Four Pioneers and Their Contributions to Psychology
John Broadus Watson was trained in psychology at the University of Chicago under the functionalist, J.R. Angell(Leahey, 1980). Watson was trained in functionalism, but he rejected the ideas of the functionalist and structuralists and founded his own approach to psychology. He felt that it was impossible to study consciousness because only outward behavior could be scientifically understood(Lahey, 1983). Watson’s field was animal psychology; he tells us himself that he preferred to work with animals rather than human subjects, and disliked serving as an introspective subject(Leahey, 1980). He was deeply impressed by the first reports of Pavlov’s work on conditioning because of its precision and the absence of introspection. Watson also agreed with Pavlov. The importance of conditioning went far beyond salivating dogs, and that most human behavior is learned through classical conditioning(Lahey, 1983). Watson proceeded systematically to criticize structuralism. His first criticism was that there was no room in structuralism for animal study, because its focus was entirely on human consciousness. What little animal study was done, he called
Wilheim Wundt was a professor of biology who was fascinated by human consciousness and culture. He was familiar with the scientific methods used by biologist and other scientist and applied them to the phenomena of human consciousness. This work was expanded by his student Titchener. Just as physicists sought to discover the basic particles that make up physical matter, Titchener wanted to identify the basic elements of conscious experience. He and Wundt studied consciousness using a method of looking inward at one’s own experiences called introspection. They rigorously trained themselves to observe the contents of their own minds as accurately and unemotionally as possible in an attempt to isolate the basic elements of the mind.
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Approximate Word count = 1847
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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