UNIT I

INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY
MODULE III

Early Schools of Psychology: Structuralism, Gestalt psychology,

Functionalism, Behaviourism

Modern Perspectives: Behavioural, Biological, Cognitive, Social,

Developmental, Humanistic and Psychoanalytic perspectives

Early Schools of Psychology: Structuralism, Gestalt psychology,

Functionalism, Behaviourism

In the first decades of the twentieth century, psychologists hold quite

different views regarding the nature of mind and the best ways to study mind.
About the same time, fundamental questions were raised about what should be
studied in psychology: Should psychology be the study of mind, should it study
behaviour, or should both mind and behaviour be included?

Different influential psychologists of the time held quite different views

on the nature of mind and the proper subject matter for psychology.

Schools of thought formed around these leaders, as their students adopted

their ideas. These schools of thought are known as the schools of psychology;
they set the direction for much of the research on mind and behaviour in the
early years of twentieth century.

When psychology first emerged as a science separate from biology and

philosophy, the debate over how to describe and explain the human mind and
behavior began. The different schools of psychology represent the major
theories within psychology.

The first school of thought, structuralism, was advocated by the founder

of the first psychology lab, Wilhelm Wundt. Almost immediately, other theories
began to emerge and vie for dominance in psychology.

In the past, psychologists often identified themselves exclusively with

one single school of thought. Today, most psychologists have an eclectic
outlook on psychology. They often draw on ideas and theories from different
schools rather than holding to any singular perspective.
The early schools of thought:
🞆 Structuralism
🞆 Gestalt Psychology
🞆 Functionalism
🞆 Behaviourism

Structuralism: This outlook focused on breaking down mental processes into

the most basic components or the goal of the structuralists was to find the units,
or elements, which make up the mind.

They thought that, a first step in the study of the mind should be a
description of the basic, or elementary, units of sensation, image, and emotion
which compose it. Major thinkers associated with structuralism include Wilhelm
Wundt and Edward Titchener. The main method used by the structuralists to
discover these elementary units of mind was introspection.

Functionalism: As the name implies, functionalists were interested in studying

the functions of mind and behaviour rather than limiting themselves to the
description and analysis of mind. They proposed that psychology should focus
on “what mind and behaviour do” (function of mind) and not on the “structure”
of mind.

Influenced by Darwin’s ideas and theory of evolution, functionalists

were, specifically, interested in the fact that mind and behaviour were adaptive,
as they enable us to adjust to a changing environment.

They did experiments on the ways in which learning, memory, problem

solving and motivation help people and animals adapt to their environments.
Instead of focusing on the mental processes themselves, functionalist thinkers
were instead interested in the role that these processes play.

Gestalt Psychology: This school of Psychology was founded in Germany about

1912 by Max Wertheimer and his colleagues Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler.
These pioneer psychologists felt that structuralists were wrong in thinking of the
mind as being made up of elements. They maintained that the mind is not made
up of a combination of simple elements.

Gestalt psychology is a school of psychology based upon the idea that we

experience things as unified wholes. The German word Gestalt means “form” or
“configuration”, and the Gestalt psychologists maintained that the mind should
be thought of as resulting from the whole pattern of sensory activity and the
relationships and organisations within this pattern.
For instance, when you look at the dots in figure below, your mental
experience is not just the dots, or elements, but of a square and a triangle sitting
on a line.

It is the organisation of the dots and their relationships that determine the
mental experience you have. Thus, the point made by the Gestalt psychologists
in their opposition to structuralism was, mental experience depends on the
patterning and organisation of elements and is not due simply to the
compounding of elements.

In simpler words, according to the Gestalt psychologists, the mind is best

understood in terms of the ways elements are organised. Instead of breaking
down thoughts and behavior to their smallest elements, the gestalt psychologists
believed that you must look at the whole of experience. According to the Gestalt
thinkers, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Behaviourism: This school of psychology was propounded by John B. Watson

and worked upon the other thinkers like Ivan Pavlov and B. F. Skinner. Watson
rejected the idea that mind should be the subject of psychology, and instead,
emphasised that psychology be restricted to the study of behaviour – the
observable (or potentially observable) activities of people and animals.

There are four important characteristics of behaviourism:

i) First, its focus on behaviour, as the proper subject matter of

psychology.
ii) Second, it emphasised on conditioned responses (learned responses) as
the elements or building blocks, of behaviour. Watson believed that
complex human and animal behaviour is almost entirely made up of
conditioned responses.
iii) A third closely related feature of behaviourism was its emphasis on
learned rather than unlearned, behaviour. It denied the existence of any
innate, or inborn, behavioural tendencies.
iv) Finally, the fourth characteristic of behaviourism was its focus on
animal behaviour.
 Watson argued that there are no essential differences between human and
animal behaviour. He also believed that we can learn much about our own
behaviour from the study of what animals do.
Modern Perspectives: Behavioral, Biological, Cognitive, Social,
Developmental, Humanistic and Psychoanalytic perspectives

Though the early schools of psychology are more than 100 year old, two
of them; behaviourism and psychoanalysis, are still surviving in modified
forms, among the current psychological perspectives. Along with these two,
some new perspectives have come up in the last 130 years or so.

In order to understand and describe behaviour, psychologists now have a

rich variety of viewpoints to choose from. The perspective taken, depends on
how the psychologist is observing and interpreting a particular behaviour and
also on what aspect of behaviour is being studied.

Different Approaches to the Same Topic

Every topic in psychology can be looked at in a number of ways. For

example, let's consider the subject of aggression
● A professional who emphasizes a biological perspective would look at
how the brain and nervous system impact aggressive behavior.
● A professional who stresses a behavioural perspective would look at
how environmental variables reinforce aggressive actions.
● A professional who utilizes a cross-cultural approach might consider
how cultural and social influences contribute to aggressive or violent
behavior.
● Behavioral perspectives emphasises the role of learning in behaviour.
The behaviour which is followed by reward or punishment is likely to
increase or decrease, respectively.

It is based on observable behavior which emphasizes that learning plays a

key role in controlling and influencing all behaviors. The behavioural
perspective is concerned with how behaviors are learned and reinforced.
Behavioural principles are often applied in mental health settings, where
therapists and counsellors use these techniques to explain and treat a variety of
illnesses.

It was founded on the work of psychologists such as Edward Thorndike

and John B. Watson. Behaviourism dominated psychology in the early twentieth
century but began to lose its hold during the 1950s.
Biological Perspective suggests that there are some biological factors—
particularly, the functions of nervous and glandular systems, that influence
human behaviour. Studies show that males are generally more aggressive than
females (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974); this may be related to male-female
hormonal differences.

Every human behavior is related to physiological changes within the

body. The working relationship between the body, behavior, and mental
processes is the focus of the biological perspective.
The physiological perspective describes the role of nerve cells in different
aspects of an individual’s behavior in emotion, reasoning, problem-solving,
intelligence, speaking, etc.

The nervous system, genetics, the brain, the immune system, and the
endocrine system are just a few subjects of interest to biological psychologists.

Cognitive Perspective Explains how behaviour is determined by the way we

remember, think, perceive, make decisions, solve problems and comprehend our
social environment etc.

Cognition means perception of the world around us. It also refers to the
processing of information which we receive through our senses. Our experience
or mind is based on such processing of information. It focuses on the
processing, organizing, storing, and retrieving of information and is concerned
with the higher mental processes such as thinking, memory, etc.

Cognitive psychologists often utilize an information-processing model

(comparing the human mind to a computer) to conceptualize how information is
acquired, processed, stored, and utilized.

Social or Socio-Cultural Perspective Attempts to explain behaviour in terms

of social interaction and the setting in which such interaction takes place. If a
criminal (such as a don or a terrorist leader) gets recognition, position or respect
in a society or community, he/she is likely to be perceived as a role model by
some individuals.

The way human beings socialize and develop from their early life to old
age is explained through a perspective in psychology known as the
socio-cultural perspective.
 Socio-cultural psychology explains how our personality, beliefs, attitude,
skills, and values are shaped by our culture ethnicity, gender, religion, and other
important socio-cultural factors. Socio-cultural aspects are concerned with how
people interact, are interdependent, and inter-coordinate with each other to
influence and to be influenced by each other.
Developmental Perspective According to this perspective, behaviour is
determined by the physical growth and maturity. Certain characteristic changes
occur in people (i.e. the way they think), due to the process of maturation.
Sometimes, young children commit crimes but not deliberately. This may be
because of their cognitive egocentrism, which means that children have limited
ability to think about how things look or feel to others. They do not have any
intention to commit crimes in a planned way.

Humanistic Perspective It emphasizes the psychological health of human

beings, through psychotherapy, focusing on the individual’s free will, values,
and goodness of people.

The humanistic perspective of psychology was developed by Abraham

Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Viktor Frankl during the 1950s and 1960s. This
perspective has a very different view on human beings compared to
psychoanalysis and behaviourism psychology perspectives.

This perspective focuses on freedom in controlling human behavior.

According to them, each person is a unique individual and experiences the
world differently. One of the most important humanistic principles is that all
human beings have a basic powerful inborn tendency to grow and improve to
their fullest potential, and a desire to take control of their own lives.

Humanistic psychologists are the “least scientific” of all perspectives of

psychology. The principle they focus on is very difficult to investigate
scientifically because it characterizes by philosophical aspects of human life.

Psychoanalytic Perspective The psychodynamic perspective originated with

the work of Sigmund Freud. This view of psychology and human behavior
emphasizes the role of the unconscious mind, early childhood experiences, and
interpersonal relationships to explain human behavior, as well as to treat mental
illnesses.

According to Sigmund Freud, behaviour of human beings are largely

guided by their feelings, emotions, instincts and desires which are unconscious.
They are born with an aggressive drive. This innate motive gets expressed in
action or fantasy, in destructiveness, war and sadism.
 According to this viewpoint, any impulse which is unacceptable, makes a
person anxious, and then he/she uses what is called ‘defense mechanism’, to
reduce anxiety. For example, when a person is angry at some higher authority
or someone who is very powerful, the person cannot express one’s anger openly
and so, may displace that anger to someone, who is weaker. This is known as
‘displacement’, which is one of the defense mechanisms.

Human mind has three parts conscious, unconscious, and subconscious.

Conscious level deals with our awareness level and subconscious part of mind
deals with that part of mind can regain the memories at any time and
Unconscious part of mind deals with the suppressed feelings of one’s life

Psychoanalysis gives more importance to unconscious part of the mind.

Human behavior is generally influenced by forces operating in the unconscious
layer and therefore exploration of unconscious mind is required for the
meaningful study of behavior.

Psychoanalysis points out three aspects of mind which determines our

personality. They are ID (instinctive desires), EGO (reason based on real life
experience) and SUPER EGO (moral inhibition). The super ego and id are in a
continual conflicts and ego stand as a mediator between these forces of mind