STRUCTURALISM

Outline

 The Life of the Proponent

 The Works: Structuralism
 Criticisms of Structuralism
 Contributions of Structuralism
Edward Bradford Titchener
(1867-1927)
The Life

Born in Chichester, England in 11 January

1867. Died in 3 August 1927.

Family has impressive lineage but no

money

Had to rely on intellectual abilities to win

scholarships to college
Studies

 Studied philosophy and the classics in Oxford. He was research

assistant in physiology.

 His interest in Wundtian psychology while in Oxford made him

relocate to Leipzig

 He studied under Wundt and was one of Wundt’s closest students

 He returned to Oxford after earning his doctorate. Hoped to pioneer
experimental psychology in Oxford.

 He left for the United States to teach psychology in Cornell

University.

 He was only 25!!!

Life in Cornell

 He has a flair for the dramatics.

 Mistaken as German,
although he is English.

 Wundt’s fanboy?
EB Titchener the Scholar

 Established his laboratory at Cornell

 He published more than 60 articles

 Supervised more than 50 doctoral students in Cornell

 Translated Wundt’s “Principles of Physiological Psychology”

EB Titchener the Scholar

 His own books include:

 An Outline of Psychology (1896)

 Primer of Psychology (1898b)
 Experimental Psychology: A Manual of Laboratory Practice (1901–1905).
EB Titchener as the Scholar

 Rockstar professor?

 Even Boring was not bored when he attended the lectures. 

Titchener as walking contradiction?

 He did not allow women to join his group, ”The Experimentalists”.

 Up to the very end, women were not allowed. Until his death of
course.

 He was very supportive of women in psychology.

 More women completed doctorates under him.
 Favored hiring women in the faculty.
What is STRUCTURALISM?

 Study of the elements of consciousness.

 Elementary conscious experiences

 Analyze consciousness into its component parts and determine its

structure
 The subject matter of psychology is conscious experience as that
experience is dependent on the person who is actually experiencing
it.

 Temperature (C,F,K)
 Brightness (lumens)
 Sound (decibels)
Introspection

 Self-observation
 Objective self-observations
 Learned/Trained objective self-observations

 Influenced by the mechanists spirit.

 Human observers are mere instruments to record observations.
The Elements of Consciousness

1. Reduce conscious processes to their simplest components.

2. Determine laws by which these elements of consciousness were

associated.

3. Connect the elements with their physiological conditions.

Elementary States of Consciousness

 Sensations
 44,500 individual sensation qualities
 Images
 Affective states
How do we differentiate Sensations,
Images, and Affective States
 Quality
 Intensity
 Duration
 Clearness. (Affective states lack clearness)
Criticisms of Structuralism

 Because it is always easier to criticize and oppose.

 Napag-iwanan.

 Even before Titchener's work was published there were already

criticisms on introspection.

 Introspection alters the conscious experience since the observing

variable has its own biases.
Criticisms of Structuralism

 Even the very definition of introspection experienced difficulties.

 What is it that trained structuralist introspectors do?

 If ordinary words cannot be used to describe conscious experiences,

a vocabulary for introspectors need to be developed.

 This was never realized.

Criticisms of Structuralism

 Introspecting alters a conscious experience.

 The concept of sub-conscious. Structuralism deals only with

”conscious” experience.
Contributions of Structuralism

 Subject matter of structuralism is clearly defined.

 Structuralism = conscious experience.

 The method of introspection is continued to be used in psychology.

 A significant contribution of structuralism was its service as a target

of criticism.