To begin with, let’s understand the concept of
“School” and its definition. Then, we will discuss various schools of
psychology.
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| Schools of Psychology |
In a layman’s term, a “school” is a set of
persons or group of people who share common opinions, beliefs and outlook of a
philosophy. For example, if a collection of people during the same age
possesses similar kind of beliefs and express parallel opinions, they are
called to be of the same school. A “school” suggests followership and
uniformity.
Now, when we say “Schools of Psychology”, we
mean a group of psychologists who associate themselves with the early leaders
in the new discipline. Psychologists, who form a school, work on common
problems and share a common systematic orientation or direction.
After having a sense of what “schools of
psychology” are, now we will get to know various schools of psychology. These
are the following:
Structuralism
(or, Structural Psychology):
Being termed as a theory of consciousness, “Structuralism” seeks
to study the elements of conscious
experience of an individual.
This movement of Structuralism is largely considered to be the first “school of
psychology”. It had represented the emergence of psychology as a discipline
separate from philosophy. Structuralism was founded by Wilhelm Wundt and his pupil Edward Bradford Titchener.
Wundt had set up in 1879
the first psychological laboratory at University of Leipzig in Germany. He had
taught Titchener who entered his laboratory at the University of Leipzig in
1890 and earned his doctorate (Ph.D.) in 1892.
Psychologists
who belong to this school of psychology (structuralism) believe that the key
objective of psychology is to describe, analyze, and explain conscious experience. They seek to examine conscious experience by reducing it to basic conscious elements that in turn is broken down into basic elements.
After that, they discover how these components integrate with each other to
form more complex experiences.
Psychologists,
belonging to this school of psychology, use the tool of “introspection”
in order to find out various elements of consciousness. In the simplest term, Introspection refers to a careful set of observations under
controlled conditions. Introspection is made by trained observers.
Titchener’s
“theory of structuralism” answers the question of what each element of the mind
is. According to him, “conscious experience” consists of three types of
elements, namely “Sensations", “Images”, and “Affections”. Titchener goes on the say
that these mental elements combine and interact with each other in order to form
conscious experience based on the idea of associationism. After that,
Titchener’s theory of structuralism ask the question of why the elements
interact in the way they do.
Structuralism
psychology had lost its substantial influence after the death of Titchener in
1927. However, the movement of Structuralism led to the emergence of many
counter-movements such as Functionalism, Behaviorism, and Gestalt psychology.
Structuralism
had to face a lot of criticism mainly for its focus on “introspection” as the
method by which psychologists claimed to get an understanding of conscious experience. According to critics, self-analysis was not possible
because introspective students cannot appreciate the mechanisms of their own
psychological (or mental) processes.
To know
more about other Schools of Psychology, read my other posts.
Click Here for School of Behaviorism
Click Here for School of Behaviorism
