Reading Activity Week #8 (Due Monday)

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.

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

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)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?
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? 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.

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) 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"

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

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?
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,

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.

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

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?
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) & 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) 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) 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?
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?
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&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

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.

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) 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) 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

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

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) 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) 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

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

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) 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 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.

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 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) 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?
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

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 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) 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). 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,

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

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