manuals, Edmund Sanford, Dewey’s reflex arc, John Dewey, Edward Throndike, puzzle box experiment

1a) Titchener’s Psychology: Structuralism
1b) I found it interesting how structuralism is just like anatomy. This section talked about how it’s purpose is analysis. It states, “Just as the anatomist organizes knowledge about the body into component structures, so would a structural psychologist analyze the human mind and organize it into its elementary units, basic sensations, for example.” This is very interesting to me how they put it this way it made it very clear. However, functionalism, is like physiology. I also really liked how they used their wording, “Then physiologist examines how the various parts of the body operate and the functions they serve to help keep the individual alive; similarly, the functional psychologist studies how the mind serves to adapt the individual to environment.” This section made it very understanding to me how these operate in psychology.
2a) Promoting Experimental Psychology at Cornell
2b) While reading this chapter I thought it was interesting that Titchener wanted to expand the laboratory and attracting students in starting a research program as soon as he arrived at Cornell. Titchener published “the Manuals” that had step-by-step procedures worked out and went into qualitative and quantitative experiments. It’s interesting to know how different research methods came about in today’s world. I also found it interesting that Titchener was very much on his own and did not find interest in the examination of individual differences, or in studying animals, children, or the insane, unlike the other psychologists.
3a) John Dewey: The Reflex Arc
3b) The reflex arc is something I found interesting while reading through this chapter. John Dewey went deeper into the meanings of traditional thinking of reflexes. The reflex arc is three separate components; the stimulus producing sensation, central processing producing an idea, and the act or motor response. I found it interesting that he believes that the reflex is best conceived of as an integrated, coordinated whole that serves the function of adapting the organism to its environment. I really enjoyed his example when he used a child reaching for a candle flame. It helps me understand his neat concept that it is more like a continuous circuit than an “arc,” due to its starting and ending points.
4a) The Columbia Functionalists
4b) This section of the chapter did not grasp my attention like the rest. I found this chapter rather interesting except this part. It wasn’t very interesting and didn’t have much information that would benefit me more than the others.
5) Reading more about structuralism and functionalism is always useful in understanding psychology. But this chapter went more in depth with how these concepts came to be with Titchener and the rest of the psychologists that in my opinion will benefit my understanding of the history of psychology.
6) This chapter builds on the rest because it relates back previous chapters and how they talk about structuralism and functionalism this chapter just goes in more depth about each. This chapter also relates back to Darwinism when talking about social Darwinism with functionalists.
7a) Titchener
7b) I would like to learn more about Titchener because I find him to be a very interesting psychologist. He is unlike the rest and stood his own opinion on certain things distinguishing between structuralism and functionalism. His findings in research also fascinate me.
8) While reading this chapter I thought about how structuralism and functionalism have such a big part in psychology and topics are always referred back to them. I thought that research and “the manuals” was very fascinating and wanted to know more. I kept thinking about how reflexes are so neat while reading about the reflex arc because it is such a natural area of life.
9) Structuralism. Functionalism. Titchener. Social Darwinism. John Dewey. The Reflex Arc.

1.
a. The Province of Functional Psychology
b. I found this so interesting because Angell basically set the foundation for functional psychology. He contributed a lot to reaction time, imagery, and sound localization. Without him we may not be where we are today in the psychology world, nor with the knowledge of the human mind and behavior. In this paper he cleared up the blurred lines between structuralism and functionalism, which probably wouldn’t have been done without his views. I think he is interesting because he made many controversial statements that rose up a lot of other research and led the way to many findings.
2.
a. To tag off the above, I just think that Angell in general is a very interesting character
b. The reason I found him so interesting is because he embarked on territories that many people didn’t even think to question. On top of establishing differences between structuralism and functionalism, he also established the difference between biology and psychology. I think he is interesting because he wasn’t interested in the actual idea of a subject, but rather establishing differences between similar subjects.
3.
a. Titchener and his “How to fail in psych”
b. I found this interesting because I thought it was funny that a professional psychologist would write such a light and fairly helpful paper for students pursuing a psych degree. I also liked reading about it, because it made him stick out while reading as well as more interesting to learn about after seeing his down to earth real human side. Reading this really helped lighten the reading load, which made it seem like something I would’ve chosen to read instead of a textbook.
4.
a. Edward Thorndike
b. I didn’t find reading about him very interesting because I feel like the research that was touched on in the reading wasn’t very profound or make a large difference in the history of psychology, partially because I didn’t like his crude unethical mazes. I also just tend to be a little biased when learning about the people who use animals as test subjects.
5. I think the thing I found most useful in learning about the history of psychology was Angell and his differentiating between structuralism and functionalism. I find this very useful, because before him there these two subjects were basically lumped together. I think it’s very important that they were ultimately separated because then that led to discovering more in depth topics within these subjects, as well as much more detail.
6. This chapter builds on the previous ones because the main concepts within this chapter were briefly mentioned in the previous chapters (e.g Darwin, titchener, Thorndike) but this chapter went into major details and expanded on each topic much more than the previous chapters. I feel like every chapter we read just takes up deeper and deeper into the history of psychology and how that affects American psychology.
7. One topic I want to learn more about is the early life of Angell. I say this because he seems like a very diverse and comically individual who actually understand students. I would just like to know more about his upbringing and his family life.
8. While reading this chapter and about the figures within this chapter, I couldn’t help but think “what would they be thinking about where psychology is today, how it got there, and their general views on it. I then started thinking about things they would think about to improve psychology if they were still here today.
9. Titchener, Angell, The province of functional psychology, functionalism, structuralism.

1) One topic that I found interesting was Edward Thorndike and his puzzle boxes. This was most interesting to me because I read about him last week in another class so I already knew a lot of what the text had to say about him. Thorndike was the one to create such ideas as the Law of Effect which says that if positive reinforcement is given directly after an action, that connection will be remembered and all previous actions will be forgotten because they received no response. Thorndike also presented the idea of the Law of Exercise, which basically states that the more frequently the stimulus and response occur the stronger the association will be over time. He was a big fan of trial-and-error learning.
2) I also thought the section on Herbert Spencer and social Darwinism was very interesting. Spencer is actually the one who invented the phrase “survival of the fittest” not Darwin as many people believe. However Spencer’s definition of “fittest” was different than Darwin’s. Darwin believed fittest to be the best trait that is most important to survival. Spencer believed fittest to mean the “survivors were winners of fierce battles for limited resources.” If we take into account the different definitions, then I am not so sure that we should be associating this popular phrase with Darwin and his research. Social Darwinism states that evolutionary changes were inevitable and natural; any attempt to change this would result in harm for the species.
3) Another interesting topic was John Dewey. He graduated high school at age 15, which may have been fairly common then but I think is pretty incredible. It seems to me that he must have been very smart. When in school he studied under Stanley Hall, which is another name mentioned in our text as important to the history of psychology. When Dewey moved to Chicago, his focus was functionalism. He started a progressive education movement in which students would learn by actually doing things, rather than just reading about them. This is very relevant in many classrooms today.
4) My least favorite part of the chapter was the part on Titchener and his structuralism. I overall like the idea more of functionalism more, so it was harder for me to see this point of view. Also many of the things connected with Titchener were boring things such as drill courses and manuals. When things are not interesting, it makes them very difficult to follow along with in a textbook. The way that the text described Titchener made him sound very sure of himself, almost arrogant; nobody wants to listen to the teachings of an arrogant man.
5) I think that the most important part of the chapter was defining the ideas of structuralism and functionalism. Those who subscribe to the idea of structuralism want to breakdown an object or creature into its most basic components and understand the idea as a whole from those pieces; they want to know what something is. Functionalist beliefs stem from that of Darwinism. They believe that if an animal or human has a trait or ability then it must have some kind of survival value; they want to know why something exists or what its purpose is. This chapter talks about the main figures that were associated with these ideas which is important to know where and why things are popular.
6) This chapter builds on previous ones by touching on many topics that had been mentioned previously like Darwin. The logical next step after discussing Darwin would be to talk about functionalism because this is an idea that stemmed from him.
7) I would like to learn more about social Darwinism because it was mentioned but I am unfamiliar with the idea. I just know that it is a controversial topic and I would like to explore it.
8) While reading, I thought about the connection between this class and my behavioral modification class. I read this chapter right after doing the reading assignment for my behavioral modification class and in that assignment I wrote about functionalism and structuralism. I enjoy when my classes can overlap their information a little so that I can have some reiteration to make sure I understand. I also thought that this must be an important distinction to be mentioned in multiple classes.

Terms: Titchener, structuralism, functionalism, Darwin, Thorndike, Law of Effect, Law of Exercise, reinforcement, John Dewey, progressive education, Herbert Spencer, social Darwinsim

1a) What did you find interesting?
I thought the idea of drill courses was interesting. Drill courses are when students work in a psychology lab and repeat classic experiments and in general become familiar with the lab.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought that this was really interesting, because this is honestly what I thought I would be doing when I came to college, as a first generation student. I thought that I would be working in a lab, possibly with rats, doing mazes and things. I still think this would be really fun, and I wish I could have done this. I’m not sure if we even do this at UNI, but I think this would be really cool. I would love to create my own Skinner box or my own rat maze and run tests. Even if they were just repeats upon the old tests. I think that this is a problem that we have as a university and as a country; most of the classes that I’ve taken have just been lecture and tests, without any real application of the knowledge that I have learned, which doesn’t really make me feel like I’ve actually learned anything. In fact, I’ve probably forgotten most of the knowledge that I did learn, since it was mostly just regurgitated information. Even in my psychological statistics class, we never actually gathered our own data or anything, it was just data we were given and we just plugged it into some computer program and followed step-by-step instructions on how to get the results that were necessary. I hope that maybe in graduate school, I’ll be able to perform some real experiments of some kind.

2a) What did you find interesting?
I thought that Titchener’s idea of attributes was interesting. Attributes are the various features that the human conscious experience has. The human conscious experience has three basic types of elementary processes; sensations, images, and affections. The book provides the example of sensations, and they have the attributes of quality, intensity, duration, and clearness.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
This was interesting to me, because you generally don’t think of your general experiences in this kind of format. For example, when you touch wood that is really grainy, you don’t think about the quality of the wood, or the length at which you touch it, nor do you think about how grainy the wood actually is, unless it is very noticeable or you are a carpenter or something. I think that attributes give you a new way to think about the world in a way in which you may not have previously. The smell of cookies in the oven, or the taste of salt, all of these can be looked at through the human conscious experience and broken down into attributes, and I think that’s pretty interesting.
3a) What did you find interesting?
I thought that Connectionism and Trial-and-error learning was fascinating, as it builds upon what Morgan talked about in a previous chapter, which is something that I defended. Connectionism is the way that something learns by repeating things and making a connection to one particular way to get a desired response. Trial-and-error learning is the process of repeating things to get the desired response.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
This was talked about in Chapter 5 related to Darwinism, and Romanes idea of anthropomorphism, and Morgan’s Canon. Morgan used the example of a dog learning to escape the yard, and said that it was simply lucky that it figured it out, not that it was actually learning anything from it. And Thorndike proves him wrong, by showing that cats in a box trying to get out will struggle and try multiple things, but once they get out, they will, with some error, be able to get out quicker and quicker, and when even put into a different box with a similar escape pattern will learn how to get out faster than a cat that had not previously been put into a box, meaning that they do learn and are able to understand rewards and that their actions can help or hinder them.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
I thought that reading about Woodworth and his idea of the independent and dependent variable was the least interesting. The independent variable is the part that you change in an experiment, while the dependent variable is what you measure.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
We talk about this in literally every psychology class. In literally every science class I’ve ever taken. I guess I’m just tired of this getting beaten into us. I mean, I guess it’s kind of neat that we finally learned about the person behind it, but I could have went my whole life without knowing that Woodworth was the one that defined them and been perfectly okay with it. But I guess I’m glad I now know, if I ever go one Jeopardy or something, I’ll know who to say if this question comes up.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Probably the stuff about Woodworth and independent and dependent variables, since it is still so very relevant to today and how we conduct experiments now. I also thought that Social Darwinism was pretty relevant, because it is a term I’ve heard a lot of and never quite knew for certain what it was about.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter definitely builds on chapter 5 with social Darwinism and the trial-and-error learning. Chapter 5 was all about Darwinism, and how we study animals, and about Morgan’s Canon, and this chapter built upon that by talking about how social Darwinism is about how we should not punish the wealthy or help the poor because based on Darwin’s theory of evolution, helping the weak is hurting our species because we should let them fail. On the other side, we should not punish the rich because they have acquired the means necessary to survive in this world. Morgan’s Canon was discussed again in this chapter briefly with Trial-and-error learning and connectionism.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I’d like to learn more about Social Darwinism, and what a world would look like if we developed that kind of mindset.
7b) Why?
It’s just really interesting to me, to think how life would be if we had adopted this kind of mindset when Social Darwinism took place. Would we have went over and helped during WWII? Would we be addressing social issues like women’s rights? Would I be in college right now? How would medications, doctors, schools, anything work? It’s just fascinating to think about the what ifs. Also, a world in which we relied on Social Darwinism would be a great book to write or to read.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I was thinking a lot about conducting older, classic experiments, and how much fun it would be to see if I got the same or similar results. I was also thinking about all the animals that they use in these kinds of experiments, and if they were really mean to them back then (probably). I was then thinking a lot about Social Darwinism, and how that would look today, if we had embraced that kind of thinking back then. I also thought briefly about how I was glad that Morgan kind of looked stupid after just being so mean to Romanes in chapter 5, who I felt extremely bad for. Romanes and anthropomorphism is probably the one thing that I’ll remember the most concrete well after this class is over, just because everyone thought he was a total joke, and I really feel for the guy.

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Drill courses, Attributes, Titchener, human conscious experience, trial-and-error learning, connectionism, Morgan’s Canon, Romanes, anthropomorphism, independent variable, dependent variable, Woodworth, Darwin, Social Dawinism

1a) What did you find interesting?
Titchner and Structural Elements of Consciousness
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
There are three categories of mental processes used in introspection, the first being sensation. Sensation is considered to be the basic elements of perception and can be broken down even further into different attributes. According to Titchner, all sensations have quality, intensity, duration, and clearness. Image is the second category. Images are simpler forms of ideas and have the same attributes as sensation although the results are not as intense for images. The third category is emotion or feeling. This is the emotional aspect. I thought this was interesting because it gives a breakdown of the things that affect a person consciousness.

2a) What did you find interesting?
Progressive Education
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Progressive education went against the norm in schools. Before, schools were strict and the classes were difficult, making it hard for students to get ahead. So, Dewy created a Laboratory School in Chicago to study how students learn best. He found that students learn best if they are able to do things on their own and explore the subject in contrast to the material being shoved down their throat. I found this interesting because is it a practice that is used today. In my education classes, we are taught that classrooms should be teacher lead and student driven, allowing the students to make their own discoveries.

3a) What did you find interesting?
Social Darwinism
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Social Darwinism is basically survival of the fittest. According to social Darwinists, if you’re not doing well, there’s nothing you or anyone else can do about it. I found this to be interesting because, in society today, we are expected to help people in need, not throw them into the gutter because they are not ‘fit’ enough.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Harvey Carr and Carr Mazes
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I didn’t see the importance of this section. It talked about his life, then his mazes, then his life again. It didn’t really mention how his contributions affected psychology.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
This chapter, similar to the ones before it, shows how the ideas of psychologists can be built off of. It connects previous psychologists from other chapters with the ones in chapter seven. I think this is useful because it allows for the ideas to become connected in a way.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
Titchener was a student of Wilhelm Wundt, a psychologist earlier discussed in the book. Also, this chapter talks about social Darwinism which builds off of the ideas of Darwinism which is also discussed in a previous chapter.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Social Darwinism
7b) Why?
I want to know how it affected society as a whole. I know the saying “survival of the fittest” is still used today, but it is not taken as seriously anymore. I want to know the extent they took it to back when social Darwinism was discovered.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I thought about how education has changed because of the advances that have been made in psychology. I can’t imagine being a teacher before these discoveries were made. Unlike in the past, school is supposed to be a positive environment where students can flourish. I would hate being a teacher that discouraged students from learning by being too strict or mean.

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Titchner, Structural Elements of Consciousness, Progressive Education, Dewy, Social Darwinism, Harvey Carr, Carr Mazes

1a) Social Darwinism according to Herbert Spencer
1b) This concept of how people were deemed fit was interesting to me. This idea of the survival of the fittest appears to be close to the time of the depression, a time where the wealth lines were extreme and people were extremely divided due to financial lines. What is interesting though is how Spencer uses social Darwinism to defend what is going on. Not only does he say that there should be no assistance for the poor because basically they are poor because of what they did not what is going on around them. Also, though there is the part about the rich should not help out those who are less fortunate because they were deemed fit to survive and that is why they made it rich. When during these times it was more of people having lack of resources that lead them to the circumstances they were in. It was a not so nice way of thinking and what is interesting is how it is still present today. Not only did it help to create a even bigger poverty line and therefore so many more people were living in poverty but it also divided races when in reality they just began to eliminate the idea of a superior race upon the ending of the Civil War.
2a) Introspective Habit
2b) This was interesting to me because it challenged Wundt and Kulpe’s ideas of how things are remembered. It was interesting to read how Titchener challenged the ideas that were brought about before him and were able to prove that things can change. Titchener was able to bring about the idea that there are 3 different areas of remember things not just the sensation side as Wundt originally said but there is sensation, perception and memory. Things can be altered by surroundings, even when someone is trained to pay attention and recall what happened, introspective habit, there are still outside issues that can occur to alter what happened. Looking at the close up the biggest one is where the man fell off of the horse and then was not able to recall anything of his day previous to the fall. Things can happen to change the recall and therefore it cannot always be exactly true to what happened.
3a) Reflex Arc
3b) This was interesting to me because how it basically went back to how children learn that Dewey was later involved in. How reactions can be more then when you go to a doctors appointment and your doctor tests your reactions with hitting a joint with a reflex tool. Children learn that things are hot by touching them and even though the child didn’t know that the flame was hot upon touching it the body gets the extremity to pull away from the heat without the child having to think about it. Just the whole idea that the body can do things with the mind having to always think about and analyze the situation is interesting to me.
4a) The manual
4b) This wasn’t interesting to me because it was basically breaking down common sense about doing experiments/studies and how Titchener was forcing the basics on his students before he was letting them go any further. Granted, everyone needs to know the basics in order to understand what they are doing properly but going into detail about what an observer is, that is basic knowledge that everyone should know before they even begin an experiment/study. Then the in-depth explanation of qualitative and quantitative data, maybe that is something that wasn’t so common to know the difference at that time but now that is something that is discussed on a regular basis in regards to a report of a experiment/study. The manual itself just seemed to be a drawn out book that forced undergrads to learn the basics when it really could’ve just been covered in a few short classes. Just the whole section was something that was basic knowledge and could have been a paragraph rather than 2.5 pages.
5) I think that the most influential part of this chapter when it comes to understanding psychology would be the whole emphasis on learning. Everything throughout this chapter went back to how things were taught and how things are learned. Learning on how things work and how the mind develops ideas as well as reactions is important to the understanding of the mind all in its own.
6) It builds on the previous chapters because it is challenging earlier ideas that were presented, such as Darwinism. Also, when it talks about perception and reaction formation, all things that were originally put as set in stone theories when brought back into question in a later time though these ideas were found to be different, the evolution of people over time.
7a) John Dewey
7b) I would like to learn more about John Dewey and the way that he changed the education system with developing the progressive education system. He is interesting because at a time when the communities were just worried about giving people the opportunity to get an education he was worried about ways to teach children where they will actually learn something. It is also interesting to me that he began the program in Chicago, a place that now has some of the most overcrowded schools and children that are struggling to get an education if they live and attend school in the city.
8) What came to mind was the area about social Darwinism and how today it is still present, especially when it comes to politics. Today these is still a definite line between the amount of people that are deemed to be rich and those who are poor, the ones that are deemed rich still maintain that substantial amount of power and resources even though they are extremely outnumbered by those who are deemed poor. The world hasn’t changed much and the fact that money is power and their idea of social Darwinism is still present today rather than changing to where people are growing and moving in social classes.
9) Titcherner, observer, quantitative data, qualitative data, Herbert Spencer, Social Darwinism, John Dewey, Progressive Education, Reflex Arc, Introspective Habit

1a. I think the first thing in the chapter I found interesting was the section on Titchener’s psychololgy. Titchener was a British born gentlemen who had the opportunity to travel and study at many universities. He was accepted into the esteemed Malver public school, Oxford, studied in Wundt’s laboratory in Leipzig, and finally found his way across the Atlantic ocean in America to teach and do research at Cornell University. The thing that separated Titchener from most was his love for the laboratory and the empirical process. He first encountered the new experimental psychology while at Leipzig and it had a lasting effect on he proceeded with his work. 6 years into his professorship at Cornell in the United States he coined a term for his brand of psychology and called it structuralism, which was supposed to contrast in a sense with the functionalist school of psychological thought. Titchener, rather than discount functionalism, merely espoused that structuralism should be understood first. Tithener used the comparison of his functionalism being like anatomy in where the purpose is to analyze. The anatomist organizes information into discrete structures to studied, as would the structural psychologist. The functionalist, on the other hand, would comparative to the physiologist who studies the functions the constituent body parts serve to keep a person alive.
2a. I found this interesting because Titchener was closely related to another person I had studied for a topical blog, E.G. Boring. Titchener taught Boring a lot and it is interesting to delve deeper into what Titchener actually contributed to psychology.
1b. The next section I found to be interesting was an expansion of the first section I found interesting and that would Titchener’s expanding of experimental psychology at Cornell. Titchener greatly expanded experimental psychology in the United States and attracted many young psychologists to come study under him. He quickly led the field of experimental psychology and joined in to become an editor in the American Journal of Psychology which meant he controlled a third of the information that made its way into the journal. At Cornell he started to write his own texts and started translating famous texts such as those from Wundt in Germany for the American Academic’s consumption. Probably his most standout contribution to the literary world of psychology was his “Manuals” that he published that outlined how to teach drill courses in America. Drill courses were courses designed to let students reproduce classic studies in the laboratory so that the students could become acclimated to the procedures in the lab. A teacher would often over see these courses and sometimes lecture in between. Titchener noticed after a time that some of the teachers that were supposed to be teaching this methods were not very good. So he decided to write two volumes of his manual , one for students and one for teachers, that worked out step by step procedures on how laboratory psychology should be done. His manual mostly dealt with quantitative experiments dealing with psychophysics and perceptual phenomena. Another interesting thing to note about these drill courses is that students would generally work in groups where one student would be the observer, or as we call it today the participant. One student would be the participant in the study and from an introspective view give his observations.
2b. I found this interesting because I had never heard of “drill courses” before reading this and I think it would be a really cool thing to do in a university setting. I’m sure maybe in grad school they do these kind of things, but a hands on approach at conducting old experiments to learn the way of the lab sounds like it could be a really fun and educational way to get people interested in a certain field of study.
3a. The next topic I found interesting was also related to Titchener, but it looks more closely at just what his structuralist system implied. Titchener thought there were three primary goals for psychology in his time. The first and most important to him was that he thought psychology should analyze human consciousness into its basic components, or “structures”, by way of experimental research. His next goal was that psychology must understand the process of synthesis, or how mental elements of the brain are combined into more complicated acts. His third goal was to have a precise way to explain these phenomena. His methodology for his researched is deemed introspection, or more precisely systematic experimental introspection. This is similar to how Wundt in Germany analyzed much of his research, which he called internal introspection but Titchener elaborated on the process. Titchener knew there was a key error to his introspection technique and that was that you, can’t reflect on a conscious experience and have that experience all at the same time. Titchener offered three ways in combination to solve this problem. Step one was to rely memory. So basically, instead of introspection, Titchener says to experience and then reflect, or in other words use retrospection to reflect the experience. Titchener then offers that we must break the memory work load in sections by using a “fractionation method”. His most important technique was to acquire an “introspective habit” wherein the researcher makes mental notes to remember while observing phenomena or even jot some things down without it interfering with the conscious experience.
3b. I found this section interesting because in this chapter I had found all of Titchener’s exploits to be interesting. He meticulously helped form a new brand of psychology, brought it to the United States, and helped broaden experimental psychology into the forefront of what it was at that time period.
4a. I found the section on John Dewey to be the least interesting. John Dewey was born in 1859 in Vermont and grew up with the typical American yankee sensibility of the times. He graduated high school at 15 and went on to study at the University of Vermont. Upon graduating he became a high school teacher for a while but decided to continue his education at Johns Hopkins. There he studied philosophy and got his first taste of experimental psychology. He then went and taught at Michigan where he taught philosophy and psychology. There he incorporated his notes into psychology text that would become the standard at Michigan for the next 10 years. He then went to Chicago where he established the city as a functionalist area for study. One of his contributions or idea he put forth was his argument against the reflex arc. People of the time thought of reflexes as stimulus response actions. Dewey argued that they had a greater purpose and that purpose was that reflexes served a function. The function of reflexes was to adapt the person to their environment. He gives the example of a child reaching out and touching a candle flame. Instead it simply being a stimulus response action for the child to pull back from the candle, it is more complexly the child learning the flame can hurt him and so when he sees the flame next time he has learned that flame can hurt him and won’t touch it again.
4b. I did not find this section as interesting because I did not find John Dewey to have contributed as much as some of the others mentioned in the text. I am sure he was a brilliant guy but I found the section to be the rather dull.
5. I think understanding exactly what functionalism and structuralism are and how they differ, as well as how they can go hand in hand, is what will be important going forward. It seems like so many people in the early history psychology fell into one realm or the other of study and understanding why they thought the way they did in terms of their favoritism towards one realm of thought over the other is pretty important to know.
6. This chapter expands on previous chapters because we now have a broader sense of what psychologists around the world were thinking and working on. We previously looked at German psychology, we’ve looked at psychologists from Britain, now we are looking at American psychology in this chapter and as I read I see that it is all really connected. One guy studied another guy who influenced the research of this person over here. It’s all really interconnected but each person brings his or her own perspective that keeps expanding psychology outward.
7. I would like to learn more about some interesting psychology lab experiments done at the time. They talked briefly about how they would do sense perceptions experiments on themselves as part of drill courses. I’m sure there were some pretty awesome studies done back then that cannot be replicated today.
7b. I would like to learn more about them because in today’s world we are limited in what we can replicate and what we can study because of the constraints of our ethics (rightly so!), but that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn something from the studies published and conducted in the past that weren’t so…. ethical. It would just be interesting to find some of these studies.
8. I thought a lot about how everyone in the world of psychology seems to be interconnected. In the time periods of psychology we have been talking about everyone is expanding on each other’s ideas. More than that, a lot of them are said to have even be friends or acquaintances. These are people from all over the world and even back in this time period where communication is limited they still find a way to work together to expand at very rate what is psychology of this time period. It is amazing.
9. Sturcuralism, functionalism, drill course, systematic experimental introspection, introspective habit, reflex arc.

1a) What did you find interesting?
Table 7.1

1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Table 7.1 was labeled "How to Fail in Laboratory Psychology", and while it seems that Titchener was very adamant about his guidelines listed, I couldn't help but be amused at the strong sarcastic and passive-aggressive statements made.

2a) What did you find interesting?
John Dewey

2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I didn't place too much interest in his contributions toward psychology, but was impressed with his audacity in innovation to move the emphasis of certain questions regarding psychology experiments from "'what?' to 'what for?'" Now that I think about it, Dewey's progression from a definitive state-of-mind to a purposeful point of view is a contribution in itself because it lays down a key component for functionalism.

3a) What did you find interesting?
Progressive Education

3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Any topic regarding education is something I can usually connect to because educational reform is something I would like to be involved in when I am older. I have much respect for Dewey and his involvement in attempt to revamp the traditional learning methods.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
The Columbia Functionalists

4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I think it is because I am viewing it from a presentist point of view due to the fact that I know about behaviorism and have slight bias toward comparative psychology. Contributions made here I can see the importance of, but there is cognitive bias that is not allowing me to truly appreciate it.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think the chapter had a small emphasis on showing that once gain, it took multiple contributions from multiple psychologists from multiple regions to make the foundation that psychology is standing tall on today. Not one man has a truly original idea, but only in the collaborations and trials and errors of eachother are they able to navigate through knowledge yet to be attained.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
Chapters previous have been building upon the steps that precede the evolution of psychology as a social and behavioral science, starting from philosophical and physiological contexts, to the first psychology educational departments, and now branching toward the coining of certain subdivisions of psychology in this chapter.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
John Dewey

7b) Why?
I have respect for him due to his revamping of education in his time period, and would like to learn more about the steps he took to achieve that feat.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I thought about how lucky I am to experience schooling from two polar opposite high schools, one public, and the other magnet requiring high test-scores to receive admission. I was able to see how different the student perspectives are in regards to learning and education, and how to properly discern my own way of how to view education.

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.

John Dewey, Progressive Education, Functionalism, Comparative Psychology, Behaviorism, Columbia Functionalists, Titchener

1a) What did you find interesting?
I found social Darwinism to be interesting. The fact that Spencer took Charles Darwin’s idea and put his own little twist on it was interesting to me. It was survival of the fittest meets the developing of America.
2a) What did you find interesting?
I also found drill studies to be interesting. I think that I would enjoy a class that was full of just doing these drill studies. Preforming and learning how to properly execute many different experiments would be a fun and interactive class to be a part of. It would be very informative to try to replicate other psychologists’ research, but it would also probably be a good idea to try to get these students to try to conduct and figure out their own brand new experiments.
3a) What did you find interesting?
I found that the idea of structuralism and functionalism was interesting. I did not realize there were so many different ways to look at the brain. Functionalism looks at the different parts of the human body and tries to understand how all the different parts help to keep humans alive. On the other hand, Structionalism organizes various information about the body and separates it into different basic units.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
I thought having to look at independent and dependent variables was a bit boring just because that has been repeated into our brains thousands of times.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think the structionalism and functionalism will be useful to understand because I feel we should know the different ways to look at the brain. I also think that social Darwinism is helpful to understand as well because I feel that it is an important part of psychology.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter built on the whole American psychology aspect. It also talks about how previous psychologists help to form the ideas of other psychologists. For example, social Darwinism was helped along by Darwinism.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would probably like to learn more about John Dewey. His school in Chicago was briefly mentioned and his research on education is something I would like to look into more.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
John Dewey, Structionalism, functionalism, social Darwinism, independent variables, dependent variables

I find Titchener’s laboratory manuals interesting. While an emphasis on laboratory psychology was making many advances at this time, there was a lack of standardized procedure going on. Psychology professors were running their students through drill courses, but they varied from professor to professor. One of the most important distinctions in any science is that experiments can be replicated. Without consistent research procedures, how can experiments be properly replicated? Titchener saw this problem in psychology and addressed it. He wrote extensive manuals giving very detailed, sometimes step by step, descriptions of laboratory procedures. In these manuals he also placed an emphasis on the observer. Not only should the observer be aware of the participant but they should be monitoring their own influence on the procedure. This can often be overlooked and have a significant impact on research.
I find social Darwinism, developed by Herbert Spencer, interesting. Darwin’s theory was affected science greatly but also politics and social views. Darwin’s motivations seemed to be purely scientific if not strictly biological. He even avoided referring to evolution as it applies to humanity. His way of thinking was not shared by others. Herbert Spencer did not hesitate to apply natural selection to his social climate. It just so happened to support a way of thinking that benefited very powerful people. I think it is important for us, as a society, to understand the forces that separate us; geographically, culturally, and financially. It is equally important, however, to keep in mind dangerous senses of entitlement and disregard for human consciousness. Brilliant science can be used for indecency. Perhaps no better example exists than the economic divide at the turn of the 19th century.
I find John Dewey’s contribution education reform in the early 1900s to be interesting. Science was advancing quickly at this time, and education seemed to be lagging behind, as was most institutions involving the general public at the time. It was clear, at least to Dewey, that reform to the education system was not only benefit the intellectual whole of the U.S. but also social and political climate. He also recognized an informed approach was necessary. The use of laboratory school’s helped advance our understanding of early learning. Dewey, using his new progressive education, was able to create productive and informed political change.
I did not find structuralism interesting. The parallel with anatomy and biology was not a concrete enough conceptual guide. Titchener put way too much weight on introspection. It is something that should be noted when doing research, but it is not the end all be all.
This chapter highlighted two opposing “isms.” Psychology’s history is riddled with opposing movements, forces, and schools of thought. Functionalism’s victory over structuralism is important to keep in mind. Whether or not a school of thought prevails over others depends largely on the hard work and good science of the researchers defending it. I predict that future chapters will highlight individuals that are responsible for psychology developing into what it is.
I would like to learn about progressive education. There are aspects of the United States education system that I am not sitting well with right now, elementary through higher education. I would like to know where it has come from, the social and political influences that have shaped it over the years, and scientific theory behind it all. There is clearly room for improvement. We only stand to gain from making it better.
Keywords: E. B. Titchener, drill courses, observer, social Darwinism, Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, progressive education, structuralism, functionalism, introspection

I thought that the manuals that Edward Titchener created were a very interesting read. It was considered his biggest contribution to psychology. They first began as a series of drill courses created by Titchener to teach undergraduates to repeat famous labs previous conducted and how to properly set up and work the instruments. These became so popular that Titchener couldn’t teach it all himself. He was worried that the new instructors wouldn’t be as careful as he was teaching the material so set about creating a text that instructors could follow. Here the manuals were created for both students and teachers but the teachers were twice as long due to step by step instructions.

Edward Thorndike was another interesting topic that I enjoyed reading about. He impacted several fields of psychology: educational, comparative, behavior, and functional psychology. He was a leader of the functionalist movement, and his first research was in animal psychology. He started off studying instinct and intelligence with baby chicks. He was known for connectionism which was known as trial and error learning. Those behaviors that resulted in failure eventually stamped in with behaviors of success. He also created two principles that being the law of effect and law of exercise.

Reading about James Angell was interesting as well. His major work added valuable research about reaction time, imagery, and sound localization. At one point he was the president of the APA. He was a functionalist and did not believe that structuralism even exists. He believed more in comparative and developmental psychology. It was thought that every topic interested in by American psychologists was underneath the umbrella of functionalism.

The thing I found least interesting in this chapter was introspective habit, because it was hard to actually articulate and accomplish and therefore couldn’t be duplicated by others. It wasn’t fundamentally sound and no one had the same experience based on the same stimuli proving results useless.

I think the most useful thing out of this chapter to understand the history of psychology was the debate between structuralism and functionalism. The scientists and psychologists on both sides of the argument tried to research, comprise experiments, and expand their respected fields but in the end it seemed as though structuralism fell by the way side and functionalism was more highly supported which spawned off many separate fields of psychology today like abnormal psych, developmental psych, educational psych, and behaviorist psychology.

This chapter builds upon the previous chapter that was about American pioneers in psychology, because this chapter explained how psychology continuously grew in America and the universities and institutions that provided doctorate degrees in America could compete with the highly favored German doctorates and were seen as even better. This chapter talked about the growth of different views in psychology and which ones were able to take hold and continue to expand in America and around the world and those that didn’t.

I would like to learn more about Edward Thorndike and his major contributions being that of connectionism or trial by error, because I feel that trial and error is extremely important in understanding how things work and this sounded like the groundwork for more prominent experiments to come because he could work out the kinks through trial and error and begin to disseminate what actually works and doesn’t work.

While reading this chapter I was thinking about Skinner and Pavlov while reading about Thorndike’s box mazes and intelligence. Skinner and Pavlov were taught in a lot of my previous psychology classes and it is hard not to think about their work in comparison with Thorndike’s because he was that bridge between comparative and behaviorist psychology.

Key Terms: Edward Thorndike, Edward Titchener, The Manuals, Functionalism, Behaviorism, Structuralism, Comparative Psychology, Connectionism, Law of Effect, Law of Exercise, Introspective Habit, James Angell, Drill Courses.

1)What did you find interesting? Why was it interesting to you?

Drill courses were very interesting. Instead of coming up with new studies, students were expected to recreate past experiments. This seems as though it might be counterproductive, but I can see how this would be useful. What is a more hands on way to learn about a study than recreating the study yourself? Students were paired off together, one being given the role of the experimenter and the other the role of the observer. The observer had a particularly difficult task because they actually partook in the experiment and were expected to monitor their own psychological changes during the experiment. I guess I would have to see an example of this to fully understand, but I feel as though this would affect the results of the experiment. Wouldn’t expecting a certain outcome likely yield results for that outcome?

2)What did you find interesting? Why was it interesting to you?

Progressive education is particularly interesting to me because I am an education major. Before the progressive era, school was highly focused on rote learning, repetition, and was very strict. Dewey felt that schools were the answer to societal ills at this time because it would give everyone an equal opportunity to succeed. He highly encouraged socialization, creativity, and critical thinking within the school curriculum. He created the first lab school (very similar to the one we used to have at UNI).

3)What did you find interesting? Why was it interesting to you?

Trial-and-error learning or connectionism. I’m surprised this was something that had to be discovered because it seems pretty obvious. But his theory about the transfer of knowledge from similar situations is a revolutionary concept in psychology.

4)What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Why wasn't it interesting to you?

This chapter was pretty interesting, but one thing I probably found the least interesting was James R. Angell’s life. This section mostly stated areas where he disagreed with other psychologists, which was still interesting, but probably the least riveting out of all the sections.

5)What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?

Functionalism vs. structuralism. The origin of both of these and the relationship between the two is crucial to understanding the history of psychology. Although structuralism ultimately died with Titchener, it is important to know this aspect of history so we can learn from it. Because Titchener’s approach was so narrow and uncompromising, errors in his theories couldn’t be resolved. Because this has happened in the past, future psychologists can learn from this and learn to be more cooperative with their work.

6)How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?

Titchener’s tendency to favor males relates to chapter 1. The chapter states that all the Experimentalists were men, but this was partly due to cultural norms of the day, which relates to the historicist approach. This also relates to chapter 6 and the theme of women trying to emerge in a dominantly male science. It is also stated in this chapter that Herbert Spencer is the true creator of the term, “Survival of the fittest” and not Charles Darwin, which relates to chapter 5.

7) What topic would you like to learn more about? Why?
John Dewey. He had such an impact on the education system during this time, and I’d like to learn more indepth about him and his contributions.

8)What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?

I would’ve highly enjoyed being in Titchener’s class. It seems as though he valued hands on learning, and judging from his list of ways to fail the lab, he was probably a funny guy! Although John Dewey influenced the progressive era in a way that made education more hands on, creative, and fostered social interaction, I wonder what happened in between that time and now. As of now, we are in a “STEM crisis” so the focus is being placed more on the math and science content areas in teaching colleges than the methods courses. I wonder what errors occurred in his system that caused us to shift focus in education.

Drill courses. Historicist. Trial and error learning. Connectionism. Structuralism. Functionalism. Progressive Education.

1a) I found learning about structuralism interesting.
1b) I found structuralism interesting because I finally got to learn and catch onto the difference between structuralism, experimentalism, and functionalism. Where structuralism is more like the purpose or analysis functionalism is more like physiology and finding the reason and way things operate. I can now understand the difference between the two and it makes a lot more sense when reading about certain topics that has to do with the two.

2a) While reading the chapter I thought that John Dewey was interesting.
2b) I thought John Dewey was interesting because he took the old ideas of reflexes and disagreed with them so he changed the idea of the reflex arc. I also liked how Dewey was a school teacher and he helped launch the progressive education movement where school should be more democratic instead of being strict, having drill and practice, and rote learning.

3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter? I think the overall message of this chapter was to explain the differences between different types of psychology (structuralist, behaviorist, experimentalist, etc.). The chapter expresses how these different things have evolved overtime and how it has impacted the psychology world still to this day.
3b) This chapter was not the most interesting chapter that I have read. I thought certain parts of the chapter were interesting to learn about but overall I thought it was kind of boring. It did however teach me about different ideas I have never heard of before and built on the ideas I have previously learned about.

4) I think knowing more about structuralist and functionalist will help me understand the history of psychology because I will not be confused when I read about different ideas and researchers who are a part of either of those. It will help me comprehend the ideas and make sense about how they relate to the way we look at and see the topic or idea in today’s world.

5) This chapter has built on previous concepts I have previously learned with not just structuralists and functionalists but different concepts and people like Edward Thorndike and his cat in the puzzle box experiment to create the law of effect. I already knew about the law of effect having to deal with trial and error but I also learned that he also came up with the law of exercise which is when the certain practice is made stronger between a stimulus and response.

6a) I’d like to learn more about pedagogy.
6b) The reason I would like to learn about pedagogy is because I saw it was mentioned with Dewey but I have absolutely no idea what it is.

7) While reading this chapter I kept reading about the different people who have made their ideas known and popular. I noticed that most of them attended John Hopkins and I was wondering if that was still a school people still go to or if it was just open back during this era?

8) Terms: John Dewey, pedagogy, structuralist, functionalist, experimentalist, Edward Thorndike, trial and effect, law of effect, law of exercise, progressive education, reflex arc

1a) What topic did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
It was interesting to see the differencing perspectives between structuralism and functionalism. Structuralism was defined by E.B. Titchener as using a form of structural psychology to analyze completely the adult mind, show how parts could be combined to create more complex abilities, and to provide an explanation of mental processes. Functionalism refers to one’s mental abilities to be an adaptation of one’s environment. It was interesting to me because structuralism asks the question “what is consciousness?” and functionalism asks “What is consciousness for?” This relates back to our discussion in lecture because we have been told asking a good question will get you further with more knowledge.

2a) What person did you find interesting?
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
I thought the transition between structuralism and functionalism was interesting. It took one man, John Dewey, to argue the idea of structuralism to begin a movement. This triggered James Angell to continue the idea of functionalism into the early 1900s. I thought this was interesting because he had the courage and knowledge to disagree and he was correct.

3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
The overall message of chapter seven is to learn the distinction between structuralism and functionalism and who contributed to the study of both. For the most part, this chapter was interesting. It clearly defines each area of study but unfortunately I did not really learn anything new or exciting in this chapter.

4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think understanding the whole concepts of structuralism and functionalism with help me understand psychology. Generally speaking, it also helps me realize although there is a current theory that many people believe, it can be challenged. It’s good to think outside the box and push against other people’s theories.

5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
Again the difference between structuralism and functionalism asks two different questions. I think this chapter really builds on to what we have discussed in class about asking the right questions and not being afraid to do so. When we ask the right questions we get closer to new discoveries and expanding our knowledge and I think this chapter really reflects that.

6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
6b) Why?
I would love to learn more about comparative psychology in the form of Thorndike’s puzzle boxes for cats. I have a passion for animals and always found it interesting to study their behaviors.

7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
After reading this chapter, like I said I feel like I have not discovered anything new. Relating back to the question above, is there any new comparative research similar to cat puzzle boxes, which is a more recent discovery? I feel like we are exposed to the same animal research over and over. There has to be more we can study and discover with animals and I would love to see some newer research in this area.

8) Terminology: E.B. Titchener, structuralism, functionalism, John Dewey, James Angell, Thorndike, puzzle box.

1a) One topic that I found interesting was the term introspection.
1b) This term was interesting to me because while before the book has talked about psychologists and how they look into and study other people. But when it comes to introspection, you are looking into your own mind and your own consciousness. While it may be an important aspect in looking into a person's consciousness, it is a difficult topic. When searching and evaluating your own self, there is a bias which makes it hard to be exact and truthful.

2a) One person that I found interesting in this chapter was Edward Thorndike.
2b) I found Thorndike interesting because of his experiments with studying how cats learned to escape a puzzle box. The term most often associated with Thorndike is connectionism because that is what his learning model is referred to. There were many different laws of learning that Thorndike was able to compose based on his studies on how cats learned. All of his work was interesting and showed not only how cats learn, but also how humans learn themselves. Like how his law of effect with the trial-and-error learning, as well as the law of exercise with repetitions being important for learning was all interesting.

3a) The overall message of the chapter was about studying consciousness, but there were people focusing on different aspects of it. Some psychologists looked at structuralism, which was analyzing human conscious experiences into their elemental units and how those units are synthesized into mental processes. On the other hand, some psychologists studied functionalism which is looking into how the mind operates and the functions it serves to adapt the individual to the environment.
3b) I found this chapter a bit interesting because I had learned about some of these concepts before. Otherwise it was just as boring as other history chapters because it was all names and terms which is just too much to want to comprehend.

4) I think both the concepts of structuralism and functionalism will help us understand the history of psychology. Not one of these is better than the other because they both look at different aspects of the conscious mind. Without one or the other we wouldn't be able to understand the entirety of the mind like we do today. Previous research and experiments are important to study and look over so that you can build onto it and look more in depth.

5) This chapter builds onto previous chapters because it talks about how experimental psychology and new psychology helped shape into the study of the consciousness. Without understanding how things were in the past, you can't understand why the psychologists were doing and thinking what they were. It also builds onto knowledge I have previously learned about in other classes. Thorndike is someone that I have heard about and studied before so this chapter just gave me new information and helped me apply his findings in a new way.

6a) I wouldn't mind learning more about other people who have studied structuralism besides E. B. Titchener.
6b) I think it would be interesting to look into because Titchener took up a majority of the section about structuralism, so it would be cool to look into other people who took his ideas and studied them more, or who had any controversial views about his findings. I'm sure that Titchener's work had to have inspired other psychologists.

7) Other than my question about whether there are other major contributors to the idea of structuralism, I don't think I really had any questions when reading through this chapter.

8) Terms: introspection, consciousness, Edward Thorndike, puzzle box, connectionism, law of effect, trial-and-error, law of exercise, structuralism, functionalism, E. B. Titchener,

1a) what topic did you find interesting?
The main topic that I personally found really interesting was Edward Thorndike experiment with cats in puzzle boxes. His first research experiment was done with animals, he quotes the reason being that he felt that he could produce better results than what had already been done.
1b) why was it interesting to you?
I do pride myself in being a cat lover, in today’s world, (presentism) cats escaping from various sizes of boxes is something to watch on YouTube when you’re having a bad day. I find it captivating that in today’s society, this ‘experiment’ would be looked at as normal behavior that cats do. That it is common for cats to like confined spaces. Yet, at the time when Edward Thorndike did these experiments it was revolutionizing (historicism). His work would be later published as “Animal Intelligence: An Experimental Study of the Associative Processes in Animals.

2a) what person did you find interesting?
The main person I found most interesting was Edward Thorndike, this current chapter focuses quite a bit on his life and the contributions he did. I really found his animal research interesting. He did his first experiments with baby chicks and moved further onto cats.

2b) why were they interesting to you?
The main reason I found him captivating is because he thought that he needed to push psychology that he himself needed to do more. An excellent example of this is with his animal research. He did not care so much anecdotal notes, he makes a statement saying that when a dog gets lost no one cares but when he makes his way home from a far distance everyone has to make a statement. He really developed a systematic procedure to test the intelligence of these animals. He would study more than one at a time, he would repeat the experiments and he would control the environments in which the animals were in. This is a really good push, on the scientific method, making sure experiment are done in a systematic way is still used today. In the end, he came up with two general principles, the law of effect and the law of exercise. The law of exercise is described as the connection between stimulus situation and responses would strengthen with practice. The law of effect is that behaviors that are effective in problem solving would be ‘stamped on’ while the behaviors that did not work would be ‘stamped out’
3a) what do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
The main information in this chapter was about structuralism and functionalism, it went through the importance of knowing the main difference between these two concepts. It explained the impact the experimentalists had, and the opportunity it gave women.

3b) was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
It was interesting to learn about the variety ideas on consciousness and how these major people help shift psychology.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think the importance of having developed a systematic procedure is very relative, it is one of the main pillars of psychology. Making sure that your experiments are good in reliability and validity. Reading about Edward Thorndike gives me a better understanding on his thought process and how he ended up contributing to psychology.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
Previous chapters talk about the how new psychology started to emerge and now with each new chapter were are learning how psychologist interpret the old information and now are trying to apply it to their own ideas and concept. It’s watching how psychology evolved through the years.
6a) what topic would you like to learn more about? 6b) Why?
I would like to know if any other psychologist did experiments with cats. If so, what was it and how.

7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
What other experiments in history in the medical world were sued on cats and other animals? I know kids in biology get to dissect a cat.
8) Terminology: Edward L Thorndike, cats in puzzle boxes, law of effect, law of exercise, presentism, historicism

1a) I found structural psychology to be very interesting.
1b) I feel this way because of concepts that go along with it such as structuralism and functionalism. I find this interesting because structuralism is compared to anatomy in the fact that an anatomist organizes knowledge about the body into component structures a structural psychologist would analyze the human mind and organize it into elementary units. then there is functionalism that is compared more to physiology because a physiologist studies how various parts of the body operate and the function they serve to keep people alive where a functional psychologist studies how the mind serves to adapt people to the environment. I just found these to be interesting comparisons and the topic to be interesting as well.
2a) the person that I found interesting was E.B. Titchener.
2b)some of the things that I found to be interesting about him was the fact that he grew up in England and was raised by his grandfather. he was a talented student. good enough to earn a scholarship to Malvern in England and then Oxford where he attended from 1885 to 1890 where he did well with the classics and philosophy. his last year at oxford was spent in the physiology lab with John Scott Burdon-Sanderson. here he found that he loved the very detailed work of the lab. after that for the rest of his life he judged peers by the quality of their lab work. at Oxford he learned of Wundts mew physiological psychology so he went to Leipzig Germany where he encountered many like minded lab devotees. he completed a doctorate with Wundt in 1892. he then got a job teaching at Cornell university where he very much promoted experimental Psychology. he worked quick at Cornell expanding the lab and by the 20th century him and his students had published over 60 research articles. in American labs things were learned by way of a drill course. a drill course is where students replicated classic studies and learned how to set up and become acclimated with the lab environment. he always worried about quality of instruction due to this he wrote his own manual on instruction of drill courses titled Experimental Psychology: A Manual of Laboratory Practice. He later joined and resigned from the APA three times because it did not support his views on experimental Psychology. due to this in 1904 he created a group that became known as the Experimentalist. this provided a better way for people to present their research to peers. they were essentially formed in hopes of keeping pure lab psychology alive. his primary goal was to analyze human consciousness into its basic elements. his major contribution was that of promoting lab psychology.
3a)I think that the overall message of the chapter was that without structural and functional psychology we would not be where we are today cause they help to break down our understanding of the human mind so much.
3b)I find it interesting because of the fact that it is true. without knowledge of smaller more complex things it is a lot harder to understand the big picture. especially in this type of situation. if we in some form did not know the human brain and study what all goes on in the brain we may not have any idea at all how to treat disorders or things like that in psychology.
4)I feel that this chapter as a whole was useful to me because it makes me realize more that if we do not pay attention to the little details we wont be able to get the big picture. all the little things that may seem pointless really do play a role and they are mentioned or talked about for a reason. its not just to waste time.
5)this chapter is just like a lot of the others in the fact that in other classes things like structural and functional psychology were mentioned but they were not talked about in detail. the details help me to better understand why things are how they are and make it more interesting. its not just the same old boring paragraph that Ive seen in other classes.
6a) I woulike to learn more about trial and error learning.
6b)I would like to learn more about it because Thorndike makes it sound so simple. I would like to learn more of the details and the mental processes that go into that specific topic.
7) one thought that I had while reading was why did Titchener fight so hard agains the apa and anyone that didn't believe in the way that he thought? he got shut down by a lot of different places saying that his beliefs weren't relevant. How did he keep himself motivated to stay in that field and not just move on?
8)E.B. Titchener
structuralism
functionalism
structural psychology
functional psychology
trial and error learning
Thorndike
Experimental psychology

1) I found Robert S. Woodworth’s S-O-R Model to be interesting because he took the popular belief that we must study the stimulus and the response from it to another level. He thought it was important to study both the stimulus and response, but also the organism. We must attempt to understand what motivates the organism’s response to a stimulus. I think that if we were to ignore the motivation of the organism, we would be missing a piece of the puzzle.
2) I found Robert S. Woodworth to be interesting because of his strides in experimental psychology, his influence through his writings, and his “dynamic” psychology. First off, Woodworth narrowed the term experiment in such an important way, that his definition is widely used in textbooks. He also was one of the first psychologists to use the terms independent variable and dependent variable accurately in writing. Woodworth also discriminated between experimental psychology and correlation psychology. These experimental ideals are still widely applied and used today. Secondly, Woodworth’s writings influenced many students in many ways. His writings were so thoroughly and extensive that anyone reading his writings could learn about almost any psychology topic. His writings also pointed out many important distinctions within psychology (e.g. correlational vs. experimental psychology). Lastly, Woodworth defined psychology in a way that is much more appreciated and accepted today. Instead of looking at psychology from a narrow point of view, such as mental process only, Woodworth said that psychology is a combination of both mental processes and behaviors.
3) I think the overall message of this chapter is to show a shift from “schools of psychology” to different viewpoints within psychology. Before this chapter, psychology was broken down into many different college studies and degrees. For example, one might have went to the school of behavioral psychology at Harvard. The psychologist and contributors to psychology in this chapter looked at psychology as one whole study with different niches within it. For example, E.B. Titchener might have taught psychology with a structuralism view. I did find this chapter interesting because it tied together some of the ideals I know to be “true” about psychology to its history. For example, I learned where the term experiment came from. It helped me connect and think deeper about experiments. I now have an understanding where the term came from.
4) The most useful thing I read about in this chapter was Woodworth’s definition of experiment and other workings of the experiment, such has the independent variable and dependent variable. I can now appreciate where experimental psychology fame from.
5) This chapter applies to what I have learned in previous psychology related classes, such as Research Methods, Psychological Statistics, Abnormal Psychology, and Introduction to Psychology.
6) I would like to learn more about Woodworth’s ideals. I am most interested in his S-O-R model because of his importance of motivation. I think motivation plays a huge roll in what we do, why we do what we do, and who we are.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
I had questions regarding the names of some people. Many of these names did not ring a bell to me. I wonder how they made it in this book and why I haven’t heard of them before. I wonder if they really contributed significant amounts to psychology. I would like to think I would’ve at least heard of them if they were very important to psychology. Or maybe they are important, but it just takes a history class to tell me about them.
8) S-O-R Model, stimulus, response, organism, Robert S. Woodworth, experiment, independent variable, dependent variable, experimental psychology, correlation psychology, structuralism, E.B. Titchener

Chapter 7: Structuralism and Functionalism
1) I enjoyed reading about Tichener and the development of the awareness of stimulus error. I found this interesting because this is a moment when you can really see psychology as a field evolving and developing into more credited research. Psychologist were becoming more aware about variables that would disrupt their findings and make them invalid. I viewed this as the psychologist beginning to think more about the bigger picture and thinking more abstractly about what exactly effect their research and how important consistency is within this field during research, especially in the lab setting.
2) I found Tichener to be the most interesting person within the chapter. I found him interesting because I enjoyed learning about how he theorized about sensation, images, and affections being the three main categories of human consciousness and I really liked how the text talked about how hew was responsible for making psychology scientific.
3) The overall message of this chapter was the evolution of the field of psychology and how the two theories of structuralism and functionalism came to be. I found this topic interesting because I was able to see more similarities between the field that was described in the text and the field presently. The development of laboratory manuals and drill courses and how psychology became more defined and scientific rather than people making observations and assuming a theory was correct. That was not enough anymore and this chapter showed the necessity of validity and reliability in psychology.
4) After reading this chapter, I think the most useful information for me was just the constant reminders about how important the little details are in psychology. The smaller details could make or break a theory or a study and this chapter really reiterated that concept and stressed that fact.
5) This chapter has expanded on how I view the history of psychology by introducing me to pioneers in the field that I was unaware of, but more importantly showing me the greater developmental of experimental psychology. With experimental psychology’s development it became clear that it was featured on tight controls within a laboratory in order to make the findings accurate. This is still true today, and learning about those similarities was very beneficial for me.
6) I would like to learn more about Thorndike and the development of trial and error learning. I would love to learn more about this because it seems like such common information that my classes have only really scratched the surface of the information and his research. I feel that a lot of his study gets passed over and I would love to learn about it in greater depth.
7) I would question if there has been any more development between structuralism and functionalism and which one is considered more important in psychology currently. The text said that, in the past, they viewed that one must study the function then the structure and I am just curious if that opinion is still the common one.
8) Terminology Used: drill courses, laboratory manuals, validity, reliability, Thorndike, trial and error learning, structuralism, functionalism, stimulus error, Tichener, experimental psychology


1a) I found the topic of functionalism to be interesting in this chapter.
1b) Functionalism is the “school of psychology favored by most early American psychologists; focused on the study of human conscious experience from an evolutionary perspective, concerned with studying the adaptive value of various mental and behavioral processes.” I found this topic to be interesting because it focuses on the function of the brain and how it is used by humans, unlike the structuralist view which believed it was more important to study the basic structure of the brain.
2a) The person I found to be most interesting in this chapter was James R. Angell.
2b) I found Angell to be interesting because unlike a lot of psychologists, he chose not to follow through with his doctoral research to make time for his personal life. A lot of the influential members of psychology that we’ve read and learned about so far have come of as only worried about their research and contributions. But I found Angell to be interesting because he was not only dedicated to his career and research, but he also made sacrifices for his family and personal life.
3a) The overall message of this chapter is that even though structuralists and functionalists may not agree on what should be studied in psychology, they are both important ideas that can be used together to get the best results in research. I think there is also a theme of American Psychologists and the impact that Americans have had on the field of psychology.
3b) Out of all the chapters I’ve read so far, this was probably the least interesting chapter for me to read. I thought the concepts and people to be important in understand why the history of psychology is important to learn about, I personally just did not find most of the topics to be interesting to me.
4) The thing I read in this chapter that will be most helpful in understanding the history of psychology is Titchener’s impact on psychology and his contributions.
5) There honestly wasn’t that much discussed in this chapter that I’ve learned about in other psychology classes, other than Titchener’s distinction of sensory reaction time and motor reaction time. I’ve learned about reaction time in a lot of classes, but I never realized there were different types of reaction time. I also didn’t realize Titchener’s impact on experimental psychology in America, he helped to establish experimental psychology in the academic settings of psychology.
6a) I would like to learn more about Edward L. Thorndike and his research with cats in puzzle boxes.
6b) Thorndike made impacts in the fields of educational psychology and psychological testing, which are both fields that I find to be interesting. He studied how cats learn to escape from puzzle boxes which I would be interested to learn more about and what implications it had for humans especially.
7) What were Thorndike’s other contributions to psychology and what impact did they have? Why was structuralism not as successful as functionalism, could it have been due to the people that did (or didn’t) support it?
8) Terminology: Functionalism, structuralism, James R. Angell, E.B. Titchener, sensory and motor reaction time, Edward L. Thorndike, educational psychology, psychological testing, Thorndike’s Cats in Puzzle Boxes.

1a) What topic did you find interesting?
I found the topic of functionalism to be interesting.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought it was interesting because it is the style of psychology that most people study today. Everyone on psychology today is interested in why people do what they do. I thought it was interesting to learn that functionalism was a result of Darwinian thinking. Functionalism was developed to look at why people or animals did what they did to help them to survive and adapt. John Dewey was an important figure to functionalism. His paper on the reflex arc is what got people thinking about functionalism.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
I found Eduard Thorndike to be interesting.
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
He was interesting to me because of his works with animals and mazes. He did experiments to see if animals would be able to escape simple designs. He would then see if the animal could replicate that to more complex designs. He made puzzle boxes and would put cats in them and time them to see how long it would take for them to learn how to escape. After they learned it once he would do it again and again to see if their time would improve. He would then try and put a cat into a box that had a similar solution to see if they could solve it quickly. From his results he came up with the terms trial and error learning and connectionism. Both mean that you learn from past experience and it helps you in new situations.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
I thought the overall message of the chapter was kind of boring.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
I didn’t find the chapter very interesting. I think I didn’t find it very interesting because no one in this chapter had an experiment or theory that I was interested in. I thought all of the theories and experiments were boring. I did think that the experiment on the puzzle boxes was interesting. I think that Eduard Thorndike made the chapter a little more interring for me.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
In this chapter we learned about structuralism and functionalism. Learning about both of these theories shows how psychology came to be what it is. Without this knowledge we might not know how some sub categories of psychology developed.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
This chapter builds on knowledge I have learned by giving me a more in depth look at what structuralism and functionalism are. The chapter cited more people and gave in depth look at what they contributed to the different schools of thought.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about functionalism.
6b) Why?
I want to know how that has shaped psychology today. I want to learn how it changed people’s ideas and thoughts on psychology. I want to know how big of an influence it was on what we learn today.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post. Eduard Thorndike, puzzle boxes, trial and error learning, connectionism, functionalism, John Dewey, the reflex arc.

1a) The topic that I found interesting was the section of cats in puzzle boxes.
1b) This was interesting to me, because I always find experiments that use animals to be entertaining. The fact that testing animals to find out more about humans has always helped me to understand psychology better, so when he said that cats used trial and error learning, I have and have seen many other people use this type of learning too.
2a) The person that I found interesting was Edward Thorndike.
2b) Thorndike was interesting to me because of the experiments he did. Like I stated in question 1b, I have always learned about psychology better when I can learn about the experiments that have been done on cats, and then relating them to humans. It is an ethical and interesting way to do experiments, and Thorndike did several of them. So, when I read through his section of chapter 7 and it talked about the experiments he did with the chicks and the cats, I was really interested in the work and the results of his work.
3a) I think the overall message of the chapter was distinguishing structuralism from functionalism.
3b) I would say that the message was interesting. The reason I think it was interesting, was because defining these two words was an important part of psychology's history. The more I read in this class the more I understand where certain theories and experiments originate from, and these theories and experiments help us get to where we are and how much we know today, which is pretty interesting to me.
4) The thing I read in the chapter that I think will most help me understand psychology's history is when it differentiated structuralism from functionalism, like I said in question 3a and b. The reason I think this is because people who were structuralists asked the question what is consciousness, and people who were functionalists asked what is consciousness used for? These types of questions led people to study a broad range of psychology topics, and led them to individual differences and how psychology could be used to solve everyday problems.
5) This chapter builds on what I have previously learned about the history of psychology, because in the last chapter, people were beginning to experiment and test on heredity of humans, and figure out ways to get the best humans possible, specifically Galton's theory on eugenics. Now in this chapter, we have moved away from that, and tried to focus more on the human brain and why everyone is different and what makes people do the things they do. So, scientists are building off what other people have done to find out new ways to understand why we do the things we do.
6a) The topic that I would like to learn more about is the main elements of conscious experiment.
6b) The reason that I would like to learn more about this topic, is because of the main elements that make up consciousness, which is sensation, images, and affects. The way that these three things are described in the book is pretty interesting, and it would be cool to learn more about and be able to understand my own conscious.
7) One idea I always have when I think about the conscious is if people perceive and see things the way that I do. You really only know what is going on in your own mind, and can only process the things you see, and I always just wonder if people see things exactly the way that I do. I think it's pretty safe to say they perceive it the exact way that I do, so it would be cool to see how other people think and process things in their minds.
8) Terms: Conscious, sensations, images, affects, Galton, Eugenics, Thorndike, structuralism, functionalism

1a) What topic did you find interesting?
I found the topic of introspective habit interesting.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found introspective habit interesting because it no longer is practiced but learning about it was very interesting. I found it fascinating that Titchener believed that buy “building” peoples minds so that they would not have biases or their own perspectives that would be able to perform experiments better.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
I found Titchener very interesting.
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
Titchener was interesting to me because he was innovative in his teaching style, not only that but he was willing to ask questions of the practices in place (since our class is centered some what around questions I found him interesting). In regard to his teaching style at Cornell University he stressed experiments and allowed his students time to not just be in the classroom but to also re do experiments, these are called drill courses which students were able to do their own studies. The questions that he asked were in regard to the American Psychological association and the productivity of their group. I found it interesting because not only was he willing to break away from them but he was also willing to start his own group. Though it did not have credibility at first he was willing to think outside of what was the “norm” was which is how the whole concept of psychology was formed.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
Over all I think the message of this chapter was to help separate the differences between functionalism and structuralism in psychology and the importance of the difference of the two. I think the message was also really centered around experiments and that without educational institutes it would have been hard for these to take place.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
This chapter was very interesting to me because it related a lot not only to previous chapters but also to other psychology classes helping to expand on experimental psychology and why some of our psychology course we take today are structured the way that they are.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think that Titchener way of innovative thinking mostly in his schooling I think this helps me to understand innovation better and why classes are structured the way they are. It is interesting to see how history has developed and how we don’t have the opportunity to recreate some experiments the way that his students did. Also reading about the development of structuralism and fundamentalism helps to understand how the men such as Titchhener and Cattell shaped these fields.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
It added to the information that I knew about Social Darwinism. In the reading it talks about Herbert Spencer’s ideas of natural selection which were close to those of Darwin. It built on my knowledge in finding that Darwin was not the only one with these ideas though their ideas differ in how natural selections happens (Spencer believed the survivalist won battles or territory wars). It also built on my knowledge of fundamental and structural psychology, and how they developed.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about Cattells mental tests
6b) Why?
I would like to learn more about mental tests because much of Cattells work was much like Galton's works which learned about previously. The book touches on the 10 different tests that Cattell uses but I would like to dig deeper into what those were.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post
Introspective Habit, Drill courses, Mental Tests, Social Darwinism

1a) What topic did you find interesting?
-I found the topic of functionalism and the people and contributions of it very interesting.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
-It was interesting to me since I have studied this before in other classes, and I like the Chicago functionalists the most. I enjoyed reading about John Dewey’s reflex arc. I think that it is interesting about what makes reflexes and why they happen. I did not know until now about the three components of the arc as the stimulus producing sensation, central processing producing an idea, and the act or motor response. I also liked that Dewey helped educational reform and helped with the movement of the progressive education and decided to study in the lab of how children learned best in the classroom. I liked that he noticed that schools usually were about strict discipline and drill and practice that made it a place no one wanted to attend. I also enjoyed reading about Harvey Carr’s Carr Maze. It was the improvement maze from the general problem of maze standardization. I also liked reading about the Columbia Functionalists since Cattell’s research is of interest to me. He coined the term the mental test. I think mental tests are fascinating, since clearly being a psych major, the mind is a curious and wondrous thing. He did borrow some of his mental tests ideas from Galton, but eliminated the physical measurements.

2a) What person did you find interesting?
-I liked reading about Thorndike and his cats in the puzzle boxes. I liked that he did not use rodents like most did back then for experiments. Most of his impact was in the fields of educational psych and psychological testing. He was most known though for studying how cats learned to escape from puzzle boxes. He was considered a pioneer in comparative psychology, which Lloyd Morgan also had in mind as the proper way to do animal research. He was one of those men who were a precursor to the conditioning work of Pavlov and Watson. I thought it was interesting that he did not choose to do animal research because he knew a lot about them, or I guess even caring for them as he stated on page 197 in the text. He did it because he thought he could do better than what had been done already. I thought it was interesting that he also chose baby chicks for his maze experiments, I would not have thought of those if I were him. So I think that was creative of him. His explanation for the behaviors that were recorded was the same response as Morgan’s on dog behavior. It was called trial and error learning, and connections between the stimuli in the boxes and successful escape. He also proposed two general principles that I agree with and liked to learn about, Law of Effect and Law of Exercise.

3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
-I think the overall message was to explain the differences between structuralism and functionalism and the different contributions of famous researchers to prove why their theories are the best. I think it also is to show how a lot of these researchers are connected and that they build off each other’s work, mainly to improve it, or add on to the findings.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
-I found structuralism boring, and found functionalism more interesting. I liked the people and the experiments better as functionalists. I did find Titchener’s Experimentalists interesting to read about, and liked that they later reorganized the group and were less antifemale, thanks to Margaret Washburn. I also liked reading about everything I stated in questions 1 & 2. I like to learn about history and how it has contributed to modern psychology that won’t bore me while I am reading, and these people and topics kept me interested.

4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
-I think that mainly the two systems of structuralism and functionalism and the people that contributed to it and improved other’s research. It was also good that it gives dates and how researchers are tied to one another and the colleges involved and the labs as well.

5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
-I have studied and heard of actually each person and topic that was noted in this chapter in other psychology and history classes since high school. The only people that we did not study was Carr, Dewey, the Manuals, and Agnell. I think that it is good that we study the same people and topics in other classes, it helps with memory learning since it is repetitive. This class though always goes into more detail than just here is the person’s name, and what they are most famous for. The main thing that we have studied for years that was also mentioned was about Woodworth’s independent and dependent variables. We used these terms all the time in my classes, mainly when I was in Research Methods of course.


6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
-I would want to see more research findings on the cats, baby chicks, and the dog behavioral learning.
6b) Why?
-I love animals, and find it interesting when they are researched, and I don’t think it is unethical to do so. I think that we humans are similar to animals so their responses are most likely similar to our own.

7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
-Why was Titchener so antifemale, but yet half of his graduate students were women?
-Why did Thorndike decide on baby chicks and cats specifically? What made him interested in those species?

8) Terms- Functionalism, John Dewey, Reflex Arc, Harvey Carr, Carr Maze, James Cattell, mental test, Galton, Thorndike, cats in a puzzle box, Lloyd Morgan, Pavlov, Watson, comparative psychology, trial and error learning, connectionism, Law of Effect, Law of Exercise, Titchener, Experimentalists, Margaret Washburn, Agnell, Woodworth, independent variable, and dependent variable.

1a) The topic I found interesting was functionalism.
1b) I thought it was interesting because it studies how the mind serves to adapt the person to their environment. I also thought it was interesting that it spread so far over the United States. Chicago and Columbia were two of its major hotspots, however. In these universities John Dewey, James R. Angell, Harvey Carr, James McKeen Cattell, Edward L. Thorndike, and Robert S. Woodworth all made major contributions.
2a) I thought that Edward L. Thorndike was interesting.
2b) I thought he was interesting because his initial research was in animal research. He studied baby chicks’ intelligence by putting them in mazes and watching them escape. He watched them jump against the walls and make a lot of noise before they explored. Then he tested cats in boxes that they could open with one motion, such as pulling a cord, once they figured it out. The cats would, at first, try to get out with by any means. Finally they would figure out the correct method, by accident mostly, and then they would try this method much sooner each trial later.
3a) I think that the overall message was to show how structuralism and functionalism spread across America and the different psychologists that studied either approach.
3b) I thought that both approaches were interesting. I also thought it was interesting how Titchener said we need to understand how something works before we can determine what function it plays. I also thought it was interesting how he was friends with someone John Watson, and yet completely disagreed with his stance on psychology.
4) I thought what Titchener said about understanding how things work was useful for today. I think that we take things without realizing how powerful they could be and what the repercussions will be. We have done this recently with the chemicals that we treat our crops with. We aren’t completely sure what will happen when these chemicals are consumed over a long period of time.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
6a) I would like to learn more about ethology.
6b) In the book it describes ethology as the study of animal behavior in nature. I would like to learn more about different studies that were done in ethology.
7) Why was Titchener so against the APA? Were there other reasons besides the ones listed in the book? Were there many women working in the fields at this time that didn’t get any recognition just because they were women?
8) Functionalism, John Dewey, James R. Angell, Harvey Carr, James McKeen Cattell, Edward L. Thorndike, Robert S. Woodworth, structuralism,

1)One thing that I found interesting in chapter seven was the idea of social Darwinism. At this time there were many changes going on. Women and minorities were inferior to white men, and the idea of “progress” motivated the American people. The idea of this sparked evolutionary thinking. But, what I didn’t know is that it was not Charles Darwin who coined the term “survival of the fittest”, but instead it was Herbert Spencer. Their ideas were not the same because Spencer used this phrase as the survival of the fittest combined with the development of American character.

Another thing that I enjoyed reading about in this chapter was about the Chicago Functionalists. It was intriguing to me that even after horrible tragedy that Chicago went through with the fires, they still had the motivation for good education. John D. Rockefeller donated to build a school in Chicago that later became Chicago University. Chicago was considered a very good location when it came to industries.

Lastly, after reading about the Chicago Functionalists, it was interesting to find out who was a big part of the education system there in the new university. John Dewey was a professor of philosophy and he was known to start the idea of American functionalism which really interested me. He also came up with the idea of the reflex arc which was also interesting to read about because it dealt with sensation, central processing, and motor response which we have already read about in previous chapters, so it was easy and interesting associate those things and relate them to others.


2)I didn’t particularly enjoy reading about Titchner and his structuralist system. It just wasn’t something that jumped out at me. It contained a lot of information about consciousness and confused me a little.

3)I think that what will help me most in understanding the history of psychology is that science is really important. Not just psychology, but all types of science. Even if we think that these researchers are trying to contribute and focus on other things, I have noticed a pattern that they contribute to psychology without even knowing it sometimes. It’s just a side effect of their work.

4)This chapter does a really good job on building what we have already learned so far. As I mentioned before, I enjoyed learning about Dewey’s reflex arc because we have already learned about sensation and motor skills and that’s what the arc deals with so I could associate his ideas from those from other scientists that I have read in the past chapters.


5)I think I would like to learn more about Edward Titchner and his work because I didn’t find it particularly interesting this time around. If I learned more about his work I think I would get a better understanding and want to learn more. He has done a lot of work, so it must be important to know.

6)I was very surprised that Charles Darwin did not coin the phrase, “survival of the fittest.” I had assumed that since this was the idea of social Darwinists that he had come up with it. But, he didn’t, it was Herbert Spencer. They had similar ideas, yet they were different.

Functionalism, Structuralism, Edward Titchner, Social Darwinism, Herbert Spencer, Charles Darwin, John Dewey, The Reflex Arc

1a) What topic did you find interesting?
The topic that I found most interesting was structuralism.

1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this topic rather interesting for many reasons. First, it was not very popular in general except with the psychologist E.B. Titchener and yet it appears here in our text because it was so often referred to in other approaches to the same subject. That by itself intrigued me. However, I was also interested in the strict procedures by which structuralists experimented and made conclusions. They focused on a training those in the lab in a very similar way to that which I have experienced in the past and that is by practicing in a drill course where we replicate experiments to get practice before going on to original research. It would have been very beneficial for both the experimenter and observer to get hands on experience but also to know what the outcome should be. I also found it interesting that introspection popped up again in this section. The belief in the development of an introspective habit simply underscored the importance of training and selective nature of the research performed by structuralists. Finally I enjoyed reading about the structure of the human mind in terms of sensations, images, and affects. What was more fascinating was the description of each of these by their attributes including quality, intensity, duration, and clearness.

2a) What person did you find interesting?
I found the section on Edward Thorndike most interesting.

2b) Why were they interesting to you?
The discussion on Thorndike was actually quite inspiring and thought-provoking. I found it interesting that his main contribution with puzzle boxes came from his will to perform better research than that which had already been completed. He thought that he could provide better evidence for the field of comparative psychology. This shows the importance of a want to better not only one’s own understanding but the knowledge of others as well; it showed me that even if research has been done on a topic it does not mean that you too cannot add your own findings to history. Further, I found that Thorndike referred to previous research in this area when he was making his conclusions. He built on the trial-and-error learning theory by adding that during this process an animal makes connection between stimuli and response, they learn in a sense. Thus, he developed the idea of connectionism. Finally, I was intrigued by the fact that Thorndike was not afraid of a little challenge. When Wesley Mills rejected his findings on the basis that the puzzle box environments were not natural, Thorndike responded with a complete argument supporting his conclusions. Despite modern-day ethology’s focus on natural environments, these “artificial” puzzle boxes still provided key insight into animal psychology.

3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
I really enjoyed the overall message of this chapter as it provided me with quite a bit of new information. I think the goal of this chapter was to provide background knowledge of the two main approaches to psychology in the early 20th century. It highlighted both structuralism and functionalism and the key locations and individuals associated with each.

3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
The message of the chapter was interesting because it provided many examples of the conflict between structuralism and functionalism. This helped me understand why functionalism would continue into history while structuralism would end with the death of Titchener. Learning about the motivations of important psychologists was also interesting to me as was the research that they actually performed. I am interested learning in how this research is applied in the next chapter.

4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
This chapter taught me the importance of conflict in the history of psychology. Conflicts are not always a negative thing. As in this chapter, both structuralism and functionalism resulted in some major contributions to psychology even though they were not always in agreement. The conflict simply forced proponents of each to be more careful in their research as they sought to prove that their method was valid. Thus, conflict can produce more accurate and broader range of research than may be present if no competition exists.

5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
This chapter builds on previous chapters as many of the mentors of individuals discussed in this chapter have been previously mentioned. Having already learned about these men makes it easier to see the environment in which structuralism and functionalism arose. Additionally, as history goes, the questions addressed in this chapter are similar to those seen in previous chapters. Psychologists are still striving to learn more about the human brain, how it works, and the advantages brain functions provide.

6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would love to learn more about John Dewey and his research.

6b) Why?
I feel like John Dewey contributed much more to society than the author was able to discuss in this chapter. With his paper on the reflex arc he is often considered the one to get functionalism off the ground. Even though it might have been simpler to simply accept the reflex theory from a structuralist standpoint, he chose to support his beliefs of a more complex system which controls the reflexes. In addition, the text mentioned his contributions to both democracy as well as progressive education, so I would especially like to learn more about this man.

7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
While reading this chapter, I found myself wondering especially about the section on James McKeen Cattell. I was wondering how exactly he used the mental tests and its prominence in American society over time. I also question how accurate these mental tests were compared to those used to assess mental abilities today.

8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Structuralism, E.B. Titchener, drill course, observer, introspective habit, attributes, Edward Thorndike, puzzle boxes, comparative psychology, trial-and-error learning, connectionism, Wesley Mills, ethology, functionalism, John Dewey, reflex arc, progressive education, James McKeen Cattell, mental tests

1a) What topic did you find interesting?
The group that Titchener started called the Experimentalists was interesting to me.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Titchener was a member of the APA but felt that what they were doing was not enough for his liking so he quit it and started his own group "The experimentalists". Their main goal at the time was to provide a better place for people to present their research and keep experimental/laboratory psychology alive. I think this is interesting because experiments done in labs are important in the bases of most experiments once it is found to be true it can be applied to the real world where it can be found to be useful or not useful.

2a) What person did you find interesting?
Edward Thorndike is someone from this chapter that was interesting to me.
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
He was interesting to me because of his interest in animal intelligence. He used chicks and cats in different mazes and puzzles. One thing he found or noticed was the animals used trial-and-error learning to make their way out of mazes or puzzle boxes. I think it is awesome that animals have the ability to weed out unnecessary behaviors. People refer to this learning model as connectionism.

3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
Structuralism and Functionalism were what the message was about.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
I think they wanted to tell the major differences between the two. They showed that there were people on both sides and gave us the opportunity to see the situation of that time for two perspectives which is always something I appreciate.

4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?

5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
Even though people argued for their own certain side whether functionalism or structuralism was better they still added things to one another that may not have been found with out the other. May not have agreed with each other but still helped to make psychology what it is today.

6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
The basic make up of consciousness seems like something I would like to look into.
6b) Why?
Sensations, images and affects are the basics of conscious experience and I would like to know more about the affects they have.

7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
How do experimental psychologists pick the animals for their experiments. Like how do they know a cat vs a pig vs a monkey vs a chick will perform better than each other.

Terms: Titchener, Experimentalists, experimental psychology, APA, Thorndike, animal intelligence, trial-and-error learning, connectionism, structuralism, functionalism, consciousness

1a) What topic did you find interesting?
The S-O-R model that was created by Robert Woodworth.

1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I like the idea that he was a skeptic of how certain researchers carried out their work; skeptics further science while follower rarely do so. Woodworth saw the value in studying the drives and motivations of the organisms he researched. The other parts of the model, S for stimulus, and R for response were also important. I am interested in what motivates individuals to think and act the way that they do. Understanding the organism should be a top priority for researchers and therapists; it is a way to comprehend treatment/therapeutic strategies that can be changed to suit the individual’s needs.

2a) What person did you find interesting?
I found Edward Thorndike interesting.

2b) Why were they interesting to you?
He was interesting because he had a large impact on psychological testing. His particular focus of studying how cats escape from puzzle boxes is probably his most interesting, as well as his most famous, work. The fact that he was able to extrapolate learning from such a simplistic device is fascinating. Thorndike showed that shaping a behavior with the proper reinforcement is possible; slowly but surely the cats were able to escape the boxes and their escape time decreased as the number of trials increased. Essentially, Thorndike showcased the learning process and alluded to repetition being an effective tool in learning.

3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
The overall message is to compare the subjective field of structuralism and the objective field of functionalism; one was contingent on the opinion of an observer, while the other was not.

3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
I am interested in functionalism. Functionalism makes sense to me—there is a purpose behind behaviors and mental processes. I do not believe that subjectivity should be called scientific, therefore I do not believe that structuralism should be used as a measure of individuals. The structuralism information was a snooze fest.

4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Understanding the roots of theories in the past will help me build on them in the future. Tweaking, or improving, ideas of the past can be a valuable resource. This resource can be used to benefit individuals who need a specific type of treatment, or one that they feel comfortable with the therapist using to treat them. Learning what has been done in the past is also a good way to branch out in a new, possibly opposing way. A new domain of psychology can be founded in the future, but the only way to know if it is truly ‘new’ is to compare and contrast it with previous domains.

5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
In my behavior modification class, the material covered functionalism and structuralism as well. There was a small blurb about the two, but Chapter 7 went far more in-depth by explaining the researchers who contributed to the two domains rather than going over the definition and providing a couple examples. I learned that Titchener established structuralism and that he wrote many laboratory manuals in an attempt to standardize laboratory practices. He realized that the individuals teaching the material were not as qualified and needed a standardized manual to ease the process

6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about Cattel’s mental testing practices.

6b) Why?
I like the idea of comparing data across students to see who may have quicker reflexes and how great of a gap there is between individuals. I remember in high school biology I had to do a few reflex tests and I discovered mine were quite slow. I would also like to learn if there are simple ways to increase reflexes.

7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
How does one go about legitimizing a brand new domain of psychology? How long does it take to legitimize the new domain?

Terms: S-O-R model, Woodworth, skepticism, stimulus, response, behavior, client-therapist relationships, structuralism, functionalism, Titchener, manuals, reflexes, Cattell

1a) one topic that I found interesting was the idea of structuralism.

1b) why I find this topic interesting is because it deals with the human consciousness which has always interested me. When I think about consciousness, it is something very complicated and something that I cannot quite define but yet I know what it is at the same time. So using the idea of structuralism and breaking down the different elements of something so complicated makes it easier to try and understand. I like this idea because it can also be applied to any number of things. When dealing with complex situations or ideas, using structuralism to help figure out what makes that situation or idea what it is and take those elements apart and study them individually. By doing this I am able to better understand the initial situation or idea. This idea goes beyond the scope of psychology and can be applied to multiple different fields of study and everyday life.

2a) a person that I found interesting in this chapter is Edward Thorndike.

2b) I found Thorndike interesting because of his work with connectionism. I was very interest with his use of puzzle boxes and placing a cat inside. By placing a cat inside the box multiple times, the cat began to learn what part of the box to hit to escape. Each time the cat was placed in the box, the quicker it escaped. This type of learning was called trial and error learning and what Thorndike called connectionism. I think this is interesting because this is something that parents tend to let their kids do growing up. One thing that I was told is to learn from your mistakes which is basically trial and error throughout your life. If you do one thing and it does not work out you learn that that is not the way to do it and adapt accordingly. Thorndike took this experiment a step further to see if a cat would be able to learn through observation to open the box quickly. What Thorndike found was that the observing cat did not escape the box any quicker after observing another cat compared to that of a cat that was not exposed to observation. This led Thorndike to propose to principles; Law of Effect and Law of Exercise. The Law of Effect is similar to that of Skinner and operant conditioning in that responses that produce a positive effect tend to occur more. In this case pulling on the string allows the cat to escape thus the cat will pull on the string more. The Law of Exercise is the connection between stimulus situation and response would be strengthened with practice. In short, the more you do something the better at it you will become.

3a) I think that the overall message of this chapter was to compare two schools of thought; structuralism and functionalism. Showing how these two principles applied to the field of psychology and what they tried to explain.

3b) I did enjoy this chapter because it contained a lot more concepts in the field of psychology rather than just people. For me, learning about concepts and ideas is much more interesting because it is more applicable that learning about dates and names.

4) I think understanding structuralism and functionalism will be the most important topic to learn about in this chapter. I think this because these are the foundations for different schools of thought about psychology. I we dive into more ideas in the field, we will be able to trace them back to these principles to help better understand how they came to be. Learning about structuralism will allow us to use it later when we study more history and break ideas and events down to their basic elements to try and understand them better.

5) This chapter builds on the previous chapter and Skinner’s work. Last chapter hit on consciousness and ideas on what exactly it is and how to understand it. Structuralism was one of the thoughts on it so reading this chapter built on that idea but applying it to the entire field of psychology instead of one aspect of it. Learning about connectionism built upon by knowledge of Skinner and operant conditioning. Thorndike’s puzzle box was much like the Skinner box in that in Skinner’s Box the rat learned to press the lever a certain amount of times to press the lever to get food. In Thorndike’s puzzle box the cat had to learn how to hit the right place in the box to escape. Both experiments deal with behavioral learning and being conditioned to do a certain action to receive a positive response. That positive response encourages the certain behavior to occur more often.

6a) one topic that I would like to learn more about is how future psychologists build upon the work of Thorndike.

6b) I want to learn more about this because in the chapter it talked about how Thorndike built upon the work of Skinner and how he did it. Since I have always had an interest in behavior modification and behavioral learning, I want to know if anyone took Skinner’s and Thorndike’s ideas and took them further.

7) One question that I had for this chapter is, is structuralism or functionalism more accepted or used in psychology?

8)Terms: psychology, Skinner, Skinner Box, Edward Thorndike, Thorndike’s puzzle box, consciousness, structuralism, functionalism, operant conditioning, behavior modification, conditioned, positive response, connectionism, trial and error learning, Law of Effect, Law of Exercise

1a) What topic did you find interesting?
I thought that Social Darwinism was pretty interesting to read about.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found social Darwinism to be interesting to learn about, particularly as it relates to the United States. Social Darwinism is basically the idea that those who work harder will rise to the top, and those who are lazy will fail or “Survival of the fittest” as it is commonly termed when describing Darwinism. I thought it was interesting to learn that Darwin did not come up with that term himself. I believe in evolution but I don’t think that I believe is social Darwinism because I don’t think that it accounts for socioeconomic situations as well as personal situations, but it is still very interesting to read about.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
Herbert Spencer was interesting to read about.
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
He was the one who invented “survival of the fittest,” but his idea of the word fittest wasn’t the same as Darwin’s. Social Darwinism as define is the belief that evolutionary forces were natural and inevitable and that au attempt to disrupt them (example creating programs for the poor) was misguided and doomed to failure. Spence argued that the government should not get involved or interfere with business practices. If it failed it was simply because it wasn’t “fit”. He believed that wealth was a sign of fitness and that the poor shouldn’t get assistance because it just meant that they were unfit. It became a way to rationalize the huge gap between the rich and the poor.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
I think that the overall message was to show the different psychologists that studied structuralism and functionalism and the spread of the approaches across America. The chapter explained the differences between structuralism and functionalism and talked about the different contributions the researchers provided in trying to prove why their theories were the best. It showed researchers were connected and how they build off each other’s work by improve or add on to the findings.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
No, I didn’t find the chapter interesting. It wasn’t interesting to me because I didn’t fine most of the experiments and theories to be fascinating. I thought the theories and experiments were sort of boring. Out of all the chapters I’ve read so far, this was probably the least interesting. The people and concepts were important in understanding why psychology is the way it is today but still the topics in this chapter just did interest me.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Both the concepts of structuralism and functionalism are helpful in understanding the history of psychology and psychology today. Both of the approaches look at different aspects of the conscious mind, without having both I don’t think that we wouldn't be able to understand the entirety of the mind like we do today. It is important to study previous research and experiments and to try to build onto it. Sometime theories and ideas can seem so polarized but when examined closely are found to have lots of similarities.

5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
This chapter like previous chapter is adding on to what we already know. Previous chapters talk about the how new psychology started to emerge and now with each new chapter were are learning how psychologist interpret the old information and now are trying to apply it to their own ideas and concept. It’s watching how psychology evolved through the years. Showing me the greater developmental of experimental psychology. With experimental psychology’s development it became clear that it was featured on tight controls within a laboratory in order to make the findings accurate. This is still true today, and learning about those similarities was very beneficial for me.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about Herbert Spencer.
6b) Why?
I would like to know what influenced him is his development of the social Darwin theory.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
Would Titchener be considered anti female even though almost half of his graduates were women?

8) Social Darwinism, Survival of the fittest, Herbert Spencer, Darwin, functionalism, structuralism, Titchener, experimental psychology

1a) What topic did you find interesting?
Edward Thorndike Puzzle box

1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this interesting because it introduced the concepts of trial-and-error learning as well as connectionism. He was also the first psychologist to study animal intelligence in the laboratory.

2a) What person did you find interesting?
E. B. Tichener

2b) Why were they interesting to you?
I found his concepts of structuralism and functionalism really interesting. I find structuralism interesting because a structuralist will break down the brain into simple parts and then piece it back together in order to understand. Functionalism is also interesting to me because it is just the opposite, functionalists observe and study how the mind helps people on a daily basis to adapt to the environment.

3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
I think the overall message was that there are many way to go about studying psychology it just depends what part of psychology is being studied and who is doing the studying.

3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
For the most part this chapter held my attention. The most interesting section were the ones about functionalism, structuralism, and the puzzle box.

4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think the most useful thing from this chapter will be understanding the difference between structuralism and functionalism, and how each concept can be applied to different situations.

5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
This chapter talks about other methods and approaches to psychology. It also built on the concept of learning and how we as humans remember things.

6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about Edward Thorndike and his learning model.

6b) Why?
I would like to learn more about this because the whole concept intrigues me, and I am interested in knowing more of the details behind the study.

7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
I kept wondering to myself if either structuralism is better than functionalism and vis versa. I also wonder if Thorndike had used a different animal would the study have different results?

Terms: Edward Thorndike, psychology, functionalism, structuralism, Tichener, trial-and-error, connectionism, puzzle box

1a) The topic I found most interesting in this chapter was Titchener and the structural elements of human conscious experience.
1b) I found this topic interesting because Titchener talked about sensations, affects, and images. I think it's interesting how he delved more into conscious experience. I always find this stuff to be interesting and I liked how he used three elements to explain this. He described sensations as elements of perception, images as parts of ideas, and affects as what makes up our emotions. I also thought it was interesting who he went even more in depth about each of these three aspects. He talked about how sensations had different features as well like intensity and duration. He described the meaning of each of these as well. I also thought it was interesting how he described affect as being either pleasant or unpleasant and how these depend on the senses as well.

2a) I found Titchener to be the most interesting,
2b) I really liked his ideas on consciousness which is the main reason I found him to be the most interesting. I thought it was interesting what his ideas were and how they are different from how psychology is now. Titchener focused more on generalization rather than individual differences. Although I think individual differences and case studies are super interesting, I also thought it was interesting how Titchener took on a different perspective than some psychologists and did not look at children or the insane, which some psychologists focused on solely.

3a) I felt like the overall message of this chapter was to focus on the psychologists who valued structuralism and functionalism. It focused on what they worked on and how this worked in America. It showed what each of these ideas meant and what new advances were found by the people studying these two types of psychology.
3b) i thought this chapter was fairly interesting. It definitely helped to see more psychologists and what they contributed as well as some of the specific experiments they conducted.

4) I think that showing the differences between structuralism and functionalism as well as the main psychologists who contributed in America to these fields will be the most helpful in learning about the history of psychology. This showed some people who had new ideas that we had not learned about yet and how they helped add to what was already happening in psychology at the time.

5) This chapter builds on what I've learned in previous psychology classces because I had heard about Thorndike and Titchener in previous classes as well. However, I did not know as much about them or what they did in psychology before reading this chapter. This really helped build on what I already knew because I briefly learned about these people but not as much as I do now.

6a) I really would like to learn more about Titchener and the elements of the conscious mind.
6b) I just found this section of the chapter super interesting and felt like learning even more about it would add to it because there was not much about it in the book.

7) I did not have many questions while reading this chapter. I somewhat wondered if structuralism or functionalism was a better idea at this time and how psychologists feel about it now.

8) Structuralism, Functionalism, Titchener, Thorndike, Conscious experience, Affect, Sensations, Images

Please read chapter 7. After reading the chapter, please respond to the following questions:
(Note: to help with organization points please keep the numbering)
1a) What topic did you find interesting?
The Structural Elements of Human Conscious Experience
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought it was interesting because it is something that affects us still today. It talks about sensations, images, and affects; something that we deal with on a day to day basis.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
Titchener
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
He seemed to have such an impact on psychology. He made Cornell more knowledgeable about Experimental Psych and eventually joined the American Psychological Association club as well. It seemed as if everything he did in life had something to do with Psychology and to me that means he’s a person worth learning about.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
I think that the main point of this chapter was to explain on Titchener’s points and accomplishments within Psychology. I’m sure that he had a life outside of psych, but much of it seems to be based on the psych area and his ideas with structuralism.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
I found parts of it interesting. I thought the sensations, images and affects section interesting because it is something very clearly applicable in day to day life. I thought the structuralism part was somewhat interesting, but other than that none of it made a clear connection to my life today which is the main reason I find history to be interesting.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Definitely the structural aspect. I think that understanding this was important because it allows us to learn about certain elements and processes of the human brain.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
I feel as though it connects to other aspects because it takes another spin off of experimental psychology which is a reoccurring factor in our learning.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
There wasn’t a clear topic I would like to learn more about.
6b) Why?
Yes, I found structurism interesting, but learning even more about it I don’t think would help me understand my senses more today. I think that the world has come a long way in the way we think and process. Because of that I think I learned the basic background and now would be interested in learning more about today’s findings about the topic if anything.
8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
• Stucturalism
• Experimental Psychology
• Cornell
• American Psychological Association
• Human Conscious Experience
• Titchener

1a) What topic did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?

I found John Dewey’s reflex arc to be interesting because it was the first theory to go against Titchener’s structuralistic views on reflexes. I’m really interested in it because I think it is closer to what we know about reflexes today. The reflex, according to Dewey, is an example of us reacting and adapting to our environment.

2a) What person did you find interesting?
2b) Why were they interesting to you?

I think James R. Angell is interesting because he came out with a book that actually explained what functionalism was. He compared and contrasted functionalism with structuralism and said that functionalism was the “What is it for and how does it work,” questions whereas structuralism asks the question, “What is it?” I also find him interesting because he mentored John Watson, the founder of behaviorism.

3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?

I think the overall message of the chapter was how Titchener influenced experimental psychology even though his ideas on structuralism and introspective habit did not stick in American psychology. I also think another aspect of this chapter was that functionalism stuck because it made more sense and you could test its theories better. Expanding on that, I think the message also conveys that previous theories were being retested and expanded on, for example, Galton’s intelligence tests were revisited by James McKeen Cattell when he created the mental test. Even though Cattell’s tests were faulty, it was one step closer to where we are today.

3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?

I actually found this chapter really interesting because it’s closer to our era and we are starting to see the expansion and rejection of certain theories. I think the rejection of structuralism and the expansion of functionalism is one step closer to the really interesting things that we know today.

4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?

I think the fact that Titchener’s structuralism theory being rejected and the rise of functionalism after that is the most important thing that helps me understand the history of psychology because it made me realize that not every theory was expanded on and some ways of thinking were dropped.

5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?

I learned a better definition for functionalism and have a better grasp on what it means. This chapter builds on to what I already know by reinforcing the fact that some things are better left in the past, like structuralism. I am also starting to see how the big names in psychology are fitting into the timeline of history and seeing where they got their ideas from and how they expanded on some previously existing theories.

6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
6b) Why?

I would like to learn more about the decline of structuralism and the more about introspection because I would like to get a better grasp on why they were both dropped from psychology.

7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?

Where would we be now if more people would have accepted structuralism? What would happen if we applied a structuralistic viewpoint to some of our current experiments? Would we be able to take a more structuralistic viewpoint on our theories nowadays because of the advanced technology we have?

8) Terms: Structuralism, functionalism, reflex arc, introspective habit, John Dewey, Titchener, James R. Angell, John Watson, behaviorism, Galton’s intelligence tests, James McKeen Cattell, mental test.

1a) What topic did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you? I found structuralism interesting because the human mind is interesting to me. Structuralism is like anatomy, the purpose is analysis. A structural psychologist analyzes the human mind and organize it into its elementary units, for example, basic sensations.

2a) What person did you find interesting?
2b) Why were they interesting to you? I found E. B. Titchener interesting because he was the one who brought structuralism to America. Titchener was from southern England and had a rough childhood as his father died when Titchener was just 13. He then when to live with his paternal grandfather and was taught to be a British country gentleman. He was a talented student and eventually attended Oxford. He excelled in Philosophy but wanted to strengthen what he perceived as a weakness in science. He spent most of his final year at Oxford in the science lab. After college he went to Germany for a while and completed a doctorate. It was there that a colleague suggested that he start working at Cornell in the lab there, and he never left. Over the years Titchenerian psychology, structuralism and the Cornell School became interchangeable terms.

3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not? I think it was because it sends a good message that there are other areas of study, such as anatomy, that can play a huge role in psychology and help us better understand certain concepts, even if they aren’t our favorite subjects.

4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology? I thought learning about structuralism and functionalism and where they originated was interesting and helpful to understand concepts I have learned before in those areas.

5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes? A lot of the people I learned about in this chapter have either been mentioned before or there were new people who worked with people we have studied before. It’s interesting to understand how they all integrate together to bring us to where we are today and our knowledge we have acquired from them.

6a) What topic would you like to learn more about? 
6b) Why? I would like to learn more about Dewey’s studies regarding educational reform and the details behind his theory that children learn by interacting with the environment because I feel like I can really relate to that.

7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter? I read about Dewey disliking the conventional ways of education and how he gave a presidential address advocating studying how we learn best and found that it is by interacting with the environment that we learn best. I’m wondering why it doesn’t seem like that really caught on because throughout school I haven’t had very many teachers who really strayed from the norm of memorizing and test taking. I have had a few great teachers in college but for someone like me who really needs to have a lot of repetition and doing before I remember something, there wasn’t a lot of that style and so it has always been harder for me to learn. I wonder why we haven’t used psychology to develop a better way of teaching, because everyone learns differently so you can’t really teach everyone with the same method and expect it to work.

8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Structuralism
Anatomy
Psychologists
Sensations
Titchener
Titchenerian psychology
the Cornell School
functionalism
Dewey
educational reform

1)
I found the structuralism vs functionalism debate to be rather interesting. I believed the Titchener biology view in terms of the necessity to understand the basic elements of the human mind. While I would be more of a functional psychologist myself, I still understand the need for a reliable structure to the mind for basis of it's function, but I wouldn't go so far as to rule out this analogy as Angell would have.

2)
I thought Titchener was an interesting person because of his preferences to structural laboratory psychology and introspection. I understand the need for a science research based establishment to a field of study, but his introspective habits seemed a bit over the top. I liked how his attributes added to the introspection theory and the limitations he had on observers in terms of making them wait until after the full experience had run its course, but the restrictions he had on who could observe really limited the idea itself. He did do a good job of addressing an issue with teaching lab work to students and future teachers through drill courses however, and I appreciate that as compared to a step by step text, which he also instituted.

3)
I think the overall message of the chapter was that it tried to convey that change was more readily accepted in America during the late 19th and into the early 20th century in America; and because of this, many new fields in psychology were readily explored.

4)
The bit that discussed social Darwinism was the most useful for me to understand some of the history of psychology. It really explained a mindset that drove not only the psychologists of the day, but also the average American citizen. The concept is also very indicative of why certain social reforms came into existence at the time.

5)
When I read that Dewey basically invented mental tests I thought immediately of standardized tests or big 5 personality questionnaires, but I was then shown that this initial procedure failed miserably at finding correlation decent substantial enough to call accurate.

6)
I would like to learn more about the progressive education that Dewey did work on during his time to see if he and I have any similar ideas considering his were more hands-on based learning techniques. I feel like today's society attempted to follow that structure, but then somewhere along the line standardized testing got involved, and I am also curious as to his standpoint on that.

7)
I am curious as to why introspection was very popular yet isn't used very much as an insight into the mind, past the issue of reading the feedback being boring.

8) structuralism, functionalism, social darwinism, mental tests, progressive education, introspective habits, observers, attributes, drill courses

1) What topic did you find interesting? Why was it interesting to you?

I found functionalism interesting because it is the study of how the mind adapts to environments. This is a portion of psychology I find very interesting in general.

2) What person did you find interesting? Why were they interesting to you?

I found Titchener interesting because he founded structuralism and stood by it firmly. He believed this was the best way to study psychology and often tried to disprove other psychologists theories.

3) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter? Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?

I think the overall message of chapter 7 was a comparison between the development of structuralism and functionalism. Overall, I did not find the chapter very interesting because it focused a lot on the people rather than the specific topics.

4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?

This chapter allowed me to place psychologists and important studies I previously knew about, such as Edward Thorndike and the Puzzle Boxes, into the context of psychology's history, allowing me to see the big picture of functionalism, for example, instead of specific psychologists and studies.

5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?

Chapter 7 builds on what we have already learned about the history of psychology. A couple weeks ago we learned about Darwin and the theory natural selection and evolution. From these theories, functionalism was developed.

6) What topic would you like to learn more about? Why?

I would like to learn more about progressive education because I am also an education major, and I believe learning the history of educational methods and theories is important to understand for future teaching.

7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?

The text stated that structuralism died with Titchener. Why is this? If Titchener was the only one keeping structuralism alive, what made him so influential?

8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.

Functionalism
Titchener
Structuralism
Thorndike
puzzle boxes
Darwin
Natural selection
Evolution
Progressive education

1. I found the cats in puzzle boxes topic to be interesting to me because it is baffling to try and understand first of all how to come up with such experiments and questions about learning within comparative psychology, but also trying to understand how an animal can observe, but not be able to understand how to adapt to a new environment.
2. I found Edward L. Thorndike who conducted the cats in puzzle boxes experiment to be most interesting because of his perseverance even under scrutiny and his ingenuity to become such an important figure in his field of education and comparative psychology. Also, that out of the criticism from his work developed an entire new field of ethology,the study of animals in their natural environments.
3. While the focus of this chapter seemed to be on the development of functionalism and structuralism, it has an interesting way of answering the main question of this class, why do we study history? I believe this chapter helped to show that while there can be major branches of belief within psychology, they can die out, that does meant he field has to, it simply evolves, like it always has and always will.
4. I think reading that many psychologist differed in their opinions on theories or ideas was the most important. Since we only get to see the winning theories in what we study in classes, it is interesting to hear about those that have not made it along the way.
5.This chapter has build onto what I have already learned about the history of psychology material I have learned in other classes by expanding on animal studies in detail. I am current in biopsych and there is a lot of discussion of animal studies in that class, and it is interesting to see the same study come up into two very different classes.
6.I would like to learn more about the law of effect and the law of exercise. My problem with reading is that if something does not make sense in my head it doesn't matter how many times I read it, I will stay stuck, and that is the issue I have with this idea,so I would like to discuss it in class to a sounding board in order that have a better understanding of the terms.
7.I wonder what new branches of psychology are being developed today that we are not aware of but will be reading about in books years down the road.
8. Edward Thorndike, cat in puzzle boxes, comparative psychology, educational psychology, ethology, law of effect, law of exercise

1). A: I think Thorndike and the aspect of the puzzle box and trial and error learning was very interesting.
B: This interested me because it is something that we use in every day life. Trial and Error learning is something that is done every single day by people and they don’t even realize it. I also think this interesting because Thorndike used animal research but not in a cruel and unethical way and I appreciate that. I think the use of the puzzle box to show and research trial and error learning is very interesting.

2). A: Thorndike was the most interesting person in this section to me.
B: He was so interesting to me because he has a lot of important work such as the Laws of Learning, Trial-and- error learning, the puzzle box, creating ethology and many other important psychological findings. I think the work he has done with animal research is very interesting. I think the laws of learning are very important to learn about because they are essential they ways people learn.

3). A: I thought the message of this chapter was good.
B: This chapter interested me in many was because I learned a lot about people that I haven’t heard of before and I like learning about things I haven’t before. I didn’t enjoy reading about the basics such as functionalism and structuralism. I think they put a lot into each chapter but I think it all connects very well. I think the chapters message was interesting and very helpful to the learning process of the history of psychology.

4). I think learning about the different people and psychologists. Learning about all of them helps build my knowledge about the history of psychology because I think how the methods and theories and research was found and created because that is the history of psychology. Learning about Thorndike and the theories of learning are the most beneficial to my learning because it tells me how I learn and helps me learn.

5). This chapter related to my knowledge because in many ways. I have learned about structuralism and functionalism with other courses such as Behavior modification and introduction to psychology. This also relates to my previous knowledge by talking about the people such as Titchener and Thorndike in other courses.

6). A: I would like to learn more about Thorndike.
B: I would like to learn more about him and his research because everything that I read about him in this chapter was very interesting to me so im sure the information would be even more interesting if I learned about it in more details. I learning about the puzzle box is very interesting and the way we learn is the most interesting to me and I would like to learn more about it.

7). I didn’t really have many questions, but I found it interesting that the text can fit so much information into one chapter, The idea that all of these psychologists and researchers research comes together and builds off of other ideas and work is very interesting and cool.

8). Structuralism, functionalism, theories of learning, trial-and-error, Titchner, Thorndike, puzzle box,

RA 8
1a) Dynamic Psychology
1b) I like the expansion of the Stimulus Response theory into the Stimulus Organism Response. This S-O-R method can dig deeper into the introspective thinking from these conscious expierences. This theory combines what we scientifically know about the stimulus response and what we observe through emitted emotions.
2a) Robert Woodworth
2b) One of the accredited James Cattel students, Roberts best friend was Edward Thorndike. Robert took the trial and error thinking of Thorndike and expanded on it into his own idea. He created a deeper connection and more complex observation protocol than that of Thorndike and his puzzle boxes.
3a) The message of the chapter was Structuralism v. Functionalism, but that both are needed in psychology. While the idea is that Structuralists believe in the concept “What is the Consciousness?” and Functionalists believe “What is the consciousness for?” both are needed in the expansion of Psychology and the various branched off topics connected with it.
3b) Psychology is very interesting to me, I would have to say that I was more interested with the Functionalist views. I like to ask the why questions, why things the way they are are. While Structuralists can answer the question of how things happen, I just find myself more fascinated with why they happens and why they exists.
4) I would say that reading about Woodworth helped me understand conceptually more about our topic. While there was a plethora of information presented in this chapter Woodworth combined the structuralists and functionalists perspectives together creating a dynamic psychology where we look not only at how things happen but also why they are occurring and what motivation is provoked. I chose this because as we get into new chapters we find an integration of the previous chapter built into the one we read. Woodworth showed his willingness to accept both perspectives and even merge into a new concept.
5) First of all we had an entire section of Thorndike and Puzzle Boxes in behavior modification. But other than that we learned about the structuralism and Functionalism in an urban outfitting class. We learned that trends can motivate someone to but something or they can by things on either Functions, like warmth clothes for winter, or Structures, something that you can expand with, dressing for fashion or building on a certain attribute.
6a) Dynamic Psychology
6b) I’ve mentioned in Reading Activities prior that I enjoy motivation. Here we have the questions that motivation always asks why? Why would a cat want to get out of a puzzle box? Fear? Hunger? Motivation is a key element in my mind to how we work as humans. So if we are indeed on the same continuum as animals then wouldn’t animals be motivated like us? I am interested in learning new questions and new concepts to the human life that I can take with me.
7) I’m curious if animals and non-animals are in the same continuum does that mean that animals have developed fears and phobias that extend beyond their primal instincts? Also if we take away the motivation for getting out of a Thorndike puzzle box (IE food) would the cat still search for a way out? Or even if we changed the motivation to one of escaping fear (ie. Water being sprayed in the box) would that create a condition where the cat would get out of the box faster than it would if it was coaxed by food? And expanding on that, would the cat associate the puzzle box solution with different motivations or does it always have to be food that gets the cat out of the box. In other words is the cat connection getting out of the box or is the cat connecting getting food?
8) Terminology: Structuralism, Functionalism, Introspection, conscious experience, Robert Woodworth, Edward Thorndike, James Cattel, motivation, Puzzle Box, S-O-R method, Conditioning.

1a/b. I found Thorndike's trial-and-error-learning and connectionism interesting because it was used to explain the way cats and dogs learn to do things. This was also interesting to me because it connects to anthropomorphism from the last chapter that talked a lot about if animals had human characteristics. Trial-and-error learning and connectionism say that this is how these animals learn, but they make connections each time during a trial.
2a/b. I found John Dewey to be interesting because he kind seemed to lead the way of pedagogy. As someone who considered a teaching major, it's interesting to learn who kind of started all of this pedagogy talk. After graduating at 15 and moving on to the University of Vermont, Dewey studied zoology and geology, which is weird that he ended up in the psychology field. Dewey didn't like the conventional approach to teaching that he was required to do and started studying the ways students learn best. This is what paved the way for pedagogy to become a practice in the teaching world.
3a/b. I feel like the overall message of the chapter was to tell us more about structuralism and functionalism and how the different psychologists went about incorporating them into their beliefs. I find this interesting because it can tell you a lot about the psychologist without knowing their entire history.
4. I feel like learning the difference in structuralism and functionalism will be most useful to me. I've always heard the terms and known sort of what they mean, but I now understand more of how they work when it comes to beliefs.
5. I think learning about the different views that psychologists had built on to my previous knowledge. Everyone thinks and believes different things, and it's interesting to know that two people can have the exact same idea and go about researching it in such different ways and still get to an answer.
6a/b. I kind of want to know why introspective habit is no longer used in research much. When someone has studied something so long, mental notes are just something that seem innate to happen, but when I looked online for a bit more information, it said that it was an uncommon practice.
7. I kind of keep going back to the animals thing. If they can learn by trial and error, isn't that almost what we do as humans? We go about life doing things, and if something doesn't go as planned, we don't do that thing again. That's what our mistakes usually do to us, prepare us for the next trial and hopefully we learned from the first time.
8. Terminology: Thorndike, Trial-and-Error Learning, Connectionism, Anthropomorphism, John Dewey, Pedagogy, Introspective Habit

1a) What topic did you find interesting?
Survival of the fittest
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
i have always associated this term with Darwin, never really knowing that it was infact a term invented by Herbert Spencer. He made or coined the term to imply that survivors were winners when it came to battles for limited resources. Thus giving birth to social Darwinism.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
E. B. Titchener
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
I’m not to sure, as he would not be someone I would like personally, to be honest it is mostly in part to the humor of the “How to Fail in Laboratory Psychology” . i love professors like this, though that is overlooking one major thing that was cultural back then which was the thought of white male superiority. I also thought it interesting in the picture of “The Experimentalists” where it shows how much Boring emulated his teacher down to his mannerisms. The establishment of the Experimentalists was interesting for me too, as i think it would be a fun group to make and join in today, obviously more inclusive, but a place for one to bring in their thoughts and ideas to bounce off ideas.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
i thought it was an interesting chapter, obviously it was over structuralism and functionalism. it was great in the way the chapter flowed all together. The author did a great job in the transitions.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
Yes, I mean if i didnt have to read this for this class i would have never read it out of sheer interest, but it was not insufferable.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I would say the How not to fail laboratory psychology, as it was humorous and it's really the only thing i will probably retain from this chapter into my long term memory.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
It showed the relationship between Titchener and Boring who we talked about a few chapters ago. He also brought up Wundt and his views on Sensations and Affections. And that of the reaction times studied by Baldwin
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Probably the Experimentalists
6b) Why?
because i wonder what really became of the group, and who all was in it.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter? None.
8) Titchener, Baldwin, Boring, Experimentalists, Wundt, Survival of the Fittest

1) I found Edward Thorndike’s puzzle boxes to be interesting. I have heard about his experiments with cats before, but I never knew that his research with mazes started out with a simple maze made out of books and chicks trying to find their way out. I found it funny that the book pointed out that Thorndike didn’t have mechanical abilities. His boxes were crudely made, which was another detail about this that I didn’t know before. Thorndike concluded that his cats in puzzle boxes showed trial and error learning. The cats eventually made connections between the different scenarios, which is why this learning model is also called connectionism.
2) I thought that Thorndike was interesting. Like I said before, his experiments with the cat puzzle boxes were cool. I thought that this was the most interesting thing he did. From his research on the puzzle boxes, he came up with the law of effect and the law of exercise. The law of effect means that responses that work will get stronger while responses that don’t work will get weaker and disappear. The law of exercise essentially means that practice makes perfect. The more something is done, the stronger the association between a stimulus and a response will be.
3) I think that the overall message of the chapter was to show us the differences between structuralism and functionalism. The chapter described these two approaches to psychology as well as showed how each of them was studied by psychologists. I didn’t think it was particularly interesting. I thought that reading about some of the research that has been done was interesting, but I didn’t care for the rest of the chapter.
4) I think that learning about structuralism and functionalism is important. It gives us two different approaches to studying psychology, and this can help us apply the two approaches to different situations.
5) The book has already talked about many ways to study psychology, so this chapter discussed two more views on that subject. Most of the information in this chapter was new to me, so it didn’t really build on subjects I have learned about in other classes.
6) I would like to learn more about consciousness. I feel that it is a subject that is not well understood by many people, but I think that people want to know more about it. I think that consciousness and how we perceive things is a very interesting subject.
7) I was definitely surprised that Charles Darwin didn’t coin the term “survival of the fittest.” Whenever Darwin is talked about, that term usually comes up so I think that most people assume that he was the one who came up with it.
8) Edward Thorndike, puzzle box, trial and error learning, connectionism, law of effect, law of exercise, stimulus, response, structuralism, functionalism, consciousness, perception, Charles Darwin, survival of the fittest

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