Summary of Pioneers of Psychology by Fancher and Rutherford - 5th edition

What fundamental ideas from antiquity are there about psychology? - Chapter 1

Plato (424-347 BC) came from a prosperous family in Athens, and was taught by sophists. Plato wanted a modest teacher, this became Socrates (470-399 BC). Socrates claimed that his only special wisdom was that he knew how much he did not know. He wanted his students to appreciate what is true and permanent to the temporary and popular. He did this by conducting dialogues with his students to discover their inner capacities for finding the truth. The choice of Plato for Socrates and philosophy still has consequences to this day. Socrates has not left any written documents of his thoughts because, according to him, trust in writings weakens the faculties of memory and serious thinking. Plato, however, has made many portraits of him: the Socratic dialogues. This emphasizes the importance of higher capacities for rational thinking and mathematical reasoning. The dialogues became the source of nativism, in which the innate is emphasized against acquired qualities, and of rationalism, in which reason is emphasized. When Plato was 30 he founded the Academy, a place where pupils of different ages and interests could come together to pursue their intellectual goals. In 367 BC Aristotle (384-322 BC) arrived at the academy. This physicist became a top student. At the age of 37 he left the Academy. Aristotle placed much more emphasis on the systematic observation of the natural, empirical world of the senses. He became the first supporter of empiricism, the notion that true knowledge is obtained by processing the sensory experiences of the external world.

Who were the presocratic philosophers?

400 years before Plato's time, settlers from Greece spread and collected writings from wealthy Greek-speaking colonies. These colonies developed very differently and founded different types of governments. The Greeks, however, were all proud of their language, and found all who spoke a language other than Greek barbarians. Shortly before Socrates began teaching, Protagoras (490-420 BC) claimed that it was useless to speculate on big questions such as the ultimate nature and layout of the universe. He focused on purely human experiences and behavior. The sophists tried to understand people.

Hippocrates (460-370 BC) is often mentioned as a presocrate, and, like Protagoras and the Sophists, he deals with everyday human concerns, but Hippocrates was a physicist. He attracted a school of students and followers, called the Hippocrats, who together produced many medical writings known as the Hippocratic Corpus. In this, diseases were seen as natural phenomena instead of the result of demons or supernatural influences. The Hippocrats had a humoral theory to explain health and disease as the result of the balance or imbalance of four prominent fluids in the human body: blood, yellow bile, black bile and mucus. The Hippocrats were responsible for responsible, observational medical practices that we still see today. New doctors have to take the Hippocratic Oath, promising to comply with ethical standards.

Who was Socrates?

As a young man, Socrates took over the profession of his father, sculptor, and fought as a soldier. He married Xanthippe and had three sons with her. His wife was not happy that he made the career switch to a teacher. Socrates differed from the sophists because he asked little or nothing for his services, and was shabby dressed. In addition to Plato, Xenophon (430-354 BC) was his best-known student. At the age of 70, Socrates was arrested by a new Athenian government, and was sentenced to death by drinking poison. Three younger contemporaries left descriptions of him. Xenophon described him as admirable and brave. Socrates' myth about reincarnation and memory is an extreme version of nativism, in the notion that fully formed but forgotten knowledge lies in the psyche, and only requires empirical experiences to get it out. The ability to create abstract ideas lies in the human mind. According to this view, the path to wisdom is not to add opinions and experiences from the external senses, but to know for yourself and to interpret these experiences in the light of one's innate rational faculties.

What was the philosophy of Plato?

Legend has it that Plato's birth name was Aristocles, but that he got broad shoulders and was athletic, and therefore got the nickname Platon (Greek for broad). Plato was about 25 when Socrates received the death penalty and died. He then fled from Athens to Italy. He returned to Athens at the age of thirty. He founded the Academy here, where all the different students were welcome. He was the leader of this school for more than 40 years. Plato himself was concerned with the question of what is innate in the human mind and what the relationship is between these innate characteristics and sensory experiences.

One of Plato's best-known answers to these questions was the distinction between appearances and ideal forms. An appearance (Greek: phenomenon) according to him referred to someone's conscious experience of something. Behind the apparitions, according to Plato, there was something more permanent: general and ideal forms that represent the essence of all objects. This is called idealism. One of Plato's most famous examples of idealism is the allegory of the cave. The reader is asked to present a group of prisoners who are stuck in a cave with faces facing the wall. Men walk on the outside of the cave on a path that runs close to the cave with puppets on sticks, and the shadows of the puppets are projected onto the wall of the cave by sunlight. So the prisoners only see the shadows on the wall and not the reality. The shadows are thus the metaphor for Plato's appearances, and the real events metaphor for his ideal forms. The story continues, and one of the prisoners is allowed to leave the cave. Gradually he gets used to daylight and learns to understand the relationship between the shadows and real events that cause them. However, he is not believed when he tries to explain this to the other prisoners. This enlightened prisoner stands for Plato as the true philosopher, who goes in search of true knowledge.

The prisoners in a cave illustrate a fundamental case for modern psychology: the relation between conscious experiences of the external world and the objective nature of the physical stimuli that lead to these experiences.

Plato also claimed that the human psyche or soul consists of three elements: desire, courage and reason. In another famous metaphor he presents these three elements as a charioteer trying to control a carriage drawn by two horses. A horse represents the desires and pulls in the direction of the fastest physical satisfaction. The other person represents duty and the motivation to respond bravely to threats to the self or society. The charioteer represents the rational component that must try to coordinate the horses in such a way that they work well together.

Plato also believed that every psyche has these three components in different proportions, creating three general classes in a society. People who are dominated by the desires form the masses, those who are driven by courage are the soldiers who protect society, and the small minority dominated by reason is the elite that controls society. According to plato, the proportions of these three components were erratic. He therefore did not think democracy was the best form of government. He was more for an oligarchy, a society led by a selection of elite people.

Who was Aristotle?

Aristotle was born in Macedonia. His father was a physicist, and the family doctor of the Macedonian king. At the age of 17 he was admitted to the Academy. The status of the Aristotle family was much lower than that of Plato. He crossed the sea to Asia, and came under the patronage of the local king Hermias. Aristotle married the niece of the king, Pythias. He was joined by Theophrastus (371-287 BC). They had already met at the Academy, and he first became Aristotle's student, then his friend. They started with the first systematic observations. Aristotle did this in animals, Theophrastus in plants. After a few years Aristotle returned to Macedonia, becoming the tutor of the son of King Philip, Alexander. At the age of 20, Alexander became king, and his name became Alexander the Great. After he became king, Aristotle returned to Athens and became the director of his own school, the lyceum. This school was wider than the Academy, and attracted hundreds of students, Aristotle himself wrote down all the results of the studies, so that more than 150 books were written by him. Many of these books have been lost.

For Aristotle and Theophrastus, there were two essential steps in the accumulation of knowledge: cautious and extensive observations, followed by systematic classification into meaningful groups or categories. This became the beginning of the taxonomy. For Aristotle, the cautious observation of the empirical world was the starting point for knowledge, but the mind had to turn these facts into a meaningful system of organized ideas and abstract concepts.

Aristotle wrote his ideas about the mind in his book 'about the psyche', sometimes seen as the first book on psychology. According to Aristotle, living organisms have psyches that vary in complexity. The lowest organisms are plants, which have two capacities that distinguish them from dead things: they feed and reproduce themselves. Nutrition and reproduction were the two most fundamental functions of all psyches according to Aristotle. Also called the vegetative soul in English. The simplest animals have the additional capacity that they can move, locomotion, and to respond to their environment, sensation. Higher animals can also remember things and learn from their sensory experiences, the function of memory. These four functions together are called the sensitive soul. The highest function of the psyche is only possessed by people, and is the possibility to reason. This is called the rational soul. According to Aristotle, the human psyche possesses an innate set of categories in which memories and ideas of empirical experiences are classified and organized. These categories include substance (for example, a rock, a person or other object), quantity, quality (which color, shape, etc.), location, time, relationship (larger, smaller, before, after, etc), and activity - what it does (tell, hit, etc) or undergoes.

In summary, Plato and Socrates saw the human psyche as a reservoir of innate ideas and forms, which can come out or be revealed through empirical experiences. Aristotle, on the other hand, emphasized empirical experiences as the necessary materials that the psyche uses on the basis of innate categories.

Who are Democritus, Epicurus and Lucretius?

Democritus (460-370 BC) formulated an atomic theory that included a limit on the divisibility of all material objects, and that they consisted of small, solid, unbreakable particles called atoms. According to him, atoms have different forms, and the universe consists entirely of an infinite number of atoms that move in space, the vacuum. Sometimes they collide and form new combinations, which are all physical substances in the universe. His atomic theory was attacked because he assumed that the interactions between atoms were random, which was contrary to the Greek assumption of causality, which meant that every event had to have a purpose. According to Aristotle, all events caused must have four components: a material cause (the material of which something has been made), a formal cause (the idea or plan behind the thing caused), an efficient cause (the actions or interactions that cause the caused thing ), and a final cause (the purpose for which the thing was made).

Epicurus (341-270 BC) was a supporter of the theory of Democritus. According to Epicurus, people had to live a self-fulfilling life, free of pain and fear, in the presence of friends. According to his school, all objects in the universe consisted only of collections of atoms.

Almost nothing is known about the life of Lucretius (99-55 BC), but he celebrated the theory of Epicurus in a Latin poem entitled De Rerum Natura (about the nature of things). This contained the main ideas of Epicureanism in 200 pages, including atomism, modern hedonism, and the materialistic conception of the soul.

Who are three Islamic pioneers?

The Islamic Empire arose rapidly in the century after the death of Prophet Muhammad in 632 AD, and spread from West India to Spain and Morocco.

Al-Kindi (800-871) was born in Basra in Iraq, but moved to Baghdad at a young age. Here he became leader in the House of Wisdom, the equivalent of a research institute, whose members translated classical Greek texts into Arabic. Al-Kindi became known as the philosopher of the Arabs, through his learned comments on Aristotle. He became known for his mathematical counting system in India, known as the Indo-Arabic numbers. This has led to important developments in the history of civilization. 1 to 9 were now displayed as all separate numbers, and the important '0' was added. This made it much easier to do mathematical calculations than with the Greek counting system. This also formed the source of the contemporary word algebra.

Alhazen (965-1040) lived in Cairo and wrote books on astronomy, mathematical theories of numbers, geometry, and optics and the theory of visual perception. His book of optometry consisted of seven parts, and is still the foundation for visual scientists. He discovered that light from the outside world is reversed through the lens, creating an inverted image on the retina. Alhazen described the geometric properties of light and reflection, the features of the eye as an optical device, the influence of binocular vision for depth perception, and psychological phenomena.

Avicenna (980-1037) was born in the Persian city of Bukhara, and spent most of his adult life in Iran. Avicenna left a personal document that became known for the lack of modesty. He became famous at the age of eighteen because he healed the local sultan with a vague illness, and as a reward he got access to the fantastic library of his patient. Here he learned all the metaphysical writings of Aristotle by heart. At the age of 21 he got a career in which he analyzed and wrote about the work of Aristotle. The Canon of Medicine consisted of 5 volumes about everything that Avicenna had learned about the discipline of medicine. The majority consisted of detailed empirical observations of diseases, and the most effective techniques for curing them. His second monumental work is called 'the book of medicine'. This was about all kinds of subjects that Aristotle had discussed, and was meant to be a cure for ignorance instead of physical illnesses. Avicenna added to the receptive functions of the soul a motivating function, namely the desire. The desire gives the energy to approach desirable objects and avoid undesirable objects. Avicenna also dealt with the rational soul of Aristotle. In his famous thought experiment of the floating man, he asked his reader to present a newly created but fully formed man in an empty space, whose senses are blocked and limbs stuck so that he can neither touch nor move. Avicenna's question: without previously gathered experiences and without sensory organs, is this man aware of his own soul or himself? Avicennna's answer was: yes. For him self-consciousness was an innate capacity of the human rational soul.

Around the year 1000 the contact between the Christian and Muslim world increased. Trade was one of the peaceful practices among the peoples, and in 1100 the Italian Leonardo Fibonacci (1170-1240) traveled with his father to North Africa. He learned everything about Al-Kindi's numerical system and became known for the Fibonacci series, in which each new number is the sum of the two preceding numbers. Mixing cultures also took place at locations on or near the borders of Christian and Islamic areas, for example in Toledo, Spain. The first university was founded in Bologna in 1088. The ideas of Aristotle were again appreciated by Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274).

Philosophy of the mind: what are the thoughts of Descartes, Locke and Leibniz? - Chapter 2

René Descartes came to live in Paris in 1615, in the midst of an identity crisis. He did not find his elite education valuable because it was too focused on the past. He also found it depressing that the philosopher had never produced anything that was doubtful or uncertain. He became one of the first influential thinkers to have fully mechanical explanations for the traditional functions of the sensitive psyche or soul of Aristotle. Descartes described the human mind and body as two cooperating but different entities. According to him, both need their own analysis and explanation.

Who was Rene Descartes?

Descartes (1596-1650) was born in La Haye in France. He was a mysterious person. He grew up with his grandmother. His father was a wealthy lawyer. Descartes had few close ties with his family. The intelligence of Descartes was noticed by his father after which he was sent to the most progressive school in France. The young Descartes learned a science dominated by the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC). The Aristotelian view of the universe placed the earth in the middle, surrounded by a number of rotating 'crystalline spheres', namely the planets from our solar system, the moon, the sun and the stars. The Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) published a book in 1543 in which he assumed that not the earth, but the sun is the center of the system. His view was not taken seriously. Descartes convinced his teachers that he could think best if he meditated in bed, allowing him to stay in bed in the morning while other students were already working. When he left La Flèche at the age of 16, he was the best student of the best school in the country. He then migrated to Paris, where he came under the influence of Marin Mersenne, a French monk who offered Descartes intellectual and personal support. In 1618 he went into the army to see if the practical experiences of the 'real world' would provide more satisfactory knowledge. The actual war had not yet begun, so Descartes experienced seven months of boredom and quickly learned that the military had no more useful knowledge than scholars. A turning point for Descartes was when he met Isaac Beeckman (1588-1637), a physician and internationally known mathematician. He became a mentor for Descartes and helped him to regain his intellectual interest. With his support Descartes wrote his first learned work, an essay about music. When Beeckman had to leave Breda, Descartes went with him, and during the trip to the south he got two insights. According to a legend, inspiration came when he saw a fly in the corner of his room buzzing. He suddenly realized that the position of the fly can be precisely determined at any time by three numbers, represented by the perpendicular distances of the fly from the two walls and the ceiling. Generalizing from this idea, he acknowledged that every point in space can also be defined by its numerical distances of randomly defined lines or planes. In short, Descartes had a means to unify and integrate the previously separate mathematical disciplines of geometry (with motifs) and algebra (with numbers). This was the foundation of the analytical geometry. Soon, this idea had enormous practical applications - for example, it would help astronomers to describe and calculate planetary orbits. Given Descartes' great previous complaint about mathematics (the lack of practical use), he certainly had a good reason to be happy with this invention. If he had done nothing else in his life, he would still have had an important place in the history of science through his analytical geometry. He got his second insight in the German city of Ulm. His vivid dreams were violent and panicked, until a flash of light filled the room with rays and then his sleep became calm. He dreamed about a book with the phrase "which path in life will I follow?". The book disappeared but came back with new and better engravings. According to Descartes, this was the idea for a new method for obtaining true knowledge.

What was Descartes's method?

The first rule for Descartes for acquiring knowledge was to accept nothing as true unless it presented itself so clearly in his mind that there was no reason to doubt it. He doubted everything from that moment on. Descartes wanted to use systematic doubt to arrive at well-founded concepts which, like geometrical axioms, would be the starting points for deductive reasoning in all non-mathematical fields. He became a man with a mission. He began by claiming that the most basic and fundamental properties of physical phenomena, called simple natures by him, should be those whose existence could not be analyzed or doubted. According to Descartes, only extension (the space occupied by a physical particle or body) and movement were simple natures. According to him, all physical phenomena could be explained in terms of these two properties. All physical properties are presumably the result of elongated, material particles in motion. Descartes also figured out that living bodies can be seen as mechanical ingenuity, explainable according to the same principles. In the same period, the great Italian researcher Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) published something very similar. In his work 'The Assayer' from 1623 Galileo made a distinction between primary and secondary properties of physical matter. The secondary properties of matter (vision, sound, smell and touch of an object) come after the primary qualities (shapes, quantity and movement) to the human senses. The primary properties are inseparable from the matter. Our conscious experience of the world is secondary to, and of a completely different order than the elementary primary qualities they cause. Descartes' first publication was entitled 'Le Monde' (the world), with its basic understanding of the physical layout of the universe, and the subjects of light and vision. Galileo was condemned by the Inquisition for encouraging the Copernican theory of the universe. For reasons of safety, the Descartes manuscript was therefore published by his successors only after his death. His second work was 'L'homme' (man), in which he presented his physical principles for analyzing living bodies.

In "Treatise of Light" the physical ideas of Descartes are described, based on the analysis of material particles in motion. Like Aristotle, Descartes believed that there could be no emptiness or vacuum, as opposed to Democritus, so he saw the entire universe as completely filled with different kinds of material particles in different forms of movement. When a particle moves, it leaves no empty space behind, but the space is filled up by other particles. The three basic type particles in the Descartes universe are the classic elements of fire, air and earth. Fire is seen by Descartes as inconceivably small, as 'a virtually perfect liquid', capable of filling any space of any shape or size. He sees the sky as slightly larger, but still too small to be able to observe directly. All material objects - including planets, comets and the earth with all objects on it - are presumably composed of the washing up of the earth particles. These constitute the third and heaviest variation in Descartes' hypothetical universe. As the original title of Le Monde (Treatise of Light) suggests, most of this first treatise is about the phenomenon of light. The air particles naturally rearrange themselves into columns between objects, the material basis of the formation of light rays.

Descartes conceptualized the eye as a physical mechanism that is activated by the physical properties of light waves. From this point of view, he also described the structure of the living body, which according to him consisted of various physical systems that work on the basis of the laws of nature. He further elaborated this mechanistic view of the human body in the second, physiological part of 'Le Monde', the 'Treatise of Man'.

Descartes was not the first scientist to investigate human bodies in a mechanistic way. Galileo examined the bones and joints of the body in terms of a lifting system. William Harvey (1578-1657) analyzed the heart as a physical pumping mechanism in a revolutionary demonstration. He showed that blood is not created over and over, but that it constantly circulates through the body. The real contribution of Descartes lies in the scope of his research, rather than in the idea of ​​examining the body as a physiological mechanism in itself. According to Descartes, all processes in the body were comparable to those of a vending machine. Descartes was especially interested in the nervous system. According to him, the brain contained ventricles, filled with a clear yellow liquid, which he called "animal spirits" (now known as cerebrospinal fluid).

Descartes mechanically analyzed ten physical functions. He concluded that these bodily functions came into being mechanically. He then decided to replace the traditional concepts of vegetative and animal souls with mechanical explanations. Sensory stimulation in the form of vibrations stimulating the sensory organs can stimulate the nerves according to Descartes. As a result, vessels in the brain can be opened, allowing the animal spirits to flow back to the nerves and muscles and glands, resulting in movement or secretion. Even though Descartes did not use the term, he formulated the idea for what we now call the reflex: a neurophysiological sequence of activity through which a specific stimulus from the external world automatically elicits a specific response in the organism. He distinguished between two types of reflex responses. In the first type, the vital souls flow directly along the nerve through which the stimulus came in, resulting in an automatic and immediate response. The second type is a reflex that is responsible for learned reactions, in which the response is not directly linked to the stimulus. This is similar to the contemporary concept of the conditioned reflex. Descartes also found that internal factors such as emotions also play a role in animal reactions. He argued that localized currents, whirlpools, or what he called disturbances, can develop in parts of the animal soul reservoir. These can thus influence the receptiveness of the nearby nerves. In this way, souls are directed towards the muscles. Because of such variations, a predisposition or tendency to different emotions such as anger or fear may arise. The reactions of a body are thus determined by a combination of external stimulation, and an internal 'emotional' willingness of the animal souls to respond in a certain way. Other mechanistic effects of the animal souls are the states of sleep or wakefulness. Descartes saw the sleeping brain as relatively without soul, with weak tissues and weak nerve fibers with an inability to transmit the most external vibrations. Thus, a sleeping organism is generally non-responsive to external stimulation, with only a few isolated and disconnected experiences, or dreams, created by a momentary tightness in the nerves. During vigilance, the ventricle is maximally filled with animal souls, making the surrounding brain tissue and nerves highly sensitive to external stimulation.

According to Descartes, the difference between humans and animals in human characteristics was consciousness and willpower. Actions can arise because they want this or because it follows from rational considerations. Descartes borrowed this not from the mechanical part, but from the presence of a soul or spirit, which he thought interacted with the bodily machine in human beings. He thus stepped down from the Aristotelian vegetative and animal souls, but retained the rational soul.

What are the rational qualities of the mind?

In the autobiographical 'Discourse on Method' Descartes described his first attempts at systematic doubt, so that everything is doubtful. Because of all this doubt he finally came up with the idea of ​​which he was absolutely certain and which has become one of his most famous passages: I think, so I exist (cogito ergo sum). His own rational thoughts, or soul, were an unquestionable reality. That led to the conclusion that the thoughts are in contrast with the body. Ideas are independent of specific sensory experiences, even though they may be suggested by certain experiences. But they arise from the nature of the thinking soul itself. Descartes called this the innate ideas of the soul. The innate idea of ​​'perfection' in combination with his certainty of the reality of his own mind also suggested to him that a God existed who embodied all aspects of perfection. Now for Descartes there were the certainties of his conscious soul and a God. For Descartes the knowledge of his senses could now be trusted, because the integrity of the mind that it perceives and the perfection of the God who developed both matter and spirit, were certain.

Descartes is considered dualist because he sharply distinguishes between body and mind. He emphasized that many important phenomena are not the result of only the body, or of the mind alone. Instead, there are many possible types of interactions between the two. For this reason Descartes' position is also called interactive dualism. Around 1640 Descartes went into this dualism, mainly because of his friendship and correspondence with Princess Elizabeth or Bohemia (1618-1680). He used this correspondence as a foundation for his important work in 1649, which he called 'Treatise on the Passions of the Soul'. A body without a mind, according to Descartes, would be a vending machine, completely under the mechanistic control of external stimuli and the internal hydraulic or 'emotional state, and completely without consciousness. The body adds richness to the content of the consciousness of the soul, while the soul adds rationality and willpower to the causes of behavior. Descartes believed that the conscious perception accurately reflected the real world. According to Descartes, there must be a specific location in the body where the double impressions of the eyes form a unity before they reach the soul. According to Descartes, this should be in the brain. He then learned about the pineal gland, a small structure near the center of the brain, which spreads into a large ventricle. Because this pineal gland was undivided, according to Descartes, the sensations of the divided body had to come in here and be formed into a unity before being presented to the soul.The strategic location of the gland in the soul-filled ventricle also meant that it was ideal to feel the commotion of animal souls, which in his view were the cause of emotions. Descartes called the conscious experiences of these commotion the 'passions' - the conscious experience of feelings. First, it feels the specific nature of the gland's movement, and therefore has a conscious sensation of a passion (a feeling like love, hatred, fear, wonder, or desire). Secondly, from a conscious attitude towards that passion, the soul can try to influence it by initiating voluntary movements in the pineal gland that strengthen or inhibit the emotional disturbances of animal spirit. For example, if the soul experiences anger,it can attack the offending person by influencing the pineal gland to encourage more minds in the nerves to attack them. Alternatively, the soul can inhibit the attack by moving the gland to block the flow of souls in those nerves. For relatively mild emotions, the soul may ignore or suppress these influences. This happens, for example, when mild background stimulation is suppressed when a person needs to concentrate.This happens, for example, when mild background stimulation is suppressed when a person needs to concentrate.This happens, for example, when mild background stimulation is suppressed when a person needs to concentrate.

In 1649 Descartes was invited by Queen Christina of Sweden to move to the North and become a philosopher there at her court. This he did, and here he wrote frivolous verses to celebrate the life of Christina. Descartes died at the age of 53. Descartes never married, but became father of one daughter. She died, however, as a child. Descartes' basic ideas about the nervous system and the brain as control centers that regulate behavior turned out to be true, as did his general idea of ​​reflex. Descartes' more general philosophy of mind has been just as influential.

What is the difference between Locke and Leibniz?

Gottfriend Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) and John Locke (1643-1704) were both philosophers. Leibniz was impressed by the book 'An Essay Concerning Human Understanding' written by Locke. In it, Locke described the nature of human knowledge from an empirical perspective. Empiricists believe that knowledge has a sensory origin. However, Leibniz felt that Locke's empiricism went too far and that he did not see that the role of various important qualities in the mind is innate. He tried to get in touch with Locke, but because he did not succeed he worked out his ideas in a manuscript called 'Nouveaux Essais sur l'Entendement Humain' (New Essays on Understanding Man), in which he supposedly entered into a dialogue with a representation of Locke.Locke died, however, just as the work was finished, and Leibniz did not want to discuss with a dead author, so that his work was only published half a century after his death.

Leibniz and Locke have many similarities and differences. A big deal is that they both tried to integrate the work of Descartes in their political ideas with a larger and more general philosophy of the mind. Yet they both react differently to different aspects of Descartes' work. Locke accepted his basic ideas about physics and philosophy, while rejecting the idea of ​​a constant conscious thought, with innate ideas. He supported the suggestion of Aristotle that the spirit at birth is an unwritten book, that a person absorbs the impressions of the external world and then picks them up and reflects on them. Locke states that all human knowledge is created through experience. Leibniz, on the other hand, rejected the physical aspects of Descartes on logical grounds.He did agree with the conscious soul of Descartes, but concluded that the ultimate "substance" of the universe should be a kind of consciousness-bearing entity. He suggested a philosophy of mind that emphasized the nativist and rationalist tendencies of Descartes.

Who was John Locke?

John Locke (1632-1704) was born in Wrington during the revolution. His father fought in the civil war of 1642 under the leadership of Colonel Alexander Popham, the man who later sponsored the 15-year-old Locke so he could attend the famous Westminster School in London. In this tolerant environment, Locke learned that there are two or more sides to most positions. After 5 years teaching at Westminster, Locke won a scholarship at Oxford University. After Locke earned a title in classical antiquity, he studied very seriously with Thomas Willis and a number of other progressive Oxford doctors and so he became a competent doctor himself. Another supporter of the new experimental science is Robert Boyle (1627-1691). He is the founder of Boyle's law, which means that the volume of a gas varies inversely with the top pressure.This was the basis for modern chemistry. Boyle helped Locke open a small scientific laboratory in Oxford, which led to a new kind of chemistry. At the same time, Locke read Descartes' work, reinforcing his conviction that you should not simply accept anything on the basis of authority. Locke's interest grew wider over the years and when he was almost 34 years old, he was successful in classical antiquity, medicine, science and diplomacy.Locke's interest grew wider over the years and when he was almost 34 years old, he was successful in classical antiquity, medicine, science and diplomacy.Locke's interest grew wider over the years and when he was almost 34 years old, he was successful in classical antiquity, medicine, science and diplomacy.

Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper (1621-1683) was a favorite of King Charles II, and was named first Lord Ashley, a baron, and then in 1672 'Earl of Shaftesbury'. He was on his way to becoming the most influential politician in the kingdom. In 1666 he met John Locke for the first time. The chronically ill Ashley was in Oxford that year for the medicinal water they had there. The doctor who normally brought him that was sick and asked John Locke to fall in. A friendship arose between Locke and Cooper. Thus they both had a preference for tolerance in religion and a moderation of the government. Locke then became Cooper's personal physician and moved to London. The cyst of Cooper became dangerous.Locke met the famous physician Thomas Sydenham and decided to perform a radical operation, after which Cooper recovered. Locke was now, in addition to a trusted politician, also a medical advisor. Cooper became the leader of the eight developers and owners of the 'Carolina Territory' in the United States. His good friend Locke also had a lot of influence and played a major role in compiling the original fundamental constitutions, also known as legal code. This document contained a limited religious tolerance and a limited democratic right to vote. The Royal Society was a scientific organization in Great Britain. Robert Boyle was already a member of it, and in 1668 Locke also became a member. He then came up with the idea to examine the core of knowledge and thought.He wanted to discover what we can know with certainty and what we can not. He worked on this idea for 19 years and this led to his big book called 'Essay Concerning Human Understanding'. From 1679 there was a crisis in politics and in the monarchy about the succession of the English king. Shaftesbury did not want his Catholic younger brother to take over the throne, which led to a quarrel between Charles and Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Locke and Shaftesbury then both fled to the Netherlands. Once he was in the Netherlands, he continued working on his manuscripts Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Two Treatises of Government.While he was doing that, the political climate in Great Britain changed so that it was then safe to publish these works. Charles II was succeeded by his Catholic brother James II, but after three years he was replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary and her Dutch husband, William of Orange. Locke then returned to England. Soon, thanks to his publications, Locke became the most famous philosopher in England.

What did Locke describe in 'An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'?

Locke believed that the recent discoveries of Boyle, Huygens, and Newton represented the culmination of human knowledge. He adopted their observational and inductive methods as his ideal model for the best functioning of the human mind. In his Essay he presupposes the existence of a human mind that basically operates according to the inductive model, and develops all of its knowledge from observations of the external world. He saw the mind as receptive and often passive, and one of the primary functions is to receive sensations. He therefore did not agree with Descartes, who stated that people have innate ideas that go deeper than the experiences they have. Locke said that these ideas often can not be found in inexperienced or weak spirits (he meant young children and mentally disabled).His conclusion was therefore that these ideas can not be innate.

He was therefore in favor of Aristotle's tabula rasa, the blank page. According to Locke, the human spirit has two kinds of experiences. First, it experiences sensations of objects in the external world. Secondly, it experiences reflections of the operations of one's own mind. Such experiences produce representations or ideas in the mind, which not only take immediate consciousness, but also remain in the form of memories. The inexperienced early sensations and reflections of children evoke a number of simple ideas. Simple ideas of sensation are concepts such as redness, loudness, coldness or saltiness. With more experience, simple ideas can be combined by the mind in different combinations to form complex ideas to shape. For example redness, roundness and sweetness can be combined to the idea of ​​an apple. Locke states that all simple components of such ideas must be experienced in a concrete way. Without a concrete experimental basis of simple ideas, most clear 'true' complex ideas are impossible.

What kinds of knowledge did Locke distinguish?

Locke also looked at what human minds can know about this nature of ideas. He stated that knowledge "is nothing other than the perception of the connection and agreement, or difference and aversion, of the ideas". A small number of perceptions are immediate and irresistible, such as the immediately recognized difference between black and white. Locke calls this knowledge intuitive knowledge. This is followed by demonstrative knowledge. This is obtained by step-by-step logical inferences, each part of which is intuitively certain, but the total pattern is not. Finally, he identified sensitive knowledge. This knowledge is acquired through certain patterns in sensory experiences. It is this sensitive knowledge that depends largely on human knowledge.Locke introduced the term association of ideas to indicate combining ideas. The first category of natural associations includes the redness and roundness of apples and the relationships in scientific laws recently discovered by scientists such as Boyle and Newton. The second category includes all accidentally connected ideas, such as linked by culture. Only the natural associations are true knowledge. Locke did not specify how ideas become associated. After his death, his successors introduced the terms "law of association through proximity" and "law of association through equality" to make Locke's principles formal. Like Galileo and Descartes, Locke assumes a distinction between primary qualities that are inseparable from acquired objects,and the secondary qualities imposed on objects by sensations. The primary qualities are firmness, size, figure and mobility. Material objects in the world actually have these qualities and these form the image of the external world. Secondary qualities are sounds, colors, temperatures, tastes and smells. These characteristics arise from both the sensory organs and from the objects themselves. Locke regarded these secondary qualities as less 'true'. In order to obtain true knowledge, secondary qualities had to be explained in the more basic primary principles.Secondary qualities are sounds, colors, temperatures, tastes and smells. These characteristics arise from both the sensory organs and from the objects themselves. Locke regarded these secondary qualities as less 'true'. In order to obtain true knowledge, secondary qualities had to be explained in the more basic primary principles.Secondary qualities are sounds, colors, temperatures, tastes and smells. These characteristics arise from both the sensory organs and from the objects themselves. Locke regarded these secondary qualities as less 'true'. In order to obtain true knowledge, secondary qualities had to be explained in the more basic primary principles.

What is the influence of Locke?

The essential message of the Essay was that all knowledge comes from experience, but also that no one's experience can be sufficient to obtain a complete and correct knowledge of the world. This was in line with the new British political climate. Because no one could claim exclusive access to the truth, there was tolerance for religious questions and participation in government affairs was encouraged. Locke described these implications in his second big book in 1690 called 'Two Treatises of Government'. In this book he adapted the theory of social contact and worked out the theory further. This theory was previously introduced by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). Hobbes regarded people as naturally aggressive, self-centered and predatory.This led to the fact that our ancestors formed a group and installed supreme authority with centralized power, so that they could organize resistance against other groups and prevent aggression within their own group. Hobbes found that survival with the centralized authority was necessary for survival, regardless of the form that this authority takes. Locke also saw that rulers and their subjects were bound together by an implicit social contract, but he had a more positive view of humanity in its natural state. He stated that people have the opportunity to gain more valid knowledge from their own experiences. In doing so, they can benefit from the combined experiences of groups of people. He viewed the arrangement of the social contract as a rational choice,in which real benefits are brought in by individuals by investing in protective and regulatory functions of a centralized authority. When the government violates the interests of the persons, these persons have the right to be heard, to revolt and / or to appoint a new authority.

In 1693 Locke published a short work in which he advocated education based on experiences and scientific observation. He also produced four revised versions of his Essay.

Who was Leibniz?

Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) was born in Leipzig. He was admitted to the University of Leipzig at the age of fourteen. He then worked briefly in Nuremberg, and migrated to Mainz, where he gained a position as an adviser to the Elector.

In his early years as adviser to the elector, he worked on the development of a new method for teaching rights, a system for libraries, and a system for assessing textbooks. He also began to study the history and culture of China. In 1672 he was sent to Paris as a diplomat. Lebniz became interested in mathematics and had three important contributions in this field. The first was mechanical: he designed a calculator, a predecessor of modern computers. His second contribution was the description of binary geometry, the representation of all numbers with only 1s and 0s. This became the basis of arithmetic in electronic computers. His third contribution was the 'infinitesimal calculus'. In addition to its scientific and practical importance,the calculus suggested two important ideas for Leibniz's philosophy. First, the principle of constant and continuous change. Second, the calculus was mental fiction, and could not be concretely observed in reality, but it did reflect reality. In Amsterdam Leibniz had two important experiences. First, he met the philosopher Spinoza (1632-1677), a brilliant Jewish student who was a pantheist - the notion that God is the universe. Secondly, he met Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, who developed the modern microscope.In Amsterdam Leibniz had two important experiences. First, he met the philosopher Spinoza (1632-1677), a brilliant Jewish student who was a pantheist - the notion that God is the universe. Secondly, he met Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, who developed the modern microscope.In Amsterdam Leibniz had two important experiences. First, he met the philosopher Spinoza (1632-1677), a brilliant Jewish student who was a pantheist - the notion that God is the universe. Secondly, he met Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, who developed the modern microscope.

The new duke who served Leibniz in Hanover was married to Sophie the Countess Palatine (1630-1714), the youngest sister of the confidant of Descartes, Elizabeth of Bohemia. Sophie became Leibniz 'friend and supporter, and her daughter Sophie Charlotte joined her. This mother-daughter team became the first audience for Leibniz's philosophy and his letters to them became the basis of his important work. Leibniz was open-minded and not ethnocentric, and maintained correspondence with China. He published reactions from China in a book 'News from China'. He felt that China and Europe could learn a lot from each other.

Leibniz died when he was 70. After half a century, publications of his manuscripts and private pieces revealed the true magnitude of his genius, as did a philosophy of mind that led to a scientific psychology in Germany. His most important psychological work was the comprehensive response to Locke's Essay, the 'New Essays' on human understanding. He had communicated these ideas earlier in his correspondence with the two Sophies, and in a short work, De Monadologie.

Leibniz studied populations of microorganisms in a pond through Van Leeuwenhoek's microscope in Amsterdam. He saw the universe as a hierarchy of living organisms within other, larger organisms. He did not agree with Descartes, and said that even though a living body is a sort of divine machine, it surpasses every artificial automaton because it does not consist of dead matter but of other living organisms, which contain other living parts, to the infinite . He also disagreed with Descartes and Locke that the fundamental units are dead, material particles that move and interact with each other. According to Leibniz you can never come to a small piece of matter and say that that is the real being. This also applies to movement. The ultimate units of the world are dynamic entities according to Leibniz,that are energetic and purposeful, with some capacity of consciousness. He called this monad.

Leibniz also believed that monads should differ in their capacity for consciousness, and created a hierarchy of four classes. The uncovered monads had only a small capacity for consciousness, comparable to someone in deep, dreamless sleep. A level higher were the feeling monads, with capacities for conscious sensation and perception of material objects and for the memory of these experiences. When they were merged, it became the soul of an animal. Even higher were the rational monads that can form the soul or spirit of man. Consciousness called Leibniz apperception, where an impression or idea is not only perceived, but also further interpreted in terms of underlying principles and laws. Apperception also includes reflexivity, the subjective feeling of the self.At the top were the supreme monads, equal to god. In summary, Leibniz's universe was more of an organism than a mechanism. Each monad had its own purpose, but were coordinated by larger goals and the consciousness of a supreme monad.

Leibniz was a supporter of Plato's nativism. He called all innate ideas and predispositions "necessary truths." He saw his ideas as additions to Locke's points. Locke saw sensations from the outside world and subjective reflections on the mind's own actions as the two sources of ideas, but did not say much about the reflections, while this became clear at Leibniz. In some points, Leibniz summarized what Locke had already said. Locke, however, claimed that the mind is not constantly active. According to Leibniz, the mind was always active, even during dreamless sleep. However, you are not always aware of this activity. Leibniz called this 'minute perceptions': they are real, but do not enter consciousness. Sometimes we become aware of minute perceptions,for example when we move our attention to background sound. Usually, however, they remain in our subconscious. Leibniz thought that minute perceptions also play a role in motivation, because they would determine our behavior in many situations while we do not think about it. So we would never be indifferent according to him. The difference between Locke and Leibniz was mainly due to their different goals. Lock wanted to discover the limits of knowledge and set new rules for solving political and daily problems. He was primarily an empiricist. Leibniz was more of a nativist, and saw the active mind as a primary subject of interest.because they would determine our behavior in many situations while we do not think about it. So we would never be indifferent according to him. The difference between Locke and Leibniz was mainly due to their different goals. Lock wanted to discover the limits of knowledge and set new rules for solving political and daily problems. He was primarily an empiricist. Leibniz was more of a nativist, and saw the active mind as a primary subject of interest.because they would determine our behavior in many situations while we do not think about it. So we would never be indifferent according to him. The difference between Locke and Leibniz was mainly due to their different goals. Lock wanted to discover the limits of knowledge and set new rules for solving political and daily problems. He was primarily an empiricist. Leibniz was more of a nativist, and saw the active mind as a primary subject of interest.and saw the active mind as a primary subject of interest.and saw the active mind as a primary subject of interest.

The idea of ​​Locke was especially influential in English-speaking countries, where Locke was the founder of British associationism. Berkeley applied his idea of ​​association principles to the systematic analysis of depth perception. A century later, David Hume helped to formalize the knowledge of asociation by identifying contiguity and equality. Hume's contemporary Hartley (1705-1757), claimed that ideas are the subjective results of very short vibrations at specific locations in the brain that become interconnected. Later in the 19th century, James and Stuart Mill argued that the main differences in character, behavior and intellect come from associationist principles, so by differences in experiences and associations. Galton disagreed with this, which prompted the nature-nurture debate.In the 20th century, the ideas of associationism and Locke came together in behaviorism.

The theory of Leibniz was more dominant in Europe, for example at Kant and Wundt. His ideas are also reflected in Freud's psychoanalysis and Piaget.

Physiologists of the mind: which important scientists are investigating the brain in the period between Gall and Penfield? - Chapter 3

Nowadays we see the brain as the organ responsible for our intelligence and higher mental possibilities. However, it took about 200 years before this was accepted. Aristotle could hardly believe how a bloodless, insensitive, and generally not impressive-looking organ could be the source of the highest human faculties. He attributed these functions to the heart. Descartes saw a number of important functions in the brain, but attributed the greatest functions to the rational soul.

Who is Franz Jozef Gall?

Locke's teacher, Thomas Willis (1621-1675), paid more attention to the brain and was the first to publish accurate and detailed information on this in 1664 with 'Anatomy of the Brain'. Willis noticed that the brain tissue was not undifferentiated, as Aristotle thought, but consists of two kinds of substances. First, there is a fleshy, gray mass that forms the outer layer, or cortex, (the inner part of the spinal cord and several discrete centers within the brain). Secondly, there is a fibrous white mass in the other areas. He speculated that this white mass consists of narrow channels whose function is to distribute the "souls" that arise in the gray mass. In addition, he also accurately described the blood vessels in the brain, which proved that the brain is not a bloodless organ.Other doctors discovered that strokes may develop, and that in case of injuries on one side of the brain, paralysis or loss of feeling on the other side of the body can occur. Yet the brain was not really a topic of interest until around 1800. The German physiologist Franz Josef Gall (1758-1828) played a major role in this.

Gall confirmed and developed many of Willis' basic ideas about gray and white matter. He showed that the two halves of the brain are linked by stalks of white matter called commissures, and that other, narrower pieces of white fibers connect the two brain halves to connect the opposite sides of the spinal cord. This helped explain why damage on one side of the brain can lead to paralysis on the other side of the body. He also showed that the brain is in fact the center for higher mental activity (by describing that animals with a larger brain tend to exhibit more complex, flexible and intelligent behavior). Gall's anatomical findings formed the basis for the later discovery that the brain and spinal cord consisted of billions of neurons,to stand. Neurons are connected by dendrites, which receive signals from other neurons via axons. Axons cluster together to form the white matter, while the cell bodies and dendrites form the gray matter. Gall was also the first comparative brain anatomist. He discovered that higher mental functions correlate with the size and health of the brain in question, and in particular of the cortex (outer layer of the brain). So animals with larger brains show more complex, flexible and intelligent behavior. This confirmed once and for all that the brain is indeed the center of higher mental activity.Gall was also the first comparative brain anatomist. He discovered that higher mental functions correlate with the size and health of the brain in question, and in particular of the cortex (outer layer of the brain). So animals with larger brains show more complex, flexible and intelligent behavior. This confirmed once and for all that the brain is indeed the center of higher mental activity.Gall was also the first comparative brain anatomist. He discovered that higher mental functions correlate with the size and health of the brain in question, and in particular of the cortex (outer layer of the brain). So animals with larger brains show more complex, flexible and intelligent behavior. This confirmed once and for all that the brain is indeed the center of higher mental activity.

His ideas also led to the emergence of phrenology (literally: the science of the mind) and physiology (reading the character of a person through his or her physical characteristics). According to phrenology, predisposition and character are determined by the growth of certain parts of the brain. According to Gall, specific parts of the brain were associated with specific functions, also called faculties. If one of these parts were large and well developed, the specific function should also be strong. In this way, Gall identified parts of the brain that were responsible for, for example, lust, greed and benevolence. Gall therefore sought agreement between certain lumps in the brain and the psychological characteristics of the people who had these lumps / protrusions. Phrenology became very popular,but was not taken seriously by strict scientists. The art of physiognomy, reading someone's character in his or her physical characteristics, was effectively promoted during the 1770s by Johann Kaspar Lavatar (1741-1801), and remained popular during the 1800s. Gall's theory proved to be weak by three factors. First, Gall incorrectly assumed that the shape of the skull reflects the shape of the brain. Secondly, the faculty solution was too simple. There was no adequate classification of psychological features in phrenology, which meant that attempts to localize those features in the brain were doomed. Finally, the methods used to test the hypotheses were very poor. Gall never denied that his theory was fully based on observation. That means, however, that the observations,and thus the theory, unfortunately due to selectivity and arbitrariness are less valuable. There was a lot of criticism of Gall's theories. Pierre Flourens (1794-186) was one of the scientists who disagreed with a number of Gall's specific hypotheses. Flourens' research lay at the root of a classic controversy about the nature of the brain that is still alive today.

Who was Flourens?

After Flourens graduated at the age of nineteen, published his first scientific article and moved to Paris, he became the protege of Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), who was known as the "dictator of biology". Flourens examined the functions of the brain through experiments. For this he used the technique of removal, whereby specific small parts of the brain of a test animal were surgically removed. Thereafter, the subsequent changes in the behavior and functioning of the animal were observed. For example, he could state that the removed part is normally involved in producing that function which is not forthcoming. Flourens tested the hypotheses of Gall by removing brain areas associated with specific phrenological faculties.Gall's theory that the cerebellum is linked to sexual arousal was dismissed by examining, on the basis of an experiment, that the cerebellum is indeed the center of a specific function, but this function was to assist in discrete movements. Flourens also carried out removal experiments with the cortex. After removing the entire cortex from a bird, he stated that this animal lost its will, its ability to become conscious. He also made the observation that every piece of the cortex, regardless of how large it is, is linked to many cortical regions at the same time, producing a general effect. According to Flourens, his results wiped Gall's phrenology. according to Flourens, all separate functions were divided within each organ,so there were not many different specific organs within the cortex, as Gall claimed. In that case a removal of a small part of the cortex should lead to a more specific effect than was currently the case. He also noted that sometimes defects that have arisen because something has been removed, improve over time. This happened especially when the animal was young and the removal was small. This suggested that intact parts of the brain might take over the function. Finally, he saw collaboration and communication between the cerebellum and the cortex. Actions that arise from the 'will' of the cortex had to be combined and integrated by the cerebellum. The loss of coordination caused by damage to the cerebellum must be compensated by voluntary reactions in the cortex.

In the book of the English author Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) a number of stories are described in which the link is made between language and an organ for verbal memory. Despite Flourens' attack on phrenology, the hypothesis of Gall was kept alive by his former student Jean Babtiste Bouillaud (1796-1881) by publishing all the evidence he could find about the area that governs language in the frontal regions of the cortex. Nobody, except his son-in-law doctor Ernest Aubertin (1825-1893), took him seriously. Aubertin found a patient with symptoms that confirmed Bouillaud's theory.

A patient with similar symptoms as Aubertin's patient came into the practice of Paul Broca (1824-1880) five days later, thus quickly forgetting Aubertin's story. Paul Broca was head of surgery at a hospital in Paris. He was interested in variations in skulls between people, and had invented various instruments to measure them. The patient who was brought in to him could only say "tan" when he wished to speak when he was angry. This gave him his nickname, Tan. Ten years after Tan's speech loss, his right arm and leg became paralyzed. He was also blinded and confined to bed. When Tan died, Broca did an autopsy on his brain and saw a damage, very close to the area that Gall called the 'organ of the verbal memory'.Although this can not be proven, it is plausible that Tan's speech problem was caused by progressive brain deterioration starting in this area. Broca collected more patients with speech loss, to have stronger evidence for his finding. Although the degree of brain damage was different, it usually came from the same area in the frontal lobe. A surprising discovery is that right-handed patients usually have a damage that has developed on the left side of the brain. This crucial area became known as the area of ​​Broca. The weakness in speech due to damage was later called aphasia. Broca was also known for promoting the idea that difference in brain size correlates positively with difference in intelligence.He also stated that European men are superior (because they have a larger average brain size) to women and to men with a different ethnic background.

In 1870, the Germans Gustav Fritsch (1837-1927) and Eduard Hitzig (1838-1907) had the idea that the brain might not be a completely insensitive organ, as Aristotle had thought. According to them, it could therefore respond to direct electrical stimulation. Through electrical stimulation at specific locations of a certain area in the brain, now known as the motor strip, specific movements on the other side of the body are elicited. In 1870 they stimulated the cortex of a dog electrically, so they discovered the motor projection area.

David Ferrier (1843-1928) showed that the occipital cortex contains a visual area. He also discovered an auditory area in the temporal lobe and a strip directly behind the motor strip that controls the sensory functions for the same parts of the body. Removal of this sensory strip causes loss of sensitivity in specific parts of the body, while removal of the adjacent part of the motor strip causes paralysis. Based on this, the brain receives sensory information from different sensory centers, after which it is stored in the surrounding areas. Thus, visual memories are presumably stored in specific areas around the visual area and auditory memories around the auditory area.These localized memories are thought to be linked to another area by means of fibers and white matter. Brain areas with a lot of white matter were called association areas. It was thought that the frontal lobe contained the large association area responsible for the superiority of people over other animals in thought and intelligence.

What was the influence of Wernicke?

The German Carl Wernicke (1848-1905) remarked that the area of ​​Broca was directly in front of the part of the engine strip that is responsible for movement of the mouth, tongue and face. This would therefore mean that damage in only the area of ​​Broca should not influence the physical ability to speak, which was the case with Tan and Jonathan Swift. Wernicke described a group of ten patients who had a different kind of language disorder. This he called sensory aphasia, in contrast to Broca's motor aphasia. These patients could speak fluently with a correct syntax, but their understanding of spoken language was limited, and their speech was marked by several peculiar words and wrong statements which he called paraphrases.

Wernicke showed that the patients with sensory aphasia damage a part of the left temporal lobe, close to the auditory area. This is also the area where the auditory memory for words should theoretically be. So they can hear and recognize what has been said but can not remember what the words mean. When the area of ​​Broca remains intact, they also retain the motor memories of words that are needed to give fluent spoken responses. But because they do not understand what has been said to them, their reactions are bizarre to the listener. These patients were previously often misdiagnosed for psychological mental illnesses, for example psychosis. The brain area that causes sensory aphasia became known as Wernicke's area.The concepts of motor aphasia and sensory aphasia are still used, but are sometimes called Broca's aphasia and Wernicke's aphasia.

Wernicke discovered another type of aphasia alongside. Between the motor area of ​​Broca and the sensory speech memory in Wernicke's area, according to Wernicke, there are association fibers that link these two areas. This connection enables silent regulation and correction of your own speech. When these association fibers become damaged, while the area of ​​Broca and the area of ​​Wernicke remain intact, there is a condition that Wernicke calls conduction aphasia. This is characterized by paraphasia through the loss of self-control, but there is an unharmed concept and general fluency. This is a relatively mild condition, which means it can often go unnoticed. These patients can not repeat words that have been said to them.From that moment on, other scientists also followed Wernicke's theories and no longer searched for the higher levels of 'faculties' in the brain. Instead, they strove to demonstrate how complex psychological processes are created by the basic elements of sensations, movements. They also tried to trace the memory.

In 1902, the American Stepherd Ivory Franz (1874-1933) published a study on the effects of cortical removal in cats that had previously been trained in escaping from the 'puzzle box'. This study was very much in Flourens' tradition - except that he did not look at generalized effects of removal, but at the effects on a specific, learned response. Franz was interested in the effects on specific, learned reactions. His innovation was to combine the removal with the training of animals. The study found localization of only a high general type, where damage to the frontal cortex caused the reactions to be lost, while this did not happen with damage elsewhere.In addition, Franz found that the animals whose frontal lobe had been removed were able to quickly and easily learn to escape again. This led to Franz questioning the localization theory and returning to the idea of ​​Flourens that the brain functions as a whole. Franz stayed in the hospital for a long time and remained very impressed by the plasticity and flexibility of the brain. He saw that patients who lose their functionality due to brain damage can sometimes partially or completely restore these functions, especially in young patients.Franz stayed in the hospital for a long time and remained very impressed by the plasticity and flexibility of the brain. He saw that patients who lose their functionality due to brain damage can sometimes partially or completely restore these functions, especially in young patients.Franz stayed in the hospital for a long time and remained very impressed by the plasticity and flexibility of the brain. He saw that patients who lose their functionality due to brain damage can sometimes partially or completely restore these functions, especially in young patients.

In 1915 Franz got a colleague named Karl Spencer Lashley (1890-1958), who was friends with John. B. Watson (1878-1958). Franz and Lashley experimented on white rats that were trained in mazes and removed various parts of the brain. They only looked at strictly observable and objective behavior. Animals like white rats were favorite subjects because they can be easily observed, their environment can be controlled, and they do not show subjective reactions. Lashley described his findings in the book 'Brain Mechanisms and Intelligence' in 1929. In this he concluded that the memory seemed to penetrate the entire cortex and was not selectively localized. Where Broca, Ferrier and Wernicke revitalize Gall's memory and previous localizations,Lashley fell back on Flourens and the action commune (communication) of the brain. Lashley contributed to two new terms that Flourens would undoubtedly have approved. First, he stated that the brain is remarkably good in equipotentiality, which he explained as "the apparent ability of every intact part of a functional brain to perform ... the (memory) functions that are lost by the destruction of (other) parts). "In other words, this means that the brain has such neural plasticity that when parts become damaged, other parts can take over the same functions. But the equipotentiality of the brain can sometimes be compensated by the law of mass action, "where the efficiency of the performance of a very complex function can be reduced in accordance with the degree of brain injury. "In simple terms, this means that the greater the brain damage, the less chance of equipotentiality.

Some successors of Lashley found his theory too simple. Criticism of Lashley is that a rat associates several different stimuli (such as touch, smell, hearing and vision) with the "right" motoric reactions. So, there are multiple connections at different locations in the brain for a single act; that of solving a maze. Damage to a small part of the brain can therefore only remove a few compounds, as a result of which it only has a small effect on the overall learning. This so-called redundancy hypothesis provides a similar explanation, suggesting that each individual memory is stored in multiple locations in the cortex. This number of locations is larger if the memory is better established and is more closely associated with other memories.Deleting a part of the brain area will therefore remove part of, but not all of the specific memory. It is certain that every final solution to this problem must take into account a number of very non-behaviorist experiments, including the electrical stimulation of the conscious human brain.

The doctor Roberts Bartholow (1831-1904) had a female patient in whom a part of the brain was visible through an opening in her skull. Bartholow thought it was possible to penetrate her cerebral mass with thin needles. He attached the needles to an electricity supply of moderate strength and stimulated the exposed area. When the needle went deeper she complained of an unpleasant tingling in her arm. Her condition became worse after the experiment and she died before Bartholow could repeat the experiment. He examined her brain after her death and concluded that she should not have died because of his experiment, but because of the expansion of her cancer. However, it caused a lot of uproar.

How did Penfield treat Epilepsy?

Wilder Penfield (1891-1976) started searching for new surgical treatments for epilepsy in 1930. He knew that epilepsy was caused by abnormal activation of cerebral neurons. This activation starts on a narrow 'focus' after which it spreads over ever larger areas of the brain. When it spreads too far, the patient loses his consciousness and gets convulsions. Just before these convulsions take place, patients regularly experience peculiar subjective warning signals, which are also called auras. Penfield thought the auras were the result of a previous activation on that focus before it spreads. He also thought that the specific content of an aura might depend on the location of the focus.By means of electrodes he could identify and remove the brain areas in which auras were caused. He saw these areas responsible for epilepsy. Often, the result of the removal was that the patient, for example, suffered from aphasia, because the area was next to a language area. Most patients also suffered less from epilepsy after the operation. His experiments also provided a lot of information about the localization of functions in general. Penfield stimulated many normal areas of the cortex during the search for auras, and the effects in healthy individuals were quenching. By stimulating the motor strip patients experienced involuntary movements on the other side of their body. Stimulation of the sensory strip caused tingling,vibrate or press in different parts of their body. Stimulating the visual area produced light flashes, color and abstract patterns, while stimulation in the auditory area resulted in clicking, humming, chirping, drumming, and other sounds. Surprisingly, when Penfield stimulated the area around mainly the visual and auditory area, patients experienced full visual or auditory hallucinations.

Stimulating the temporal lobe yielded the most surprising effects. Here he found what he called the interpretive cortex, a temporal area whose stimulation produced two kinds of physical responses. First of all, these were interpretative responses, in which patients suddenly and unexpectedly saw their immediate situations in new light. Depending on the precise location in the brain, these feelings could be a déjà vu, a euphoric feeling or fear. He also showed that very specific emotional and orientating attitudes are localized in the brain, just as sensations and movements are. Secondly, with this stimulation he found experiential responses, such as hallucinatory 'dreams' or 'flashbacks' or real events from the past, these are often very commonplace.In contrast to normal 'memories', these scenes were vividly subjective, and were not only experienced in thought. Penfield had a hard time seeing these experiences as 'memories', first of all because his patients saw their experiential responses as qualitatively different from their normal memories. Thus, the normal functioning of memory had to involve something other than the specific stimulation of neurons that in this case are artificially produced by Penfield. He personally thought that the electrical stimulation and the abnormal epileptic discharges both inhibit the normal functioning of the neurons in question instead of activating them.Penfield had a hard time seeing these experiences as 'memories', first of all because his patients saw their experiential responses as qualitatively different from their normal memories. Thus, the normal functioning of memory had to involve something other than the specific stimulation of neurons that in this case are artificially produced by Penfield. He personally thought that the electrical stimulation and the abnormal epileptic discharges both inhibit the normal functioning of the neurons in question instead of activating them.Penfield had a hard time seeing these experiences as 'memories', first of all because his patients saw their experiential responses as qualitatively different from their normal memories. Thus, the normal functioning of memory had to involve something other than the specific stimulation of neurons that in this case are artificially produced by Penfield. He personally thought that the electrical stimulation and the abnormal epileptic discharges both inhibit the normal functioning of the neurons in question instead of activating them.the normal functioning of the memory had to bring something different than the specific stimulation of neurons that in this case are artificially produced by Penfield. He personally thought that the electrical stimulation and the abnormal epileptic discharges both inhibit the normal functioning of the neurons in question instead of activating them.the normal functioning of the memory had to bring something different than the specific stimulation of neurons that in this case are artificially produced by Penfield. He personally thought that the electrical stimulation and the abnormal epileptic discharges both inhibit the normal functioning of the neurons in question instead of activating them.

Who was Brenda Milner?

Brenda Milner (born in 1918) met Donald O. Hebb (1904-1985) in 1947 at the University of Montréal. Hebb had the design for his book 'The Organization of Behavior', which was finally published in 1949. The book was about related learning and other behavior in the hypothetical functioning of neurological networks in the brain, which he called cell collections. Milner and Penfield became aware in their joint work of the possible importance of the hippocampus in the functioning of the brain.

They observed two cases in which damage to the hippocampus caused memory defects for recent events, and they presented these cases in a paper in 1955. They were then called by Scoville about a patient he had just operated on and who showed similar symptoms of memory loss. Milner then traveled to Connecticut to engage in the phasing of HM, perhaps the most famous case study in the history of memory research. HM had already had small attacks since his tenth, but the attacks were increasing at the age of sixteen. the attacks included biting the tongue, incontinence, convulsions and loss of consciousness. At the age of 27, HM was completely disabled.They decided to perform a brain operation in which large parts of the hippocampus and surrounding tissue were removed from both sides. The patient was relieved of his attacks, but experienced serious defects in his memory. He could no longer remember new memories, events or experiences. He could not forward the information from his working memory to the long-term memory. They found a number of other patients to confirm their findings. The larger the part of the hippocampus that was removed, the more serious the memory loss was. They concluded that the ability to form recent memories is in this brain region. The perception of HM remained largely unchanged. Milner provided evidence for two separate memory processes,one is a mainly mental process with rapid blurring, the other is an overlapping second process in which the storage takes place in the long-term memory. Milner was also able to demonstrate that the deterioration of the patient did not apply to every type of task. This showed that his declarative memory (the ability to remember and to describe something verbal) had deteriorated, but his procedural memory (taking advantage of practicing and repeating newly learned actions) was not. Milner showed that there are different and multiple memory systems.This showed that his declarative memory (the ability to remember and to describe something verbal) had deteriorated, but his procedural memory (taking advantage of practicing and repeating newly learned actions) was not. Milner showed that there are different and multiple memory systems.This showed that his declarative memory (the ability to remember and to describe something verbal) had deteriorated, but his procedural memory (taking advantage of practicing and repeating newly learned actions) was not. Milner showed that there are different and multiple memory systems.

In contrast to what Penfield described earlier, in 1975 he had doubts. Certain elements of experience, especially the conscious desire or decision to do something, or believe in something, were never produced by electrical stimulation or any other mechanical process. Penfield doubted that this could ever happen. He therefore formed the opinion that 'brain' and 'mind' are two independent, yet interacting entities, each with its own separate levels of explanation. He thus came to a dualism that, apart from in detail, was not much different from that of Descartes. Penfield admitted that he could not prove this, and many other neuroscientists would challenge his theory.

What are recent developments?

Despite the disagreement about whether the mind-brain relationship will ever be fully understood and what form of understanding it will take, there is no doubt that these two are forbidden. Today this question still stimulates scientists. Many of the new techniques fall under tomography, the images of objects that are created as sequences of cross-sections / 'slides' by different types of penetrating waves. Among the best-known types of tomography are CT (computed tomography), or 'CAT' scans based on X-rays, and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans, which use radio waves. PET scans are used when the object is under observation of a physiological organ such as the brain.The fMRI (functional MRI) provides images of oxygen in the blood to show neural activity in certain areas of the brain.

At the same time as these technological developments, there was a change in the field of academic psychology, often referred to as the cognitive revolution. Towards the end of the 1970s cognitive psychologist George Miller and neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga came up with the term cognitive neuroscience, to indicate a new interdisciplinary field. This happened and was assisted by PET studies of brain activity during different states of attention and memory, which were done by the psychologist Michael Posner and neurologist Marcus Raichle in 1980. The psychologist Stephen Kosslyn used the fMRI techniques to show that the brain processes are accompanied through mental imagination. That is not united or localized in a single area,but takes place in different areas. Each area is responsible for different aspects of this imagination process.

Scientists began to merge their ideas about how the brain processes social information. They brought this together under the term social neuroscience. Their goal is to explore underlying neural mechanisms of social thought and behavior. The Social Neuroscience and Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience magazines started to publish in this area. The American Psychological Association declared 2000-2010 the 'decade of behavior'.

The sensing and perceptive mind: what developments took place in this area in the period between Kant and the Gestalt psychologists? - Chapter 4

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) became known by what he called 'my dogmatic slumber'. He was trained in the Leibnitzian tradition and had written before on subjects such as the origin of God and the difference between absolute and relative space. Now he was stimulated by one of John Locke's successors to start 'critical philosophy', which ultimately led to subtle but crucial changes in how Germany thought about mankind and nature until then.

What is Kant's background?

It was the Scot David Hume who made Kant feel inspired to bring empiricism and associationism to an extreme. In addition, he began to question the logical status of the causal relationship (the intuitive belief that certain events are directly "caused" by certain other prior events).

A cause was assumed, which implies a necessary successive relationship between certain prior circumstances and subsequent events. This also suggests that we directly attribute causality when we observe events. Hume, however, questioned this assumption. He states that 'causality' is nothing more than that we expect that events that took place in a certain way in the past will also occur again in the future. The supposed connection between the events has never been directly observed, so causality only has a probable rather than an absolute basis. From a practical point of view, these considerations make no difference. People thrive best in the real world by anticipating regularities in nature,whether this causality is real or accepted. For a philosopher like Kant, who was concerned with the essential nature of human knowledge, this matter was crucial.

Kant responded to this challenge with a simple but revolutionary variant of the nativist argument. He argued that because it could not be proven that causality exists in the external world, it nevertheless seems to be an inevitable part of our experience. Therefore, according to him, it will be an innate quality in our minds. He assumed two separate domains of reality, one completely within the human mind and one completely out of it. The external or noumenal world consists of things-in-itself: objects in a pure state of independence from the human experience. Despite the assumption that the object exists and that it interacts with the human mind, the noumenal world can never be seen immediately. When this object encounters the human spirit,it is transformed by that mind into the inner or phenomenal world (phenomenal world). The term phenomenal comes from the Greek phainomenon, which means 'appearance', and Kant's argument that people never directly experience the true reality of things-in-themselves. Instead, they experience a number of 'appearances' or 'phenomena', which are the creation of an active mind that experiences the noumenal world.who are the creation of an active spirit that experiences the noumenal world.who are the creation of an active spirit that experiences the noumenal world.

To create this phenomenal world, the Kantian spirit inevitably follows certain rules. For example, the mind locates the phenomenon in space and time, these dimensions are called intuitions by Kant. Kant also stated that the mind automatically organizes phenomena in twelve categories, based on their quality, quantity, relationships and manner. The concept of causality also falls under these categories of relationships. Thus, human beings inevitably experience the world as organized in time and space, and as active according to causal laws. This does not happen because the noumenal world is necessary or 'real', but because the mind can do nothing but structure the phenomenal experience in this way. He described the consequences of his critical philosophy in a series of books between 1781 and 1798, starting with the 'Critique of Pure Reason 'and concluding with' Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View '

Ironically, Kant emphasized the importance of studying the organization of the mind, but at the same time he also claimed that this study could never be a real science like physics. Kant assumed that mental phenomena, in contrast to the physical objects examined by physiological scientists, (1) have no spatial dimension, (2) are too volatile to hold for persistent observations, (3) can not be manipulated experimentally and possibly most important of all, (4) can not be arithmetically described or analyzed. For these reasons Kant thought that psychology should always remain a philosophical rather than a scientific discipline.

In the century after Kant, there were a number of scientists who seriously studied the human sensory processes, focusing on many situations where conscious experience is clearly different from the objective external stimuli that lead to the experience. In the footsteps of Kant's philosophy, these changes seemed to be interpretable as the effects of an active, creative mediator. the simplest and most obvious of these situations are optical illusions, of which a person's conscious impression of a visual stimulus is clearly different from the 'objective' characteristics of the stimulus. In a similar line of research, neurophysiologists discovered a law of specific nerve energies early in the nineteenth century.This law states that every sensory nerve in the body transmits only one kind of sensation. This was first of all appointed by Charles Bell (1774-1842), and further elaborated in 1830 by Johannes Müller (1801-1858). A simple experiment shows the visual specificity of the optic nerve, which is directed to the brain from the retina in the back of the og. In normal vision, the optic nerve is stimulated by photochemical reactions of light on the retina, and transmits signals to the brain that result in conscious visual sensations of light. However, if you turn your eyes to the right as far as you can, close your eyes, and gently push the left side of your left eye ball, you will see a colored light on the right side of your visual field.You have stimulated your retina and thus the optic nerve with tactile pressure instead of the normal light rays, but the effect is still visual. You have literally seen the pressure on your eyeball, because the optic nerve can only transmit visual sensations. The same specificity also applies to the other sensory nerves. Furthermore, scientists have increasingly shown the usefulness of conceptualizing the physical world as consisting of different forces, waves, and energies. These, like Kant's things-an-sich, are not perceptible with the senses.Furthermore, scientists have increasingly shown the usefulness of conceptualizing the physical world as consisting of different forces, waves, and energies. These, like Kant's things-an-sich, are not perceptible with the senses.Furthermore, scientists have increasingly shown the usefulness of conceptualizing the physical world as consisting of different forces, waves, and energies. These, like Kant's things-an-sich, are not perceptible with the senses.

Who was Hermann Helmholtz (1821-1894)?

Hermann Helmholtz (1821-1894) and Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887) investigated and discovered relationships between new measurable aspects of the physical world and the way in which they are consciously experienced. Fechner laid the foundation for an arithmetic-based experimental psychology by investigating how differences in the physical intensities of stimulation are perceived psychologically. Fechner's law implies that an increase in the physical intensity of a stimulus leads to a greater increase in psychological intensity of the sensation. Early in the twentieth century, a group was formed called the Gestalt psychologists. They showed other ways in which an active and creative mind forms the important aspects of a conscious perceptual experience.

Helmholtz was born near Berlin. He was admitted to a medical school when he was seventeen, despite the fact that he was more interested in physics. During the second year of his studies he began studying physiology with Johannes Müller. He also became friends with a brilliant group of fellow students, including Emil du Bois-Reymond, who later worked with Helmholtz to discover the physical nature of the nerve impulse. Even with his respect for physics, Müller still held on to vitalism. Vitalism assumes that all living organisms are infused with an indescribable 'life force'. This vitality gives them their vitality, which is not analysable by scientific methods.Belief in vitalism suggests that there is a limitation in the possible scientific understanding of physiological processes, because it is plausible that the life force itself is beyond the reach of the scientific analyzes. Helmholtz and his friends respected their teacher, but refused to accept his implicit limitation of science. For them, the use of the physical principles in physiology yields so much that it seemed to them stupid to place some restrictions in this approach. They denounced vitalism, and adopted the physiological mechanism.but refused to accept his implicit limitation of science. For them, the use of the physical principles in physiology yields so much that it seemed to them stupid to place some restrictions in this approach. They denounced vitalism, and adopted the physiological mechanism.but refused to accept his implicit limitation of science. For them, the use of the physical principles in physiology yields so much that it seemed to them stupid to place some restrictions in this approach. They denounced vitalism, and adopted the physiological mechanism.

What is the physiological mechanism?

The physiological mechanism states that it is possible to understand all physiological processes in terms of everyday physical and chemical principles. Müller only disagreed with his students in his assumption that at some point there would be a limit to the mechanism when the life force comes into the picture. At the age of 21, Helmholtz obtained his medical title and started his military obligation. He became a surgeon in the army, but left enough time to build a small laboratory in the barracks where he studied metabolic processes in frogs. Helmholtz showed on the basis of this research that everyday chemical reactions are capable of producing (not necessarily actually doing) all physical activities and heat generation within a living organism.In 1847, the idea of ​​conservation of energy came into being, meaning that all kinds of forces in the universe are possibly interchangeable forms of a single large reservoir of energy that is not variable in quantity. Energy can be transformed from one form into another, but it can never be created or destroyed by a physical process. The total amount of energy in the universe is constant.

The government saw how brilliant Helmholtz was, and shortened his military obligation. In 1849 he was appointed professor of physiology at the university in Königsberg. He did a study here about the speed of a sea signal. His friend Bois-Reymond had already speculated that the nerve signal could be an electrochemical signal traveling through the nerve at a slower pace than anyone had ever imagined. Helmholtz then thought it was slow enough to be observed in the laboratory. To test this idea, he designed an ingenious device with the needle of a galvanometer to measure smaller units of time than had previously been possible. He examined this in the frog's leg, with an electrode running a stream of song through the paw.The bending of the leg would then turn off the electricity. This was measured by his device. He discovered that the elapsed time was measurably longer when the electricity was applied to points of the leg that were further away from the foot: extra time because the nerve impulse had to travel further. He then also investigated this in people. He did one of the first studies of variations in reaction time: the measured time between the presentation of a stimulus and a specific response. At first, many scientists did not see the value of Helmholtz's work because of his dense literary style. So it was difficult to understand. In addition, some things were too surprising to be easily believed, so scientists from that time did not believe it quickly. Hemlholtz 's ideas were gradually accepted more and more.

Helmholtz tries to describe all available knowledge about the senses of sight and hearing in Handbook of Physiological Optics (1856-1866) and The Theory of the Sensation of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music (1863). He approached both senses with a similar strategy, which is explained with his treatment of vision. He began by dividing his general subject into primary physical, physiological, and psychological categories, while keeping in mind that these are related. The physical studies saw the eye as an optical instrument. These studies examined the process whereby light from the external world is transformed into an image on the retina. The physiological analyzes were mainly about the problem of how an image of the retina is converted into signals in the brain,resulting in conscious sensations of light. The psychological analyzes went a lot further, by wondering how sensations of light are converted into meaningful perceptions of discrete objects and events. There is a difference between sensation and perception, according to Helmholtz. Sensations are the 'raw elements' of conscious experiences, in which no previous experiences or learning processes are required. Perceptions, on the other hand, are the meaningful interpretations of sensations.where no prior experiences or learning processes are required. Perceptions, on the other hand, are the meaningful interpretations of sensations.where no prior experiences or learning processes are required. Perceptions, on the other hand, are the meaningful interpretations of sensations.

On page 146, an image explains how the eye works. The field of the eye with maximum sharpness is very narrow, namely only that part of the image that falls within a small section of the retina. This section is known as the fovea. Everything outside this area is vague. However, we do not notice this because the eye has the possibility to 'scan' the environment, whereby the focus shifts quickly and flexibly between one part of the visual field to another. Helmholtz observed even more 'defects' in the optical properties of the eye. For example, colors are not perfectly reproduced on the retina,because the liquid in the eyeball is not perfectly colorless and because the lens breaks the relatively longer wavelength of the red light less than the shorter wavelength of blue-violet at the end of the spectrum.

An imperfect tuning of refractive surfaces, known as astigmatism, deforms images in the eyes, but this happens to a very different degree. Possibly the most dramatic defect of all is the blind spot, which arises because a small part of the retina, where the optic nerves leave the eye, does not have light-sensitive cells. Helmholtz stated that the recorded image of the external 'reality' on the retina is not a perfect reproduction of the external stimulus. The abovementioned changes and disturbances have an inevitable influence and on a psychological level transformations and disturbances are further increased. Helmholtz illustrates this fact on the basis of his influential treatment of the subject of color vision.

How does seeing colors work?

Isaac Newton discovered through a solar spectrum that the 'white' light of the sun is more complicated than it seems. He stated that the different colors of the spectrum represent the light of different wavelengths and that the white light of the sun consists of all these wavelengths mixed together. When sunlight passes through a prism, shorter waves become more broken than longer ones. Something similar happens when sunlight comes alongside water and produces a rainbow. Experiments with mixing colors, showing that the true situation is more complex, also showed that the visual sense sometimes responds to mixes of wavelengths. This is done in exactly the same way as with individual spectrum colors. Thus, very different physical stimuli can produce identical conscious sensations of color.

Several scientists have investigated the mixing of colors, which in 1855 was described most extensively by the Scot James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879). Multiple pairs of complementary colors were identified. These are pairs of spectrum colors that, by mixing, create a sensation of white light that can not be distinguished from sunlight. The colors red, green and blue-violet are therefore called the primary colors. This phenomenon can be explained by the fact that the retina contains three different types of recipient cells, each of which reacts strongly to light waves from one of these three primary colors. When it comes to sensory signals sent via the nerves, Müller assumed a specific type (visual, auditory, tangible, etc.) and a specific quality (red, green or blue-violet).Because the English scientist Thomas Young (1773-1829) had proposed a similar idea, this was named as the Young-Helmholtz trichromatic theory.

According to the theory, one type of receptor is strongly stimulated when a spectrum of red, green or blue-violet falls on the retina, resulting in a sensation of a 'pure' primary color. When, for example, red and green are stimulated, orange or yellow is created. All three together lead to white. Colors were therefore now seen more as products of human sensory systems than as properties of physical reality.

How does visual perception work?

Helmholtz did not entirely agree with Kant about perception. Sensations that are interpreted during the perceptual process undergo further transformations in the Kantian 'spirit'. Sometimes the mind causes the perception to contradict reality, as with optical illusions. The mind then makes a false interpretation of the visual sensation. The discussion is about the origin of the perceptual processes (including those involved in illusions). It is a discussion of the nativist versus empiricist. According to Kant, spatial perception is mainly determined by innate intuitions. Helmholtz stated that experience and learning are more important in perception. He demonstrated perceptual adaptation in his experiments, which he believed to be the result of a process he called unconscious inference.

A classical series of experiments showed how spatial perception can be changed through experience. Helmholtz set up spectacles with participants, which systematically disrupted the visual field by moving the images of objects a few degrees to the right of their normal location. When subjects were asked to look at an object, then close their eyes and reach for the object to touch it, their first reactions were to the right - direction the apparent rather than the real location. However, if they were given a few minutes to touch objects while looking through the glasses, perceptual adaptation took place. First the participants had to give themselves the assignment to consciously place their hands to the left of the apparent objects they saw, but this action soon became natural,automatically and unconsciously. When the glasses were removed again, they made mistakes again, but now to the left instead of the right side. The perceptual adaptation had become so complete and automatic that it took a minute or two for the weather to be restored. A visual experience, such as the manipulation of objects while wearing glasses that distort vision, can lead to the unconscious use of certain rules that operate according to the main assumptions in logical syllogisms. For example, a main theorem can be: The size of the image of an object varies inversely with its distance from the eye. The second proposition is then: The size of the image of a ball is getting smaller at the moment. The conclusion is then that the ball moves away.The difference between perception and syllogistic reasoning lies in the fact that perception arises immediately and effortlessly, while the elaboration of a syllogism can be laborious and time-consuming. This difference is possible because the most important starting point of a perception is learned as well as automatically and unconsciously. As syllogisms can lead to false conclusions, unconscious inferences can sometimes lead to erroneous perceptions, such as optical illusions.thus, unconscious inferences can sometimes also lead to erroneous perceptions, such as optical illusions.thus, unconscious inferences can sometimes also lead to erroneous perceptions, such as optical illusions.

What did Helmholtz leave behind?

In 1871 he was appointed professor of physics at the University of Berlin. From that moment on his research was mainly about thermodynamics, meteorology and electromagnetism. After his death in 1894 he was seen as one of the most respected scientist. Helmholtz, however, was also one of the pioneers in psychology for two reasons. First, he showed how neurological processes that underlie mental functions could be studied in the laboratory. Secondly, he helped develop a scientific concept of the Kantian spirit with his integrated physical, physiological and psychological study of seeing and hearing. Many of his ideas are still accepted today.However, it is now accepted that processing of color does not end with the retina. His contemporary Ewald Hering emphasized the importance of color afterimages. For example, if you look at a red stimulus and then turn your gaze away to a neutral colored background, you see an after-image of the same stimulus, only in the complementary color blue-green. The extreme empiricism of Helmholtz was challenged by Eleanor Jack Gibson (1910-2002) and her colleague Walk. Babies are born with the innate ability to stand up and walk, and not to fall over steep slopes. Likewise, human babies systematically avoid walking or crawling over platforms without visible ground.For example, if you look at a red stimulus and then turn your gaze away to a neutral colored background, you see an after-image of the same stimulus, only in the complementary color blue-green. The extreme empiricism of Helmholtz was challenged by Eleanor Jack Gibson (1910-2002) and her colleague Walk. Babies are born with the innate ability to stand up and walk, and not to fall over steep slopes. Likewise, human babies systematically avoid walking or crawling over platforms without visible ground.For example, if you look at a red stimulus and then turn your gaze away to a neutral colored background, you see an after-image of the same stimulus, only in the complementary color blue-green. The extreme empiricism of Helmholtz was challenged by Eleanor Jack Gibson (1910-2002) and her colleague Walk. Babies are born with the innate ability to stand up and walk, and not to fall over steep slopes. Likewise, human babies systematically avoid walking or crawling over platforms without visible ground.Babies are born with the innate ability to stand up and walk, and not to fall over steep slopes. Likewise, human babies systematically avoid walking or crawling over platforms without visible ground.Babies are born with the innate ability to stand up and walk, and not to fall over steep slopes. Likewise, human babies systematically avoid walking or crawling over platforms without visible ground.

What did Fechner write about psychophysics?

Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887), like Helmholtz, began with a broad interest in physics and physiology, and then in psychology through the relationship between external physical reality and a person's conscious phenomenal experience of that reality. Both men worked on the same problem, but did so in a different way and with a different reason. Fechner was born in Germany. His father and grandfather were both pastors and when his father died, he went to live with an uncle. His father appreciated both science and religion. Fechner grew up with strong philosophical and religious interests but did not want to follow the family tradition. He started a medical education in Leipzig at the age of sixteen, but never started a practice when he was finished. He began translating French textbooks on physics and chemistry. He learned so much,and started his own research into electricity, making him a professor of physics at the University of Leipzig in 1824. In 1833 he was a professor of physics. Fechner also studied the philosophy of nature, a bit of a mystical, semi-scientific movement that was popular in Germany at the time. This movement saw the entire universe as an organic entity with consciousness and other animal functions. When someone died, his individual consciousness became one with the consciousness of the entire universe. Fechner saw this movement as an antidote to materialism. He appreciated the scientific power of mechanistic analysis, but also felt oppressed by its implications. He found it a depressing doctrine. Fechner became obsessed with the question of whether nature or the world has a soul.He had two different answers to this. Fechner spoke of Tagesansicht and Nachtansicht. 'Nachtansicht' was the mechanical version of the world view, with the universe as a dead machine and where life and consciousness were only side effects. The 'Tagansicht' concerned the animated version of the world view and thus described the universe as a place where consciousness played a major role. The mechanical laws described in this perspective only a part of the whole. Years ago, Fechner fought a mental war between his day and night image. In 1839 he got a serious eye condition, and emotional and philosophical factors worsened the situation. He became a complete invalid, and often could not speak or eat. He withdrew from his professorship. He slowly solved his eating problem,after a mystical advice to only consume mar fruit, ham and wine. In 1850 he suddenly had an idea while he was meditating in bed, bringing him back to the scientific world, and was given a position as one of the fathers of modern experimental psychology. He reflected on the relationship between the material and mental worlds, as did Helmholtz. But while Helmholtz emphasized the differences between these worlds and wrote about the imperfections of the eye as an optical instrument and the incongruences imposed by the color sensation apparatus, Fechner saw the harmony between the physical and mental world.through which he returned to the scientific world, and gained a position as one of the fathers of modern experimental psychology. He reflected on the relationship between the material and mental worlds, as did Helmholtz. But while Helmholtz emphasized the differences between these worlds and wrote about the imperfections of the eye as an optical instrument and the incongruences imposed by the color sensation apparatus, Fechner saw the harmony between the physical and mental world.through which he returned to the scientific world, and gained a position as one of the fathers of modern experimental psychology. He reflected on the relationship between the material and mental worlds, as did Helmholtz. But while Helmholtz emphasized the differences between these worlds and wrote about the imperfections of the eye as an optical instrument and the incongruences imposed by the color sensation apparatus, Fechner saw the harmony between the physical and mental world.But while Helmholtz emphasized the differences between these worlds and wrote about the imperfections of the eye as an optical instrument and the incongruences imposed by the color sensation apparatus, Fechner saw the harmony between the physical and mental world.But while Helmholtz emphasized the differences between these worlds and wrote about the imperfections of the eye as an optical instrument and the incongruences imposed by the color sensation apparatus, Fechner saw the harmony between the physical and mental world.

Some simple, everyday observations about hearing and seeing can illustrate Fechner's idea. When we hear, we take it for granted that little noise is filtered from a lot of background sound. Just like at sight, when a small light is clearly visible in a dark room, but not in a brightly lit room. These facts indicate that conscious sensations of stimulus intensity do not perfectly reflect the physical reality, because the same stimuli create different impressions of their force under different conditions. These are examples of Kant's point, namely that the sensory system processes impressions and transforms them into consciousness. Fechner thought it would be possible to measure both the sensed and the physical intensities of sensory stimuli,and to determine the mathematical relationship between the two measurements. His intuition told him that this relationship would be harmonious. This was the inspiring idea of ​​what Fechner called psychophysics, the study of the relationships between the objectively measurable intensities of different stimuli and the subjective impressions of these intensities. Fechner's practical problem was how he could measure subjective intensities of stimulation. A few years earlier Weber had the ability of people to distinguish between objects that look the same but have examined different weights. He found that accurate distinction depended on the relative difference in weight. Weber concluded that the 'just noticeable difference'(jnb) for this specific discrimination task - the minimum difference in weight to be able to distinguish them - was always about 0.03. Weber also found this kind of regularity for other types of sensory discrimination. Fechner discovered that the observed relationship between the physical and subjective stimulus intensities for many different senses can be expressed by one general mathematical formula, which claims that the subjective intensity (S) of a stimulus measured in jnd units is always equal to the logarithm of its physical intensity (P) times a constant (k), which varies for each senses but can be determined experimentally. This is called the law of Fechner. In 1860, this law was published in his book 'elements of psychophysics'.Critics pointed to studies that showed that his law was only about right, and did not work for the extremes of high and low sensory intensities. They found that absolute limits differed from person to person, or even within the same person from time to time. Another criticism came from Stevens (1906-1973), who found that for some types of stimulation, the subjective intensities increased faster than the physical intensities - the opposite of what Weber and Fechner emphasized. He came with the law of Stevens. However, this law was only good for the middle range of physical stimulation, and differed per individual and situation.or even within the same person from time to time. Another criticism came from Stevens (1906-1973), who found that for some types of stimulation, the subjective intensities increased faster than the physical intensities - the opposite of what Weber and Fechner emphasized. He came with the law of Stevens. However, this law was only good for the middle range of physical stimulation, and differed per individual and situation.or even within the same person from time to time. Another criticism came from Stevens (1906-1973), who found that for some types of stimulation, the subjective intensities increased faster than the physical intensities - the opposite of what Weber and Fechner emphasized. He came with the law of Stevens. However, this law was only good for the middle range of physical stimulation, and differed per individual and situation.and differed per individual and situation.and differed per individual and situation.

What is Gestalt Psychology?

The name Gestalt psychology comes from the German word Gestalt and means 'form'. Gestalt psychology focuses on the ways in which the mind organizes experiences and perceptions in organized units that are more than the sum of the separate parts. Austrian Christian von Ehrenfelds (1859-1932) wrote about certain perceptual 'form qualities' that could not be broken down introspectively into separate sensory elements. Instead, these form qualities resided in the overall composition of objects or ideas. Only around 1910 these Gestalt qualities were explored. Wertheimer (1880-1943), Koffka (1886-1941) and Köhler (1887-1967) brought movement here.

Wertheimer studied the optical illusion of apparent movement: the perception of continuous movement that arises when a succession of still slightly different still images is observed. Wertheimer showed, on the basis of different time intervals between still images, that a minimum interval is required to see that two separate, still images are involved. He called this apparent movement (a simplified form of a film) the phi phenomenon. Wertheimer showed that an observer (when it is randomly confronted with both apparent movement and real movement) could not distinguish one from the other. Both the real and the apparent movement could produce identical negative afterimages:a tendency to see static objects in motion in the opposite direction of the moving object that was observed immediately before. When we observe an actual movement, the light literally sweeps past the retina and falls on all the receiving cells that are in this path. With the phi phenomenon, only the recipient cells, located at the beginning and at the end of this path, are physically illuminated. Movement is thus a property that is possibly assigned to static images by the higher brain processes.at the beginning and at the end of this path, physically illuminated. Movement is thus a property that is possibly assigned to static images by the higher brain processes.at the beginning and at the end of this path, physically illuminated. Movement is thus a property that is possibly assigned to static images by the higher brain processes.

The mind seems to organize the elements of an experience in wholes. Unlike many other scientists, the Gestalt psychologists do not start with the simplest "elements" of their subject, but with these integers. Then they try to describe the functions of the parts that together form the whole. Gestalt psychologists state that perception always takes place within a 'field' in which there is a distinction between the figure and the background. The background is necessary for the figure because it is delineated on this. A figure can not exist without a background. For example, the words on this paper can not be seen (as a figure) without the lighter background of the page. The figure on page 176 shows that you can never see the background and a figure at the same time,whereby the figure (or shape) in your perceptual field constantly changes. Wertheimer, Koffka and Köhler emphasize that perceived figures try to simplify and organize the perceptual fields in which they occur. This happens with more complex combinations of stimuli. These are perceived by consciousness as multiple small groups of stimuli. For example, the figure on page 163 suggests that there are three circles, simplify this and organize the figure. The same applies to auditory information, here too something must be heard against a relatively neutral background. This is done according to the principles of contiguity and resemblance.Koffka and Köhler emphasize that perceived figures try to simplify and organize the perceptual fields in which they occur. This happens with more complex combinations of stimuli. These are perceived by consciousness as multiple small groups of stimuli. For example, the figure on page 163 suggests that there are three circles, simplify this and organize the figure. The same applies to auditory information, here too something must be heard against a relatively neutral background. This is done according to the principles of contiguity and resemblance.Koffka and Köhler emphasize that perceived figures try to simplify and organize the perceptual fields in which they occur. This happens with more complex combinations of stimuli. These are perceived by consciousness as multiple small groups of stimuli. For example, the figure on page 163 suggests that there are three circles, simplify this and organize the figure. The same applies to auditory information, here too something must be heard against a relatively neutral background. This is done according to the principles of contiguity and resemblance.For example, the figure on page 163 suggests that there are three circles, simplify this and organize the figure. The same applies to auditory information, here too something must be heard against a relatively neutral background. This is done according to the principles of contiguity and resemblance.For example, the figure on page 163 suggests that there are three circles, simplify this and organize the figure. The same applies to auditory information, here too something must be heard against a relatively neutral background. This is done according to the principles of contiguity and resemblance.

What are implications of Gestalt psychology?

In 1920-1930 the three pioneers of gestalt psychology fled to America, which greatly benefited American psychology. Koffka promoted the general Gestalt perspective as a counterpart to atomistic behaviorism that then dominated in the US. His book 'Principles of Gestalt Psychology' remains the most comprehensive and systematic book on Gestalt psychology. Köhler and Wertheimer extended GEstalt principles from sensation and perception to learning and thinking. Köhler saw that learning often includes insight. New and adaptive reactions often arise suddenly, after a different organization of the perceptual field. Wertheimer analyzed creative human thinking. He was for free discovery and encouraged flexibility and insight. His book is called 'Productive thinking'.During his recent years in New York, he became friends with the psychologist Maslow. Köhler settled in Pennsylvania, where he attempted to unite psychology with physics. He emphasized, for example, that perceptual and physical force fields are the same in that each tries to organize itself over time in simpler configurations. According to him, the brain was in itself a physical system that divides and processes electrical charges. He proposed the hypothesis of psychophysical isomorphism, according to which psychological facts and the underlying events in the brain are equal in terms of their structural characteristics. This did not mean that perceptual and brain processes should be equal, but that they share the same structural and relational characteristics.The brain should therefore be studied as an organized system, not as a conglomeration of separate individual components. This idea was supported by Kurt Goldstein (1878-1965). He was impressed by the Gestalt prinipes and was one of the publishers of Psychologische Forschung, the original German-language magazine entirely devoted to Gestalt psychology. Kurt Lewin was a younger gestalt psychologist who came to America with his mentors. He claimed that every person stays in a unique psychological field, or called life space. This is the totality of his or her psychological situation at any given time. It encompasses one's physical and social environment as they are perceived, as does one's constantly changing motives and actions, or locomotion, within this living space.All of this combines forces or vectors within the field, which together determine the behavior. Lewin also studied the effects of democratic versus authoritarian leadership on group behavior. This was one of the first experiments in social psychology.

How did Wundt develop experimental psychology? - Chapter 5

The German Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) developed a "thought-meter" to test the assumed assumption, that when two different stimuli touch our senses at the same time (for example, if we hear someone speak and see his lips moving at the same time), we also at the same time becoming aware of both stimuli. On page 174 his 'thought-meter' is shown with an explanation. When Wundt tested himself, he concluded that he had not experienced the auditory and visual stimuli at the same time, despite the fact that they took place simultaneously. Instead, separate moments of attention were needed. Wundt acknowledged that, like Herman Helmholtz and Gustav Fechner, he had now subjected a clear psychological process to experimental study, while Kant implied that this was impossible.Wundt therefore stated that there was sufficient ground for establishing a new field of experimental psychology. He introduced this possibility in his book from 1862, Contributions to the Theory of Sensory Perception. He is still seen today as the father of modern academic and experimental psychology.

What did Wundt's life look like?

Wundt was born in a small village in Germany, where his father was a pastor. The family had good academic connections. As a child, Wilhelm got malaria, where his parents decided to move to Heidelberg, with a healthier climate. He grew up as an only child, and was often bullied. Wilhelm became a real daydreamer, and his first year in high school became a complete failure. Wundt's parents sent him to Heidelberg to live with his aunt and brother Ludwig. Here he found more connection with peers. However, he did not receive a scholarship for the university. However, under the supervision of his uncle Arnold, professor of anatomy and physiology, he gained academic success.

Wundt's first experiment was led by the German chemist Robbert Bunsen (1811-1899), and in 1854 he won a gold medal from the university to investigate the effect of the vagus nerve on breathing. Years later, Wundt worked as an assistant to Helmholtz. The 'thought-meter' was very similar to Helmholtz's work on the speed of nerve impulses. Astronomers had problems with the reaction speed for years. Twenty years later the astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (1784-1846) showed that all astronomical observers differ in the implementation of their lectures. He called this personal comparisons. According to Helmholtz these personal comparisons arise because there are individual differences in the length of a person's sensory and motor nerves,or in the speed at which the nerves send impulses. It is also possible that the differences arise due to the speed of central processing in the brain. He could demonstrate this with his thought-meter.

Wundt believed that his discovery that stimuli are first registered in consciousness before being responded to, supported the general philosophical tradition of Leibniz. This is a psychology that has an explanation for the receptive and creative qualities of the mind itself, above the influence of external stimuli in the creation of 'ideas'. He also believed that the speeds of other central processes could be examined through refinements of reaction time experiments. He called this the study of mental chronometry: once the speed of information processing had been measured, conclusions about the basic elements of consciousness and other central processes would follow.

He published this idea in 1862 in his book 'Contributions to the Theory of Sensory Perception'. Yet Wundt did not believe that this was the only method for psychology as a whole. The experimental methods should be limited to the examination of the individual consciousness, because they could not easily be applied to mental processes and because they were originally collective and social in nature.

In particular, language as a collective human process seemed to be crucial for all 'higher' mental functions such as thinking and reasoning. Wundt saw these functions as immune to experimental studies. That is why he proposed a second and additional branch of psychology, which used comparative and historical methods instead of experiments. He called this the Völker psychology. With this he tried to indicate a kind of non-experimental psychology that dealt with the community and cultural characteristics of the human nature, such as religion, mythology, customs, language and the derived higher processes. The three books that Wundt had written so far were all very specialized and sold poorly. Wundt decided that he had to write to make money,after which he wrote three popular books, and helped him to establish his name in the philosophy field. In 1867 he wrote a reaction to recent work on visual spatial perception and mental chronometry and he promised a later work in which he would establish a link between physiology and psychology. Among others, William James (1842-1910) became convinced.

In his book from 1867, Principles of Physiological Psychology, Wundt described this link between physiology and psychology. Wundt saw that the field of physiology investigates the living organisms through external sensations, while psychology examines phenomena that originate from 'inside' and tries to explain it. To combine this and to investigate processes that are simultaneously accessible to both ways of observation, Wundt proposed the field of 'physiological psychology'. In 1874 he won a professorship in philosophy at the University of Zurich. A year later he got the same position in Leipzig, where he developed the first complete study program in experimental psychology.

Wundt started working in Leipzig, where he had a disagreement with Johann Zöllner (1834-1882). Zollner had also done some research on optical illusions and was a good friend of Fechner. Zöllner became estranged from Wundt after a visit to American spiritualist and medium Henry Slade in 1877. At this time people believed in the reality of paranormal or dark forces. Zöllner became enthusiastic about the genius of Slade, while Wundt proclaimed that the observed effects only occurred when Slade had the opportunity to cheat. Then they wrote mean articles about each other. Despite early problems, Wundt settled well in Leipzig. In 1881 Wundt founded the journal Philosophische Studien. Two years later he threatened with a departure for Breslau,but to keep him, the University of Leipzig gave him a 40% salary increase and a four times larger laboratory. For his organizational performance alone, Wundt could have received the title of father of experimental psychology, but he also played a major role as a developer, supervisor and sometimes as a test subject in the experiments of his laboratory.

What kind of experimental studies were done in Leipzig?

All early experimental research at Leipzig fell into one of three general areas: physics, studies of the sense of time and mental chronometry. The studies into mental chronometry were the best for Wundt. Most of these studies used the subtractive method, a technique originally developed in 1868 by the Dutchman FC Donders (1818-1889). Donders had measured the simple reaction time, in a study where a test subject had to respond as quickly as possible to a single visual stimulation. He then made this experimental task more difficult by showing two types of visual stimuli, but allowing the subject to focus on one of the stimuli. This made the reaction time longer, probably because the subject needed extra time to distinguish one stimulus from the other. This difference,about a tenth of a second, is the time required for a mental action of 'distinction'.

James McKeen Cattell was one of the many who built on the work of Donders. He showed great ingenuity in device design. He developed the instrument on page 187 with which various types of visual stimuli can be presented in reaction time studies. This allowed him to determine the response time very accurately and in a broader and more interesting variety of situations than ever before.

When a test subject had to produce a separate response to a stimulus, for example moving the left or right hand, the response time increased by a further tenth of a second. Wundt thought this was because the person had to make a voluntary decision to use the left or right hand, for example, and called this "will-time". Cattell preferred the term 'motor time'. He stated that when reading a word we do not see the letters separately, but that we get the word as a whole. Based on other research, he suggested that some people generally have faster association times than others. These people would not only think faster, but would also experience more ideas in the same time period and possibly also be more intelligent.

In simple perception, someone responds automatically, mechanically and without thinking about stimuli. In apperception, one's full attention is focused on the stimulus and is consciously recognized, interpreted and thought about. In 1888 Ludwig Lange (1863-1936) compared the simple reaction times that arise when one's attention is focused on the expected stimulus, with the reaction times that are obtained when the focus is on the requested response. The response times in the first case were about one tenth of a second longer than in the second case. Wundt believed that someone only perceived the stimulus in the condition in which he was focused on the reaction in the way of simple perception. Although this process is very fast,there is also more chance of errors and it can happen that the response is provoked by inappropriate stimuli. Wundt then turned to apperception both theoretically and experimentally and finally confirmed Cattell's conclusion.

What is voluntary psychology?

Wundt stated that at any moment a maximum of six ideas can be observed (based on experience) in direct attention, while many other ideas may be obtained laterally and vaguely. Like the visual focus, attention can also quickly be moved from one small group of ideas to another group of ideas. In addition, he also believed that perceived ideas and ideas obtained through previous experiences are dependent on different organizational and combination rules. Observed ideas organize themselves mechanically and are automatically recorded according to associations that someone has laid in the past. Obtained ideas based on experience can be combined and organized in many ways. These can also be ways that are not based on previous experiences.In the terminology of Wundt, a creative synthesis takes place in the focus of the brain. Wundt rejected all claims that suggested that at least some central mental processes that are closely related to consciousness and 'will' require a different way of analysis, as Descartes and Helmholtz did. For this he used the concept of clairvoyant causality. He stated that one can not predict a reaction. He did not deny the power and usefulness of mechanistic physiology for explaining events taking place on the boundaries of consciousness, but he did find that something more was needed to give a full explanation of that experience itself. He believed that this' something 'is closely involved in consciously experiencing the' will 'and'voluntary effort '. He also called this approach the voluntary psychology.

What are the limitations of Völker psychology?

Wundt believed that the most essential characteristics of higher and central mental processes could never be measured by experimental analyzes and should therefore be studied in a natural way, using historical methods. Wundt tried to do this himself with the Völker psychology. Wundt also suggested that words and thoughts are not exactly the same, because people often have to think about their words. He stated that the most basic unit of thoughts is not the word or another linguistic characteristic, but rather a 'general impression' or a 'general idea', which is independent of words. The process of speaking begins with the formation of a general idea, followed by an analysis that converts it into linguistic structures that more or less adequately represent the idea.The most fundamental linguistic unit then is not the word, but the sentence (that is the overall structure that in one way or another 'contains' the general idea). A sentence is therefore a structure that is both 'simultaneous' and 'sequential'.

In order to investigate the complex and central functions (those that are the furthest from easily observable senses and motor interactions with the physical world), Wundt relied on non-experimental techniques and assumed a non-mechanistic clairvoyant causality. Not everyone agreed with this conception of psychology, which led to a debate, particularly about the role of introspection (observing and reporting one's own subjective inner experiences) in psychological experiments. Wundt saw introspection as the most direct source of much psychological information. He concluded that the content of consciousness could be conveniently described as composed of combinations of specifiable sensations and feelings, which in turn can be classified according to basal dimensions. So,he believed that sensations can be categorized in modes (visual, auditory, tactile, etc.), qualities (colors and forms), intensities and duration. He classified feelings according to the three basic dimensions of pleasant-unpleasant, tension-relaxation and active-passive.

But while Wundt saw the introspective analysis of consciousness as a useful descriptive instrument, he had two major concerns about this. First, he warned that the introspectively revealed measures of consciousness are apparently not the same as the chemical elements of consciousness. By this he means the ultimate units that have the ability to form complex psychological states in the same way that chemical elements make physical assemblies. Edward Bradford Titchener (1867-1927) disagreed with this and proposed an experimental psychology whose main goal was atomistic analysis of the elements of consciousness.

The second concern about introspective psychology came from the private and uncontrollable nature of subjective reports and the fact that memory often plays tricks the memory of psychological states. Wundt believed that it was not possible to accurately test the higher mental processes. Oswald Külpe (1862-1915) led a number of experiments in which several higher processes were actually approached introspectively. In Berlin, Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909) used a non-introspective but experimental approach to research memory.

Because psychology has recently started to focus a lot on the central cognitive processes, one can speak of a return to "Wundtian" ideas. With current cognitive psychologists who focus on dimensional studies of feeling, emotions and attitude, language psychology and theories about schizophrenia, he would still feel at home.

What was the structuralism of Edward Bradford Titchener (1867-1927)?

Edward Bradford Titchener (1867-1927) was a British psychologist who was a student of Wundt for years. However, he only adopted part of Wundt's theories and rejected everything that was essential to Wundt's theories. He founded structuralism. He tried to discover the structure of the mind. He believed that if the basic components of the mind could be defined and categorized, the higher complex processes could be better investigated. He tried to investigate which parts the spirit possessed, how they interact with each other and why they do what they do. He regarded sensations and thoughts as structures of the mind. Sensations are characterized on the basis of intensity, quality, duration and size. Each of this characteristic corresponds to a certain characteristic of the stimulus,even though some stimuli were insufficiently strong to bring the trait forward. He also shared different types of sensations in multiple categories. For example, he distinguished auditory sensations in 'tones' and 'noises'. Ideas and perceptions would also be the result of sensations.

He regarded introspection as a rigorous procedure that had to be carefully trained to be carried out. Introspectors had to break all their mental processes into the most basic elements. This means that they were not allowed to give meaning or interpretation to these basic elements, but that they had to objectively describe them.

Attention

According to Titchener, attention was only a matter of clarity of the imaginary process, one of the elementary sensory attributions. He interpreted the vague feeling of concentration and effort that accompanies attention as being nothing more than sensations from the instantaneous frowning, movements, and muscle contractions that take place simultaneously with a thought.

Such analyzes distort the nature of the central psychological processes that Wundt saw as much more than the sum of the constituent elements. Thitchener's goal of avoiding stimulus-error and ridding experiences of 'meaning' was contrary to Wundt's general approach to psychology. It also ran counter to the anti-elementist approach that was developed by the Gestalt psychologists around the same time, and in another way against the psychoanalytic approach of Sigmund Freud. Freud used the introspective method of "free association" precisely with a view to uncovering the symbolic meaning of ideas. This was therefore completely opposite to removing the meaning of this. Titchener himself did not exclude these competitive approaches,but he saw them as examples of functional or applied psychology rather than as experimental, scientific psychology. Since the structural foundations still had to be determined, he found that these applied attempts were premature. In due time Titchener's structuralism along with other introspective-based psychologies came under attack from the behaviorist movement.

Did female students have opportunities?

In the early 1980s, women hardly had a chance to study. In New York, Maragret Floy Washburn (1871-1939) tried to be admitted to Cattell's course, but was refused by higher institutions. Titchener was open to teaching women and wanted to guide her. Washburn became Titchener's first stent. In 1894 Washburn became the first woman with a PhD in Psychology. Titchener's support for women was impressive at the time. He even recommended them for jobs. In the late 1980s, Titchener and a number of other experimental psychologists became disillusioned by the composition and emphasis of the American Psychological Association. They felt that the philosophical and the various applied subjects dominated, at the expense of a truly experimental science of the mind.Titchener therefore decided to establish a small group of experimentalists (who were admitted only on his invitation) who would meet once a year to discuss ongoing investigations, to engage in experimental demonstrations and to have free discussions (or conservazione). This would serve to get younger researchers in the area to socialize with each other. However, women were not allowed to participate.However, women were not allowed to participate.However, women were not allowed to participate.

A woman who strongly opposed this policy was Christine Ladd-Franklin. She became interested in symbolic logic under the direction of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) and turned her attention to a long-standing problem that was called the transformation of the syllogism. After she graduated she worked on an arithmetic question underlying the theory of binocular vision and became interested in theories about color vision. Based on her scientific credentials, Ladd-Franklin was eventually admitted to the Experimentalists. However, in 1912 she came face to face with Titchener's refusal to acknowledge sexism that underpinned his policy. Two years later she was allowed to attend a session, but was unsuccessful in convincing Titchener to reverse his general policy.This did not change until two years after the death of Titchener in 1927. However, only four women were admitted: Margaret Floy Washburn, June Etta Downey, Eleanor Gibson, and Dorothea Jameson.

Which experiments were done for higher functions?

Titchener was not the only one who challenged Wundtian psychology. Oswald Külpe (1862-1915) and Hermann Ebbinghaus adapted the ideas of Wundt in a number of ways. Oswald Külpe was a structural psychologist and student and assistant to Wundt. Külpe has made important contributions to psychology including systematic experimental introspection, imageless thoughts, mental sets and abstraction. In 1896 Külpe set up a laboratory at the University of Würzburg. Scientists in Würzburg who used introspection became aware of the existence of certain transitional states, which could not be defined in terms of sensations or feelings. They said they were aware of their own processes involved in associating or judging,but that these experiences were intangible and without specifically definable content. Külpe believed that there are certain sensations and feelings that can not be described or can be associated with a certain image (imageless thoughts). He believed in the existence of a thought process that was not a sensation or feeling. Wundt refused to accept these findings on the grounds that the experimental conditions were insufficiently controlled and because he believed that the mental processes involved were too complex to be reliably retrieved from memory.He believed in the existence of a thought process that was not a sensation or feeling. Wundt refused to accept these findings on the grounds that the experimental conditions were insufficiently controlled and because he believed that the mental processes involved were too complex to be reliably retrieved from memory.He believed in the existence of a thought process that was not a sensation or feeling. Wundt refused to accept these findings on the grounds that the experimental conditions were insufficiently controlled and because he believed that the mental processes involved were too complex to be reliably retrieved from memory.

Investigations into direct association by the Scottish student of Külpe, Henry J. Watt (1879-1925) and his younger colleague Narziss Ach (1871-1946), gave a more immediate challenge to the experimental psychology of Wundt. Watt's subjects were asked to make a very specific association (instead of a free association) with stimulus words. This had to be done by naming the first higher order and subordinate concepts that come to mind. Thus, in the stimulus word bird, associations such as "animal" "creature" and "living thing" would be suitable for higher order concepts, while "canary" would be "redbreast" and "hawk" acceptable subordinate answers. In Ach 'In the experiment, subjects were shown a number of numbers and told that they should be added, subtracted, multiplied or shared. So a card with a 4 and a 3 triggered a response of 7, 1, 12 or 1.33, depending on his instructions. This study showed that the test subjects provided correct answers with negligible differences in reaction time. And when they remembered their experiences introspectively, they said that the instructions did not play any further conscious role in the process of association once they had been heard and registered in consciousness. The subjects who had to pull the above numbers apart, called the answer (1) as quickly as the subjects who had to add up the numbers (where the answer was 7).It appeared that the instructions determined the associative patterns of the test subjects prior to the experiment. Ah wrote that the instructions caused several defining tendencies, or "mental sets," which the subjects were unaware of. However, these caused them to think in a certain direction before the experiment began.

In one way these results matched Wundt's voluntaristic psychology, determining the tendency and the set were precisely the kind of central, guiding and motivating variables that he had proposed in the process of conscious observation. But Külpe, who was suspicious about many mental chronometry experiments, even before he left Leipzig, saw Würzburg's results as a violation of the logic of Wundt's subtractive procedure. Külpe argued that in the more complicated situations the subjects did not simply perform the sum of simple reactions (perception plus apperception plus discrimination plus association, and so on). Instead they acted according to "series" which were completely different from those of subjects in simpler situations.Külpe thus thought that the logic of the subtractive procedure apparently simplified the true process of thinking and reacting. Although Wundt protested, Kulpe's argument was generally convincing.

Who was Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909)?

Hermann Ebbinghaus was a German psychologist who did a lot of research into memory. At the end of the seventies he read Fechners' 'Elements of Psychophysics'. He wanted to try after that whether he could apply the same kind of experimental treatment as that of Fechner to the new subject memory. Wundt had just published his 'Physiological Psychology' in which he stated that higher processes such as memory could not be investigated experimentally. Ebbinghaus saw this as a challenge.

He developed nonsense syllables by systematically continuing the alphabet and making more than 2,000 consonant-vowel consonant combinations, such as taz, buck and guts. These words could serve as original neutral or meaningless stimuli, which had to be remembered in his experiments. Ebbinghaus made a list of these words and tried to memorize them under controlled circumstances. After he knew his list by heart, he tested himself for the preservation of these words in his memory under different circumstances. By memorizing it, he always succeeded in a shorter period of time than the first time he learned the words. Ebbinghaus used fractional 'savings' in apprenticeship as a quantitative measure of the strength of his memory.When Ebbinghaus calculated his average savings for various periods between the first and second time he learned the words, he was not surprised to find that the savings were smaller when the interval was greater. More surprising, however, was that the rate of decline was not constant, but fell on a regular forgetting curve in which his memory dropped rapidly immediately after the first learning, but then remained almost stable. The shape of this forgetting curve was similar to the psychophysical law of Fechner. He demonstrated that the memory can be experimentally investigated.More surprising, however, was that the rate of decline was not constant, but fell on a regular forgetting curve in which his memory dropped rapidly immediately after the first learning, but then remained almost stable. The shape of this forgetting curve was similar to the psychophysical law of Fechner. He demonstrated that the memory can be experimentally investigated.More surprising, however, was that the rate of decline was not constant, but fell on a regular forgetting curve in which his memory dropped rapidly immediately after the first learning, but then remained almost stable. The shape of this forgetting curve was similar to the psychophysical law of Fechner. He demonstrated that the memory can be experimentally investigated.

Wundt remained intellectually involved until his 85th, when he retired. He also continued to write his Völker psychology, and completed his autobiography 8 days before his death in 1920. In general, however, historians were unhappy about Wundt. Recently, however, his work has been reviewed by many historians, and he is better understood. The current interest in central cognitive processes in psychology indicate a renewed interest in Wundt.

The evolving mind: what psychological developments did Darwin bring? - Chapter 6

Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) was unexpectedly asked for the position of naturalist on board the ship HMS Beagle. Darwin would support the captain with geological, mineralogical and biological observations, but would also accompany the captain in his room for the next five years. Upon his return, Darwin was known as a talented and respected geologist and collector of biological samples. He had made a number of important observations, which for him were the beginning of the development of evolution theory through natural selection: a revolutionary biological theory with immense implications for psychology.

What did Darwin's life look like?

Darwin came from a rich and respected family. His father was a doctor, his mother came from a famous family who produced Chinese tableware and his grandfather Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) was one of the most famous intellectual figures of his time. Darwin possessed two important qualities early in his life. First of all, he was very curious and had a penchant for nature. He was also a warm and sympathetic man, which made him almost loved by everyone.

Darwin was sent to a medical school where he learned taxidermy. Medicines he did not find interesting enough and he had bad memories of this school time. His father therefore placed him at the University of Cambridge, where Darwin was prepped to become an Anglican preacher. Here he was a member of a club called the Gourmet Club. This club was known for their hunting of birds and beasts, which were previously unknown to the taste buds of man. However, this came to an early end when they tried to eat a brown owl.

Darwin liked geometry, but nevertheless had 'an argument' with binomial theory. Especially collecting beetles gave him a lot of fun. He called this his "proof of my zeal."

Darwin's enthusiasm for natural history and his friendly personality drew the attention of more Cambridge's more scientifically oriented faculty. These were mainly John Stevens Henslow (1796-1861) and Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873), professors in botany and geology. Darwin went on one of their excursions to the countryside and drew a lot with Henslow. With Sedgwick, after graduating in 1831, he went to the north of Wales for a summer geological tour.

Darwin's journey on the Beagle began in December, 1831. Darwin invented a sample bag, which dragged behind the ship and in which he caught thousands of sea creatures which he then examined and classified. He read about geology, geography and biology. He kept a detailed diary in which he described his observations and thoughts. The crew called him 'the philosopher'. After two years, only the east coast of South America was investigated, after which the Beagle spent two more years on the west coast before embarking on their long journey to the Galapagos Islands, Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia and the Cape of Good Hope. The journey lasted a total of 5 years.

What were Darwin's geological discoveries?

During the first months at sea, Darwin read the "Principles of Geology," written by Charles Lyell. This book promotes a theory called uniformitarianism: the most important properties of the earth are the result of gradual processes, which took place over an immeasurable amount of time. And in the present this happens just as much as in the past. Lyell disputes the then prevalent alternative theory of catastrophism, which states that geological features arise as a result of a few relatively sudden and enormous natural disasters or catastrophes on the earth's surface. Part of the attraction of catastrophism lay in its compatibility with a literal interpretation of the Bible. Here the Flood represents the most important geological natural disaster.Catastrophe also corresponded well with the then generally accepted estimate of the age of the earth as only about 6,000 years, as calculated by the Irish archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656). This he did by adding up the ages of the patriarchs from the Old Testament after Adam and Eve, as given in the Bible. Uniformitarianism requires an immensely longer period of time for gradual processes that have formed mountains and cause other cumulative effects.Uniformitarianism requires an immensely longer period of time for gradual processes that have formed mountains and cause other cumulative effects.Uniformitarianism requires an immensely longer period of time for gradual processes that have formed mountains and cause other cumulative effects.

Before Darwin left, Henslow and Sedgwick encouraged him to read and think about Lyell's book, but not to believe in it. Still, Darwin became increasingly impressed. For example, he found fossils of sea creatures high in the Andes and an earthquake in Chile caused parts of the coast to suddenly be a few feet higher than the sea level. Comparative events were more common over an immeasurable period in time, as described by uniformitarianism. Darwin wrote these findings and sent his work to Lyell and other geologists. This gave him the reputation in England as an influential geological observer and led to a scientific opinion in favor of uniformitarianism. Darwin also assumed that the earth was already very old,which became a necessary condition for his later evolution theory.

What were Darwin's biological discoveries?

Darwin found, among other things, the megatherium. This fossil had the skeleton of a modern sloth, but the size of a modern elephant. A strange rhino-sized creature, but without horns, was called the toxodon. This and other strange fossils also fascinated the English naturalists. Fossils were important for the uniformitarianism-catastrophe discussion, and the question was how and when the fossils ended up in the stone. Darwin also collected thousands of living plant and animal species, most of whom were still unknown among scientists.

While reflecting on his biological findings, he adopted two general lines of thought. Firstly, he regularly asked himself what the possible functions of the animal characteristics found are. Changing color from an octopus to the color of the background was obvious to him. Where other observers called the behavior of a certain animal 'slow' and 'stupid', Darwin looked for the usefulness. The sensitivity to the functional adaptation of all biological phenomena later helped him to come to his theory of evolution. His second major line of thought began almost accidentally when Darwin began to notice the geographical distribution of species. He saw that animals on both sides of the Andes were often completely different from each other,even though the climate and other conditions were generally the same. The giant tortoises, for example, showed small but characteristic differences in the shapes of their shield, which allowed an experienced observer to know on which island they were born. Different populations of the common brown finch differed only in the size and shape of their beaks. These standard observations later proved to be of great importance to Darwin when he thought about the possible origin of different animal species.These standard observations later proved to be of great importance to Darwin when he thought about the possible origin of different animal species.These standard observations later proved to be of great importance to Darwin when he thought about the possible origin of different animal species.

Darwin wanted to return home in October 1835, especially because he was curious after his family told him that he was already well known in scientific circles. His samples sent were well preserved, and Henslow had made excerpts from passages of his letters and these were published by the Cambridge Philosophical Society: Darwin's first scientific publication.

How did the theory of evolution originate?

His book 'Journal of Research on the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries during the Voyages of the HMS Beagle, under the Command of Captain FitzRoy, RN', from 1832 to 1836, became an immediate bestseller and established Darwin as a precursor in his field, and a popular naturalist and traveling writer.

In 1837, Darwin began writing down his line of thought. In one of his notebooks he specifically addressed one of the most difficult and controversial questions in biology (sometimes called 'the mystery of the Mysteries'). This question was about how the millions of different animal species that inhabit the earth originated. The answer to this question that was accepted at that time was that all species were created at one and the same time, as a complete and unchangeable entity.

Reconcilers of this traditional view argued that the theory is confirmed by the first chapter of Genesis, which states that on the fifth day God "created every moving living entity" on earth. The more scientific term for this was the 'argument of design'. This term originally comes from the philosopher / theologian William Paley (1743-1805). According to Paley, the amazingly complicated organs of different animal species are so perfectly constructed and adapted to their function that they must have been designed by a kind of powerful and expert designer, or 'the hand of God'.

Darwin knew that a similar theory of gradual evolution had already been promoted by his grandfather, Erasmus Darwin. In addition, in 1809, the zoologist Jean Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) suggested that species evolve and change as a result of inherited physical changes, which arise from voluntary training or the disuse of certain organs. For example, the giraffe used to have a shorter neck, which meant that he often had to stretch out to get to the leaves. Slowly but surely, the muscles expanded with each generation, resulting in the modern giraffe, according to Lamarck.

Despite the fact that Lamarck and Erasmus Darwin brought the idea of ​​evolution to scientific attention, the theory was far from being accepted everywhere. Erasmus had not proposed a way in which this evolution could take place, and Lamarck's theory did not explain how non-voluntary characteristics (such as camouflage) would arise. The evolution was also in contradiction with the literal description of the creation of all species in Genesis, which was strongly advocated by the Anglican church. So when Charles Darwin returned from his journey, the idea of ​​evolution was still seen as not respectable and had not yet taken such form that it could be seriously considered as an alternative to the existing design.

In the months after his return, Darwin concluded that the idea of ​​evolution, or "transmutation", of species must be taken seriously. The dizzying number of different species in nature, often only subtly different from each other, seemed to point more to a long-standing and still continuous process of many generations of species than to a separate creation of each species. In addition, he had personally observed extinct fossil species that looked like modern species in everything except in size. In addition, there were the Galapagos finches whose distinctly different beak structures suggested that gradual changes and developments over generations were indeed possible. Darwin also knew that the breeders had succeeded in creating different variations or breeds of pets,through a careful selection of many generations. Sheepdogs are an example of such a carefully bred breed.

In the autumn of 1838, Darwin suddenly devised a plausible mechanism for gradually evolving countless stable species into a natural state, following Thomas Malthus' for entertainment. Malthus believed that most people are destined to live in poverty, because their ability to enlarge the population is much better than their ability to increase food production. Malthus therefore stated that ultimately the population size will exceed food production, which will lead to a general state of scarcity and poverty. This theory took hold of Darwin's imagination. In each species, innumerable individuals are conceived over many generations. Only a part of this will survive the hardships of their environment to breed the species.Those who survive will generally be those individuals who are best adapted to the dangers that occur in the environment. And if their adaptive characteristics are hereditary, their descendants will also have these characteristics and survive and propagate in greater numbers than their less favored comrades. So Darwin had finally found a plausible mechanism for the theory of evolution for species.

Think of the beaks of the finches. One can assume that one group ended up on an island rich in nuts and seeds, but with a lack of insects hidden in fissures. The finches that had the greatest chance of survival here had a relatively strong and thick beak that was good for opening and eating the seeds. This ensured that more finches with such a beak survived to breed, which caused a second generation with an average slightly thicker beak than the first generation. After many generations in which this process was repeated, a stable population of broadly split birds evolved. The second group of finches, which ended up on an island with an environment poor in seeds and nuts, but richer in insects, underwent an opposite process.Darwin therefore argued that different environments inevitably and constantly impose a natural selection on their inhabitants, thereby disproportionately favoring certain individuals in the survival and reproduction of their species. The "nature", or the environment, will constantly select the individuals that best survive and reproduce. These selective effects of nature go inexorably and for countless generations (very different from the animal breeder), which leads to the creation of a stable species instead of a short-lived breed or variation.will constantly select the individuals that best survive and reproduce. These selective effects of nature go inexorably and for countless generations (very different from the animal breeder), which leads to the creation of a stable species instead of a short-lived breed or variation.will constantly select the individuals that best survive and reproduce. These selective effects of nature go inexorably and for countless generations (very different from the animal breeder), which leads to the creation of a stable species instead of a short-lived breed or variation.

So Darwin saw the `nature '(that is, the presence or absence of food, competitors, predators and the other ever-changing demands of the environment) as not just restricting the unlimited growth of the population. He also saw nature as the force that selects which individuals, with which hereditary characteristics, have the greatest chance of survival and reproduction. Looking at the enormously long time (where the new geological uniformity suggests a time span of at least millions of years instead of thousands of years), changes and variations in the natural environment must have produced numerous localized changes in selection pressure. This would lead to the gradual evolution of countless different species. So the natural selection provides the 'motor',or the mechanism that is theoretically needed to support an evolutionary process.

Darwin knew that his theory would not be accepted so quickly, partly because it involved disturbing assumptions about the role of man in nature. The Bible sees man in a category separate from the animals, but Darwin saw anatomical similarities with many animals and placed man in the ecological system. In 1842 and 1844 he wrote summaries of the theory, but did not publish it. He told only a handful of reliable friends, including the geologist Lyell and the botanist Joseph Hooker (1817-1911), about his belief in evolution. Pas in 1856, eighteen years after his first inspiration, Darwin found that he had enough evidence to to publish theory. He started working on a work entitled 'Natural Selection', which he expected to contain 3000 pages.

However, in 1858 Darwin was brutally disturbed by a letter and a manuscript by the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace. While Wallace was recovering from malaria, he had devised a new theory of evolution and wrote about it to Darwin. Darwin read the Wallace letter in a shocked manner about a theory that was originally his. He did not know how to respond to this and sent the manuscript to Lyell and Hooker, who had already insisted on having to publish his theory before anyone else did. His friends arranged an honorable compromise. Excerpts from the unpublished summary of Darwin from 1844 and Wallace's new paper both would be read, in the absence of both authors, at the next meeting of the Linnean Society.This is a renowned organization dedicated to researching and classifying plants and animals. As a result, the evolution of evolution theory was officially shared by Darwin and Wallace in July 1858 by natural selection. Ironically, however, little attention was paid to it, and even the official report stated that nothing important had been discovered that year.

Darwin wanted to support his theory with a lot of evidence. Now his 'secret theory' was revealed, however, he wanted to publicly publicize the theory quickly. This did not necessarily have to include thousands of pages of 'Natural Selection', but a long enough work to illustrate the power of the theory. That is why he spent a year writing 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life'. This book with 490 pages was published in 1859 and became the most influential book of the century. Although this book is mainly about plants and animals, a debate arose as to whether people are separate from this and are a special creation of God, or 'descendants of the apes'.

The non-combative Darwin drew back from the polemics (a 'written war'), but found a particularly strong supporter in Thomas Henry Huxley. Huxley was an expert in the anatomy of primates and wrote Darwin right after he had read 'Origin of Species' with conviction. He was named the "Bulldog of Darwin" after defending the natural selection in a debate in 1860 against Samual Wilberforce, the bishop of Oxford.

A year later, two new scientific discoveries were made. First, fossils of the extinct archeopteryx were found, the oldest bird. This creature had "fingers" on its wings and vertebrae and a tail like a reptile. Darwin had previously speculated that the birds evolved from the reptiles, so with this discovery his theory was supported. In 1861 an African discoverer restored the skulls and stuffed bodies of gorillas. The gorilla appeared anatomically very similar to humans. These discoveries 'did not' prove anything for evolution and coherent species, but did produce clues that greatly helped the credibility of the theory. Further proof followed quickly,and within a few years the arguments of the Origin were generally accepted by an overwhelming majority of expert researchers.

What did Darwin write about psychology?

In 'Origin of Species' Darwin added a short and prophetic paragraph in which he suggested that the human mental qualities can ultimately be seen as the result of evolution. In the next decade he left the elaboration of this idea to others, including his nephew Francis Galton (1822-1911), which is discussed more in the next chapter. Darwin did not pay much attention to psychology at first, but in 1870 he published 'The Descent of Man', in 1871 'Selection in Relation to Sex', in 1872 'The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals' and in 1877 'A Biographical Sketch of an Infant'.

In the end, Darwin described in 'The Descent of Man' that people are descendants of animal ancestors. He opened this argument with the structural similarities between humans and the higher class of animals, for example similarities in bones, muscles, blood vessels, intestines, nerves and "the most important of all organs", the brain. All these characteristics place Homo sapiens very likely in the domain of physically evolving species. After this, Darwin wanted to show that there is no fundamental difference between humans and higher mammals in mental abilities, such as courage and kindness. He stated, among other things, that dogs show much the same emotions as people, such as jealousy, pride, shame and even a form of humor. Animals show memory,attention and curiosity and because dogs also dream and also wagging for example, it can be said that they have the possibility of imagination. In addition, Darwin stated that animals show the basic principles of reason, the only characteristic of the soul that Descartes had exclusively attributed to man. They benefit from learning from experience, communicate with each other through sound and gestures and appreciate 'beauty' through clear pairing preferences for different body markings and decorations. After considering many of these examples, Darwin concluded categorically: "The difference in spirit between humans and higher mammals, however large it may be, is clearly one of gradations and not of kind."In addition, Darwin stated that animals show the basic principles of reason, the only characteristic of the soul that Descartes had exclusively attributed to man. They benefit from learning from experience, communicate with each other through sound and gestures and appreciate 'beauty' through clear pairing preferences for different body markings and decorations. After considering many of these examples, Darwin concluded categorically: "The difference in spirit between humans and higher mammals, however large it may be, is clearly one of gradations and not of kind."In addition, Darwin stated that animals show the basic principles of reason, the only characteristic of the soul that Descartes had exclusively attributed to man. They benefit from learning from experience, communicate with each other through sound and gestures and appreciate 'beauty' through clear pairing preferences for different body markings and decorations. After considering many of these examples, Darwin concluded categorically: "The difference in spirit between humans and higher mammals, however large it may be, is clearly one of gradations and not of kind."through clear pairing preferences for different body markings and embellishments. After considering many of these examples, Darwin concluded categorically: "The difference in spirit between humans and higher mammals, however large it may be, is clearly one of gradations and not of kind."through clear pairing preferences for different body markings and embellishments. After considering many of these examples, Darwin concluded categorically: "The difference in spirit between humans and higher mammals, however large it may be, is clearly one of gradations and not of kind."

The Victorian century in Britain is known for the extreme differences in attitudes and beliefs about race and the causes of ethnic differences. One of the extremes were the polygenists, who argued that the non-European "wild" people are clearly a different kind of beings. The monogenists, on the other hand, believed in the shared origin and relationship of all human groups, although they also maintained widely varying theories to explain the observed differences between them. For example, some attributed these differences mainly to the environment and to cultural variables, while others believed that the African groups were descended from the biblical Ham, the son of Noah. They state that the descendants are cursed by God and have been condemned to slavery by the offspring of Noah's other sons.Darwin was a strong supporter of the monogenist position. According to Darwin, there was no doubt that the environmental and educational variables were very important in producing individual differences between people and that slavery predominantly had terrible effects on the victims. During his trip aboard the Beagle, Darwin was appalled by the relations between masters and slaves on Brazilian plantations. He concluded that the character of the slaves is generally superior to that of their white masters, the 'polished barbarians' who oppressed and belittle them. Darwin saw the skin color as a natural adaptation to different exposures to direct sunlight.According to Darwin, there was no doubt that the environmental and educational variables were very important in producing individual differences between people and that slavery predominantly had terrible effects on the victims. During his trip aboard the Beagle, Darwin was appalled by the relations between masters and slaves on Brazilian plantations. He concluded that the character of the slaves is generally superior to that of their white masters, the 'polished barbarians' who oppressed and belittle them. Darwin saw the skin color as a natural adaptation to different exposures to direct sunlight.According to Darwin, there was no doubt that the environmental and educational variables were very important in producing individual differences between people and that slavery predominantly had terrible effects on the victims. During his trip aboard the Beagle, Darwin was appalled by the relations between masters and slaves on Brazilian plantations. He concluded that the character of the slaves is generally superior to that of their white masters, the 'polished barbarians' who oppressed and belittle them. Darwin saw the skin color as a natural adaptation to different exposures to direct sunlight.

The full title of Darwin's book was "The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex." The last part of this title contains the controversial topic: the issue of differences between men and women. In his book he called this sexual selection: the gradual selection and evolution of characteristics that are particularly favorable for reproductive success. To pass on their genetic material, one must not only physically survive but also mate and reproduce. Men and women prefer a certain kind of life companion, creating a pressure for a certain type of beauty to evolve. Darwin believed that sexual selection also affected human evolution, resulting in a number of characteristic mental and physical differences between the sexes. Darwin 's belief in the different emotional dispositions of men and women reflects his acceptance of the Victorian idea of ​​complementarity of the sexes. This was the conviction that men and women have evolved and have different but complementary psychological characteristics. Women were more likely to be sensitive and caring, and men were competitive and ambitious. Despite his impartiality in attributing positive mental qualities to women, Darwin was unequivocal when it comes to intellectual qualities. He assumed a general male intellectual superiority. Darwin argued that men have changed more by evolution than women and as a result show more variation.According to this variation hypothesis, for example, the range of men of different lengths would be greater than in women, when you measure the length of populations of adult males and females. Darwin wrote that the cause of this greater variation among men was unknown. He therefore did not explicitly apply this idea to the intellectual differences between men and women. Others did, however, claiming that in a large population of men more cases of extremely high intelligence, compared with a similar group of women.Others did, however, claiming that in a large population of men more cases of extremely high intelligence, compared with a similar group of women.Others did, however, claiming that in a large population of men more cases of extremely high intelligence, compared with a similar group of women.

What did Darwin write about the expression of emotions?

In 'The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals' Darwin wrote that human emotional expressions are hereditary and evolved characteristics, which can best be described as the direct or indirect consequences or reactions that have adaptive or survival value. Some emotional expressions seemed self-evident, as big eyes when someone surprised is helping with the more complete and clear vision of the surprising object. The adaptive value of other expressions is less clearly distinguishable, these expressions probably arose because they are the direct opposite of an evolutionary useful response. Darwin concluded that the three general principles (direct usability of the expression, opposites,and direct activation of the nervous system) can apply to all emotional expressions in animals and humans.

An important goal of the book was to show that human reactions that no longer have a clear survival function, did in the past. Blushing, for example, was the result of several collaborative but perfectly understandable animal reactions, which have to do with making parts of the body more conspicuous that come under conscious attention. So this book therefore assumed that people possess many residual characteristics of animals. Darwin also described that all known human groups have similar emotional expressions.

Five years after 'The Expression of the Emotions' Darwin remembered that he had kept a detailed log of his firstborn child. Thirty seven years later he looked at his notes about his son's many reflexes and published a rewritten 10-page piece. Today, this work is still seen as a milestone in the history of child psychology. This paper also dealt with the role that instinctive reflexes, habits, emotions play in adapting to the environment. Darwin saw the development of his son as the gradual reinforcement, increase in complexity, and fusion of the originally simple and isolated actions. Language for example: only after hearing and understanding words during a certain period,would his son himself form and invent new meaningful words. He suggested that the development of an individual goes roughly along the same lines as the evolution of the species to which this individual belongs. While learning language, his son accelerated through the same phases that his pre-human ancestors presumably went through. That is why Darwin suggests that each individual somehow retains the principles of his long evolutionary past. This was also another element of his general argument for evolution.his son accelerated through the same phases that his pre-human ancestors presumably went through. That is why Darwin suggests that each individual somehow retains the principles of his long evolutionary past. This was also another element of his general argument for evolution.his son accelerated through the same phases that his pre-human ancestors presumably went through. That is why Darwin suggests that each individual somehow retains the principles of his long evolutionary past. This was also another element of his general argument for evolution.

What was Darwin's influence on psychology and society?

Darwin became a rich man, and in his comfortable study, he wrote a number of important books, especially about plants. Each book helped to strengthen his theory of evolution. However, he became seriously ill, and no one knew what the diagnosis was, so that he did not go out anymore. He died of heart disease.

Shortly after Darwin's death, social Darwinism was founded. Despite the fact that it carried Darwin's name, the movement owed so much to the productive philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) as to Darwin himself. They also held a number of ideas that Darwin did not support. Spencer was already a supporter of Lamarck's theory of evolution, even before Darwin Origin had written, and himself wrote 'Principles of Psychology' in 1855.

In the ambitious "synthetic philosophy" program, Spencer attempted to classify the various disciplines of biology, psychology, sociology and anthropology under a basically evolutionary view. He argued that individual organisms, species, political systems and entire societies are the same in that they all have the tendency to evolve from relatively simple and homogeneous entities into more complex and heterogeneous entities. He believed that such evolution produced highly desirable "progress", assuming that through the unrestrained competition between individuals, only the strongest survived. These strongest could then maintain the species. Advances in all animal species should be maximally achieved by societies and governments that allow free competition.Darwin was somewhat reluctant towards Spencer and his synthetic philosophy.

Within the developing discipline of psychology Darwin had a more permanent and positive influence. Just before his death, he gave his younger friend George J. Romanes (1848-1894) full access to his notes on animal behavior. Romanes added his own research to these notes and published two groundbreaking books: 'Animal Intelligence' (1882) and 'Mental Evolution in Animals' (1883). Romanes described his work as comparative psychology, a name that was chosen as an analogy of the established discipline of comparative anatomy. Romanes argued that the investigation into the similarities and differences between multiple animal psychological functions might shed light on their human counterparts, in the same way that the research on physical structures did.Within human psychology, Darwin's theory demanded that the mind and behavior in general could no longer be viewed as statically "given". Both could only be described and analyzed.

Within the professional field of visual sensation, Christine Ladd-Franklin (from chapter 5) introduced a Darwinian perspective by stating that the different "components" of color perception originate at different points in evolutionary development: first black-and-white, then blue- yellow and finally red-green. After Darwin, human psychology became more focused on variability and differences between people, instead of their generality and similarities.

What are recent developments?

The American Paul Ekman states that there are indeed universal emotion expressions, namely the facial expressions that represent fear, anger, envy, grief and pleasure. Now the central question is whether evolution is gradual, as Darwin believed, or suddenly and in dramatic "leaps". The explanation of unselfish (altruistic) behavior led to a different debate among evolutionary theorists. When individuals risk their own lives for another, this will logically be seen as a selective disadvantage compared to completely self-centered individuals. That is why the question arises why altruism, an apparently "non-adaptive" characteristic, does not disappear as a result of natural selection. A possible explanation is that what evolves that is the group as a whole and not the individual.Another explanation is that the genes of someone who shows altruistic behavior and the person to whom this is shown have very similar genes, so that these genes are not 'eradicated'. This last idea comes from EO Wilson's' Sociobiology: The New Synthesis' in 1975 and Richard Dawkins' bestseller 'The Selfish Gene' in 1976. This basic approach, which tries to explain social behavioral characteristics as a result of individual but interacting genes , who replicate themselves through successive generations, is described as sociobiology.s' Sociobiology: The New Synthesis' in 1975 and Richard Dawkins' bestseller 'The Selfish Gene' in 1976. This basic approach, which attempts to explain social behavioral characteristics as a result of individual but interacting genes, replicating itself through successive generations, is described as sociobiology.s' Sociobiology: The New Synthesis' in 1975 and Richard Dawkins' bestseller 'The Selfish Gene' in 1976. This basic approach, which attempts to explain social behavioral characteristics as a result of individual but interacting genes, replicating itself through successive generations, is described as sociobiology.

The field known as evolutionary psychology was developed. The practitioners of this psychology go beyond those of sociobiology, they freely use all aspects of modern evolutionary theory to devise empirically researchable hypotheses about human behavior. In compiling these hypotheses, they take the idea that the environment in which we now live is very different from the environment our ancestors lived in. From this the idea is derived that some human behavioral and psychological characteristics may have been adaptive in the past, even though they are no longer. In 1992 the book 'The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture' was written. In 1997 the book 'How the Mind Works' came out.The evolutionary perspective remains an essential and vivid aspect of modern psychological research and in the development of theories.

Measuring the mind: what are Galton's thoughts about individual differences? - Chapter 7

London's International Health Exhibition of 1884 was characterized by a remarkable exhibition, called anthropometric laboratory, that attracted many spectators. These spectators became test subjects in this laboratory and eventually received some comparative information about themselves. The devices in the laboratory tested the test subjects in different ways and gave them their score and the average score of the previous test subjects.

At that time, these tests were seen as mental tests to measure aspects of intelligence. Today we see that intelligence uses 'higher' mental processes, such as thinking, reasoning and logic. Nevertheless, the creator of these tests, Francis Galton, argued that people with the highest intellectual possibilities should logically also have the most powerful and efficient nervous systems and brains. He thought that the capabilities of one's brain might be related to its size. So the first test to measure the assumed intelligence was to measure someone's head circumference.

In addition, he thought that someone's neurological effectiveness should be related to the speed at which this person can respond to something, so a test of reaction time was also done. He believed in two incorrect, but then generally believed prejudices, which he believed to be a gross correlation between sensory acuteness and intelligence. The first preconception was that people with intellectual disabilities have both a sensory and an intellectual disability. The second bias stated that women are generally less intelligent than men and that they can perceive less sharply.

Fechner's psychophysics had investigated the limitations of sensory discrimination and Wundtian mental chronometry experiments had carefully measured the reaction time. But these previous studies focused only on established, general psychological principles that apply to all people, while individual differences in sharpness or reaction time were avoided or rejected. The founder of the Anthropometric Laboratory assumed a Darwinian framework that included variability and adaptation. Individual differences in sharpness and reaction time were not "mistakes" or "irregularities" that were avoided, but the basic mechanism of evolution and therefore an important subject of interest. The anthropometric laboratory led to the development of the psychology of individual differences.This is a discipline that focuses on the measurement of variaities between people on a certain psychological characteristic.

Francis Galton (1822-1911) was the younger cousin and friend of Charles Darwin. He was a curious person and was a discoverer, geographer, meteorologist and biological researcher before he turned his attention to measuring intelligence and other psychological attributions. Many of his psychological ideas (such as his theory on measuring intelligence) turned out to be incorrect and too simple. He was, however, the pioneer who came up with the idea that tests can be used to measure psychological differences between people. In addition, he also provided provocative theories about the origin of these psychological differences and described controversial social policy documents with the aim of promoting positive psychological qualities in the general population.

What did Galton's former life and career look like?

Galton prepared medication and pills in a pharmacy during his medical training at the Birmingham hospital, and could not resist the temptation to try small amounts of his creations on his own. He saw this as an interesting experience, but using himself as a test person obviously also had disadvantages. Galton attended mathematics courses at Cambridge and became interested in university research procedures. He graduated from Cambridge in 1844 and continued to study medicine in London. His father died in 1845 and left Galton with a lot of money. Instead of studying further, Galton started hunting and gambling. Finally, in 1849, he consulted a frenologist for an analysis (based on the size of his head) of his "natural" abilities, skills and preferences.Galton liked the answer, because now he could ascribe his mediocre academic achievements to the lack of innate scientific ability, instead of his lack of effort and perseverance.

After discovering a part of southwest Africa (now Namibia), he discovered that he had a talent for performing precise measurements. He noticed this when he used a heliostat, sextant and other surveying instruments on his expedition to make a very detailed and accurate map of the country. Galton won the Royal Geographical Society's gold medal for his detailed map and geographical measurements in 1853, the same year that he published the book "Tropical South Africa." His successful expedition gave him access to the Executive Councils of the Geographical Society. In the ten years that followed, he occupied himself productively with geography, travel and meteorology.For example, he developed a new and improved instrument for geographic measurements and in 1855 he wrote a manual for travelers in the wilderness, 'The Art of Travel'. In 1860, Galton developed the world's first weather maps. He discovered the patterns of high and low pressure areas. This alone earned him a place among the Victorian researchers. But in the beginning of 1860 his attention shifted in the direction of the 'Origin of Species' in yet another direction.Origin of Species' in yet another direction.Origin of Species' in yet another direction.

What was Darwin's influence on Galton?

Galton initially had mixed feelings about Darwin's book, because of his strict orthodox faith and faith in the Bible, which were riddled by the book. Because of this, he suffered from an emotional dip for a few years. Later, however, he used Darwin's ideas for his own theory. Although Darwin did not describe man in his 'Origin of Species', Galton quickly realized the implication of this theory, that people, like other species, also have to constantly evolve. He also believed that the most distinctive human variations, which are most likely the basis of future evolution and development, are naturally intellectual and psychological. Presumably, however, these are mediated by small hereditary differences in the structure of the brain and the nervous system.The personal experiences of Galton made him believe that individual differences in intelligence must be predominantly innate. After reading Darwin's book, Galton decided to use his predilection for measuring and counting to approach this problem statistically. He studied the biographical dictionaries and calculated that people who were important enough to be mentioned in this representation represented about 1 in 4,000 in the normal population. In addition, he studied pedigrees of the families of these people and found that ten percent still had a relative who was mentioned in a biographical dictionary. Here was a concrete empirical evidence of the statistical tendency for excellence in families. Galton acknowledged that this evidence does not prove separately that excellence is inherited,because family members often share the same environment, in addition to heredity.

This heredity-environment question still lives today. Yet Galton was interested in the heredity in this story and presented his findings in the book 'Hereditary Genius' in 1869, in which he claimed that the natural skills of man are derived from heredity, with exactly the same limitations as the form and physical properties of the whole organic world. This book provided three new arguments to support this claim, based on the normal distribution of intellectual qualities, the specific patterns of excellence that Galton observed the most, and the comparison of adoptive versus biological family members.

The first argument, the normal distribution: Galton stated that the measurements of intellectual skill tended to fall into statistical distributions in the same way as hereditary physical properties. The Belgian statistician Adolphe Quetelet (1796-1874) had previously shown that measurements obtained from large populations, for example of height or weight, fall into a bell-shaped normal distribution. Today it is known that the normal distribution also characterizes countless variables that are not inherited. Galton's observations were mainly consistent with his statement, without providing positive evidence.

Galton's second argument had a similar limitation. He researched the pedigrees of twelve groups of outstanding people and found two general patterns. First, the outstanding family members of outstanding people tend to be closely related to each other: first-degree relationships (brothers and sisters or parent-child) were four times more common than third-degree relationships (great-grandparents, cousins, etc.). Even third-degree relationships were more common than would be expected on the basis of coincidence. This same pattern was found with physical properties. For example, fathers and sons are more similar in length than grandfathers and grandsons. Second, Galton found an imperfect but clear predisposition among family members to excel in the same areas.Every offspring of an excellent parent will then inherit a proportion of the required qualities for excellence in that area, but will not necessarily be equally excellent. However, it is important to keep in mind that close family members share the same environment to a greater extent than distant relatives.

Galton's third argument: adoptive versus biological family members: In 'Hereditary Genius', Galton recognized, but minimized, the possibility that the environmental benefits within excellent families could have helped produce these results. He assumes that "social benefits are not sufficient to make a man with moderate skills excellent". He further proposed a research design that, when correctly implemented, was promising to provide concrete evidence for his claim. This approach concerned the comparative study of the adoptive relationships of outstanding people. As a result of his research, Galton concluded that the social and environmental benefits are less important than heredity in causing excellence.Galton's idea of ​​comparing adoptive versus biological family members was so good that generations later it was still used by genetic researchers. Nevertheless, he did not apply the same statistical care to this analysis, and also limited his study to a small and unusual sample of questionable general representativeness.

What is the role of nature and nurture?

The Swiss botanist Alphonse de Candolle (1806-1893) reacted critically to 'Hereditary Genius'. In contrast to Galton, he was primarily interested in the importance of the environment and cultural factors in maintaining success within families. To test this vision, the Candolle collected biographical information from more than 300 major European researchers, which he statistically analyzed in his book "History of the Sciences and Scientist on Two Centuries" in 1873. In it he admitted that heredity plays a certain role in provoking scientific excellence, but he also clearly showed that outstanding researchers mainly come from small to medium-sized cities with temperate climates, democratic governments,tolerant religious institutions and thriving commercial interests.

The Candolle book encouraged Galton to expand his further research into scientists, to investigate the effects of heredity and environment in the background of these scientists. He came up with an extensive questionnaire asking for personal information. This marked the first self-questionnaire method. Following the completed questionnaires, Galton concluded that most scientists were born with the required preferences and competences for their profession. That is why, according to him, the main causes had to be hereditary. But some other responses have led Galton to make an important concession to the Candolle. Many scientists cited experiences or influences that probably strengthened their scientific preferences.This seemed proof of an environmental influence, which meant Galton had to moderate his heredity theory slightly, insisting that hereditary side and skills were necessary, but not enough to cause scientific talent. This required support from the environment.

Galton adopted the slogan: nature versus nurture. Nature (predisposition) is what a person receives at birth and nurture are all factors that influence him after birth. He used this slogan himself in 1874 in his book 'English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture'. In this he acknowledged that both nature and nurture had influenced the lives and careers of his subjects. He also saw that nature and nurture often interact with each other in a complex way. To investigate this, he devised the twins research. This is a research technique that he introduced in 1875 under the name "The History of Twins, as a Criterion of the Relative Powers of Nature and Nurture".

There are two types of twins, the first of which are two-person twins (dizygotes) that have 50% of their genes in common. The second kind are identical twins (monozygous), they are genetically completely equal. Galton found that a significant amount of his results in the study of twins fell into two general categories. Some showed strong similarities, both psychologically and physiologically, despite experiencing very different life events. Others grew to become completely different individuals, while they were treated the same by their parents. So he concluded, despite not having information about the biological type of the twins,that these results were to be expected when physical and character traits were predominantly determined by genetics rather than environment. Thus, monozygous twins will develop in the same way, despite the difference in nature, and dizygotic twins will differ as normal brothers and sisters, despite being treated the same (ie having the same environment). With this, Galton introduced an ingenious but not convincing approach to the complex problem of nature versus nurture.With this, Galton introduced an ingenious but not convincing approach to the complex problem of nature versus nurture.With this, Galton introduced an ingenious but not convincing approach to the complex problem of nature versus nurture.

What was the eugenic society?

Galton devised the term eugenics for his project, in which he could improve the human race by selective breeding. He believed in fact that human competence is genuinely hereditary. Almost everything he did from that moment on was all about eugenics. Two of his most important developments are intelligence tests and statistical correlation.

To create an eugenic society, all men and women with the best possible characteristics had to have children. But how did you know at a young age who this is and is not? In 1884 he founded the Anthropometric Laboratory for London's International Health Exhibition. Here he tried to measure the hereditary intelligence of people through a number of simple tests, such as measuring head size, reaction time and sensory acuity. However, high scores were not correlated with reality. The first successful intelligence test was developed by the French psychologist Alfred Binet, his test was based on entirely different assumptions than that of Galton. In any case, the idea of ​​an intelligence test in an eugenic environment came from Galton.

Heredity and eugenics led to another important innovation when Galton tried to approach these relationships mathematically. Heredity concerns variables that tend to associate with each other, but do not do so in a perfect way. Tall fathers, for example, have long sons, but often not of exactly the same length. Galton examined groups of people on their length, weight and other physical characteristics with the tests discussed above. He developed a sort of scatter plot from the results. See figure 7.6 for an example.

In these types of scatter plots, he observed regression toward the mean: extreme scores on one variable tend to be associated with scores closer to the average on another variable. See page 261 for an explanation.

Galton discovered even more, namely the regression line: when the averages of each column are represented by Xs in a graph, they tend to form a series that creates an almost straight line. Galton saw that the slope of each regression line differs depending on how strong the relationship is between the two variables. In addition, the values ​​of this line always fall between 0.0 and 1.0.

In 1888 he discovered that when all scores are converted into standard scores (such as the standard deviation, or the standard error), the mathematical slopes of these lines can be interpreted as the correlation coefficient before these regression lines are drawn. These are numerically accurate indexes of the strength of the relationship. When the value is close to 1, for example 0.8, this indicates a strong relationship.

Galton presented all these ideas in 1888 in his paper "Co-Relationships and Their Measurement, Chiefly from Anthropometric Data". The brilliant young mathematician Karl Pearson (1857-1936) set to work on these ideas and improved them, with which he developed a simple formula to calculate the "moment of product" of correlation coefficients and to expand the series to include the negative relationships to take it. This is also called the Pearson's r. For example, when calculating the Pearson's r, it appeared that the correlation between the test scores from the Galton study and the actual scores were very low.

What are other contributions from Galton?

Galton was one of the first serious investigators of fingerprints, which he hoped would have a hereditary basis. For this he developed a method to classify the prints into loops, bows and spirals. In addition, he also devised questionnaires to investigate individual differences in mental imagery. He discovered that some literally "saw" the images in their heads, while others only had abstract "thoughts." People therefore differ greatly in the frequency, intensity and liveliness with which they imagine something.

Galton came up with the word association experiment. Here 75 stimulus words are written on pieces of paper, after which they are put in random order, after which they have to pick up the first two or three thoughts that came into mind after seeing each stimulus. Galton discovered that these are often associations from childhood. Galton never continued this research, but Sigmund Freud did. Galton also developed "composite portraits" of different faces, a "beauty map" of the best-looking inhabitants of the British Isles (the most beautiful inhabitants were found to be from London) and he compiled a study into the effects of influenza on the imagination.He tried to do unsuccessful mathematics by using only the sensation of smell and experimented with different techniques for making tea.

Galton also claims to have discovered that many intellectuals and scientists in particular have very weak visual capacities, and that sometimes they are totally lacking in this.

What is the influence of Galton?

Twin studies, self-report questionnaires, correlational studies and research into mental images and word associations are still present, as are intelligence tests. Although Galton was very influential, the nature-nurture debate remains. This while everyone agrees that both factors are significant. Breed is also a confusing, bitter issue. Galton contributed to this, because his writing sometimes expressed racism. Another controversy is how eugenistic ideas must be applied. Galton wanted to use it in a positive way, but it was also used in a negative way around 1900, such as strict immigration policy and racial purification. Years after Galton's death, a number of his ideas were adopted by Nazi Germany to promote the Holocaust.

In 1920, it was discovered that with research into separate identical twins an almost perfect indication of heredity can be found for each trait, including IQ, provided that two important conditions are met. The first is that twins must be demonstrably monozygous and therefore have an identical genetic structure. The second and more problematic condition is that they must actually be separated in their former childhood and randomly placed in a representative selection of adoptive families. Only when these conditions are fully met and the IQs of the twins are measured in adulthood, the correlation between their IQs can actually be an exact measure of the heritability of this characteristic.

The first major investigation into "divorced" twins was made in 1937 by the team of Horatio Newman (1875-1957), Frank N. Freeman (1880-1961) and Karl Holzinger (1893-1954). They found that the correlation between the pairs of twins and their IQ .67 was strong, positive, but certainly not absolute. They did, however, find personal stories in which twins found each other again after years, and it turned out that they had very similar academic careers and IQs. In another example in which the twins ended up in two different environments, however, their IQs differed by 20 points. These studies show that an environmental effect is actually present.

Who are Burt and Jensen?

In 1960 an exception was found to these results by British psychologist Sir Cyril Burt (1883-1971). He stated that the intelligence tests correlate by about .80, which means that there is a very strong effect by nature, compared to nurture. His article impressed the American psychologist Arthur Jensen (1923-2012). During the late 1960s, he studied the effectiveness of Operation Head Start, training programs for urban children from bad environments. This did not work. He used Burt when interpreting his results. These findings suggest a greater influence of heredity than environment. Leon Kamin was asked by his students to read the articles of both men and to check for statistical analysis. Burt's article proved to be seriously inadequate,IQ tests were not mentioned by name, no information was given about the composition of the sample or the times at which they were tested. Many crucial details from Burt's articles have never been published. According to Kamin, his work can not be taken seriously. According to Kamin, it could well be that heredity does not play a role in intelligence. Jensen did in his 1998 book, The g factor, as if he were the first to question the Burt data.Jensen did in his 1998 book, The g factor, as if he were the first to question the Burt data.Jensen did in his 1998 book, The g factor, as if he were the first to question the Burt data.

The largest and most impressive post-Burt study on divorced twins is the Minnesoate Study of Twins Reared Apart, also known as MISTRA. Their conclusion is that nature has a greater share in intelligence than nurture in middle class, industrialized societies. It is clear, however, that if all environmental types, including poor and disadvantaged households, were included in the study, the heredity estimate would be much lower. The weight that is attributed to nature or nurture is therefore dependent on the reference group in which the researcher is interested.

American pioneers: what are the thoughts of James, Hall, Calkins and Thorndike? - Chapter 8

During the conference in Munich in 1896 it became clear that psychology was seen as a respected scientific and academic discipline. The two professors who were responsible for this were not here: Wilhelm Wundt and William James (1842-1910). Ironically, despite the contribution of both professors to the creation of an intellectual climate, the professors did not appreciate each other's work. Wundt found little news or original in James, except for his style, which Wundt called personally and informally (he thought it was beautiful literature, but that it was not psychology). The reason that Wundt was not so enthusiastic about James' work was in part that James also criticized Wundt's work.The reason for this lay in the fact that it took James twelve years to write his book "The Principles of Psychology" criticized by Wundt. The two professors each had their own style and stood behind different forms of psychology, but were still two of the most influential professors.

How did James' early life look like?

William James was born in New York. He was the eldest child and came from a rich family. During his childhood and adolescence, he regularly moved with his family through Europe and America. His father, Henry James Sr., had suffered a restless life and regularly experienced anxiety attacks. After he recovered he focused on teaching his children and sought the best place to do so. Although he never found this place, all four children remained very motivated to study.

James had a talent for drawing and art, but because this was rejected by his father, he was sent to Harvard in 1861 to study chemistry. At Harvard he shifted his attention from chemistry to physiology and in 1864 he registered at the medical school. A year later he interrupted his studies to go on an expedition, supervised by Louis Agassiz (1807-1873). Agassiz was a biologist and one of the most outspoken critics of Darwin's book 'Origin of Species'. During this trip he found out that biology was not suitable for him and he returned home.

James convinced his father in 1867 to let him go to Germany, among other things for the mineral baths that were good for his back. But after a series of events in 1870, he also experienced his first anxiety attack and he struggled to recover from it. Until in 1870 he read an article about free will, written by the French philosopher Charles Renouvier (1815-1903). Because of this he started to believe in free will. Also an article about customs ('habits') written by the philosopher and psychologist Alexander Bain (1818-1903) impressed James.

Believing in free will liberated him from his intellectual inhibitions and caused him to take psychology and mechanical physiology more seriously. He discovered that he could take mechanical ideas seriously scientifically, without fully accepting them personally. He decided to evaluate ideas based on their usability within specified and limited contexts. For example, free will is a useful concept in his personal life. That is why he accepted it as "true". Determinism (if it is scientifically useful) could also be "true" when he was in his role as a scientist. The evaluation of relativistic ideas on the basis of varying usability in varying situations became the hallmark of William's general philosophy, which he called pragmatism.

James treated his students as intellectual equals and was therefore very popular. In the beginning his interests varied, but when he worked on his book "The Principles of Psychology", he decided to focus on psychology. It is also said that Wundt had brought psychology within the university for the specialists, but James made psychology a living subject for anyone who chose to read about it or listen to it.

What did James write in his book 'The principles of psychology'?

James wrote his book over a period of twelve years, but he was never really satisfied and quickly concluded that 1) there was no such thing as the science of psychology and 2) that he was incompetent. Two aspects of his self-criticism were partially correct: 1) his book was enormous and 2) psychology was portrayed as unsystematic and incomplete. But James proved unable to be incapable. It soon became the most prominent book on psychology, in which all major and important topics were discussed. A number of aspects from his book are discussed below.

The best known thing that James put forward was the chapter about the flow of thoughts ("stream of thoughts"). In this chapter he discussed that the content of human consciousness was more comparable to a stream than a collection of discrete elements or ideas. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus had already observed that someone could not experience the same current twice, because the current constantly changes. James could find himself in this idea. No one can experience exactly the same sensation, the same idea or the same experience twice. Every new experience is shaped and influenced by previous experiences and because the background constantly changes, two experiences can not be exactly the same. James also believed that both thoughts and a stream were both conscious.A subjective feeling of continuity is maintained, even if someone goes to sleep and the person only wakes up later. James was of the opinion that it is unwise to analyze the flow of thoughts in terms of elements (such as sensations and feelings). A real thought can not be "stopped" and then studied analytically, without causing damage to the real nature of the thought. For James, psychology brought with it the study of dynamic and constantly changing consciousness processes.A real thought can not be "stopped" and then studied analytically, without causing damage to the real nature of the thought. For James, psychology brought with it the study of dynamic and constantly changing consciousness processes.A real thought can not be "stopped" and then studied analytically, without causing damage to the real nature of the thought. For James, psychology brought with it the study of dynamic and constantly changing consciousness processes.

In the chapter 'habit', James discussed the influence of habitual responses for the maintenance of society. He was of the opinion that habit functioned as the flywheel of the society and that it is a valuable tool for the preservation of this society. A fragment from his book where this is clearly described can be found on page 318 of the book. After James had emphasized the inevitability and strength of human habits, he also discussed his own experiences in combination with Bain's ideas. The laws of habit formation are impartial, so capable of producing both morally good and bad actions. Once a good or bad action is established in habit, this is not completely irreversible, but more difficult than before.

In the chapter 'emotion' James involved his experiences with anxiety attacks. Here he introduced one of his rare theoretical contributions to psychology. According to James, emotion is the result and not the cause of the body changes associated with the expression. According to him we feel regret because we cry, and we feel anger because we attack, and we feel fear because we are trembling. He does not think we are crying, attacking or trembling because we feel regret, anger or fear. The Danish physiologist Carl Lange (1834-1900) published a similar perspective and also believed that emotions represent the perception of body reactions. This is called the James-Lange theory of emotion. Nowadays there are some limitations of this theory. Yet the theory is not entirely unusable.

James defined a voluntary action as an action that is accompanied by a subjective sense of mental effort or attentive effort. Attentive effort is the essential phenomenon of the will. He wondered whether the subjective feeling of effort to focus attention is a complete mechanistic consequence of the thought process, or that there are a number of non-mechanistic and unpredictable influences. Scientific psychology can find itself more in the first, while personal, subjective experiences support the second more.

According to James, science must always be deterministic and free will did not fit within science. Nor did he believe that it was possible to get all the answers from science and psychology. Therefore, when he was not in his role as a psychologist, but as a moral philosopher or man, he adopted a conviction with the help of free will. This was the essence of James' psychology. This attitude matched James' conviction: his decision to believe in free will was pragmatic, adaptive and correct because it worked. Later he applied the pragmatic criteria unconsciously to psychological theories, looking at the usability in specific contexts. James took the term pragmatism to define his philosophy, but he expanded the approach to include emotional,to contain ethical and religious ideas, as well as scientific theories.

James' psychology consisted of a collection of personal reflections on the main areas of the newly merged science. Students who read about James not only learned the most important facts of the new psychology, but were also challenged to think about them in useful and creative ways.

What did the later career of James look like?

After 1890, James became frustrated by the limitations and uncertainties of science and psychology started to play a smaller role in his life. One of the topics that he focused on was psychological research. For a while he occupied himself with researching paranormal activities, but in his last years he occupied himself with philosophy.

What is pragmatism?

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) promoted a perspective that he called pragmatism. According to pragmatism, one can never be sure of scientific ideas and knowledge. Scientific ideas and knowledge can only be subject to different levels of pragmatic beliefs. Peirce and his group regularly used the Darwinian perspective, which states that no adaptation to the world is perfect or permanent. It is always susceptible to evolution. Peirce applied this idea to ideas and knowledge. James wrote several books about his philosophical idea. It included not only scientific but also emotional, ethical and religious ideas. James retained a great interest in spirituality and religious experiences. His book The Varieties of Religious Experience became his most famous book.The influence of James on psychology is great, despite his short career. He created an atmosphere in which psychology was found interesting.

James has had a major influence on American psychology and his work differs from that of Wundt. James tried his followers to develop their own individual approaches. Now the three most important students are discussed.

Who was G. Stanley Hall?

Hall (1844-1924) graduated from Williams College in 1867. At that time in New York, the controversial theory of Darwin hung in the air, which seemed to be more attractive than theology. After this he studied philosophy and physiology in Germany, together with Du Bois-Reymond. When he was teaching at Harvard, he met William James and was encouraged by him to experiment with the role of muscle signals in the perception of space. In 1878 Hall traveled to Leipzig and became the first American student of Wundt. Returning to Cambridge he starts teaching again. This was important to him in two ways: first, he focused his attention on the problems of developmental psychology and pedagogy, and secondly, his lectures drew the attention of the president of John Hopkins University in Baltimore.Hopkins provided Hall with a research laboratory and in 1887 Hall established the American Journal of Psychology. After these two successes, he went to Massachusetts where he stayed for the rest of his life.

Hall is therefore the most important founder of laboratories, departments, journals and professional associations. In this he looks more like Wundt than James. But in his research he was closer to the functional and practical tradition of James. His innovative work revolved around psychology, pedagogy and evolutionary theory. Hall came up with the Darwinian theory about child development. According to this theory, an individual goes through the intellectual, emotional and general psychological development parallel to the phases that our ancestors went through in evolution. From the crawling to the walking of a child, the evolutionary sequence repeats itself and leads to modern humanity. He led the Child Study Movement and made extensive use of questionnaires.This perspective is no longer accepted just nowadays, but it did form the beginning of developmental psychology. Hall could hardly get along with his colleagues and he also regularly turned against them. EG Boring (1886-1968) wrote about Hall and James that they appreciated each other, but that they were both walking different paths. Yet his colleagues (Wundt, Freud, James) owe it to him that their ideas were spread in America. Four years before Hall died in 1924, he accompanied his last Ph.D. student, Francis Cecil Sumner. This was the first African-American to have a Ph.D. in psychology. He was particularly interested in the psychology of religion. He became head of the psychology department at the Howard,and accompanied the most famous African-American couple in the history of psychology: Mamie Phipps Clark and Kenneth B. Clark.

Who was Mary Whitkon Calkins (1863-1930)?

Calkins grew up in an intellectually stimulating environment and graduated from Smith College. Calkins then applied for the job to give experimental psychology and had nothing more to offer than an interest in the subject. Because no better candidates applied, she was accepted. The only problem was that she was a woman. Eventually she sought contact with one of the Harvard professors, who was deeply impressed by her. There she also met James. Together with Royce, the Harvard professor, he successfully accepted it for Calkins so that she could teach at the university. Meanwhile, during her studies with James, she also received advice from Edmund C. Sanford (1859-1924) about how to equip a psychological laboratory.Sanford helped Calkins to plan a laboratory for the university.

Together with Sanford, Calkins worked on an experimental study on associations, which was eventually published. Calkins created the "paired-associates technique". She presented cards with stimuli consisting of numbers linked to colors. After presenting the cards in different ways several times, she only showed the colors and to test whether they could remember the corresponding numbers. She showed that figures associated with vivid colors could be remembered better than with neutral colors, but that the main determining factor for remembering is simply the frequency of exposure. Calkins also developed an influential psychology of the self. Calkins saw the self as an active, leading and purposeful means,present in all conscious actions and essential for every complete introspective report. She was of the opinion that the conscious self is the basic subject in psychology and defended this position against behaviorists and Gestalt psychology.

Despite being formulated in terms of an introspective experimental psychology that is no longer being performed in this period, Calkins' self-psychology was the forerunner of Gordon W. Allport's personality theory. Together with Ladd-Franklin and Washburn, Calkin made the road for women to graduate easier after they were the first to get permission to graduate.

Edna Heidbreder (1890-1985) published the book Seven Psychologies in 1933, and with this she proved herself to be one of the clearest authors on the systems of psychology that had prevailed until then. She also addressed a deeper question: what is a system of psychology? She also analyzed the different systems in relation to each other. She was also a beloved teacher.

Who was Edward Lee Thorndike?

Thorndike (1874-1949) studied English and French literature at Harvard. The only book that Thorndike voluntarily bought that was not literature was James's book. After reading this, he became enthusiastic about psychology, after which he turned his attention entirely to psychology. Inspired by C. Lloyd Morgan's descriptions of experiments conducted with chickens, he decided that studying chickens could give him a title relatively quickly (because he wanted a title as quickly as possible). James, who understood very little what Thorndike actually wanted to achieve, agreed.

Thorndike placed chickens in a loft and observed how and how quickly they learned to find the exit of the loft. Then he moved his attention from chickens to cats and constructed a puzzle box. From this puzzle box an animal can only escape if it gives a specific reaction: pulling a rope, pressing a button and so on. In more difficult boxes, the cats had to perform two actions in a certain sequence in order to escape. In his experiments, he placed hungry cats in the boxes and observed their behavior as they tried to escape from the box to get food. First, the cats, like the chickens, showed trial-and-error behavior until they inadvertently gave the right reaction, but after a few times the cats learned the right reaction and escaped faster.Thorndike suggested that specific stimuli and reactions were linked together. He called this the "law of effect". This law states that when someone performs a behavior and there is a pleasant reaction to it, the person will show this behavior more often. If someone shows a behavior and follows a negative reaction, such as punishment, the behavior will weaken and it will be less shown.

In 1899, Thorndike and his friend Robert Sessions Woodworth (1869-1962) decided to study the "transfer of training". This is the effect of instructions about and practice of one particular mental function on the presentation in another function. For the rest of his career, Thorndike became more interested in people than in animals. He also concluded that intelligence is not a separate quality, but a combination of many specific skills. Based on that idea, he developed intelligence tests that tested skills on separate functions, such as math and vocabulary. He also believed that these components are hereditary.

Through all the work of Thorndike he was seen as the leader of functionalism. In contrast to structuralism, where one only defines and describes the content of conscious experiences, functionalism focuses on the usability and purpose of behavior. Functionalism emphasizes individual differences. Other important functionalists from the Thorndike generation are Woodworth, James Rowland Angell (1869-1949), Harvey Carr (1873-1954) and John Dewey (1859-1952). In the end, Thorndike's theories about learning, education and hereditary intelligence turned out to be far too simple. Later, the debate on structuralism and functionalism lost its necessity when behaviorism emerged.Nowadays, Thorndike is mainly known for his first publication about trial-and-error learning in cats and the law of effect, which was the starting point for behaviorism.

Psychology as behavioral science: how is this area influenced by Pavlov, Watson and Skinner? - Chapter 9

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936) was interested in the congenital and reflexive saliva reactions in dogs, which he first called psychic secretions. This involved saliva that automatically and involuntarily arose as soon as food was around. Pavlov noticed that when dogs got used to the routine of the laboratory, they already started drooling as soon as they entered the examination room. The dogs had the research area associated with food. These reactions were clearly learned and the result of experience and not of innate reflexes.

Pavlov saw himself as a physiologist and did not want to be associated with 'soft' psychology. After reading Sechenov's book he became inspired enough to define his research in purely physiological terminology. He called the psychic secretion conditioned reflexes. He called unborn reflexes unconditioned reflexes. The relationship between the two of them could be examined in the laboratory and had to be interpreted in physiological terms.

Although Pavlov hated psychology, there were psychologists who showed interest in his work. One of those interested was Watson. He claimed that the subject of psychology was the objective, observable behavior, not the traditional mind and subjective consciousness. Inspired by the conditioned reflex of Pavlov, he became the founder of behaviorism.

What did Pavlov's life look like?

As a poor but gifted student, Pavlov started studying physiology at the University of St. Petersburg. There he focused on the new mechanistic physiology and he soon became known as an exceptionally accurate researcher who even helped doctoral students to obtain their diploma, even before he got his own diploma in 1883. Not that he could get started right away: jobs in conducting research were rare. Only after his fortieth he became professor at the St. Petersburg military medical academy, where he set up his own laboratory to pursue his dream: conducting an experimental study on the physiology of digestion.

Pavlov was known for having two different sides, depending on his environment. In his personal life he was known as naïve, but in the laboratory he was completely the opposite. There he was strict: his animals had to be well fed and the laboratory always had to be well rested. The remarkable thing about his laboratory was its organization. Although he had difficulty organizing his personal life, he succeeded very well in his laboratory. Experiments were systematically performed and repeated. New employees were never assigned a new or independent project, but always had to test the existing experiments again. If the new and the old results matched, the new employee could start a new project.Working systematically at Pavlov, he had already been pampered at a young age, and that was what he learned from others: working systematically in gathering knowledge.

In his laboratory he started studying the effect of digestion. This was a difficult task to perform, especially because the bodies involved are very vulnerable. These organs did not function as they usually do during surgery. Because of this, the effect could not easily be investigated. Observing the organs therefore had limited scientific value. Inspired by a previously performed "natural experiment", Pavlov managed to make a major contribution to the study of the function of digestion in operation.

In the "natural experiment" carried out before, a French-Canadian trapper was hit by a wound shot in his stomach. His doctor Beaumont managed to get him back on his feet, but in his stomach there was a hole that soon functioned as a window. Beaumont was thus able to observe directly what happened in the stomach when the food was digested. In addition, he was able to insert tools to collect, measure and analyze substances. Pavlov decided to replicate Beaumont's observations, but in a more selective and verifiable way. He did this by surgically creating openings (or fistulas) in different parts of the dog's digestion. Many had tried this before, but only Pavlov was successful in this, for two reasons:1) he was an unusually successful surgeon who disliked blood and thus tried to avoid it as much as possible and 2) he was one of the first to see the value of antiseptic surgery, to minimize infections and death of his animals. appearance.

One of the stomach reactions that Pavlov studied was saliva secretion. He discovered that a drop of diluted acid on the tongue of the dog produced a lot of saliva secretion. So he discovered the "psychic secretion" of animals. Even before liquid was dripped onto the animal's tongue, it started to drool. Through this observation, Pavlov began to study conditioned reflexes.

What are conditioned reflexes?

Pavlov's study consisted of systematically manipulating the four basic components of a conditioned reflex: the unconditioned stimulus (US), the unconditioned response (UR), the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the conditioned response (CS). A US and an UR together form the unconditioned reflex, an innate and automatic reaction that is not the result of conditioning or learning. Descartes had previously described one unconditioned reflex: the withdrawal of the foot (UR) when it came into contact with the heat of the fire (US). Pavlov also mentioned this earlier in his research, but then with regard to saliva.

Pavlov noticed that a typical conditioned stimulus is first neutral, so that it does not elicit a specific response. However, after the US stimulus is offered several times at the same time with the CS (so it is linked to it), this stimulus acquires the property to provoke a reaction. For the dog, seeing the caregiver or research room was the CS, which was regularly followed by the US; food or acid in the mouth. The neutral stimulus quickly provoked saliva in the dogs without actual food being given. So this became the stimulus-response connection that Pavlov called the conditioned reflex. From another experiment where the time interval between a CS and US varied, it appeared that the conditioning was fastest if the interval was short.Another experiment showed the higher-order conditioning. The strongly conditioned saliva reflex was coupled to another stimulus (such as a bell), after which it functioned as US, and then again coupled to another CS (such as light). This created a series of conditioned reflexes.

Other experiments showed that conditioned reflexes could also be triggered by a stimulus that only resembles the original conditioned stimulus. This was called Pavlov generalization. If in a workout a pitch is the conditioned stimulus, and then a slightly higher pitch is set up, then the conditioned reflex would still occur, but less strongly than with the original stimulus. The greater the difference between the conditioned stimulus and the test stimulus, the weaker the generalized response.

If a non-comparable stimulus was repeatedly presented but not amplified with the unconditioned stimulus, the response would decrease and even disappear. This called Pavlov differentiation. This is a form of learning in which the dog finds out that certain stimuli (which may have been generalized first) are still different. The dog learns to distinguish them.

Pavlov also came with the experimental neuroses. After a reaction was first generalized, and then differentiated again, then it will not be re-generalized later on. The animal will then experience an experimental neurosis. This is a reaction that occurs when animals are confronted with an inevitable conflict between two strong, but incompatible, conditioned responses. For example, if a dog can not choose between drooling or not, he can experience an experimental neurosis. For example, the animal tries to escape frantically and remains unmanageable for a long time. Based on this idea, Pavlov developed a theory about the functioning of the brain.

What was Pavlov's theory of the brain?

According to Pavlov, unconditioned reflexes are mediated by connections between sensory and motor nerves in the spinal cord and lower brain regions. Conditioned reflexes are localized in the cortex. Pavlov suggested that different conditioned stimuli also activate different specific areas in the cortex. Similar stimuli are closer together. If conditioning occurred, two different processes could be started in those brain locations: 1) excitation leads to the acquisition or generalization of conditioned reactions and 2) inhibition causes a response to be suppressed. Exciting processes in the cortical area occur when the presented stimulus is reinforced by an unconditioned stimulus.Inhibitory processes occurred when the reinforcement did not take place. Pavlov was also of the opinion that excitation and inhibition could spread. This has not been proven. If a similar alternative stimulus was shown during generalization, excitation took place in the cortical area, close to the location of the original conditioned stimulus. That is why a reaction was triggered. This also happens with differentiation, but then there is inhibition.This also happens with differentiation, but then there is inhibition.This also happens with differentiation, but then there is inhibition.

What was the influence of Pavlov?

The non-mentalist approach of Pavlov attracted the behaviorists in particular. But in contrast to Pavlov who called himself a physiologist, the behaviorists changed their definition of psychology so that the non-mentalistic approach also fit. The behaviorists used similar techniques as Pavlov to determine their behavioral laws. For them psychology was the science of behavior, not the science of consciousness.

Who was Watson?

Watson (1878-1958) is seen as the father of American behaviorism. He had almost become a preacher due to pressure from his family, but due to the death of his mother and a minor misstep at the university, he decided to continue studying. He had trouble with the philosophical and introspective aspects of psychology, but he could fully relate to studying animals. He was attracted to the work of Jacques Loeb (1859-1924), a mechanistic biologist, and Henry H. Donaldson (1857-1938), a neurologist. Although Watson had trouble with traditional psychology, he became known in this area.

Because Watson could not find himself in traditional psychology, he decided to redefine this field to behaviorism. He declared himself independent of traditional psychology in three ways:

Behavioral psychology had to be completely objective. Subjective data or interpretations in terms of conscious experiences did not fit here. In traditional psychology, only objective observations were used to supplement introspective data.

The purpose of psychology was not to describe and explain (something that traditional psychologists did), but to predict and control observable behavior.

Traditional psychology distinguished between humans and animals. Watson denied this distinction. According to him, similarities were also important.

Watson did experience problems with the behaviorist principles. Despite being a psychological method against introspection, he did not know a replacement method that was better. After reading about conditioned reflexes, in the work of Pavlov and Vladimir M. Bechterev (1857-1927), he also tried to condition people in an experimental way. In his book Behavior, Watson wrote that images and thoughts could be studied with improved methods of introspection.

The difference between Pavlov and Watson is that Pavlov was more interested in the brain than in behavior. Watson was previously looking for a general principle that could be applied to many different types of behavior. He saw the conditioned reflex as a model for a variety of reactions. He suggested that human emotions could be seen as glandular and muscle reflexes. Emotions could then be conditioned. If so, the Pavlovian conditioning would have found a behaviorist, non-introspective method to study the most complex subjects and objects in psychology.

What are conditioned emotional reactions?

Watson limited himself to comparing animals in his first book. In his second book he focused on human behavior. Conditioned reflexes played a major role in his book. He started to wonder which emotional reactions were innate and unconditioned. To answer this question, he studied babies who had not yet had time to acquire conditioned reactions. He concluded that there were three types of unconditioned emotional reactions, each produced by a small number of stimuli:

Fear, provoked by 1) a sudden and unexpected sound, and 2) the loss of support (for example if you suddenly dropped a baby).

Anger provoked by obstructing the movement of the baby.

Love, provoked by manipulation or caressing erotic zones, tickling, soft rocking, knocking or turning the baby so that he was lying on his stomach.

According to Watson, all other reactions such as fear in the dark or love for the mother were conditioned. In 1919, when he wrote his book, he had no empirical evidence for this theory. It seemed plausible, but he had never seen how an emotional reaction was conditioned. In 1920 he tried to solve this problem together with Rosalie Rayner (1899-1935) and until today the "Little Albert study" is one of the best known and controversial studies in psychological literature. They conditioned an 11-month-old boy, Albert, to be afraid of a white rat. This was a stimulus that initially aroused his interest rather than fear. As soon as Albert touched the rat with his left hand, a piece of steel was hammered right behind Albert's head with a hammer.The first time he did not cry and he just fell over. When he tried to touch the rat with his right hand this time, the hammer was hammered again. He fell again and started to cry this time. A week later the rat was shown again, and Albert kept his distance without crying. As soon as the rat was placed closer to Albert, the boy began to cry and he tried to crawl away quickly. Five days later he still reacted to the rat by crying and retiring. Watson and Rayner also tested for generalization by presenting other hairy stimuli. With each stimulus they presented, Albert showed a weakened reaction, even when it took place in a different environment. In their article they described what they would have done to decondition Albert, but that never actually happened.

Watson moved to New York and went to work for an advertising company, J. Walter Thompson. He first gained practical experience and then helped with the planning of many innovative and successful advertising campaigns. He also continued to give psychology lectures and in 1924 he wrote the book Behaviorism.

In his book "Behaviorism" Watson presented a case for "radical environment". This is a perspective in which the environmental factors are seen as more important in determining behavior than heredity. In his earlier theory of emotions, Watson suggested that different emotional reactions were the result of conditioning, based on three simple innate reflexes. Now he suggested that this was the same for all other aspects of man's personality. The innate factors are quickly adapted and developed through conditioning and experience. Properties such as talent, temperament and character traits are not inherited, but acquired. Parental control was very important to him, given that they could form their children.

Watson felt that there was such a thing as unconscious thinking, but not as the mysterious, metaphysical entity described by the psychoanalysts. He began by defining the conscious thought as a collection of vocal or sub-vocal verbal reactions. In other words, conscious thinkers literally talk to themselves. Every verbal response serves as a stimulus to invoke a new response. These newly provoked reactions do not have to be verbal, but can also be visceral or kinesthetic and can involve emotional reactions. The non-verbal reactions serve as links in thinking and evoke their own verbal or non-verbal reactions. They thus function as important emotion-laden parts of the thought process, but because they are non-verbal they are not perceived as conscious.

What is systematic desensitization?

Now that Watson knew that emotional reactions could be created, he also wanted to know if he could reduce them or even make them disappear. Together with Mary Cover Jones (1896-1987) he tried this out. Jones tested the idea with a child (Peter), who showed fear of rabbits. Every time the rabbit was shown, she also ensured that a pleasant stimulus (candy) was present. The rabbit was slowly pushed towards Peter in the presence of the candy until he could finally play with the animal without showing any fear. Jones called this procedure direct conditioning. Other children who were not afraid of rabbits were also involved in the procedure. Ultimately, direct conditioning and social imitation proved to be effective. This was the first successful demonstration of systematic desensitization.

Watson suggested that parents should have control over their children's environment so that the most suitable conditioned reflexes could be developed. In his book "Psychological Care of Infant and Child" he described how parents could avoid the development of inappropriate conditioned emotional reactions. The home environment had to be safe and unsuitable fear-generating sounds and actions had to be avoided as much as possible. Clothes that babies wore did not have to be too tight, so that the child could move freely and anger was avoided. Most importantly, Watson felt that children should never be encouraged to develop love reactions when they were expected to develop independent behavior. Despite the "principles" he described in his book,he acknowledged that there was no ideal way to raise children and that what is desired can vary from person to person.

What has Watson failed to do?

Although Pavlovian conditioning is seen as an important form of learning, it has been shown that it is inadequate for the active way in which organisms learn to manipulate and control their environment. Language and thinking are more than a succession of verbal, visceral and kinesthetic reflexes. Also, due to the emphasis on the environment, the effects of heredity should not be forgotten. Yet Watson's ideas were not entirely rejected. Some still define science as the study of behavior and find that their data must be observable and objective. Predicting and controlling behavior is still one of the goals of psychologists and the study of learning and conditioning is also still an important area in psychology. Watson has had a lot of influence on neo-havarianism.

Psychologists such as Edward Chace Tolman (1886-1959) and Clark Hull (1884-1952) have also followed the example of Watson. However, under the influence of a philosophy, also known as logical positivism, they tried to derive and test theories about behavior. Logical positivism tried to translate non-observable constructs into observable constructs. Tolman is best known for his experiment with mazes, where he demonstrated the concept of latent learning. In this experiment Tolman placed a group of rats in the labyrinth and let them roam freely there. A second group of rats could also roam freely, when they successfully navigated through the maze, they were rewarded with food. A third group of rats was allowed to roam free, but initially without reward.Only on the eleventh day of the experiment a reward was introduced for this group. If latent learning had taken place, the rats in the third group would have to show fewer navigational errors once the reward was introduced. This was indeed what happened. During the first ten days, the rats from the second group showed errors similar to the rats from the third group. The errors that the rats in the second group had shown decreased during the ten days. As soon as the reward was introduced in the third condition, the rats from the third group outperformed the rats from the second group by quickly running through the maze.the rats in the third group would have to show fewer navigation errors as soon as the reward was introduced. This was indeed what happened. During the first ten days, the rats from the second group showed errors similar to the rats from the third group. The errors that the rats in the second group had shown decreased during the ten days. As soon as the reward was introduced in the third condition, the rats from the third group outperformed the rats from the second group by quickly running through the maze.the rats in the third group would have to show fewer navigation errors as soon as the reward was introduced. This was indeed what happened. During the first ten days, the rats from the second group showed errors similar to the rats from the third group. The errors that the rats in the second group had shown decreased during the ten days. As soon as the reward was introduced in the third condition, the rats from the third group outperformed the rats from the second group by quickly running through the maze.the rats in the third group outperformed the rats from the second group by running quickly through the maze.the rats in the third group outperformed the rats from the second group by running quickly through the maze.

Tolman used these experiments to support his theory on goal-directed behaviorism. This theory means that all behavior is goal-oriented. The position of Hull (which is sometimes called mechanistic behaviorism) is about establishing complex mathematical laws where learning was put down in terms of specifiable relationships between operationally defined variables, such as habit, strength and stimulus intensity. Somebody else who was inspired by Watson, but who took a different position than neo-havarianism, was BF Skinner (1904-1990).

Who was Skinner?

Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1904-1990) was born in Pennsylvania. He had musical and literary talent. At the age of 10 he wrote his first literary work, a poem. In 1922 he went to Hamilton College in Clinton. Here he followed biology and philosophy lessons. He graduated in English and wrote for several magazines. After graduating, he moved in with his parents and tried to become a professional writer. He experienced a depression and writer's block here. At one point he became interested in the books of Watson and Pavlov, and valued them. On this he became behavioral psychologist.

What is operant conditioning?

What for Pavlov was the saliva reflex device became for Skinner the Skinnerbox. The Skinnerbox made it possible for him to study a different kind of learned behavior, which he called operant conditioning. Four non-formalized principles (used and discovered by Skinner) of scientific practice led to success:

If you come across something that is interesting, drop everything and study it.

Some research methods are easier than other research methods.

Devices can sometimes fail.

Some people are lucky.

Learning in daily life is more than the passive acquisition of reflex reactions according to Skinner, and that is the point where he disagreed with Watson and Pavlov. For organisms also learn to actively manipulate and control their environment. Thorndike had already demonstrated this with his chickens before. Skinner called this form of active learning operant conditioning, in which organisms influence their environment and experience the consequences.

The Skinnerbox was a cage for a white rat with a lever on the wall, with a tray next to it. The tray was connected to the lever. When the lever was pressed, food fell on the tray. The lever was also connected to a pen and a paper outside the box. The number of times the lever was pressed was displayed in a curve on paper. The cumulative curve is thus the total number of times the lever was pressed. Skinner also varied the specific conditions in which the reactions of the rat were or were not enhanced with food ("contingencies of reinforcement"). Skinner discovered the extinction curve by accident, when the food dispenser got stuck (think back to Skinner's third and fourth principle). First the rat kept pressing quickly on the lever,partly because he no longer stopped in between to eat and partly because he was frustrated because he got nothing more. After a few minutes the speed of the lever presses decreased until the rat finally stopped pushing and the curve also disappeared.

There are four excitation schemes. For example, in a fixed interval excitation schedule, the rat receives an actuation every three minutes (a block of cheese). In a fixed-ratio excitation scheme, the rat receives only a confirmation after a certain number of reactions, for example after having pressed the lever four times. The time or number of responses was varied for the variable interval and the variable-ratio excitation scheme. This creates a kind of constant hope that the next response will be rewarded (the same principle as in gambling). In this condition, the rats continued to react much longer after no reward was given.

Operant conditioning is a different way of learning than the Pavlovian conditioned reflex. Yet the discovery was just as important. Skinner called the Pavlovian learning method "respondent conditioning". The two learning methods differ from each other in many areas: Respondent conditioning creates new connections between stimuli and reactions, while with operant conditioning you can allow existing reactions to increase or decrease. In respondent conditioning, the reaction is triggered by a conditioned stimulus, whereas in the case of operant conditioning it must first be expressed by the participant before conditioning can take place. With respondent conditioning, the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli can be precisely defined,while in operant conditioning it can not be said with certainty which stimuli provokes the reaction. The strength of the respondent conditioning is measured in terms of reaction strength or latency, while in operant conditioning it is measured in terms of reaction speed. Skinner has developed a controlled and appropriate behaviorist method with operant conditioning.

What is programmed instruction?

Complex behaviors resemble a chain. Skinner developed a method to elicit a complex series of simple reactions in animals. He used an empowerer and began respondent conditioning to link the sound of ticks to a toy clicker with the help of a strong primary reinforcer such as food. After a while, the sound of the ticking became the secondary reinforcer. He used the secondary reinforcer to form a further series of more complex reactions. He also developed a programmed instruction. This is an educational technique in which complicated subjects such as mathematics are broken into small, easy components. In the beginning one works with easy questions, but the difficulty level increases slowly. These programmed instructions are still being applied and are very valuable.

What are the philosophical implications of operant conditioning?

Skinner was of the opinion that if the negative reinforcers were considered at the same time as the positive reinforcers, all behaviors would be determined by unforeseen reinforcers (or chance). The free will therefore would not exist. Skinner suggested that when we believe that we act out of our free will, we are actually free of the negative reinforcers and that we are especially seeking the positive reinforcers. This he described in his book "Walden Two". This describes an ideal society in which positive reinforcement is used for social control. Children are only taught to look for the positive amplifiers so that they can ultimately show social and civilized behavior. Walden Two was very controversial and the 'ideal' society was portrayed as totalitarian.

According to Skinner, we only acquire knowledge by experiencing casual reinforcers in the environment. The knowledge we have gained can only be shown by our verbal behavior. Noam Chomsky criticized this idea of ​​Skinner. His argument was that the behaviourist theories were too imprecise to explain the multiple levels in which grammatical structure was represented. Chomsky also believed that only human babies could acquire language, because only they had an innate knowledge about the fundamental structure of language.

In the book that Skinner published in 1971, he discussed the assumption of the autonomous man on which many Western societies were based. Skinner did not agree with this assumption and was of the opinion that it could have harmful consequences. According to the assumption, we compliment people more often for good deeds they do voluntarily, than for actions they have to do. Following Skinner we do not know in the first case the circumstances and the situation that are responsible for producing the behavior. In the second case, we know that. He found that if people were complimented for an unexplained good behavior, they also had to be punished for their voluntarily produced bad behavior. The assumption that people are free,therefore demands punishment and according to Skinner it is a threat if this assumption is constantly used to exercise control over behavior.

In his further experiments he suggested that positive reinforcement in the production of lasting conditioned effects is more effective than negative reinforcement (punishment). Therefore, we must abandon the belief about freedom and accept control, in order to create a good environment where socially desirable behavior can be formed. What was not clear in his theory is who should create that environment.

What is the influence of Skinner?

The Skinner approach ("behavioral analysis") is still being used. Skinner's ideas have been applied to find a treatment for autism, for example. In education, behavioral principles are used to help children with ADHD and learning disabilities. Skinnerian training techniques are still used in the field of animal training.

Social psychology: how did this psychology develop in the period after Mesmer? - Chapter 10

Johann Joseph Gassner (1727-1779) was a priest who claimed that he could cure illness through exorcism. Many patients reported improvement after treatment, but many others thought he was pushing and applying it indiscriminately. That is why the Viennese physicist Franzz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) was asked to examine the treatments of Gassner. Mesmer was able to cure patients in a similar way, but by means of magnetism instead of supernatural exorcism. Mesmer duplicated the effects of Gassner and stated that the effects were the result of a strong magnetic force. He explained Gassner's results in a naturalistic and scientific way. Gassner was banned and was not allowed to exorcism anymore.Mesmer made a number of important discoveries about the phenomenon of hypnotism and made an attempt to explain this scientifically. He also conducted research into the social influence processes.

What is animal magnetism?

Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) was able to cure patients in the same way as Gassner, but he also provoked a natural force as therapeutic meganism, instead of a supernatural exorcism. He healed many patients, and explained that this was due to a strong magnetic force that was concentrated in his own body. So he provided a naturalistic and 'scientific' statement. Gassner was then exiled and was not allowed to exercise exorcism any more. Mesmer made important discoveries about hypnosis, the process of provoking a mental concentration that leads to a state of high instability, and tried to explain this in a scientific way. He also conducted important studies in the field of social influence,that have led to many developments in social psychology. Of them living before 1766 little is known. In 1766 Mesmer got his doctorate in medicine. He had copied much of his dissertation from someone else, but one of the parts he had not copied was about a force that he called animal gravity. He stated that magnetism was caused by a group of invisible and mysterious liquids, such as electricity, gravity and gases such as helium. His plagiarism remained unnoticed. He married a rich widow and became an active socialist. He was also a good amateur musician, and became friends with Mozart.but one of the parts that he had not copied was about a force that he called animal gravity. He stated that magnetism was caused by a group of invisible and mysterious liquids, such as electricity, gravity and gases such as helium. His plagiarism remained unnoticed. He married a rich widow and became an active socialist. He was also a good amateur musician, and became friends with Mozart.but one of the parts that he had not copied was about a force that he called animal gravity. He stated that magnetism was caused by a group of invisible and mysterious liquids, such as electricity, gravity and gases such as helium. His plagiarism remained unnoticed. He married a rich widow and became an active socialist. He was also a good amateur musician, and became friends with Mozart.

In 1773 Mesmer began to treat a patient who suffered from periodic seizures, consisting of symptoms such as convulsions, vomiting and inflammation. He had his patient swallow iron and placed magnets on different parts of her body. Then she felt a certain force going through her body, followed by the symptoms she had during the attacks. After the attack was over, the symptoms disappeared for six hours. He repeated this treatment a number of times and it seemed to work. He then also applied the therapy to others, but this time indirectly he suggested that once the magnets were placed, they would get an attack (after all, he knew what to expect). Most patients responded as expected.

Then he tried the treatment without magnets, but still suggesting that they would get an attack. The method also worked, but instead of concluding that magnetism has nothing to do with his therapies, Mesmer came to the idea that his own body was a strong source of animal magnetism and that it was therapeutically just as effective as a real magnet. According to him, each person - and the associated environment - contained a magnetic force that could sometimes be weakened. This then produced symptoms of illness. The use of a strong magnetic source strengthens the field again, so that the symptoms disappear. From then on, this practice was called mesmerism.

Mesmer became involved in two controversies. When he published his magnetic therapy, Father Hell wanted credits for his idea. Mesmer reacted with a cripple, and this idea was quickly dismissed. A second controversy had more serious consequences for Mesmer. This was after the treatment of a young pianist, Maria Theresia Paradis, who had been blind since her third. Mesmer claimed that he had restored her sight with magnetism, until her parents removed her from his care, and she became blind again. Her parents then sued him. What really happened is uncertain. Perhaps she suffered from a psychologically induced blindness, which actually eased Mesmer temporarily. Nevertheless, Mesmer then fled to Paris. Here he soon had more patients than he could individually treat.When too many patients came to ask for treatment, he came up with the idea of ​​his baquet (literally: "cockpit"), which could be used for mass production of magnetic cures.

By treating people in groups, there was an increase in the reactions of the patients, due to the phenomenon now called social contagion by social psychologists. The reactions that were shown first by a number of patients showed the other patients how they should respond so that they could participate too. In the end, Mesmer also started an investigation, just like Gassner did before. The researchers who underwent the magnetic therapy discovered that they were insensitive. They also discovered that people were attacked when something was presented that they were convinced was magnetized, while in fact it was not. So they concluded that there was no evidence that magnetism existed. They did not deny that patients were sometimes affected,but argued that the influence was primarily imagined, rather than a physical force. According to them, animal magnetism was a false science, and after this conclusion it was no longer taken seriously.

When Mesmer retired in 1784, his enthusiastic students ensured that magnetism continued to be applied. One of those students, Amand Marie Jacques de Chastenet (1751-1825), therefore made a number of important discoveries.

What is artificial somnambulism?

Instead of patients being attacked by treatment with magnetism, Chastenet succeeded in bringing one of his patients into a peaceful and sleepy trance. Once in that state, patients were able to answer questions and carry out complicated behaviors without being able to remember afterwards what had happened. He first called this state perfect crisis, but he soon replaced the term with artificial somnambulism. In these patients he and his colleagues quickly discovered many effects that are still known today for modern hypnotism. Chastenet discovered that patients, once in trance, could easily be influenced. Not being able to remember what happened during the trance is also called post-hypnotic amnesia.Post-hypnotic suggestion is the effect of telling participants during the trance what to do when they wake up, without being aware of what they were previously instructed in their waking state. In addition, Chastenet had two convictions: 1) participants in trance could do things they would normally find impossible and 2) participants can not be hypnotized against their will, or do things during the trance that go against their moral principles. An explanation for the first belief is that hypnosis makes someone more relaxed and confident about their ability to do something, improving their performance.In addition, Chastenet had two convictions: 1) participants in trance could do things they would normally find impossible and 2) participants can not be hypnotized against their will, or do things during the trance that go against their moral principles. An explanation for the first belief is that hypnosis makes someone more relaxed and confident about their ability to do something, improving their performance.In addition, Chastenet had two convictions: 1) participants in trance could do things they would normally find impossible and 2) participants can not be hypnotized against their will, or do things during the trance that go against their moral principles. An explanation for the first belief is that hypnosis makes someone more relaxed and confident about their ability to do something, improving their performance.thus improving their performance.thus improving their performance.

Another amateur, Jose Custodio di Faria (1746-1819), was skeptical about magnetic theory. He tried to explain why not all people react equally well to the magnetic procedures. He tried to explain the phenomenon by looking at the vulnerability and the predispositions of the participants. He demonstrated that trance could also be provoked without using magnetic force. One in five participants reacted in his experiment in the same way that they responded to Chastenet. Faria called this reaction lucid sleep. He showed that lucid sleep is possible with everyone, and depends on the sensitivity and aptitude of the participants instead of magnetic forces.

Mesmerism is one of the most successful early stunning methods used in Western surgery. In 1843, WS Ward performed a leg amputation and reported that the healed patient had not experienced any pain. They were not convinced of this. James Esdaile (1808-1859) also applied mesmerism for his operations, which reduced the mortality rate from dangerous operations from 50% to 5%. That too was not recognized. Despite the fact that these experiments were not recognized, they are historically seen as the first successful cases of anesthesia during surgery, tested by Western surgeons. In 1844 dentist Horace Welles found out that he could draw painless teeth by letting his patients fall asleep with laughing gas. Other methods were ether and chloroform.These chemical ways were more reliable and universally applicable. The idea of ​​anesthetization with mesmerism disappeared into the background. James Braid (1795-1860) concluded after a short investigation that mesmerism was indeed real and confirmed earlier results of Chastenet and Faria. He demonstrated mesmeric effects and emphasized the sensitivity of the participants. He also came up with the term neuro-hypnology as a new one for mesmerism. Braid published his ideas in scientific journals.He demonstrated mesmeric effects and emphasized the sensitivity of the participants. He also came up with the term neuro-hypnology as a new one for mesmerism. Braid published his ideas in scientific journals.He demonstrated mesmeric effects and emphasized the sensitivity of the participants. He also came up with the term neuro-hypnology as a new one for mesmerism. Braid published his ideas in scientific journals.

What was the contribution of Liebeault and Bernheim?

The Nancy School of Hypnosis developed with the help of Ambroise Auguste Liebeault (1823-1904). He started a practice and started experimenting with hypnotic therapies. He showed that physical complaints can be manipulated through psychological and suggestive factors. He used a simple method whereby the patient had to stare deep into his eyes while giving instructions to sleep. As soon as the patient got into a trance, Liebeault told that the symptoms would soon disappear. Often this was also the case. Hippolyte Bernheim (1840-1919) heard about Liebeault and decided to learn these methods as well. He compared the characteristics of people who reacted strongly to hypnosis and people who reacted weakly to it. He concluded that the most successful results came from people from lower social classes.He stated that patients from lower classes were probably more conditioned to obey, causing them to exhibit more hypnotic sensitivity. He introduced term susceptibility, which referred to the suitability to turn an idea into an act. Strongly hypnotizable patients often had this characteristic stronger.

Who was Jean-Martin Charcot?

Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893) was the leader of the Salpetriere School. A few thousand poor and sick women stayed here in more than forty buildings. There was a separate institute for men. Charcot became a doctor here. He quickly gained a reputation as an excellent physician, and carried out important work in the areas of epilepsy, MS, and organ diseases. He was called the Napoleon of the Neuroses. He also gave public lectures, which were very popular with celebrities. Charcot contributed to the rehabilitation of hypnosis as a scientific subject by presenting it as a somatic expression of hysteria. He had found similarities between hypnosis and hysteria, and he stated that hysteria and hypnosis are two aspects that have the same underlying abnormal neurological condition.He disputes Liebeault's claim that hypnotic susceptibility is a normal trait. The Charcot diagnoses were based on the assumption that many neurological diseases or in their rare, pure form occurred (this he called "type"), or in a partial or incomplete form ("forme fruste"). He decided to observe different groups of patients with a certain disorder, until he encountered a group that could represent this "type" (pure form).until he encountered a group that could represent this "type" (pure form).until he encountered a group that could represent this "type" (pure form).

People who suffered from epilepsy and people who suffered from hysteria formed such groups. In both hypnosis and hysteria, he found physical and mental abnormalities that were not anatomically logical and outside the control of the participant. Charcot concluded that hypnotic effects and hysteria symptoms probably have the same cause and that hypnotic susceptibility is really only a symptom.

He decided to observe Blanche Wittman (1859-1913), a woman with hysteria. He observed three phases. The first phase was catalepsy where muscle weakness took place. The second phase was lethargy where cramps and involuntary movements took place. The final phase was somnambulism in which complex automatic movements and actions take place (such as sleepwalking). He named these three phases grand hypnotism.

Alfred Binet (1857-1911) and Charles Fere (1852-1907) distrusted the experiments with Blanche Wittmann. They introduced the magnet in the hypnotic sessions and transported the effects in the somnambulistic phase from one side of her body to the other. Joseph Delboeuf (1831-1896) had always accepted the theory of grand hypnotism, but began to doubt when he saw these new results. He replicated the effects of Charcot and concluded that the effects of grand hypnotism were artificial. He did take precautionary measures against the transfer of expectations on patients, and Charcot did not. After Delboeuf published these findings, the tide began to turn in favor of the Nancy School. In 1891 even the patients from the Salpetriere admitted that they were wrong.Binet then did a lot of research into intentional suggestion, and in this way helped create the discipline of experimental psychology. Charcot also admitted his mistakes. Yet, Charcot was one of the first to investigate the interactions between emotions and physical factors, and brought attention to hysteria and hypnosis.

What did Le Bon write about the masses?

Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931) stated that the most fundamental social reactions of a person came from unconscious ideas and motives. He noted that when people learned a new task, they focused their conscious attention on their behavior. Once the task was well learned, the behavior became more unconscious and automatic. He concluded that the best-learned, most effective and most motivating ideas always work on an unconscious level. He argued that the most fundamental difference between nations and cultures came from different unconscious ideas and aptitudes. He also stated that the degree of conscious control over the behavior of an individual was reduced as soon as he was placed in a group.

Individuals in a group tend to let go of individuality and rationality, so they do things they would never have done on their own. Le Bon tried to explain the behavior of individuals in groups by means of three factors:

People in a group are aware of their large number, and the anonymity of their individuality. Together you are stronger (and more anonymous). People then feel less personally responsible.

The effect of social contamination

Increased susceptibility to influencing people in groups.

The last two factors have been observed before. Le Bon investigated the relationship between hypnosis and the group phenomenon, through the analyzes he made about the qualities of more effective leaders in groups. The most effective but at the same time dangerous leader is someone who is non-reflective, irrational and fanatical. Le Bon also noted that effective leaders used three techniques to communicate with their followers. The same three techniques were also used by hypnosis therapists at the time:

Confirmation: the effective leader always emphasizes the positive rather than the negative, in order to avoid doubts and discussions.

Repeating confirmations so that it becomes part of unconscious ideas.

Ensure that there are always a number of fanatical followers among the public, so that social contamination can take place. The book by Le Bon, The Crowd, was about many social psychological ideas: the power of social influence and suggestion, the qualities and techniques of leaders who exert such influence, and the behavior of individuals who are members of groups.

What was Binet's experiment?

After Binet was exposed by Delboeuf, he called non-intentional suggestion "the cholera of psychology". Together with Victor Henri (1872-1940) he developed a simple test (and later several) in 1894 to test the visual memory of school children. In the test, participants were shown a straight line. Subsequently, it was asked to choose one of several non-straight lines that is equally long. The researchers tried to manipulate the answers with different types of suggestion, for example: 'are you sure?' Binet's studies showed how social phenomena such as conformity, susceptibility and children's eyewitness testimony could easily be investigated in a laboratory. Norman Triplett (1861-1931) conducted a similar investigation. His research was first published,English research in experimental social psychology.

Who was Floyd Henry Allport (1890-1978)?

Allport was the eldest of two brothers. After a suggestion from his teacher Münsterberg, Floyd studied the performance of individuals who act alone versus acting as a group member during a number of simple time tasks. The quantity of the presentation per member of a group was more than when an individual works alone, but the quality represented nothing. The intensity of working (energy) that increased in the presence of others, he called social facilitation. He also discovered that in tasks that require judging by means of a scale (such as pleasant / not pleasant), participants often avoid the extreme and stay in the center of the scale. The homogeneity of the reactions is due to the "conformity-producing tendency". Allport met Morton Prince (1854-1929) at the Harvard.He was a prominent neurologist with an interest in work on hypnosis and the associations with psychopathology. In 1906 he founded 'the Journal of Abnormal Psychology', and in 1921 Allport became co-publisher. The name was quickly changed to Journal of Abnormal Psychology and Social Psychology. Allport gained a position at the University of North Carolina, where he wrote his first book for the new field: Social Psychology. Allport believed that social psychology should focus on objectively observable responses produced by individuals in objectively specifiable social situations. He rejected the "group fallacy" group thinking. Allport was therefore in favor of a social psychology that is experimental and objective, focused on the reactions of individuals in controlled situations.

What research did Solomon Eliot Asch (1907-1996) do?

Asch was born in Poland and emigrated to the US as a teenager. He studied in New York under Wertheimer, and eventually became a colleague of Köhler at Swarthmore College. Asch focused on social conformity. Asch had the same social concerns as the Gestalt psychologists. The occurrence of the Holocaust, in which people obeyed others and thus carried out the most cruel actions, indicated that the tendency to belong was not limited to atypical personalities. It seems to be a universal tendency that could be influenced by situational factors. Social scientists and philosophers were interested in these social conditions, which had an influence on conformity and obedience. Asch went back to the term "susceptibility",and added that the term suggested a kind of passive acceptance in social pressure. Asch wondered if the participants really believed everything they had been told and if they were aware that what they were told was not true.

In his experiment (which he called "visual judgment") he brought together a group of people. The subjects first looked at a card with a standard line on it and then at another card with three lines, of which only one of the lines had the same length as the standard line. The subjects were asked to say out loud which line they thought had the same length. A preliminary test had shown that this was an extremely easy task for people when they were alone, in which case almost 100% gave the correct answer. This experiment is very similar to Binet's experiment with remembering the length of lines. In Asch's experiment, there was only one real participant in the group (together with a number of actors), and the latter was only allowed to give his opinion last.The other fake participants gave a reaction according to a previously rehearsed script. In a typical session, all fake participants gave the right reaction in the first two trials, and the real participant naturally gave the same answer. In the third trial, all fake participants gave an incorrect answer. The real participants seemed to respond differently to this, but they all showed the same observable signals that indicated surprise and discomfort. In the first trial about 20% gave the wrong answer, and in later trials this percentage doubled. Only 25% of the persons remained completely independent and never agreed with the majority. Later, in interviews, they admitted that some felt obliged to support the rest of the group in their response, while others had more confidence in their own judgment.In follow-up experiments, Asch varied the size of the group with fake participants. When they only had one 'opponent' in a group of two, the real participants only went with the wrong ratings 4% of the time. With two opponents this percentage rose to 14%, and with three to about 32%.

What is cognitive dissonance?

Leon Festinger (1919-1989) studied cognitive dissonance, a subject in which experimental social psychology is combined with cognition. These are two or more ideas or beliefs that someone has about a certain topic. These ideas are in conflict with each other. When someone becomes aware of the conflict, he / she experiences an uncomfortable state of cognitive dissonance and is motivated to reduce that feeling. An alternative idea, even if it is incorrect, can make dissonance less when it is adopted by more people.

One of the best known experiments where cognitive dissonance is investigated is the one dollar experiment. Participants must first perform two extremely boring tasks in one hour. Then participants are asked to tell the "next participant" - who is actually connected with the researchers - briefly according to a script (in which the work was described as extremely interesting or fun) about what they should have done during the task. Some subjects received one dollar for running this script, while other subjects received twenty dollars. Eventually, all participants had to experience their judgment of how they had told this to the next test subject. The results were that the participants had only received one dollar,judged this task more positively than those who received twenty dollars. The reason was that the participants in the one-dollar condition experienced significantly more cognitive dissonance, because they have given a false positive report about the experience, while it is actually a tedious task for so little money. The twenty-dollar participants had received more money, which made it easier to justify their behavior without having to come up with an alternative explanation. The one-dollar participants had to reduce their cognitive dissonance by adjusting their real view on the experience.while it is actually a tedious task for so little money. The twenty-dollar participants had received more money, which made it easier to justify their behavior without having to come up with an alternative explanation. The one-dollar participants had to reduce their cognitive dissonance by adjusting their real view on the experience.while it is actually a tedious task for so little money. The twenty-dollar participants had received more money, which made it easier to justify their behavior without having to come up with an alternative explanation. The one-dollar participants had to reduce their cognitive dissonance by adjusting their real view on the experience.

What did Stanley Milgram's research look like?

Stanley Milgram (1933-1984) was interested in Asch's experimental psychology, and became his assistant. He replaced Asch's distinction task with a hearing task. He first wanted to test how individuals behave on their own, to determine the basic level of their obedience and to determine how peer pressure can increase compliance. Two participants were put together in a laboratory. Cards were drawn to determine who the teacher and student would be. However, there was teacher on both cards. The accomplice always said that he had drawn the card with a pupil, after which he was placed in a cell where he could not see the teacher, but they could still communicate with each other. An electrode was attached to the pupil's arm,where it was said that it was connected to the shock generator. In the experiment, the teacher reads a list of paired words, and tests the student by listing the first word of the pair, and asking the student to list the second corresponding word. The teacher was instructed to give a shock with every incorrect answer. The more mistakes, the more violent the shock would become. The student was instructed to give many wrong answers, and the researcher's goal was to see how the teacher would respond to punishment. Over time, the student would show signs of pain and suffering, for example by hitting the walls. If the teacher doubted whether the researcher asked questions about what was going on, the researcher responded with an authoritarian command 's that the person just had to continue.

What are the ethical concerns and consequences?

The results showed that almost everyone continued to administer shocks after the first cries of pain. Two-thirds of the participants went through to the very worst shocks. The results showed that normal participants would follow instructions from a reliable (often authoritarian) person, even if they hurt an innocent person extremely. The second discovery that Milgram did was that in the experiment enormous pressure and tension arose in the subjects, which manifested itself in a lot of sweating, trembling and stuttering, or even uncontrolled laughter. Milgram's experiment was a demonstration of the power of how a given situation can influence the social behavior of individuals. This ensures that they behave drastically differently than they would normally have done.Even the most normal people can behave differently in a certain situation and do things they would normally never do. The strength of the situation and the associated social expectations often weigh heavier than the personal predisposition.

This point was also confirmed with the Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted by Philip Zimbardo (b.1933). Twenty-four students were randomly assigned a role: they had to play either prisoner or guardian. Many of the participants lived so much into their role (guards soon showed sadistic behavior and some prisoners were highly traumatized) that the experiment was cut off after six days to prevent further psychological damage being caused. Recently, however, studies have shown that it is not per se justified to explain the behavior of Nazi criminals such as Eichmann on the basis of the Milgram studies. Some subjects would have participated in the experiments because they knew they were participating in an experiment.This could have led to higher shock levels because they knew they did not cause any real damage. These studies have provided evidence that Eichmann and others knew well that their actions had terrible consequences, and even continued killing in the absence of direct orders to continue.

Milgram did his best to ensure that the emotional stress experienced by his participants was temporary. The majority of its participants were happy that they had participated. There were also questions regarding the deception used in the experiment. The debate resulted in an informed consent, which had to be completed by the participant before the start of an experiment. In the informed consent, the participant is informed about the objectives of the research and the procedures. Experiments such as Milgram can no longer be performed in the same way.

In another research conducted by Milgram, he investigated the small world phenomenon. Here he gave the name and address of a person (goal A) in Boston to a group of people in Nebraska and he asked them if they knew that person. If not, they had to pass it on to someone whom they thought would most likely know person A. Most of these chains eventually came very close to person A and more than a quarter actually came to him. This was the basis for the idea that two random persons in the world are no more than six steps apart in such a chain.

Within social psychology a change has taken place with regard to the kind of situations that can be studied. High-impact situations such as Zimbardo and Milgram can never be examined in a laboratory. Many situations that can now be investigated are limited. High-impact situations must now be investigated in natural surroundings and non-experimental methods, for example by interviewing and studying people who have already experienced a traumatic experience.

"Lost in the Mall" is a research conducted by Elizabeth Loftus (b.1944) and Jacqueline Pickrell. They conducted a research in which false memories were created among participants. For ethical reasons they chose a scenario for a hypothetical event that had taken place in childhood, and that is mildly traumatizing without any negative consequences. The participants were young adults. Four short stories were given to the participants, with three of the stories actually taking place. The fourth was fiction and described how the participant as a child in a shopping center was lost and how they were then reunited with their parents. The participants were asked to give their own version of the story. Despite the fact that most participants could only remember the false story,they accepted it and gave small details. One of the benefits of this experiment is that memories of criminal abuse now require more validation before they can be accepted as evidence.

The mind in conflict: what does Freud's psychoanalysis mean? - Chapter 11

How did psychoanalysis arise?

Joseph Breuer and Bertha Pappenheim came up with the "cathartic method" as treatment. In that method Breuer Pappenheim hypnotized and asked her to go back to the first time she had experienced a physical sensation (like her symptoms). Hypnotizing made it easier to recall forgotten memories (but high emotion memories, associated with symptoms). By recalling the forgotten memory, she can also let go of the suppressed emotion. This way the symptoms could disappear.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), a friend of Breuer, remembered the method years later and tried it out. He found out that it works better than direct hypnosis. Together with Breuer he wrote the book "Studies on Hysteria", which became the starting point for Freud's new field. He called this field psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis played an important role in the history of the Mental Hygiene Movement and the Child Guidance Clinics. In the book several cases were described and the general hypothesis was stated that patients with hysteria suffered from their memories. It was not about normal memories, but memories about emotion-laden experiences that were stored in the unconscious, causing illness ("pathogenesis ideas"). Without access to normal consciousness,the emotional energy that accompanies the pathogenesis ideas can not be expressed and released in a normal way. The stimulus that normally evoked the memories was now used to activate the pinched emotional energy, producing hysterical symptoms. The hysterical symptoms were called conversions (the conversion of emotional information into physical energy). With hypnosis people can again consciously access the pathogenesis ideas, allowing the normal expression of their pinched energy to take place. This is how the cause of the symptoms is addressed. A downside is that the "cathartic method" is only applicable to people who can be deeply hypnotized.The stimulus that normally evoked the memories was now used to activate the pinched emotional energy, producing hysterical symptoms. The hysterical symptoms were called conversions (the conversion of emotional information into physical energy). With hypnosis people can again consciously access the pathogenesis ideas, allowing the normal expression of their pinched energy to take place. This is how the cause of the symptoms is addressed. A downside is that the "cathartic method" is only applicable to people who can be deeply hypnotized.The stimulus that normally evoked the memories was now used to activate the pinched emotional energy, producing hysterical symptoms. The hysterical symptoms were called conversions (the conversion of emotional information into physical energy). With hypnosis people can again consciously access the pathogenesis ideas, allowing the normal expression of their pinched energy to take place. This is how the cause of the symptoms is addressed. A downside is that the "cathartic method" is only applicable to people who can be deeply hypnotized.With hypnosis people can again consciously access the pathogenesis ideas, allowing the normal expression of their pinched energy to take place. This is how the cause of the symptoms is addressed. A downside is that the "cathartic method" is only applicable to people who can be deeply hypnotized.With hypnosis people can again consciously access the pathogenesis ideas, allowing the normal expression of their pinched energy to take place. This is how the cause of the symptoms is addressed. A downside is that the "cathartic method" is only applicable to people who can be deeply hypnotized.

Freud grew up as the oldest child in his family, but with half-brothers who were as old as his mother and a nephew (grandson of Freud's father) who was older than he was. Because of this unusual family composition, Freud might have become susceptible to family relationships. Later he emphasizes in his theories.

When Freud started studying at the University of Vienna, he met the philosopher Franz Brentano, who became his inspiration. In 1874 Brentano published a book, "Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint". In his book he emphasized the act psychology, in which he contrasted the essential nature of the subjects within psychology and those within the physical sciences. The physical sciences studied objects, while for Brentano the basic units of psychological analyzes were actions that always referred to the content of an object. For example, where the basic unit of physical analysis is probably an atom, the psychological base unit was an action like thinking about an atom, or believing that a particular atom exists.So all mental phenomena have a component that indicates what they are "about", a way in which the object is involved or implied in the consciousness. This called Brentano intentionality. Brentano also felt that every psychological theory should be dynamic, or able to take into account the influence of motivational factors on thinking. He also made a distinction between the "objective reality" of physical objects and the "subjective reality" of private thinking. Brentano remained the inspiration of Freud until he met Brucke. Together with Hermann Hemholtz, Emil Du Bois-Reymond and students of Johannes Muller, Ernest Brucke was the father of the productive new physiology. In this, vitalism was rejected and mechanistic explanations for organic phenomena were sought.a way in which the object is involved or implied in the consciousness. This called Brentano intentionality. Brentano also felt that every psychological theory should be dynamic, or able to take into account the influence of motivational factors on thinking. He also made a distinction between the "objective reality" of physical objects and the "subjective reality" of private thinking. Brentano remained the inspiration of Freud until he met Brucke. Together with Hermann Hemholtz, Emil Du Bois-Reymond and students of Johannes Muller, Ernest Brucke was the father of the productive new physiology. In this, vitalism was rejected and mechanistic explanations for organic phenomena were sought.a way in which the object is involved or implied in the consciousness. This called Brentano intentionality. Brentano also felt that every psychological theory should be dynamic, or able to take into account the influence of motivational factors on thinking. He also made a distinction between the "objective reality" of physical objects and the "subjective reality" of private thinking. Brentano remained the inspiration of Freud until he met Brucke. Together with Hermann Hemholtz, Emil Du Bois-Reymond and students of Johannes Muller, Ernest Brucke was the father of the productive new physiology. In this, vitalism was rejected and mechanistic explanations for organic phenomena were sought.This called Brentano intentionality. Brentano also felt that every psychological theory should be dynamic, or able to take into account the influence of motivational factors on thinking. He also made a distinction between the "objective reality" of physical objects and the "subjective reality" of private thinking. Brentano remained the inspiration of Freud until he met Brucke. Together with Hermann Hemholtz, Emil Du Bois-Reymond and students of Johannes Muller, Ernest Brucke was the father of the productive new physiology. In this, vitalism was rejected and mechanistic explanations for organic phenomena were sought.This called Brentano intentionality. Brentano also felt that every psychological theory should be dynamic, or able to take into account the influence of motivational factors on thinking. He also made a distinction between the "objective reality" of physical objects and the "subjective reality" of private thinking. Brentano remained the inspiration of Freud until he met Brucke. Together with Hermann Hemholtz, Emil Du Bois-Reymond and students of Johannes Muller, Ernest Brucke was the father of the productive new physiology. In this, vitalism was rejected and mechanistic explanations for organic phenomena were sought.or able to take into account the influence of motivational factors on thinking. He also made a distinction between the "objective reality" of physical objects and the "subjective reality" of private thinking. Brentano remained the inspiration of Freud until he met Brucke. Together with Hermann Hemholtz, Emil Du Bois-Reymond and students of Johannes Muller, Ernest Brucke was the father of the productive new physiology. In this, vitalism was rejected and mechanistic explanations for organic phenomena were sought.or able to take into account the influence of motivational factors on thinking. He also made a distinction between the "objective reality" of physical objects and the "subjective reality" of private thinking. Brentano remained the inspiration of Freud until he met Brucke. Together with Hermann Hemholtz, Emil Du Bois-Reymond and students of Johannes Muller, Ernest Brucke was the father of the productive new physiology. In this, vitalism was rejected and mechanistic explanations for organic phenomena were sought.Emil Du Bois-Reymond and students of Johannes Muller were Ernest Brucke the father of the productive new physiology. In this, vitalism was rejected and mechanistic explanations for organic phenomena were sought.Emil Du Bois-Reymond and students of Johannes Muller were Ernest Brucke the father of the productive new physiology. In this, vitalism was rejected and mechanistic explanations for organic phenomena were sought.

Freud invented the printing technique, in which patients had to lie down on a couch and keep their eyes closed, just as with hypnosis. Then the patient had to go back to the moment he had experienced the symptoms for the first time. When the patient could no longer recall the memories, Freud pressed his forehead with his hand. Often the memories came back again. This process was repeated a number of times, and often caused relief for patients. Slowly Freud found out that he did not have to exert physical pressure to stimulate their memory. All he had to do was encourage his patients to let their thoughts go and press them to say honestly what came to them, even though it seemed irrelevant. By asking for everything,Associations could be formed. This method of free association soon became the new standard treatment of Freud. By focusing more on the patient's associations and the relationship between him and his patient, he made a number of important discoveries:

The pathogenesis ideas that were evoked do not have a one-to-one relationship with certain symptoms. There was previously a series of pathogenesis ideas behind an individual symptom. This was what Freud called "overdetermination". For example, a patient with vibrations associated three different emotion-laden memories with her symptoms.

Unconscious pathogenesis ideas are not forgotten, but rather deliberately suppressed ('repression'). As proof of this hypothesis Freud came with the observation that patients first resisted the free association process. The unconscious resistance suggested that patients had complex attitudes towards their illness. On the one hand they suffered from the symptoms and wanted to get rid of them, but on the other hand there was also the unconscious resistance that stood in the way. Freud thus noted an intrapsychic conflict in the patients.

Another hypothesis developed by Freud had to do with the many experiences that his patients shared about sexual abuse in childhood. The hypothesis was that suppressed sexual experiences were necessary for hysteria to develop because experiences of sexual abuse form the pathogenesis ideas. In the seduction theory of hysteria, Freud stated that all patients with nerve attacks were sexually abused as children. As a child they had not experienced it directly as sexual, but as soon as the sexual drive arose in puberty, the memories of the experiences were still sexualized. The memories were emotionally charged, making the patient susceptible to suppressing these memories. Pathogenesis ideas were thus replaced by hysterical conversion symptoms.Symptoms functioned as a defense against the psychologically dangerous pathogenesis ideas. However, this theory was so badly received that Freud even began to doubt his own experiences. If the free associations are not real memories, what were they? Finally, after he had researched the meaning and nature of dreams, he corrected his theory.

What is the meaning of dreams?

Freud began to analyze dreams with the help of free association. He distinguished between manifest content and latent content of dreams. He stated that dreams originated from a series of latent thoughts or ideas, which are converted into manifest content with the help of three processes: The manifest content symbolizes the latent content. The process of replacement takes place because psychic energy with a heavily charged latent content is replaced by a related but emotionally neutral idea from the manifest content. Replacement ('displacement') has a protective function.

Different latent thoughts are symbolized by one image or element from the manifest content. He calls this process reinforcement. This is when two or more latent thoughts are merged into one manifest image.

The manifest content reflects latent ideas through concrete sensations or hallucinations. Dreams are not perceived subjectively as thoughts, but rather in the form of sensations. The latent dream ideas receive concrete representations in the subjective sensations of the manifest content.

Freud was of the opinion that the above-mentioned three processes were the opposite of the mental activity normally associated with logical and scientific thinking. This is because there is a form of thinking in which we use terms that explicitly refer to concepts, rather than indirectly. We also use concepts that have limited applicability, instead of being widely applicable. In logical and scientific thinking, the processes are therefore also consciously available and to a certain extent can be checked voluntarily. When dreaming or creating symptoms, all processes are unconscious, just as symptoms or dreams appear involuntarily. Freud came with two forms (modes) of mental activity. First, the unconscious fashion, or the primary process.This process is associated with dreams and the formation of symptoms. According to Freud, babies are born with a capacity for dreams, but they have to learn how to think rationally. Secondly, the conscious fashion, or the secondary process. This process is responsible for rational thinking.

Freud saw the dreams and the hysterical symptoms in adults as a case where the secondary thought process was released, and forced the primary process. So there has been a regression (relapse) to earlier and more primitive ways of thinking. Later Freud learned that the primary thought process was not only limited to abnormal states, such as dreams and hysteria, but could also play a positive role in creative and artistic thinking. He noted that poets and artists used symbols to make a point indirect (via allusions), and that they produced work that could be interpreted in different ways ("overdetermination / condensaton"), and that they often to symbolize abstract ideas, but in the form of concrete images ("concrete representation").Artists also often report that they get inspiration for a work of art from scratch. The regression of the primary thinking process therefore has a positive and adaptive purpose. So Freud did not discover the unconscious, but he did set specific rules for the unconscious in which he described a scientific phenomenon.

Freud concluded that all dreams contain a wish fulfillment component. A dream can therefore express a latent wish. Manifest dreams and hysterical symptoms seemed to have many similarities. Both of them indirectly symbolize unconscious and anxiety-provoking ideas and both represent a number of unconscious ideas through a single image or symptom. Both were a concrete representation of ideas through subjective sensations, and both were created unconsciously and involuntarily. The only difference is the cause. Dreams are stimulated by latent dreams, and symptoms by sexual memories. This discovery caused Freud to find an answer for his seduction theory. The sexual experiences that his patients so vividly remembered had never really taken place,but were the effect of a dream. This led to the idea that dreams and symptoms share both their origin and their structure and that the sexual memories wish to reflect rather than actual experiences.

How did Freud think about sexuality in childhood?

Around 1900 childhood was seen as an innocent phase that is disturbed by the physiological developments of puberty. Sexual instinct would only emerge in puberty. After the instinct has stabilized, the individual should reproduce through genital heterosexual intercourse. Freud's ideas about this were therefore shocking at that time. Freud claimed that sexuality influences the mental development of every child. Freud was also the 'inventor' of the Oedipus complex: the childish desire to obtain sensual pleasure from the parent of the opposite sex, and the wish that the parent of the same sex disappears because that is the main rival for attention.

Freud proposed a generalized form of human sexual drive, which is already present from birth. The goal is physical and sensual pleasure. According to his new theory, a baby is born in a "polymorphous perversity", able to get sexual pleasure from stimulation of all kinds of body parts. During development, a number of body parts become erogenous zones, areas where the baby can experience sexual pleasure. A number of phases are distinguished. The first phase starts with the mouth, or the oral zone. As soon as the child is trained in the toilet, the child enjoys the voluntary control of the body functions. This is called the anal zone. Later, when the child has developed complete control over his body, stimulation of the genital area can become a source of sexual pleasure.Social factors within the family interact with these developments.

Freud soon discovered deviant character types as a result of fixations in the different phases. Individuals with the oral character type remain interested in oral activities for the rest of their lives, such as eating, drinking, smoking and talking. If the child was spoiled too much, then as an adult it can be very optimistic. If the child is not spoiled, it can be pessimistic later. The phallic or genital character type is characterized by characteristics such as curiosity, exhibitionism and being very competitive.

What is psychoanalytic therapy?

The only thing Freud had to do as a therapist was to encourage free association until the suppressed pathogenesis ideas came within consciousness and the symptoms disappeared. But Freud noticed that the patients unconsciously resisted. He stated that the therapy could be complicated by transference feelings. Patients were inclined to transform attributions from the past to Freud. The therapy required that as much attention be paid to the transference relationship as to the symptoms. Freud found individual symptoms less important. He saw them as relatively superficial manifestations of an underlying emotional conflict.

Every conflict could express itself in different ways, partly through dreams, transference feelings or specific symptoms. Symptoms are therefore not independent entities. The disappearance of a symptom in itself means little, because the conflict can express itself in a different way, until the underlying conflict is discovered and analyzed. In the end psychoanalysis developed, a long and arduous process of self-exploration, which provided relief of the symptoms by creating insight into the unconscious mental life of an individual.

"Dora" is a case study by Sigmund Freud, who describes the condition and treatment of Ida Bauer, a woman diagnosed with hysteria who is assigned the pseudonym "Dora". It is one of Freud's most famous works, and is praised for the scientific empiricism of Freud's method, and for the identification of, among other things, the phenomenon known as transference feelings.

Freud focused on discovering the general characteristics of the mind that create individual symptoms, dreams and 'transferences' along with normal and everyday mental phenomena. He called metapsychology to develop a general model for the mind.

In his book 'The Ego and the Id' Freud states that the mind deals with three demands that are in conflict with each other. The three requirements are presented by the Id, the Ego and the Superego. The task of the mind is to resolve these conflicts as well as possible. First, there are biological needs, such as care, warmth and sexual satisfaction. These are presented by the Id. Freud called these internal biological requirements instincts. Secondly, requirements come from the outside world. To survive, a person must learn to manipulate his environment, to avoid physical dangers and to satisfy his instincts. Third, the mind has to deal with moral demands. People do not always act according to all their impulses, because they think that is wrong, even if there is nothing that can stop them.These requirements are presented by the superego. The Ego is the mediator of the spirit. Everything that an individual does, according to Freud, is a compromise of conflicting demands, solved by the Ego.

What are defense mechanisms?

Defensive mechanisms are a form of compromise of the mind, shaped by the ego. These are the defense mechanisms:

'Displacement' occurs when someone directs an impulse to a replacement target that is somewhat similar to the original target, but is safer.

Projection occurs when someone is unaware of the internal origin of the unacceptable impulse and reduced the burden by attributing it to someone else.

In 'intellectualization' a number of impulse and emotion-laden objects are approached directly, but in an intellectual way without emotions being involved.

Other defense mechanisms work on the memory. Examples are:

Denial occurs when a person believes and behaves as if an instinct-driven act never happened.

Rationalization takes place when people act according to impulse A, but explain their behavior on the basis of a more acceptable impulse B.

Identification, the Oedipus complex disappears and the latency begins when a child identifies with the parent of the same sex and thereby internalizes the prohibition of that parent on child sexuality. Then the moral demands for restraint come from within, instead of from the external world. The part of the psyche that the internalized parent represents is the superego.

The superego is the product of the internalization of the obstructing aspects created by the parent of the same sex. On the basis of free associations, Freud concluded that there are important differences between the typical male and female Oedipal conflict. During this phase, little boys and girls become aware of the clear anatomical differences: the presence or absence of the penis. Castration complex can take a different form for boys and girls. In boys, the reaction is often fear: they often think that something is wrong with them, because they have a penis and others do not. Girls have in fact already been 'castrated' and often respond with jealousy, because they also want a penis. Because of this difference Freud came to the conclusion that boys have a greater Oedipal fear,and therefore need stronger internalization. So boys have a stronger superego than girls.

Karen Horney (1855-1952) was of the opinion that the penis only has a symbolic role. She also emphasized the role of women in pregnancy and childbirth, and suggested that men could be jealous of this female experience. Both Horney and Thompson disputed the position that Freud had given to women. Clara Thompson (1893-1958) emphasized that the negative perspective of female sexuality and female sexual organs was responsible for the feeling of inferiority. She also believed that Freud's theory of women's psychology was the product of the kind of female patients Freud had and their cultural and historical position.

People are sometimes driven by an aggressive death instinct, which Freud called Thanatos. He called the instinct of life Eros. Thanatos and Eros are constantly struggling for power. The death instinct can express itself through the superego; sometimes this is done by producing self-destructive feelings of guilt and sometimes by focusing the aggressive impulses on the external world. In the name of moral values, various actions could be approved and executed by the superego.

What did Freud fail?

A number of therapists accepted parts of Freud's theory. The school of object relations, in which Melanie Klein (1882-1960), WRD Fairbairn (1889-1964) and DW Winnicott (1896-1971) were involved, emphasized the details of the relationships, instead of the role of instincts like Freud did. Erik Erikson (1902-1994) came up with a number of psychosocial phases of the development of the child, parallel to the psychosexual phases of Freud. He also added phases for later in the life cycle.

Who is Alfred Adler?

Adler (1870-1937) started his career as an eye doctor. Adler, however, became interested in Freud after reading The Interpretation of Dreams. Adler was especially interested in the inferiority feelings during childhood. He claimed that every child will experience a unique inferiority complex. In 1911 he broke with the psychoanalytic group and created his own school of individual psychology. In his therapy Adler focused on the social context, he saw people as social by nature, with an inborn capacity that he called social interest. Adler also focused on the effect of birth order. He claimed that different feelings of inferiority are typical for children depending on their birth order. His ideas were written down and developed in the Journal of Individual Psychology.

Who was Carl Jung?

Jung (1875-1961) grew up in Switzerland. During his life he was fascinated by his own inner experiences. He wrote a book with the title Memories, Dreams and Reflections. Jung became an excellent student, and started working with the famous psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler. Here Jung gained experience with schizophrenic patients. Jung also became interested in Freud after reading Interpretation of Dreams. He developed the word-association test. Jung visited Freud personally, and made a big impression on him and his family. However, he did not always agree with Freud. Jung also broke with the psychoanalytic group and started his own movement, called analytical psychology. According to Jung, there are archetypes that do not originate from personal experience but from an innate collective subconscious.Balance was important in his theory. He proposed the personality dimension of extroversion introversion. According to him, the ideal psychological condition was a balance between extroversion and introversion. He developed a model of the psyche, in which the 'self' was central. According to Jung, the self becomes larger as one gets older. Jung attracted the attention of people with an interest in cultural history and art.

Personality psychology: what are the thoughts of Allport and Maslow? - Chapter 12

As discussed earlier, Titchener was involved in a new scientific approach to psychology, namely structuralism. He had tried to analyze scientific experiences, but in the form of the most elementary sensations and feelings. Titchener was the opponent of Freud. The invitation that Gordon W. Allport (1897-1967) received for the conference "Society of Experimentalists", set up by Titchener, was probably a mistake given that Allport was more focused on the subject of personality. Titchener reacted negatively to Allport and disparaged him during the conference. The disappointment of Allport was temporary, because he was the first to teach at the university in personality psychology.

Abraham H. Maslow (1908-1970) also could not find himself in Titchener's model. Allport and Maslow resembled each other in the fact that they both regularly searched the boundaries of psychology and research. Allport was interested in personality psychology, in which subjects varied from individual case studies to statistical analysis of mutual relationships on a large scale. Maslow became interested in which factors make people "normal" or "healthy". He formulated an influential theory on human motives, such as those in a hierarchy and became a proponent of humanistic psychology. Both theories formulated by Maslow and Allport were an important part of the development and evolution of modern psychology as we know it today.

Who was Gordon W. Allport (1897-1967)?

Allport became fascinated by his teacher Munsterberg at Harvard, who believed that there are two fundamentally different types of psychology:

One psychology is causal and objective, and is aimed at emphasizing deterministic and mechanistic relationships between specific stimuli and the reactions they produce.

The other kind of psychology is purposeful and subjective, which requires psychologists to understand and share certain thought processes and perspectives of the participants.

After graduating, Allport became an English and Sociology teacher at a small school in Turkey. Later he returned to Harvard for a PhD in psychology. He always had great admiration for psychoanalysis and promoted this to academic psychologists. As an assistant to Floyd he learned a lot about new developments in psychology. One of these subjects was personality. Some psychologists were interested in measuring non-intellectual characteristics with personality tests. According to Allport, the corresponding concept of personality studies was the focus on individual differences in properties. They presented a model of personality, consisting of four groups: intelligence, temperament, self-expression and sociality.

In Hamburg Allport met Professor William Stern (1871-1938), a proponent of personal psychology, where the central concept is "the person" and the goal is to understand the person's individuality. Stern felt that there are two ways to approach this problem:

To start with, one could examine the relational individuality. This is defined by measuring the relative or statistical position of an individual on a broadly varied scale with character traits. When the number of character traits is large, two people may not have exactly the same pattern of scores, even if they are so similar when only a small number of character traits are measured.

For Stern the actual individuality weighed heavier. This is a Gestalt-like approach in which the unique self is more than the sum of the individual properties. True individuality could not only be approached by the statistical comparison with another person, but had to be judged on the basis of the mutual relationships between qualities within the person himself. This was only possible through the investigation of the life history of the individual.

Together with Philip Vernon (1905-1987) Allport published an investigation into expressive movements, using a pencil-and-paper test which they called "a test of values". This test measures the relative preferences of individuals for propositions that reflect six types of values ​​(theoretical, economic, aesthetic, social, political and religious). Ross Stagner (1909-1997) published a book about family influences on personality traits. However, his book was written independently of Allport's book, and showed a more behaviorist focused research. Both books were equally successful.

What is the personality theory of Allport?

In Allport's book, Personality: A psychological interpretation, it is emphasized that the most striking feature of people is individuality and that the goal of personality psychology is to understand and appreciate individuality. The pursuit of this goal poses a problem for scientific psychology. In science one is often focused on establishing generalizations (similarities in characteristics of groups of objects). In his book, Allport presented solutions to the two problems he had encountered during his career: 1) the "blank page" dilemma and 2) the problematic role of psychoanalysis and other depth psychologies in the study of normal personalities.

In conceptualizing personality psychology, Allport identified two contrasting research styles that he called nomothetic and idiographic. The nomothetical research studies people in terms of general laws or characteristics that people can vary in a quantitative way. Idiographic research is aimed at researching and describing what makes a person unique. The method used is often qualitative. The nomothetic methods were used to pursue the causal, objective psychology of Münsterberg and the relational individuality of Stern. The idiographic method was more suitable for the targeted psychology of Münsterberg and the research into the real individuality of Stern. Allport approved both types of research forms.He himself mainly used the nomothetical research form. However, he was of the opinion that the nomothetical research form in itself was insufficient to deliver a complete personality psychology. In order to fully understand the personality, it was necessary to conduct idiographic research, mainly focused on the mutual relationships between the character traits of an individual.

Allport recognized the popularity of psychoanalysis and believed that, before Freud came into psychoanalysis, the impulsive emotion was often ignored. However, Allport was of the opinion that Freud's concepts were mainly derived from the inductive investigation of unbalanced people with predominantly anxious personalities, so that they could not be fully used in people with a normal developmental course. Although the generalizations of Freud could be valid, the validity was limited to the abnormal population. Allport thus delivered two fundamental lessons for personality psychology. Firstly, he felt that when dealing with "normal" personalities, one had to deal seriously with their own conscious self-reports and value them for what they were.If you wanted to know something about other people, you would first have to ask them what it is like and not assume that the reactions were distorted by unconscious factors. In addition, one should not pathologize normal adult behaviors by linking them to motifs and fixations from childhood. Freud made these two mistakes. Allport did not deny that many traits, such as cleanliness and orderliness, came from experiences from childhood, but he did believe that the character traits could be strengthened or maintained or strengthened because they were also rewarding in adulthood. These character traits then manifest themselves as functional autonomy, originating from childhood.you should first ask them yourself what it is and do not assume that the reactions were distorted by unconscious factors. In addition, one should not pathologize normal adult behaviors by linking them to motifs and fixations from childhood. Freud made these two mistakes. Allport did not deny that many traits, such as cleanliness and orderliness, came from experiences from childhood, but he did believe that the character traits could be strengthened or maintained or strengthened because they were also rewarding in adulthood. These character traits then manifest themselves as functional autonomy, originating from childhood.you should first ask them yourself what it is and do not assume that the reactions were distorted by unconscious factors. In addition, one should not pathologize normal adult behaviors by linking them to motifs and fixations from childhood. Freud made these two mistakes. Allport did not deny that many traits, such as cleanliness and orderliness, came from experiences from childhood, but he did believe that the character traits could be strengthened or maintained or strengthened because they were also rewarding in adulthood. These character traits then manifest themselves as functional autonomy, originating from childhood.In addition, one should not pathologize normal adult behaviors by linking them to motifs and fixations from childhood. Freud made these two mistakes. Allport did not deny that many traits, such as cleanliness and orderliness, came from experiences from childhood, but he did believe that the character traits could be strengthened or maintained or strengthened because they were also rewarding in adulthood. These character traits then manifest themselves as functional autonomy, originating from childhood.In addition, one should not pathologize normal adult behaviors by linking them to motifs and fixations from childhood. Freud made these two mistakes. Allport did not deny that many traits, such as cleanliness and orderliness, came from experiences from childhood, but he did believe that the character traits could be strengthened or maintained or strengthened because they were also rewarding in adulthood. These character traits then manifest themselves as functional autonomy, originating from childhood.but he did think that the character traits might be strengthened or maintained or strengthened because they were also rewarding in adulthood. These character traits then manifest themselves as functional autonomy, originating from childhood.but he did think that the character traits might be strengthened or maintained or strengthened because they were also rewarding in adulthood. These character traits then manifest themselves as functional autonomy, originating from childhood.

Which other researchers stimulated Allport?

Cattell (1905-1998) had dealt with the emerging techniques of factor analysis, a collection of statistical procedures with which the mutual correlations between a large number of individual variables can be reduced to smaller "factors", "clusters" or "principle components". Cattell had tried to apply these techniques to intelligence keys. After Cattell met Allport, he got the idea to take measurements on the individual character traits, to see if he could combine them into smaller groups of factors. His results showed that the thousands of individual character traits could be reduced to sixteen personality factors, each factor being defined as a collection of strongly interrelated character traits. Each factor stood for a dimension,where individuals could vary between two extremes. Cattell and his colleagues also developed the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF), a multiple-choice test for measuring the factors found. The possibility that the sixteen personality factors could be reduced to even fewer factors was not excluded, and this ultimately yielded five major categories.

Hans J. Eysenck (1916-1997) was able to find Allport in many areas, but rejected the idiographic methods and insisted that the field should only be nomothetical. Together with his colleagues, Eysenck managed to reduce the hundreds of individual traits to just three primary clusters (or factors), also known as the PEN model of personality:

Extraversion and introversion

Degree of neuroticism (related to the tendency to experience anxiety)

Degree of psychoticism (related to the voluntary / involuntary tendency to look beyond the limits of everyday reality).

The model of Cattell, consisting of the five dimensions, is generally accepted. Also the general factors of Eysenck were accepted, although they were replaced by three new dimensions called openness (imagination, sensitivity and attention to the inner feelings), conscientiousness (the tendency to be careful and self-disciplined) and pleasantness (the a tendency to show co-operation and empathy to others). All these dimensions together are called the Big Five (or OCEAN).

What idiographic approaches are there?

Together with Christiana Morgan (1897-1967), Henry A. Murray (1893-1988) developed the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), in which participants were presented with a collection of standardized images. They were asked to tell a story about it. The varying stories reflect individual differences in the personality of the participants. Partly guided by the conceptual scheme whereby individuals (often unconsciously) were motivated by 27 psychogenic needs (which were evoked in different ways by environmental factors), participants provided a detailed report on their subject. The needs in the system included the search for connection with others, the degree of success in overcoming obstacles,the power (or domination over others) and the autonomy or independence of others.

More recently, a group of psychologists has formed the Society of Personology, an organization that has explicitly focused on developing and promoting the Murray method. A number of psychologists have worked together to establish guidelines for writing a psychobiography - the explicit use of psychodynamic personality theories to shed light on a person's life history. The personologists together have published a handbook for psychobiography, in which it is described that individual life can best be approached and conceptualized as three separate but complementary levels. The first level emphasizes the relatively stable predisposition, or character traits, such as the psychometric "Big Five". The second level is more focused on the personal qualities,such as goals, motives, needs and values, but more in the context of the life experiences of an individual. This is assessed by various techniques, including TAT and personal interviews. The third level explores the life stories of the individual, focusing primarily on the self, which integrates the other material and gives meaning in terms of identity, unity, thematic consistency, and so on.thematic consistency, and so on.thematic consistency, and so on.

What did the future career of Allport look like?

In one of his books, written in 1950, Allport made a distinction between immature and adult religion. In immature religion one is attached to one's own religion and one has accepted this religion for self-glorification reasons. One is also non-reflective and intolerant of other religions. In adult religion one accepts ignorance and mystery in relation to questions. It encourages humility and tolerance towards others. A certain aspect that occurred in immature religion was prejudice to others. This was also what Allport was interested in. He defined a prejudice as an antipathy, based on a false and non-flexible generalization. He described the levels at which these prejudices could occur within a person or society.At the lowest level, the majority (members of the in-group) make denigrating jokes about the minority (members of the out-group). Although the adverse effects of such jokes are often overlooked, this behavior can lead to the avoidance of the out-group, followed by active discrimination and active aggression.

Allport also formulated the contact hypothesis, the suggestion that prejudices between groups can be reduced when the members of the in-group and the out-group are placed in a situation where they have to work together, with a common goal in mind.

Who was Abraham Maslow?

Maslow (1908-1970) was influenced by many different scientists. From the anthropologists, Maslow taught that human nature is often more complicated (and broader) than psychologists often thought. Maslow learned from the neo-Freudians that different motives formed human behavior, and often also led to positive goals. Maslow learned from the Gestalt psychologists to emphasize the creativity and positive aspects of thought processes. Several scientists are discussed and how they have influenced Maslow.

At university, Maslow was introduced to William Sheldon (1898-1977), who had just begun to develop an approach combining behaviorist methodology with a theory on body types ("somatotypes"). Sheldon classified bodies like ectomorphic (thin and slightly muscular), endomorphic (relatively high in body fat) or mesomorphic (muscular) and then examined the relationships between each body type and the different personality traits.

Alfred Adler (1870-1937)

Alfred Adler (1870-1937) was an advocate of individual psychology. Adler believed that Freud had placed too much emphasis on sexuality. According to him, the motivation was in the helplessness and weakness of babies, which gave rise to an inferiority complex. The form of this inferiority complex varies and depends on the circumstances and environmental expectations. According to Adler, in all cases children develop strong motives to deal with the inferiority and to overcome it. Either, to gain dominion, power and domination over the environment.

When Harry Harlow arrived at the university, Maslow joined him to study monkeys for various reasons. As a behaviorist, he knew that his research should be objective, free of subjective or introspective reports. Primates, which are similar to humans on the basis of the phylogenetic scale, share a number of important social characteristics with people. Maslow noted that primates in colonies regularly became involved in behaviors that could be classified as sexual, or related to status on a hierarchy of dominance. Maslow noted that Freud emphasized sexuality and Adler dominance, and decided to systematically observe the apes. From these observations Maslow concluded that despite the fact that sexual and dominant motives had independent causes,they often interacted in practice. And even then dominance seemed to be more present than pure sexuality. Sexual behavior was often used to secure dominance.

What was the influence of Ruth Benedict (1887-1948)?

Maslow was impressed by Benedict, an anthropologist, both through her personal and professional qualities. In 1934 she published a book where she introduced the idea that a "culture" within psychology could be seen as an analogue of "personality". In her book she described three ethnic groups, each group showing a different culture style. In the "Appolonian" culture rational and restrained behavior was shown, while in the "Dionysian" society a more exuberant, emotional and relatively unlimited behavior occurred. People from the "Paranoid" culture often tended to be suspicious and antagonistic. In 1938, Benedict Maslow convinced himself to live together for several weeks in the Indian society in Western Canada.There he received an appreciation for 1) that cultural factors had established a set of conditions in which it was more / less likely that specific personality traits would occur less / more and 2) that all people share a basic humanity and basic needs that outweigh the cultural differences.

Who were Maslow's Neo-Freudian mentors?

After having become acquainted with the following three mentors, Maslow was of the opinion that people were not motivated by a single motive, but by a complex network of biological, personal, social and cultural factors.

Adler was an inspiration for Maslow. He learned a lot from him about his theory, mainly about the feeling of inferiority of an individual, which ultimately could have a positive outcome when a person has a powerful motive to overcome the feeling. According to Adler, all people have an innate sense of social interest, an impulse to be cooperative with fellow human beings. Despite the tendency to be disturbed by unfortunate early experiences, Adler felt that it should be something "primary", the expression of which could be blocked by negative factors.

Maslow also learned a lot from Horney and Erich Fromm (1900-1980). Horney felt that the need for a child's safety is more important than sexuality. Feelings of insecurity are often accompanied by feelings of inferiority. Horney also strongly emphasized the role of culture in determining normal and abnormal behavioral patterns. One of the ideas Fromm worked with was about the conviction that people distinguish themselves from animals through their relative freedom to dominate the instincts. Helplessly born, and then dependent on others, people learn how to manipulate their environment and how to make conscious decisions. However, a lot of freedom and awareness can also cause problems.Fromm called this the "existential dichotomies" - unmanageable problems that are inevitably part of the human condition.

Who were the Gestalt mentors of Maslow?

Wertheimer was of the opinion that the most important form of learning is not gradual and through trial-and-error, but rather a sudden flash of insight ("Aha! Moments", as this is also described). The perception of Wertheimer on the topics of learning and creativity was what attracted Maslow the most. In the father-son relationship that developed between Wertheimer and Maslow, Maslow learned two lessons that he would use much later in his career. First, he emphasized the strong feelings of pleasure and other positive emotions that often accompanied the "Aha moments" when the world was perceived in a new way. Maslow calls this peak experience. The second lesson lay in the fact that Wertheimer was of the opinion that traditional psychology places too much emphasis on abnormalities and diseases,and too little on the positive aspects of human experiences.

Via Wertheimer Maslow also met Goldstein, who was known for his fascination with the brain (as discussed earlier in previous chapters). Goldstein also came up with the term "self-actualization", which Maslow also uses later in his motivational theory.

What is the theory of human motivation by Maslow?

Maslow decided to study his mentors, noting that they were productive, creative, social and altruistic. They also did not seem to be driven by a motivation based on deprivation, which had previously been proposed by clinical theories. Their needs seemed to come from within, and not to be taken out of the environment. Maslow tried to find a descriptive label for these extremely healthy individuals, and decided to use Goldstein's term. According to Maslow, self-actualization occurs when the individual is doing what he / she is prepared for. A musician must make music, an artist must paint and write poetically if they all want to be happy.

Maslow developed five general categories of needs, in the form of a hierarchy. The most basic needs are called the physiological needs. When these are absent, this can be catastrophic for the individual. When these needs are met, the need for safety comes into play. This is a requirement to be protected against threats. The needs manifest fairly early in children. Once the physiological and safety needs are met, the need for love comes to the turn. These are strong desires for affection, friendship and the feeling that the person belongs to a social group. These needs can interact with, but are independent of, the physically based sexual need. If these needs are met, you will also need appreciation.This includes needs such as good self-confidence, success and reputation. Only when the first four levels are met, the need for self-actualization is met. Maslow calls the first four levels deprivation needs because they are created by imperfection and flaws in life. These needs contrast with the "being needs" for self-actualization, where the need to fulfill the potential of the self is positive.where it concerns the need to fulfill the possibilities of the self positively.where it concerns the need to fulfill the possibilities of the self positively.

For his theory Maslow decided to study the people he saw as self-actualized. Maslow identified a number of characteristics that distinguished these self-actualizing participants. They often tend to be objective and efficient in their perception of reality, just as they often have accurate judgments about people and situations that are at least distorted into their own emotions. They also often show a high level of acceptance from both themselves and others. Often they are spontaneous, natural and problem-oriented. Nor do they easily get distracted from their tasks and they have a sense of humor. Often they are creative and independent in their judgments. Maslow noted that the self-actualizing people are often good at solving dichotomies,either finding and performing behaviors to be able to meet two opposite motives at the same time. The degree of peak experiences also varies per person.

Who were founders of humanistic psychology?

Carl Rogers (1902-1987) was a client-oriented psychotherapist. He developed a non-steering guidance approach, using a technique that is called reflection (or looking back). Looking back at what a client has just said, serves to show that the therapist is really listening and really trying to understand the client. Nor should the therapist respond to the client in a threatening and respectful manner. Through this, the client can become self-aware, which may reduce the problems. Roger felt that everyone was born with a tendency to grow, what he called "actualization tendency." He also stated that the problems came from feelings of low self-esteem. People must therefore be approached by emphasizing the positive.

Rollo May (1909-1994) developed the existential psychotherapy, which emphasized the search for meaning in life. In this, May had many similarities with Maslow and Rogers, and together they formed humanistic psychology.

Maslow presented results of a "thought experiment", in which he presented a society that was formed by self-actualizing people. He called this utopian society eupsychia. He imagined himself the maximum freedom for people to fulfill their full potential. Many of Maslow's ideas were incorporated into positive psychology, formed by Martin Seligman (1942). Seligman introduced the influential concept of "learned helplessness" as an important factor in depressive states, which are often overcome by means of cognitive behavioral therapy.

The developed mind: how did Binet and Piaget contribute to the study of intelligence? - Chapter 13

During the late 1880s Binet studied the behavior of his daughters. He also tried new psychological tests on them. Some tests were about reaction time and sensory discrimination. He discovered that his daughters, without developed intellect, were doing as well as adults. He therefore found the measurements not good indicators of intelligence. He wanted tests that dealt with higher and more complex functions, such as language and abstract reasoning. He was not the only pioneer in intelligence testing, Piaget did this too. He discovered that children have no idea of ​​objects as stable and permanent, and as separate from yourself and your perception. The hypothesis that arose from this is that the intelligence of a child is not less than that of an adult, but is qualitatively different.There are different development stages.

What did the life and career of Binet look like?

Alfred Binet (1857-1911) was born in France. Binet graduated in law, but then went to the medical school. However, he did not like this either. At the age of 22 he read many books in the library of Paris. He discovered books about experimental psychology, and was inspired by this. In 1880 he had his first scientific publication. He also became enthusiastic about the association psychology of John Stuart Mill. According to Binet, intelligence also works through the law of association. Then Binet became Charcot's assistant, and stayed for eight years. He has published three books and more than 20 articles on various topics. Eventually Binet learned that he had too much faith in CHarcot's name and prestige, and had not been critical enough.Binet began to do experiments with his daughters at home. He was very aware of the individuality of everyone's intelligence.

Deeply impressed by the individuality of man, he decided to set up a program together with his colleague Victor Henri in 1895, which they called individual psychology (not to be confused with Alfred Adler's approach). They were looking for a series of short tests that lasted less than 2 hours and could be carried out with each person. Using such tests one was able to obtain as much information as with years of observations and interviews. Binet anticipated many projective tests. He was looking for a combination of several tests that could serve as a replacement for the extensive case study, but unfortunately he did not find it. He had, however, confirmed his conviction that with the help of direct testing of the higher, complex mental functions,the significant intellectual differences could be measured.

Together with Theodore Simon (1873-1961), Binet decided to develop a test to identify children with a mental disability, who are therefore unable to participate in regular education (also known as 'feebie-minded' people).

Binet and Simon began identifying groups of children who had previously been diagnosed as normal or sub-normal by their teacher or teacher, and then tested them in different specific ways. They avoided tests that relied heavily on reading, writing and other school-related skills to prevent a lack of intelligence being confused with a lack of education. In the beginning, a difference in performance was found between both groups, but no perfectly discriminating item was found. Binet and Simon became frustrated until they realized that they also had to take age into account. Normal and sub-normal children might have passed the tests, but normal children should be able to do so at a younger age.By following this insight, the subnormal children were finally described as being mentally "delayed". This idea enabled Binet and Simon to develop the first intelligence test in 1905, which also worked. The first item tested whether participants could follow a light with their eyes, to show attention. Then the children had to grab a small object, eat a candy, shake hands with the researcher and meet a number of requests. Normal children could do all these things at the age of 2, but the most mentally retarded children never managed to do these things.The first item tested whether participants could follow a light with their eyes, to show attention. Then the children had to grab a small object, eat a candy, shake hands with the researcher and meet a number of requests. Normal children could do all these things at the age of 2, but the most mentally retarded children never managed to do these things.The first item tested whether participants could follow a light with their eyes, to show attention. Then the children had to grab a small object, eat a candy, shake hands with the researcher and meet a number of requests. Normal children could do all these things at the age of 2, but the most mentally retarded children never managed to do these things.

What were the successors of the 1905 test?

The 1905 test created a turning point in the history of psychology, because it was able to distinguish between the different levels of intelligence. However, the focus was on mentally delayed children, while the most difficult educational decisions had more to do with the older children who were closer to the "normal" line. When adjusting the test, Binet and Simon ensured that the items were designed according to the age at which, according to a sample, normal children could have passed the test for the first time. Thus, each item on a six-year-old level could be performed by a small group of normal five-year-olds, half of the six-year-olds and the majority of older children. The 1908 version consisted of 58 items for ages between 3 and 13 years;The 1911 version consisted of five questions for ages between 5 and 15 years, and five questions for the adult category. With age-standard items, Binet had created a scale that enabled them to deliver a single score or intellectual level for each child who took part in the test. The questions were always asked according to an increasing difficulty. After the test was taken, the intellectual level could be calculated. An example of such a calculation is: a child answers all questions of the level of a seven-year, four questions at the level of eight years and two questions at the level of a nine-year-old and therefore has an intellectual level of 8.2 year old. In diagnosing mental subnormality,Binet compared the intellectual level of the child with the actual age. He came up with the rule of thumb that children with intellectual levels who were more than two years behind their own age should receive special education.

However, Binet was careful with his rule of thumb. He still denied the ability of numbers to accurately summarize a complex quality and he emphasized that different children can reach an identical intellectual level by correctly answering different patterns of specific questions. He also noted that no score is valid for a poorly motivated child, or for children from a different culture than the culture that was used to standardize the questions. Binet also believed that the intelligence measured by his test is not a fixed quantity, but something that naturally grows with time, and that can also increase through training (except for mentally retarded children). He developed a program that he mentally orthopedieneerde, which consisted of various exercises.Children who were limited by an inability to sit or concentrate, were able to increase their intellectual level and behavior with the aid of this program.

Binet died of stroke in 1911, leaving behind the basic technology underlying modern intelligence tests. Despite the fact that many psychologists still hope to find a yardstick for measuring culture-independent intelligence, innate and close to neurophysiological functions, the current practical tests depend on similar items to those of Binet. Often these are still questions related to the high and complex functions, such as memory, reasoning, verbal skills and practical judgments. Although Binet would have been satisfied with the content of modern intelligence tests, he would have had doubts about other developments concerning the tests.

What is the definition of intelligence?

To start with: the definition of intelligence. Binet had adopted a flexible and pragmatic definition of intelligence and saw it as a collection of separate skills for memory, attention and reasoning. Charles Spearman (1863-1945) was a follower of general intelligence ("g"). Spearman saw that when a correlation between different items was calculated, they almost always correlated positively with each other. For example, when people score well on a vocabulary test, they also tend to score high on arithmetic problems. Furthermore, he discovered that even though most of the tests were positively correlated, some tests had a higher correlation with each other than others. To explain these findings,Spearman came up with the theory that there was a single "factor" that covered all other items. He gave this factor the name "general intelligence".

He was also of the opinion that each individual item had an opportunity to specify, ie an s-factor. He called this theory the two-factor theory of intelligence. Spearman compared the "g" with a supply of mental energy, capable of directing a number of specific neurological systems to perform specific tasks. Theoretically, the performance of an individual on a task is a collaboration between the available energy (or "g") and the efficiency of a particular "s" involved. The hierarchical nature of correlations suggests that some tasks are more dependent on the "g" and less on the "s". Binet believed that different intelligence levels could only be approximated accurately by numbers.Spearman's theory previously suggested that the "g" level, or "general mental energy", is the most important thing to know about a person's intelligence.

William Stern came with the intelligence quotient. Stern had worried about the fact that the difference between the real age of the child and the intellectual level tested (or the mental age) often increased over time. Binet's suggestion to accept a two-year difference between chronological age and mental age as a symptom of subnormality was suspicious because it concerned different standards for different age groups. The age differences of children increased as they got older, so that the chance of a diagnosis of subnormality could occur more often at an older age.To remedy this inequality Stern suggested to take the ratio of mental age to chronological age (this ratio he called "intelligence quotient" and calculated by dividing the mental age by the real age). So a child of 5 with a mental age of 4 and a child of 10 with a mental age of 8 would have the same intelligence quotient (0.80). This way, the growing differences were taken into account.

Binet would not have been happy with this solution: he had complained about the fact that by different patterns of specific answers the same mental age could be produced, but Stern managed to simplify the problem because the same intelligence quotient through different combinations of mental and chronological ages could be produced. For other psychologists, simplifying the results by means of the intelligence quotient was a positive point, because it could now be interpreted more easily.

What did Goddard write about weakness and giftedness?

Henry Goddard (1866-1957) was interested in the question how different levels of intellectual subnormality can be accurately diagnosed. Goddard translated the Binet to English. Goddard thought that mentally handicapped was a disease-like condition caused by a defective gene, which turned out to be wrong. But for Goddard the easiest way to prevent a kind of infirmity epidemic was to prevent infirmity of having children. He was concerned with negative eugenics: the mentally retarded were not allowed to procreate. They had to stay in institutions under supervision. Some, however, were less moderate, and forced sterilization. Goddard became convinced by his new research into juvenile delinquents that environment also played a major role.

The second psychologist who brought out the prominence of Binet's tests in the US was Lewis M. Terman (1877-1956). Terman was one of the first to comment on the usefulness of the Binet tests in diagnosing superior intelligence. His interest was in children with higher IQ than the average. After an intensive study of gifted children, he discovered that a high IQ was not a good predictor of intellectual success and that intelligence tests are more suitable for diagnosing lower levels of intelligence, so what they were originally intended for. The adjustments of the Binet test are therefore applied to the population, often summarized as an IQ. The interpretation of the IQ differs.Some see the score as a variable that is mainly determined by environment and education and not by heredity.

David Wechsler (1896-1981) was a psychologist in a hospital in New York. He became aware of the need for a better test than the Stanford-Binet for the intellectual qualities of the adult population: one with a more sensitive distribution of one's intelligence than just a single IQ score. His research led to the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). This is so far the gold standard for measuring the intelligence of adults. In this test, a distinction was made between verbal and performance IQ. Both this test and the Binet test are often revised, and the scores are often re-standardized in new populations. In 1984, James Flynn discovered the Flynn effect. This refers to the fact that people have become increasingly smart (measured with intelligence tests), about 3 IQ points per decade.This can not be due to genetics, so it will have to do with the environment or culture. Developments in radio, television and technology have greatly increased the accessibility and amount of information available.

Who was Jean Piaget (1896-1980)?

Piaget was more concerned with the qualitative intellectual developments. He found evidence that older children not only think more quickly or more than the younger, but also that they think in a completely different way. They use cognitive skills and structures that help them better understand some problems and concepts. So intelligence develops qualitatively with age. Piaget came up with the term genetic epistemology, in order to describe his system of how the mind develops.

Together with his colleagues, he discovered increasing stages of development, or systematic and qualitative differences in the way in which the younger and older children conceptualise and deal with tasks. Piaget suggested the existence of four ascending phases between childhood and later adolescence. In every phase new cognitive skills and strategies develop, which make it possible to solve problems that the children could not solve.

Sensory motor phase (birth up to 2 years): the intelligence of a child in this phase mainly consists of sensory and motor activities. Abstract thinking is not yet possible. The child must achieve object stability - the knowledge that objects remain, even if they are not visible at a certain moment. After they learn that objects exist independently of the environment, it becomes possible to name objects. Gradually they also learn to gain more control over their own body and environment.

Pre-operational phase (2 to 7 years): children are already aware that objects remain, even if they are not visible. However, they do not yet understand much about the properties of objects, such as quantity or weight. When water is first in a bottle, and then poured into a bowl, the child does not know that the amount of water remains the same even though the physical appearance has changed. This is called the conservation of quantity.

Concrete operational phase (7 to 11 or 12 years): the conservation problems can now be solved, but not with the help of different solutions. Not all conceptual and reasoning problems can be solved.

Formal operational phase (11 or 12 years): inductive reasoning becomes possible.

Piaget's ideas have been applied in educational settings. He gave the advice that schools could improve by always giving students problems and challenges that best suit their stage of intellectual development. Someone who did not agree with him was Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934). He had a socio-cultural perspective on developmental psychology. According to him, everything in the mental development of a child had to happen at the social level before it can be internalized. He promoted the concept of a zone of proximal development (zpd), to indicate the difference between what a person can intellectually do without help, and what he can do with the help of a better peron. He therefore saw intelligence as a social characteristic, with sources in the development of language.According to him, intelligence is also about a person's potential to improve quickly with the help of a teacher. Qualities of a teacher are therefore also important. Piaget was of the opinion that intellectual development was linked to biological and social development. Intellectual growth in a child could be nurtured, just like physical growth, but it could not be accelerated because it is limited. The exact nature of the limitations, the extent to which children can be helped through the development phases and the desirability of accelerating through the phases are important subjects. The first to deal with this was Jerome Bruner (1915). He came up with the "theory of instruction". According to this theory, the ideal technique is to learn new material,by helping the pupil through the three ways (modes) of representation of the material, parallel to the cognitive development phases of Piaget. The student starts with the "active mode", where he just does something. Then the child concentrates on the perceptual qualities ("the iconic mode"), before it turns to abstract qualities in symbolic fashion. During the sensory-motor phase the child learns to use the active representation during the pre-operational phase the iconic fashion and during the operational phase the symbolic.Then the child concentrates on the perceptual qualities ("the iconic mode"), before it turns to abstract qualities in symbolic fashion. During the sensory-motor phase the child learns to use the active representation during the pre-operational phase the iconic fashion and during the operational phase the symbolic.Then the child concentrates on the perceptual qualities ("the iconic mode"), before it turns to abstract qualities in symbolic fashion. During the sensory-motor phase the child learns to use the active representation during the pre-operational phase the iconic fashion and during the operational phase the symbolic.

The developed mind: how did Binet and Piaget contribute to the study of intelligence? - Chapter 13

During the late 1880s Binet studied the behavior of his daughters. He also tried new psychological tests on them. Some tests were about reaction time and sensory discrimination. He discovered that his daughters, without developed intellect, were doing as well as adults. He therefore found the measurements not good indicators of intelligence. He wanted tests that dealt with higher and more complex functions, such as language and abstract reasoning. He was not the only pioneer in intelligence testing, Piaget did this too. He discovered that children have no idea of ​​objects as stable and permanent, and as separate from yourself and your perception. The hypothesis that arose from this is that the intelligence of a child is not less than that of an adult, but is qualitatively different.There are different development stages.

What did the life and career of Binet look like?

Alfred Binet (1857-1911) was born in France. Binet graduated in law, but then went to the medical school. However, he did not like this either. At the age of 22 he read many books in the library of Paris. He discovered books about experimental psychology, and was inspired by this. In 1880 he had his first scientific publication. He also became enthusiastic about the association psychology of John Stuart Mill. According to Binet, intelligence also works through the law of association. Then Binet became Charcot's assistant, and stayed for eight years. He has published three books and more than 20 articles on various topics. Eventually Binet learned that he had too much faith in CHarcot's name and prestige, and had not been critical enough.Binet began to do experiments with his daughters at home. He was very aware of the individuality of everyone's intelligence.

Deeply impressed by the individuality of man, he decided to set up a program together with his colleague Victor Henri in 1895, which they called individual psychology (not to be confused with Alfred Adler's approach). They were looking for a series of short tests that lasted less than 2 hours and could be carried out with each person. Using such tests one was able to obtain as much information as with years of observations and interviews. Binet anticipated many projective tests. He was looking for a combination of several tests that could serve as a replacement for the extensive case study, but unfortunately he did not find it. He had, however, confirmed his conviction that with the help of direct testing of the higher, complex mental functions,the significant intellectual differences could be measured.

Together with Theodore Simon (1873-1961), Binet decided to develop a test to identify children with a mental disability, who are therefore unable to participate in regular education (also known as 'feebie-minded' people).

Binet and Simon began identifying groups of children who had previously been diagnosed as normal or sub-normal by their teacher or teacher, and then tested them in different specific ways. They avoided tests that relied heavily on reading, writing and other school-related skills to prevent a lack of intelligence being confused with a lack of education. In the beginning, a difference in performance was found between both groups, but no perfectly discriminating item was found. Binet and Simon became frustrated until they realized that they also had to take age into account. Normal and sub-normal children might have passed the tests, but normal children should be able to do so at a younger age.By following this insight, the subnormal children were finally described as being mentally "delayed". This idea enabled Binet and Simon to develop the first intelligence test in 1905, which also worked. The first item tested whether participants could follow a light with their eyes, to show attention. Then the children had to grab a small object, eat a candy, shake hands with the researcher and meet a number of requests. Normal children could do all these things at the age of 2, but the most mentally retarded children never managed to do these things.The first item tested whether participants could follow a light with their eyes, to show attention. Then the children had to grab a small object, eat a candy, shake hands with the researcher and meet a number of requests. Normal children could do all these things at the age of 2, but the most mentally retarded children never managed to do these things.The first item tested whether participants could follow a light with their eyes, to show attention. Then the children had to grab a small object, eat a candy, shake hands with the researcher and meet a number of requests. Normal children could do all these things at the age of 2, but the most mentally retarded children never managed to do these things.

What were the successors of the 1905 test?

The 1905 test created a turning point in the history of psychology, because it was able to distinguish between the different levels of intelligence. However, the focus was on mentally delayed children, while the most difficult educational decisions had more to do with the older children who were closer to the "normal" line. When adjusting the test, Binet and Simon ensured that the items were designed according to the age at which, according to a sample, normal children could have passed the test for the first time. Thus, each item on a six-year-old level could be performed by a small group of normal five-year-olds, half of the six-year-olds and the majority of older children. The 1908 version consisted of 58 items for ages between 3 and 13 years;The 1911 version consisted of five questions for ages between 5 and 15 years, and five questions for the adult category. With age-standard items, Binet had created a scale that enabled them to deliver a single score or intellectual level for each child who took part in the test. The questions were always asked according to an increasing difficulty. After the test was taken, the intellectual level could be calculated. An example of such a calculation is: a child answers all questions of the level of a seven-year, four questions at the level of eight years and two questions at the level of a nine-year-old and therefore has an intellectual level of 8.2 year old. In diagnosing mental subnormality,Binet compared the intellectual level of the child with the actual age. He came up with the rule of thumb that children with intellectual levels who were more than two years behind their own age should receive special education.

However, Binet was careful with his rule of thumb. He still denied the ability of numbers to accurately summarize a complex quality and he emphasized that different children can reach an identical intellectual level by correctly answering different patterns of specific questions. He also noted that no score is valid for a poorly motivated child, or for children from a different culture than the culture that was used to standardize the questions. Binet also believed that the intelligence measured by his test is not a fixed quantity, but something that naturally grows with time, and that can also increase through training (except for mentally retarded children). He developed a program that he mentally orthopedieneerde, which consisted of various exercises.Children who were limited by an inability to sit or concentrate, were able to increase their intellectual level and behavior with the aid of this program.

Binet died of stroke in 1911, leaving behind the basic technology underlying modern intelligence tests. Despite the fact that many psychologists still hope to find a yardstick for measuring culture-independent intelligence, innate and close to neurophysiological functions, the current practical tests depend on similar items to those of Binet. Often these are still questions related to the high and complex functions, such as memory, reasoning, verbal skills and practical judgments. Although Binet would have been satisfied with the content of modern intelligence tests, he would have had doubts about other developments concerning the tests.

What is the definition of intelligence?

To start with: the definition of intelligence. Binet had adopted a flexible and pragmatic definition of intelligence and saw it as a collection of separate skills for memory, attention and reasoning. Charles Spearman (1863-1945) was a follower of general intelligence ("g"). Spearman saw that when a correlation between different items was calculated, they almost always correlated positively with each other. For example, when people score well on a vocabulary test, they also tend to score high on arithmetic problems. Furthermore, he discovered that even though most of the tests were positively correlated, some tests had a higher correlation with each other than others. To explain these findings,Spearman came up with the theory that there was a single "factor" that covered all other items. He gave this factor the name "general intelligence".

He was also of the opinion that each individual item had an opportunity to specify, ie an s-factor. He called this theory the two-factor theory of intelligence. Spearman compared the "g" with a supply of mental energy, capable of directing a number of specific neurological systems to perform specific tasks. Theoretically, the performance of an individual on a task is a collaboration between the available energy (or "g") and the efficiency of a particular "s" involved. The hierarchical nature of correlations suggests that some tasks are more dependent on the "g" and less on the "s". Binet believed that different intelligence levels could only be approximated accurately by numbers.Spearman's theory previously suggested that the "g" level, or "general mental energy", is the most important thing to know about a person's intelligence.

William Stern came with the intelligence quotient. Stern had worried about the fact that the difference between the real age of the child and the intellectual level tested (or the mental age) often increased over time. Binet's suggestion to accept a two-year difference between chronological age and mental age as a symptom of subnormality was suspicious because it concerned different standards for different age groups. The age differences of children increased as they got older, so that the chance of a diagnosis of subnormality could occur more often at an older age.To remedy this inequality Stern suggested to take the ratio of mental age to chronological age (this ratio he called "intelligence quotient" and calculated by dividing the mental age by the real age). So a child of 5 with a mental age of 4 and a child of 10 with a mental age of 8 would have the same intelligence quotient (0.80). This way, the growing differences were taken into account.

Binet would not have been happy with this solution: he had complained about the fact that by different patterns of specific answers the same mental age could be produced, but Stern managed to simplify the problem because the same intelligence quotient through different combinations of mental and chronological ages could be produced. For other psychologists, simplifying the results by means of the intelligence quotient was a positive point, because it could now be interpreted more easily.

What did Goddard write about weakness and giftedness?

Henry Goddard (1866-1957) was interested in the question how different levels of intellectual subnormality can be accurately diagnosed. Goddard translated the Binet to English. Goddard thought that mentally handicapped was a disease-like condition caused by a defective gene, which turned out to be wrong. But for Goddard the easiest way to prevent a kind of infirmity epidemic was to prevent infirmity of having children. He was concerned with negative eugenics: the mentally retarded were not allowed to procreate. They had to stay in institutions under supervision. Some, however, were less moderate, and forced sterilization. Goddard became convinced by his new research into juvenile delinquents that environment also played a major role.

The second psychologist who brought out the prominence of Binet's tests in the US was Lewis M. Terman (1877-1956). Terman was one of the first to comment on the usefulness of the Binet tests in diagnosing superior intelligence. His interest was in children with higher IQ than the average. After an intensive study of gifted children, he discovered that a high IQ was not a good predictor of intellectual success and that intelligence tests are more suitable for diagnosing lower levels of intelligence, so what they were originally intended for. The adjustments of the Binet test are therefore applied to the population, often summarized as an IQ. The interpretation of the IQ differs.Some see the score as a variable that is mainly determined by environment and education and not by heredity.

David Wechsler (1896-1981) was a psychologist in a hospital in New York. He became aware of the need for a better test than the Stanford-Binet for the intellectual qualities of the adult population: one with a more sensitive distribution of one's intelligence than just a single IQ score. His research led to the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). This is so far the gold standard for measuring the intelligence of adults. In this test, a distinction was made between verbal and performance IQ. Both this test and the Binet test are often revised, and the scores are often re-standardized in new populations. In 1984, James Flynn discovered the Flynn effect. This refers to the fact that people have become increasingly smart (measured with intelligence tests), about 3 IQ points per decade.This can not be due to genetics, so it will have to do with the environment or culture. Developments in radio, television and technology have greatly increased the accessibility and amount of information available.

Who was Jean Piaget (1896-1980)?

Piaget was more concerned with the qualitative intellectual developments. He found evidence that older children not only think more quickly or more than the younger, but also that they think in a completely different way. They use cognitive skills and structures that help them better understand some problems and concepts. So intelligence develops qualitatively with age. Piaget came up with the term genetic epistemology, in order to describe his system of how the mind develops.

Together with his colleagues, he discovered increasing stages of development, or systematic and qualitative differences in the way in which the younger and older children conceptualise and deal with tasks. Piaget suggested the existence of four ascending phases between childhood and later adolescence. In every phase new cognitive skills and strategies develop, which make it possible to solve problems that the children could not solve.

Sensory motor phase (birth up to 2 years): the intelligence of a child in this phase mainly consists of sensory and motor activities. Abstract thinking is not yet possible. The child must achieve object stability - the knowledge that objects remain, even if they are not visible at a certain moment. After they learn that objects exist independently of the environment, it becomes possible to name objects. Gradually they also learn to gain more control over their own body and environment.

Pre-operational phase (2 to 7 years): children are already aware that objects remain, even if they are not visible. However, they do not yet understand much about the properties of objects, such as quantity or weight. When water is first in a bottle, and then poured into a bowl, the child does not know that the amount of water remains the same even though the physical appearance has changed. This is called the conservation of quantity.

Concrete operational phase (7 to 11 or 12 years): the conservation problems can now be solved, but not with the help of different solutions. Not all conceptual and reasoning problems can be solved.

Formal operational phase (11 or 12 years): inductive reasoning becomes possible.

Piaget's ideas have been applied in educational settings. He gave the advice that schools could improve by always giving students problems and challenges that best suit their stage of intellectual development. Someone who did not agree with him was Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934). He had a socio-cultural perspective on developmental psychology. According to him, everything in the mental development of a child had to happen at the social level before it can be internalized. He promoted the concept of a zone of proximal development (zpd), to indicate the difference between what a person can intellectually do without help, and what he can do with the help of a better peron. He therefore saw intelligence as a social characteristic, with sources in the development of language.According to him, intelligence is also about a person's potential to improve quickly with the help of a teacher. Qualities of a teacher are therefore also important. Piaget was of the opinion that intellectual development was linked to biological and social development. Intellectual growth in a child could be nurtured, just like physical growth, but it could not be accelerated because it is limited. The exact nature of the limitations, the extent to which children can be helped through the development phases and the desirability of accelerating through the phases are important subjects. The first to deal with this was Jerome Bruner (1915). He came up with the "theory of instruction". According to this theory, the ideal technique is to learn new material,by helping the pupil through the three ways (modes) of representation of the material, parallel to the cognitive development phases of Piaget. The student starts with the "active mode", where he just does something. Then the child concentrates on the perceptual qualities ("the iconic mode"), before it turns to abstract qualities in symbolic fashion. During the sensory-motor phase the child learns to use the active representation during the pre-operational phase the iconic fashion and during the operational phase the symbolic.Then the child concentrates on the perceptual qualities ("the iconic mode"), before it turns to abstract qualities in symbolic fashion. During the sensory-motor phase the child learns to use the active representation during the pre-operational phase the iconic fashion and during the operational phase the symbolic.Then the child concentrates on the perceptual qualities ("the iconic mode"), before it turns to abstract qualities in symbolic fashion. During the sensory-motor phase the child learns to use the active representation during the pre-operational phase the iconic fashion and during the operational phase the symbolic.

What does the applied psychology mean? - Chapter 15

Hugo Munsterberg (1863-1916) was known for his articles on how psychological knowledge could be applied in daily life. He was of the opinion that scientific psychology is superior to common sense and that the methods should therefore be used to improve the way people judge. Munsterberg also showed interest in the influence of emotion, suggestion and dissociation on perception. He was of the opinion that these processes had consequences for the psychology of testimony and the detection of deceit. That is why he felt that psychological expertise should also be applied in court. Munsterberg was eventually seen as the father of applied psychology.

One of Munsterberg's first publications was a report in which he challenged his teacher Wundt about the subject of "will". He was of the opinion that the will is the experience of an internal motor process, in response to a stimulus. After Munsterberg settled permanently at Harvard, his interest in applied psychology grew. Areas where he wanted to introduce applied psychology were legal testimony and individual psychotherapy. In the period when psychotherapists assigned themselves the task of healing the mind, Munsterberg saw himself as an objective, scientific outsider.

Every therapy that went out of the existence of the unconscious (like Freud), he saw as unscientific. The techniques used by Munsterberg were in stark contrast to those of psychoanalysis, and were more functional in nature. In the approach that Munsterberg used, clients were trained to forget their problems and suppress deviant behaviors. One of Munsterberg's interests was the application of psychology in business and industry. This approach was called psychotechnology.

What is the scientific management?

In order to deal with fast-growing urbanization and industrial expansion, Frederick Winslow Taylor (1865-1915) developed a system that he named scientific management. The purpose of this system is to increase the efficiency and productivity of the plant by applying scientific methods. One of the changes that Taylor encouraged was the application of standardized tasks through careful analysis of industrial work. The emphasis was on increasing production by increasing efficiency, or in other words: letting employees do more work in a shorter time, by providing them with fast, repetitive tasks. Munsterberg could find himself in Taylor's approach.

Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878-1972) and her husband Frank Bunker Gilbreth (1868-1924) developed the complex motion studies together, to identify the most efficient way to get a job done. By using a camera that recorded the necessary movements when performing a task, the Gilbreths were able to analyze different types of work and activities. As a result they identified 18 basic hand movements, which they called "therbligs". They felt that efficiency could reduce fatigue. In addition, they also thought that the motion studies could show how machines could be designed to make the movements of the employees more efficient and easier. Unlike Taylor,The Gilbreths were interested in investigating how the most efficient movements affected the individual employee. They wanted to use the obtained information to design work that is efficient and rewarding for the employee.

The combination of psychology and management reflects the humanistic approach of Lillian Gilbreth. She saw man as the most important element in the industry, and according to her, the well-being of the employee was central to the design of the workplace. She emphasized the fact that the work had to be adapted to the employee, just as she believed that communication between different groups had to be improved. Lillian Gilbreth is seen as the mother of industrial psychology. The interface between psychology and education was an important contribution Lillian made to the history of applied psychology.

Gilbreth started in the late 1920s to design the physical environment so that it fits better with the housewife / man. This contributed to the new field, known as 'human factor psychology', which arose after World War II. Gilbreth's studies are still used to create comfortable and efficient, or ergonomic workplaces. In 1929 she became a full-time consultant. She remained professionally active until her death, and received a Hoover Medal for distinguished public service.

What are the Hawthorne studies?

Hawthorne Works was an electricity company outside of Chicago. Studies were conducted here, called the Hawthorne studies, which showed that physical and economic conditions alone were not enough to explain productivity in the workplace. Psychological and social factors were also important. The Hawthorne effect refers to the impact on performance and behavior, of the awareness that you are a participant in a study. The human relationship movement was a shift in research into the social and psychological factors that influence performance and satisfaction at work. ELton Mayo (1880-1949) was most involved in the studies. Mayo was interested in politics, and was convinced after the First World War that the existing political system was not good.According to him, society must be seen as cooperative collection of social relations. He emphasized the importance of good leadership. Mayo investigated industrial fatigue in factories in Philadelphia, and became involved in the Hawthorne studies two years later. Researchers found that other factors than in the physical environment of employees could be important for productivity, so this became the subject of subsequent studies. An example of this was breaks. Pauses and shorter working days were introduced, which increased productivity. Increased productivity could not be explained only by higher wages.and became involved in the Hawthorne studies two years later. Researchers found that other factors than in the physical environment of employees could be important for productivity, so this became the subject of subsequent studies. An example of this was breaks. Pauses and shorter working days were introduced, which increased productivity. Increased productivity could not be explained only by higher wages.and became involved in the Hawthorne studies two years later. Researchers found that other factors than in the physical environment of employees could be important for productivity, so this became the subject of subsequent studies. An example of this was breaks. Pauses and shorter working days were introduced, which increased productivity. Increased productivity could not be explained only by higher wages.

Who was Leta Stetter Hollingworth (1886-1939)?

During and after the Second World War it became more common for clinical psychologists to engage in psychotherapy. The original clinical psychologists in the first half of the twentieth century were "mental testers", and testing was also what they were doing. By that time, many psychologists worked in places such as schools, hospitals and courtrooms. Leta Stetter Hollingworth (1886-1939) improved her financial situation thanks to the Coca-Cola Company in 1911. The Coca Cola Company was charged with violating the "Pure Food and Drug Act" because the amount of caffeine in their produce was found to be harmful to humans. To defend their products, the company was looking for psychologists who wanted to study the behavioral effects of caffeine on people. When Cattell rejected the job,approached the company Harry Hollingworth (1880-1956) and he began to work on the experiments with Lea. As a result, she earned a small fortune, which made graduating for her quickly possible. Thorndike and Cattell are proponents of the variability hypothesis, a belief that men differ from women in both physical and psychological characteristics, and therefore more likely to have better working positions. According to this belief, women are limited to mediocrity, and men are the engines of natural selection and evolutionary progress.a belief that men differ from women in both physical and psychological characteristics, and therefore more likely to have better working positions. According to this belief, women are limited to mediocrity, and men are the engines of natural selection and evolutionary progress.a belief that men differ from women in both physical and psychological characteristics, and therefore more likely to have better working positions. According to this belief, women are limited to mediocrity, and men are the engines of natural selection and evolutionary progress.

When Lea Hollingworth met Thorndike, it was still heavily influenced by his traditional mentor Cattell. Cattell felt that men and women had inherited different intellectual skills, and that men were able to achieve the highest levels of success. After Hollingworth graduated, she decided to test the variability hypothesis. She studied 1,000 cases of people diagnosed with a mental defect, and concluded that this diagnosis was more often given to men. However, she discovered a bias in the data. Of the people from an older age group who were admitted to the institution, a larger proportion was female than in the younger age categories.Hollingworth interpreted this as evidence that mentally inadequate men were detected early because of their inability to meet social expectations. Women managed to avoid this until later in life, thanks to their social roles: sitting at home and taking care of the children. Hollingworth decided to refute another assumption about women: that they were functionally weakened during their menstruation. This belief is also called functional periodicity, and was used to demonstrate the unfitness of the woman for certain work (such as voting), and to maintain the stereotype of the woman as physically and emotionally fragile.Hollingworth decided to refute another assumption about women: that they were functionally weakened during their menstruation. This belief is also called functional periodicity, and was used to demonstrate the unfitness of the woman for certain work (such as voting), and to maintain the stereotype of the woman as physically and emotionally fragile.Hollingworth decided to refute another assumption about women: that they were functionally weakened during their menstruation. This belief is also called functional periodicity, and was used to demonstrate the unfitness of the woman for certain work (such as voting), and to maintain the stereotype of the woman as physically and emotionally fragile.

How did the APA come about?

Many academic psychologists looked down on their colleagues and saw applied psychology as messy and impure. The applied psychologists reacted to the fired attack by forming their own association in 1917, independent of the APA, which they called AACP. Three factors were underlying their motivation to do this. First, it had to do with the emergence of testing jobs in the public school system during the second decade of the 20th century. Immigration, urbanization and compulsory education in the US led to a public school system where large numbers of children, with varying skill levels, were put together in classrooms. The testers had the task of identifying, categorizing and distributing students over various suitable programs. In their haste to test,unqualified individuals without a suitable academic background were given the task of assessing and diagnosing children. Psychologists began to worry about the qualifications and standards for professional work. JE Wallace Waillin (1876-1969) wrote an article in 1913 in which he expressed his concerns, and in which he tried to define the exact nature of clinical psychology. He also discussed the aims of clinical work, the types of cases that clinical psychologists worked with and how clinical psychology differed from the other professions.JE Wallace Waillin (1876-1969) wrote an article in 1913 in which he expressed his concerns, and in which he tried to define the exact nature of clinical psychology. He also discussed the aims of clinical work, the types of cases that clinical psychologists worked with and how clinical psychology differed from the other professions.JE Wallace Waillin (1876-1969) wrote an article in 1913 in which he expressed his concerns, and in which he tried to define the exact nature of clinical psychology. He also discussed the aims of clinical work, the types of cases that clinical psychologists worked with and how clinical psychology differed from the other professions.

The second factor that motivated clinical psychologists to establish their own association had to do with their own low professional status. By setting up a professional organization, clinical psychologists pursued more well-established professions. The third factor was that clinical psychologists felt that their needs were not met by the large scientific organization of psychologists (APA). In 1919, the AACP became the clinical psychology section of the APA. Hollingworth remained engaged in clinical work, and in particular in helping and identifying gifted children. She also wrote two books about this: Gifted Children and Children Above 180 IQ.

What has WW II brought into applied psychology?

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the pioneers of applied psychology disputed whether their efforts did have a good influence on the scientific image of their original discipline. Today's industry, school, consulting and clinical psychologists are fully integrated into their profession, and even dominate it. Before the Second World War, the task of a psychologist was mainly to take tests and to make diagnoses. The second world war was one of the factors that supported this. Due to the war there was an increase in the demand for the expertise of applied psychologists. The war also made it possible for new clinical services to be designed, such as psychotherapy.

What does clinical psychology mean? - Chapter 16

Paul Meehl, wrote a book 'Clinical Versus Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis and a Review of the Evidence, in which he described the superiority of empirical data over clinical judgment in predicting behavior. He was a psycho-analytically oriented psychotherapist. The 1950s are also called the Golden Age for psychoanalysis in the US. From then on, clinical psychology started to take shape.

Who were Molly Harrower and Hermann Rorschach?

After World War II, there was a shortage of professionals who could deal with mental health problems, especially the trauma. Psychologists were increasingly asked to supplement the psychiatrists. Molly Harrower (1906-1999) was a psychologist with a private practice in New York. Until then, this had only been reserved for psychiatrists. She was probably the first psychologist with a private practice in New York. She studied the psychological effects of surgery and worked with neurosurgeon Penfield. Harrower looked at reactions from patients. She was also interested in the Rorschach projective technique, also known as the ink stain test, discovered by Hermann Rorschach (1884-1922).

Rorschach was interested in the effects of mental states on perception. His test consisted of a series of unstructured stimuli - symmetrical ink stains. The tester shows the ink stain and asks: what could this be? Patients may then give each answer. Rorschach did not find the content but the perceptual processes of the answers important, and how this related to mental states or neurological conditions. The tester also looks at which determinants (color, shape, texture or movement) patients used when answering. Rorschach wanted to use it for diagnostics, but criticism was that the test was not properly validated.

Harrower combined her interest in the Rorschach test with her interest in the psychological effects of operations. She discovered that the answers to the test of patients with brain tumors differed from patients without tumors. Harrower made it clear that diagnosing mental disorders is only one small task of a psychologist. Psychologists must be able to make an overall picture of someone. According to Harrower, this is the distinction between psychiatrists and psychologists.

Who was David Shakow?

There was therefore a need for more clinical psychologists, and for this the National Mental Health Act was adopted in 1946. David Shakow was chosen to participate in the 'Committee on Training'. He was at the forefront of designing a standardized graduation program for clinical psychology. He was trained as a researcher, just like Harrower. He became a professor of psychiatry at the University of Illionois Medical School, and psychology professor in Chicago. There was tension within the APA between 'pure' experimentalists and applied psychologists. Psychologists also received external opposition from psychiatrists and other medical staff. Shakow appointed three primary functions of the clinical psychologist: diagnosis, research and therapy. He felt that objective tests had to be developed,but also that the patient as a whole person had to be evaluated. So it was not just about giving a label to the patient. According to Shakow, conducting research was also an important role for clinical psychologists. They must therefore be trained scientifically. The third function, therapy, had to be the least prominent according to Shakow. Shakow provided for the emergence of the scientist-practitioner model of clinical training. The emphasis of this model is on combining scientific training with training in practice.had to be least prominent according to Shakow. Shakow provided for the emergence of the scientist-practitioner model of clinical training. The emphasis of this model is on combining scientific training with training in practice.had to be least prominent according to Shakow. Shakow provided for the emergence of the scientist-practitioner model of clinical training. The emphasis of this model is on combining scientific training with training in practice.

What was the criticism of the scientist-practioner model?

According to George Albee, there was now too much emphasis on the medical model of mental illnesses, and there was too little attention to social learning approaches and prevention. Albee was a pioneer in community psychology, studying social and environmental factors contributing to mental health and disease in communities. Hans Eysenck's criticism was that clinical experience and research do not necessarily have to influence each other. He designed a new model in which he removed psychotherapy from the training, he was more for a separate profession of psychotherapy.

Yet psychotherapy was added to the training for clinical psychologist. This allowed them to compete better with psychiatrists who did not receive training in psychotherapy.

Who is Carl Rogers?

Carl Rogers made recordings of therapy sessions and studied them to study the processes of change. Roger formulated the client-centered therapy, a new non-directive approach. His theory includes the actualization inclination, a person's internal tendency to growth. According to him, psychological problems arise when this tendency gets disturbed. In his therapy form, there must be psychological contact between an incongruent client and a congruent therapist. Incongruity is defined as the discrepancy between the physical experience of a situation and his or her self-representation in that situation. The therapist strives for congruence. Second, therapists must be unconditionally positive towards clients. Finally, therapists must show empathic understanding for the inner world of the client.Rogers also wanted scientific research to be conducted into these therapy factors. He was a pioneer in research into psychotherapy. More and more evidence showed that there are a number of factors that come back with every therapy.

Joseph Wolpe (1915-1997) was a pioneer in behavior therapy, with the focus on changing behavior. Systematic desensitization is a technique where relaxation exercises are combined with gradual exposure to a feared object, this is an example of behavioral therapy.

How did cognitive therapy come about?

Aaron Beck was a psychiatrist who withdrew from psychoanalysis. He designed the Beck Depression Inventory, a questionnaire that measures depression on the basis of objective criteria. He discovered during research that the theory of inward-going anger that, according to Freud, was responsible for depression, was not quite right. According to Beck, there were systematic biases in depression in depression. Beck became acquainted with Albert Ellis (1913-2007), who had also broken psychoanalysis and developed a new therapy called "rational emotive therapy" (RET). In this he used the ABC model. In this model, a person's response to an activating or negative event (A) is often influenced by a person's beliefs, assumptions and world view.These beliefs (B) influence the emotional and behavioral consequences (C) of the negative event. Beck and Ellis learned how much their approaches looked alike. In 1960 Bek published a research in which he saw cognition as the central mechanism of depression. In 1967 he published his book: Depression: Clinical, Experimental and Theoretical Aspects. His cognitive theory of depression consisted of a number of building blocks. An important concept is the cognitive schema, a core conviction that organizes information about the self, the world and the future. Beck calls this the cognitive triad. People with depression have negative schemas that cause cognitive disturbances. Patients often see nothing between two extremes, also called all-or-nothing thinking,or they only see negative aspects of a situation, which is called 'ignoring the positive'. Beck identified negative automatic thoughts that often lead to a depressed mood. These thoughts are fed by one's underlying assumptions and core beliefs. To help patients improve, Beck came up with cognitive therapy. The focus here is on the here and now, and the focus is on discovering core transitions and challenging and changing them.The focus here is on the here and now, and the focus is on discovering core transitions and challenging and changing them.The focus here is on the here and now, and the focus is on discovering core transitions and challenging and changing them.

Beck conducted the first randomized controlled trial (RCT) to demonstrate the effectiveness of psychotherapy against antidepressants. Cognitive therapy is currently one of the most commonly used and studied therapies.

What happened after 1980?

In 1980 the 3rd edition of the DSM was published. Herein every disorder was defined in terms of symptoms. A multi-axial system was also introduced, in which patients were assessed on different axes or functioning areas. Cost-effectiveness also became important: which therapy is most effective in the shortest time? A large study was conducted in which different treatments for depression were compared: Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program (TDCRP). A therapy that was examined here was interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT), designed by Klerman and Weissman. The focus here is on social and interpersonal processes that are associated with depression. Results showed that CBT, IPT and antidepressants were approximately equally effective,especially low to medium depressions. The most important outcome of the TDCRP study was that it showed that research into psychotherapy could be carried out in the same scientific way as biomedical research.

What was the MMPI?

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is a statistical measurement method of personality factors relevant to the understanding of psychopathology. Starke Hathaway (1903-1984) received money for the development of a psychological test for measuring psychopathology after World War II. The MMPI had to meet a number of requirements from Hathaway: it had to be relevant for understanding clinical problems and thus measuring personality variables related to psychopathology. It must add substantial information to what you can find out about someone in a short interview. It must be efficient in purchasing, simply scoring and interpreting, and objectively. He used an empirical, objective, statistical approach to forming the test: the criterion-group with the.He produced a questionnaire with 566 items on 10 clinical scales. The MMPI was also able to reveal response patterns so that the test information would not be valid.

Paul Meehl (1920-2003) investigated the phenomenon of 'false positives' on the MMPI: response patterns that make it seem like there is psychopathology, while the person is normal. To correct this, he developed the K scale. He also became interested in profile analysis, because he felt that this predicted someone's diagnosis better. The disadvantage of the MMPI is that it is very long for patients to take off, and that not everyone feels at ease to name everything honestly. The Rorschach test also remained popular after the war, but fell under fire under the influence of Meehl. In 1980, the MMPI became the most widely used personality test in the US.

What are contemporary discussions?

A lot of research is done into the question which specific therapy works best for which type of client and which therapy works best for which disorder. As a result, the focus is now on evidence-based practice (EBP), the use of treatments that have been scientifically tested. Some think this is a good development, others do not. Another contemporary debate is about the validity and use of the Rorschach test. In 2009, a Canadian doctor placed photographs of the ten ink spots on wikipedia. According to psychologists, the test could no longer be used in a valid way because they could look up answers. According to others, however, this did not matter.