STRUCTURALISM

Structuralism in psychology refers to a theory of consciousness developed by

Wilhelm Wundt and his mentee Edward Bradford Titchener. This theory was
challenged in the 20th century. It is debated who deserves the credit for founding
this field of psychology, but it is widely accepted that Wundt created the foundation
on which nature expanded. Structuralism as a school of psychology seeks to
analyze the adult mind (the total sum of experience from birth to the present) in
terms of the simplest definable components and then to find how these components
fit together to form more complex experiences as well as how they correlated to
physical events. To do this, psychologists employ introspection, self-reports of
sensations, views, feelings, emotions, etc
Contents
1

Titchener
Edward B. Titchener
Born
Edward Bradford Titchener
11 January 1867
Chichester, England
Died
3 August 1927 (aged 60)
Ithaca, New York
Citizenship
English
Nationality
British
Fields
Psychology
Institutions
Cornell University
Doctoral advisor
Wilhelm Wundt
Doctoral students
Edwin Garrigues Boring
Known for
structuralism, empathy, introspection
Edward Bradford Titchener D.Sc., PhD, LL.D., Litt.D. (/titnr/; 11 January
1867 3 August 1927) was a British psychologist who studied under
Wilhelm Wundt for several years. Titchener is best known for creating his
version of psychology that described the structure of the mind:
structuralism. He created the largest doctoral program in the United
States (at the time) after becoming a professor at Cornell University, and
his first graduate student, Margaret Floy Washburn, became the first
woman to be granted a PhD in psychology (1894).

Mind and consciousness

2.1

Introspection

2.2

Elements of the mind

2.3

Interaction of elements

2.4

Physical and mental relationship

Wundt and structuralism

Criticisms

Alternatives

Contemporary structuralism

See also

Notes and references

Titchener
Edward B. Titchener along with Wilhelm Wundt credited for the theory of
structuralism. It is considered to be the first "school" of psychology because he was
a student of Wilhelm Wundt at the University of Leipzig, Titchener's ideas on how
the mind worked were heavily influenced by Wundt's theory of voluntarism and his
ideas of association and apperception (the passive and active combinations of

elements of consciousness respectively). Titchener attempted to classify the

structures of the mind, like chemists classify the elements of nature into the nature.
Titchener said that only observable events constituted science and that any
speculation concerning unobservable events have no place in society (this view was
similar to the one expressed by Ernst Mach). In his book, Systematic Psychology,
Titchener wrote:
It is true, nevertheless, that observation is the single and proprietary method of
science, and that experiment, regarded as scientific method, is nothing else than
observation safeguarded and assisted.
Mind and consciousness Titchener believed mind was the accumulated
experience of a lifetime. He believed that he could understand reasoning and the
structure of the mind if he could define and categorize the basic components of
mind and the rules by which the components interacted.
Introspection The main tool that Titchener used to try to determine the different
components of consciousness was introspection. Titchener writes in his Systematic
Psychology:
The state of consciousness which is to be the matter of psychology ... can become
an object of immediate knowledge only by way of introspection or self-awareness.
and in his book An Outline of Psychology: ...within the sphere of psychology,
introspection is the final and only court of appeal, that psychological evidence
cannot be other than introspective evidence.
Unlike Wundt's method of introspection, Titchener had very strict guidelines for the
reporting of an introspective analysis. The subject would be presented with an
object, such as a pencil. The subject would then report the characteristics of that
pencil (color, length, etc.). The subject would be instructed not to report the name
of the object (pencil) because that did not describe the raw data of what the subject
was experiencing. Titchener referred to this as stimulus error.
In his translation of Wundt's work, Titchener illustrates Wundt as a supporter of
introspection as a method through which to observe consciousness. However,
introspection only fits Wundt's theories if the term is taken to refer to
psychophysical methods.
Introspection literally means 'looking within', to try to describe a person's memory,
perceptions, cognitive processes, and/or motivations.
Elements of the mind Titchener's theory began with the question of what each
element of the mind is. He concluded from his research that there were three types
of mental elements constituting conscious experience: Sensations (elements of
perceptions), Images (elements of ideas), and affections (elements of
emotions).These elements could be broken down into their respective properties,
which he determined were quality, intensity, duration, clearness, and extensity.
Both sensations and images contained all of these qualities; however, affections
were lacking in both clearness and extensity. And images and affections could be
broken down further into just clusters of sensations. Therefore by following this train
of thinking all thoughts were images, which being constructed from elementary
sensations meant that all complex reasoning and thought could eventually be
broken down into just the sensations which he could get at through introspection.
Interaction of elements The second issue in Titchener's theory of structuralism
was the question of how the mental elements combined and interacted with each
other to form conscious experience. His conclusions were largely based on ideas of
associationism. In particular, Titchener focuses on the law of contiguity, which is the
idea that the thought of something will tend to cause thoughts of things that are
usually experienced along with it.
Titchener rejected Wundt's notions of apperception and creative synthesis
(voluntary actio), which were the basis of Wundt's voluntarism. Titchener argued
that attention was simply a manifestation of the "clearness" property within
sensation.

Physical and mental relationship

Once Titchener identified the elements of mind and their interaction, his theory then
asked the question of why the elements interact in the way they do. In particular,
Titchener was interested in the relationship between the conscious experience and
the physical processes. Titchener believed that physiological processes provide a
continuous substratum that give psychological processes a continuity they
otherwise would not have. Therefore, the nervous system does not cause conscious
experience, but can be used to explain some characteristics of mental events.
Wundt and structuralism
Wilhelm Wundt instructed Titchener, the founder of structuralism, at the University
of Leipzig. The 'science of immediate experience' was stated by him. This simply
means that the complex perceptions can be raised through basic sensory
information. Wundt is often associated in past literature with structuralism and the
use of similar introspective methods. Wundt makes a clear distinction between pure
introspection, which is the relatively unstructured self-observation used by earlier
philosophers, and experimental introspection. Wundt believes this type of
introspection to be acceptable since it uses laboratory instruments to vary
conditions and make results of internal perceptions more precise.
The reason for this confusion lies in the translation of Wundt's writings. When
Titchener brought his theory to America, he also brought with him Wundt's work.
Titchener translated these works for the American audience, and in so doing
misinterpreted Wundt's meaning. He then used this translation to show that Wundt
supported Titchener's own theories. In fact, Wundt's main theory was that of
voluntarism.
Criticisms
Structuralism has faced a large amount of criticism, particularly from the school of
psychology, functionalism which later evolved into the psycholology of pragmatism
(reconvening introspection into acceptable practices of observation). The main
critique of structuralism was its focus on introspection as the method by which to
gain an understanding of conscious experience. Critics argue that self-analysis was
not feasible, since introspective students cannot appreciate the processes or
mechanisms of their own mental processes. Introspection, therefore, yielded
different results depending on who was using it and what they were seeking. Some
critics also pointed out that introspective techniques actually resulted in
retrospection the memory of a sensation rather than the sensation itself.
Behaviorists fully rejected even the idea of the conscious experience as a worthy
topic in psychology, since they believed that the subject matter of scientific
psychology should be strictly operationalized in an objective and measurable way.
Because the notion of a mind could not be objectively measured, it was not worth
further inquiry. Structuralism also believes that the mind could be dissected into its
individual parts, which then formed conscious experience. This also received
criticism from the Gestalt school of psychology, which argues that the mind cannot
be broken down into individual elements.
Besides theoretical attacks, structuralism was criticized for excluding and ignoring
important developments happening outside of structuralism. For instance,
structuralism did not concern itself with the study of animal behavior, and
personality. In addition, structuralism denied adopting the theory of evolution into
its theory, which is arguably its biggest downfall. Ironically, in a critique of
functional psychology, Titchener writes in his Systematic Psychology:
Titchener himself was criticized for not using his psychology to help answer
practical problems. Instead, Titchener was interested in seeking pure knowledge
that to him was more important than commonplace issues.
Alternatives
One alternative theory to structuralism, to which Titchener took offense, was
functionalism (functional psychology). Functionalism was developed by William
James in contrast to structuralism. It stressed the importance of empirical, rational

thought over an experimental, trial-and-error philosophy.[12] James in his theory

included introspection (i.e., the psychologist's study of his own states of mind), but
also included things like analysis (i.e., the logical criticism of precursor and
contemporary views of the mind), experiment (e.g., in hypnosis or neurology), and
comparison (i.e., the use of statistical means to distinguish norms from anomalies)
which gave it somewhat of an edge. Functionalism also differed in that it focused on
the how useful certain processes were in the brain to the environment you were in
and not the processes and other detail like in structuralism.
Contemporary structuralism
Today, the theory of structuralism is no longer really used. Researchers are still
working to offer objective experimental approaches to measuring conscious
experience, in particular within the field of cognitive psychology and is in some
ways carrying on the torch of Titchener's ideas. It is working on the same type of
issues such as sensations and perceptions. Today, any introspective methodologies
are done under highly controlled situations and are understood to be subjective and
retrospective. Proponents argue that psychology can still gain useful information
from using introspection in this case.