1
Q
What is Wndt’s Legacy in Psychology?
A
Wundt’s Legacy -65 year career -Head of the best lab in the world -Wrote a lot (50000 pages) BUT -No influential theories or seminal findings His writing was hard to understand and contradictory Relatively small impact on psychology.
2
Q
Who is Titchner and is he considered important today?
How did his Introspection differ from Wundt’s?
A
Considered important historically but his work is not influential today.
Taught at Cornell and was the head of the structuralist school. He thought experimental psychology’s goal was to identify the basic elements that made up consciousness.
Wundt argued against this. Titchener presented himself as the student of Wundt but in reality, was against Wundt’s ideas. Wundt felt that consciousness could not be broken down. Dimensions of consciousness do not exist without each other. Feelings cannot exist without sensations.
Titchener does not agree. Titchener is really in the associationism camp. Like Locke – all of our thoughts can be decomposed into simple ideas and then back to experience. Titchener thinks you can go in the other direction. Complex thought to experience which should be at the base.
3
Q
What is Titchener using introspection for?
Did Titchner agree with Kant?
A
Titchener thinks that via introspection, we can find the basic elements of consciousness and the mind.
Titchener opposes Kant because he says that inner observation can be separated and combined at will.
4
Q
What is Structuralism?
What does introspection come up with?
What is the purpose of introspection for a structuralist?
A
Structuralism: Decomposing the mind into its component parts. Draws an analogy with anatomy and physiology – the same way you need to understand the structure of the eye before studying it, you need to do this for the mind before studying what the mind is for.
Comes up with very weird, exotic stuff. General idea is to trace everything back to experiences.
5
Q
What does Titchener say TRAINED introspectors can do?
What is the stimulus error?
To avoid it, what do you need?
A
According to him, trained introspection can reach conclusions that can be considered scientific.
This training allows people to avoid the stimulus error: describing the object rather than one’s experience of the object. Judging the stimulus outside of you but not focusing on your own experience if the stimulus.
To avoid this error, you require a specialised vocabulary. Should be transparent, clear what it means. Not too familiar as these bring with them associations but not so unfamiliar that their assimilation would be difficult. Hard to read from the present perspective, proved to be a dead end.
6
Q
Titchener and vocabulary
A
He listed thousands od sensory experience, 30k visual, 11k auditory, 4 taste, 3 sensations od the digestive tract and died before he figured out olfaction.
He then tried to make a more parsimonious theory but died before this.
7
Q
How did Boring carrry on his work and why did this give Titchener a good place in th ehistory of psychology?
A
His most famous student, Boring carried on. He was also the first ever historian of psychology and so gave Titchener a nice place in the history of psychology.
Boring tried to simplify the theory. 4 Main dimensions of consciousness. Quality – the 43k e.g. quality. Intensity extensity (space) and propensity (duration).
8
Q
Why did Titchener want to come to McGill?
A
Titchener wanted to teach in the Empire. No psych labs in the UK. Cornell was the best he could do. Tried to grab a slot at McGill.
9
Q
What was Tithener’s impact on psycholgy?
A
limited impact on psychology? – mostly he features as a punching bag for those that come later
10
Q
Who was Oswald Kulpe?
A
Oswald Kulpe - Student of Wundt and founder of the “Würzburg School,” who promoted introspective experiments on several of the higher processes, thus contradicting Wundt’s view that this was not possible.
11
Q
What did the Würzburg Schools say about introspection?
A
- introspection did not intuitively give rise to the experience of elementary sensations.
- Wurzburg school: there are a lot of things happening in our mind that we cannot report on. people do weird associations without knowing why
(we have limited awareness of the causes of the contents of our minds).
- « imageless » thoughts.
12
Q
How did Kulpe disagree with Wundt?
A
Wundt thought introspection could only be done for basic processes – higher = analyse culture.
Kulpe thought that this could be done retrospectively
13
Q
What is retrospection and how does it compare to introspection?
What are imageless thoughts?
What were these the first example of?
A
Retrospection vs introspection: introspection interferes with the process that is being observed. Too hard to do a process while doing introspection. But maybe can do it retrospectively.
Kulpe found that many thought processes were hard to describe. E.g., familiarity, you don’t remember where you know someone from but they FEEL familiar.
He calls these Imageless thoughts: many thought processes are hard to describe, e.g. recognition without recollection.
Might be the first realisation of unconscious properties that impact on behaviour.
14
Q
What was directed association and what did it uncover?
A
Directed association—Studies conducted by Watt, a student of Külpe, and Ach in which subjects were asked to associate to stimulus words in a highly specific, rather than “free,” manner. Word association that was not free. People had to name the super and supra ordinate groups. When participates did this, after a while it became easy, and people do not need to think about it. It has become automatic. He called these implementation of these unconscious rules, mental sets
15
Q
What is mental sets and who came up with them?
A
Mental sets—The idea put forth by Ach that introspective instructions do not consciously enter into the subjects’ associational processes but rather predetermine them in particular directions before the experiments begin: a lot of thought is unconscious. Once you get into the habit, it is unconscious. Most of the time we interact with the world, we use these mental sets.
16
Q
What was Titchener’s response to the idea of mental sets?
A
- Titchener replies that trained individual can become aware of these thoughts (but then problem of demand characteristics). If you are trained, you can do this. In other words, this might not ever work for anybody else but him.
17
Q
What did Functionalists think of Titchener?
A
/Functionalists like James were studying more interesting questions such as: « how could psychology advance the conditions of individuals and of the American society ». This is very applicable stuff.
- By contrast, in his textbook An Outline of Psychology (1896), Titchener puts forward a list of more than 44,000 elemental qualities of conscious experience.
18
Q
Did the Gestalt Psychologists think Titchener was cool?
Who were the main proponents?
A
Failed to convince the researchers who remained interested in the contents of consciousness and perception, but he did not convince them. This was mostly the gestalt psychologists.
- They believed that it doesn’t make sense to try to understand the human mind by trying to break it down to its « atoms », it would be like trying to understand a chord by the sum of its individual tones.
- Gestalt Psychology: « the whole is different from the sum of its parts »
- Main proponents were the Germans Max Wertheimer (1880-1943), Kurt Koffka (1886-1941), and Wolfgang Kohler (1887-1967). Also included the Danish Edgar Rubin (!886-1951), and the Swede Gunnar Johansson (1911-1998).
19
Q
William James
Who was he?
What book did he write?
Was he a program builder?
A
Taught the first American university course on the new scientific psychology at Harvard.
Considered the father of American Psychology. Probably not of all psychology as he was inspired by Wundt to consider psychology am science.
-To go along with this course, he decides to write a textbook; 1878-1890: The Principles of Psychology
-He had to rewrite chapters as they progressed and writing this took ages.
-Very well written and comprehensive for this time period.
-More a communicator than a program builder. Did not do much research, graduated a few students and then later, he quit psychology all together and went into philosophy.
20
Q
Did Wundt like James?
A
Wundt was not impressed: « It is literature, it is beautiful, but it is not psychology » James (about Wundt’s psychology: « It could hardly have arisen in a country whose natives could be bored… There is little of the grand style - - - - about these new prism, pendulum, and chronograph-philosophers. They mean business, not chivalry » - the German way of approaching psychology is boring according to James.
21
Q
In James’ time, what is the difference between European and American psychology?
A
-Psychology in America is more personal and focused on the individual, and more practical than theoretical in its goals. Which is a big advantage.
22
Q
James’ background
Did he belive in Free will?
Whgat philosphy did he found?
A
- He was more into physiology
- Studied medicine but was not happy – he was prone to recurrent depression
- Went specimen hunting in Brazil to improve his mood
- Feels like his family is oppressive – moves to Germany: he can get near to physiologists and escapes family
- Reads Wundt’s paper and realises that psychology can be a science
- Physiological Psychology ». 1870: In the context of an “existential crisis”- probably depression, he decides to believe in free will, even though the scientists he has interacted with teach that this is not so
- And manages to build a habit of thinking more positive thoughts. You can see this as positive psychology. Habits become an important aspect of his psychology
- Since « free will » seemed a useful concept in personal life, he would accept it as true there; and determinism, useful scientifically, would be equally true when he functioned as a scientist.
- I.e., scientifically free will seems impossible but its useful for me so when im working, there is none but when I am outside of home, I will believe in it.
- Will later found pragmatism in philosophy (> 1900) There are no absolute truths, what determines the value if a truth is their practical impact
23
Q
How good at experiments was James?
A
James may have never have ran an experiment. He only ever really did his great book. Chapters on many things that are really still present in psychology.
24
Q
What did James write in his book about the methdology of psychology at the time?
A
- Chapter 1 The Methods and Snares of Psychology
- Snares – considered Wundt’s methodology boring
- Although it has limitations, introspection is still the best available method.
- He uses this more open mindedly than Wundt, more in the “armchair style” that Wundt did not like.
- Precursor to phenomenology: not « imposing a set of prior categories on experience », but « by observing experience itself and letting experience dictate the categories »
- In the methods section, says Minds are objects in the natural world – no dualism: there is a correspondence between « the succession of states of consciousness and the succession of total brain processes ». More kind of causal reductionism – events caused by activity in the brain.
- Didn’t like experimental methods, considered all the psychology experiments like time perception, mental chronology etc. to be extremely boring (especially German experiments).
- Wundt used constrained introspection with prior categories. James says you should let it go and be open.
- He was extremely open: spiritism
- Also open to comparing between things like other species – a lot of American functionalism is due to Darwin
- James does not see a clear break between humans and animals, thought animals had some of our processes
25
James' most famous chapter
How is it that we consider ourselves the same entity in the morning?
* Famous chapter – James is a master of metaphors
* Metaphors in psychology are often more than a way of writing, they allow use to understand abstract concepts more clearly
* Hume used the metaphor of a theater play – James agrees
* A stream vs a train, you cannot break a stream into parts
* Since Heraclitus, it has the association of looking like a unified thing even though actually, everything changes
* 1. « Every thought tends to be a part of a personal consciousness » - every thought is my thought and not the thought of someone else
* 2. « Within each personal consciousness thought is always changing », « no state once gone can recur and be identical with what it was before » -> There cannot be two identical experiences
* Attacking Titchener and structuralism. If everything changes then there are no stable blocks to analyse
* our experience of a certain thing is never the same on two different occasions! « For an identical sensation to recur it would have to occur the second time in an unmodified brain » -> It is foolish to look for elementary, recurrent units of consciousness
* 3. « Within each personal consciousness thought is sensibly continuous » -> Consciousness occurs « without breach, crack, or division » -> Every moment seems follows the other in a seamless fashion
* Still a feeling of continuity when we wake up in the morning. -> Consciousness doesn’t have well-defined edges i.e., We wake up, remember how we went to sleep and then connect the dots
* We always wake up as ourselves, there is a sense of continuity
* Consciousness does not have well defined edges
26
Consciousness:
Transitive and intransitive parts
* Consciousness substantive parts and transitive parts
* Substantive parts are concrete i.e., (a) imagine being at home and (b) imagine Christmas holidays
* Transitive parts are the bits in between those thoughts
* Something must have happened to allow this shift between thoughts but introspectively, we can’t see them
* Probably unconscious (but psychology was not there yet)
* When you are looking for a word on the tip of your tongue, if you are presented other words, you can say that these are not the word you want so what is the weird experience of knowing something you do not know? This is on the fringes of consciousness.
27
James: Intentionality
Consciousness always appears to deal with objects independent of itself »
• -> intentionality is the technical term for this or « aboutness » of consciousness ->
• We are always conscious of stuff, not consciousness itself
• The object of attention is experienced as an « undivided state of consciousness » i.e., you cannot divide consciousness like Titchener does
• “I am the same I that I was yesterday” – is in reality one idea – even though there are different moments to this thought, it is one thought. This is unity of consciousness.
28
For James, how does attention relate to conscioussness?
* Consciousness is always about something but there is a choice about what that object is and this choice Is attentional
* We pay only attention to a fraction of what we can be aware of
* This is why he put attention centrally in psychology
29
James Langley theory of emotion
Does Cannon-Bard's theory agree?
Later in the cognitive revolution, does Schafer agree?
Who started this debate and was it their biggest contribution to the actual field of psychology?
* Contrary to intuition
* Intuition says we feel something (like fear) and then we express it (like I run)
* James-Lange says the other way around
* In reality expression happens first and then you experience the emotion as you experience yourself expressing it
* Cannon-Bard says there is no order, the brain does both processes. They come in parallel with no causal order
* If someone was paralysed, they cannot express emotions, but they feel them
* Schacter – cognitive revolution
* Appraisals
* See threat, have an emotional response, appraise it, has a feeling
James started the debate about the order of events that happen when we experience an emotion. Still going on. This is his biggest contribution to psychology
30
James on WILL
* Deciding that he had free will got him out of his depression so personally importance
* Is effortful attention: When you put effort into doing something (do something hard) that is when you feel free will the most
* The main question of the chapter is whether the will is mechanistically determined (Scientific Psychology) -> Or whether it introduces certain non-mechanistic and unpredictable influence of its own (personal experience).
* Science must be founded on true determinism: the causes of phenomena can be found entirely in the material world and so there cannot be free will i.e., you are doing something because of something. If this is so, you are doomed to believe that there cannot be free will
* BUT free will impacted on his life. As he is a pragmatist, he says that for science, free will does not help (like with Descartes, it just makes things more complex)
* But in his own life, he used it and had it
31
James' later career
Did he like psychology?
What else did he do?
Later Career: Psychology is a « nasty little subject; … all one cares to know lies outside » His conclusion is grim and is not what matters to him
• - He was chair of Psychology at Harvard, in 1892: He brings German psychologist, and former Wundt student Hugo Munsterberg to replace him at Harvard.
• Goes on to do many things
• - Interested in research on spiritism
• - Founds pragmatism with Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914): He says that scientific knowledge can never be entirely certain, but only subject to varying degree of « pragmatic belief »
• This is pretty like the sophists from Greece, certain beliefs are more practical than others
• - Darwinian perspective: evolution and adaptiveness of ideas
• – ideas may gain or loose their value depending on their « environments » and « competitors ».
• What is important is not what is true but what is useful
• - Believing in free will in your own personal life is pragmatically « correct » because it « works »
32
Charles Darwin
* Organisms have evolved to fulfil certain functions
* He was trying to explain the mechanisms that drive the diversity of lifeforms
* Aristotle worked on this – taxonomy and 4 causes
* Context is different. Began with Carolus Linnaeus’ classification system
* Very hierarchal and structured. We still mostly use it!
* He wants to know what causes it
33
Lamark and Lamarkian selection
* Lamarck: Organisms can inherit acquired characteristics: e.g., all its life a giraffe tried to reach leaves. Because it is trying to reach long leaves, its neck gets longer over time it acquires this characteristic
* This trait gets passed down to offspring
* Intuitive but does not work! Never able to observe the lengthening of a neck throughout the lifetime
* Lamarckian selection
34
How did the work of Thomas Malthus influence Darwin?
How?
* One of the determining factor of Darwin’s theory was the book published by Thomas Malthus a political economist: main thesis= humans are doomed to live in poverty, as wealth increases so does population until it exceeds capacity and then there is poverty increase and an event that happens like famine or war that brings down the population
* Call these Malthusian catastrophes
* It is the existence in the world of limited resources and the struggle that comes from it that drives the selection process
* Eventually publishes the origin of species
* He proposes evolution is caused by blind variation
* Traits vary randomly and then are selectively retained due to the environmental pressure
* Long necked giraffes survive better
35
Did Darwin think survival of the fittest would affect psychology?
• Darwin realised his theory would affect psychology – the same way that physical traits are chosen, so could mental traits
36
The Descent of man
Whjat does it say about humans and animals?
* The Descent of man and Selection in Relation to Sex
* Humans have descended from animals
* No sharp divide between humans and animals – incremental difference
* Dogs can show many human traits
* Very different from Descartes
37
Did Darwin cause racism?
* Racism comes
* Not from Darwin but from people that read and interpreted his work
* Realised that there was only one species of human. He beloved in monogenesis. Contrasted to polygenetic views of the time
* Darwin was anti slavery
* He was also anbiguous on race, might be intellectual superiority of Nordic races – the harsher climates like lack of food in winter are a stronger environmental pressure to select traits like cleverness. Maybe this caused intellectual Nordic superiority
38
Darwin and • sexual selection, variation hypothesis,
* Darwin was much clearer in his views about sexual differences – when you observe other species, there is striking differences between males and females. Male peacocks only there to seduce females
* So, there is sexual selection and pressures resulting from this
* When he applies this to humans
* His ideas closely matched common Victorian ideas – sexes fundamentally different but complementary
* Women = mothers – empathetic and maternal
* Men = breadwinners – competitive and assertive
* Men have higher eminence and are more intellectually capable, according to Drawing
* Sexual selection is the gradual selection and evolutions of characteristics that are specifically favourable for reproductive success
39
The variation hypothesis and IQ
* Variation hypothesis – more variability in height etc. in men than women (many traits including IQ). For him, because of this selection process; men have to compete.
* This is true
* BUT it is a very slight difference and might not even matter.
40
SImon Baron COhen and the variation hypothesis?
* Simon Baron-Cohen more recently used this line of thinking
* Autism – extreme male brain or empathizing-systemizing theory
* More variability in men, increase in variability may cause autism but also possibly genius in a domain. The biology of men can create genius or autism – the variation is significant
* New one – empathizing is on one side of the spectrum and on the other systemizing – could be a male female split
* The observations are the same – there IS more variability ion men and women but the interpretations can vary
41
The expression of the emotions in Man and animals.
Who wrote this and was it important?
• Around this time, the idea of the expression of emotions came from Ekman
The expressions of the emotions of man and animals
• Human emotions are inherited and evolved for specific purposes
• E.g., fear = escape from predator
• Evidence, at least some emotions are universal
• Ekman says fear, anger, sadness, disgust, sad, and surprise
• Got a lot of criticism because of its association to the theory of evolution and its use in racism subsequently even though he made no racist statements. Guilty by association to a theory that had been used in racist ways
42
Was Darwin nurture or nature?
How did he influence the James-Langue theory of emotions?
* Darwin was all nature, no nurture
* James-Langue theory of emotions: if emotions are hard wired, it makes sense that we would manifest these emotions before we experience them. James was very inspired by Darwin.
43
What was Galton interested in?
Galton: Hereditary Genius
44
Galton:
Background
Thesis on genius
Francis Galton – was Darwin’s Cousin: quite a lot of prominent families intermarried in this era
• Was gifted – could read and write at the age of 3
• By 6 can quote from the Iliad and the Odyssey
• Terman retrospectively assessed his IQ as 200 but although gifted in many ways but did not achieve academically. Don’t match his capacities
• He was appalled by this failure and dropped out of school and mapped uncharted territory in Namibia, Africa (18-20). Wrote a book on it. Earns a ton.
• Darwin also travelled around a lot – was something rich folk used to do when they were down
• Changed when he read his cousins book
• Took up the idea that the human race must be under evolution
• 1869: Wrote the book Hereditary Genius
• His thesis is that genius/intelligence (intelligence does not exist yet as a concept) seems to run in families. Was good with stats. If you examine the kids of eminent people, their kids tend to be eminent more than baseline. His interpretation is that this was inherited (could be culture or environment).
45
Galton's first argument for heriditary genius
The normal distribution
• 1st argument. Intellectual ability seems to run into statistical distributions similar to other physical traits. He measured this by analysing the data from mathematics exams in the Cambridge Tripos exams and finds it to be normal (like height). Even though he did not do well on them himself! The tail on the right are the geniuses. Certain individuals are better than average.
46
Galton's second argument for heriditary genius
Families of famous people
• 2nd studied the families of 12 famous people. The chance of the offspring is proportional to the degree of relatedness. E.g., people with a first degree of relatedness have more chance of success than 2nd order of relatedness. Qualitatively, he also realises that they seem to share similar talents with their parents. Father is famous writer, more chance that his kids will be – like father like sun.
47
Dalton's third argument for heriditary genius
It isnt the environment
• 3rd argument – could be the environment. Catholic popes used to take nephews and pay for their education (orphans). Where studies them, their career paths did not become eminent. Despite being raised in a favourable environment. This is his only argument against environment.
48
Are dalton's arguments scientific?
• His arguments are not scientific by modern day standards, but it resembles the origin of species. Darwin did not run experiments either, all observation.
49
Did Darwin approve of Dalton's work?
• Darwin approved of his conclusions – others will argue that it is more environmental. The beginnings of the nature/nurture war.
50
Dalton and POSITIVE eugenics
* Dalton wants to apply this idea to society. He says there are individuals that are better than others. They should have more kids than others. The beginnings of eugenics.
* This is a positive form of eugenics. No forced sterility or no kids, focus on helping their better individuals. Help them have more kids.
* He says, if we are to do this successfully, everyone must have the same chance of success. He seems to have meant well although this does not work.
51
Dalton's attempt to measure intelligence at the World's fair
* To make this work practically, he goes to the International Health Exhibition in London. Creates his Anthropomorphic Laboratory.
* Tested 9000 people
* He tested the reaction time, did psychophysical tasks – this date was around Weber and Fechner – psychophysics is prominent
* He believed that sensory capacities are related to what we would now call genius
* Also measured head sizes – phrenology is knocking about
* This was perhaps the first attempt at an intelligence test though these are not the right measures for intelligence
* He thought there was sensory difference in capacities in mentally handicapped children
52
Daltons best contributions to psychology - Statistics
Who expanded on this?
* Highlights of his contributions to psychology – statistics. He took that data from 9000 people and analysed it for years. Made breakthroughs.
* In 1860 developed standard deviations to characterise the normal distributions
* 19898 popularised the concept of correlation and applies it to anthropological and psychological measures
* His autobiographical – Pearson expanded on this
* Developed the regression line
* Discovers regression to mediocrity (regression to the mean)
* Trying to predict mediocrity which we now call regression to the mean. Trying to predict height, someone is tall, big chance that their kids will be smaller than him because he’s at the extreme of the distribution
* This was around 1888 – and so was there for the beginnings of psychology
* Psychology wanted to be a science and needed to be able to do mathematical demonstrations and laws, but this is hard as:
* The outcomes are variable, noise is intrinsic to the process, we take an average of many observations – all of these are different to physics.
* So, the maths in physics needs to be different. Physics is deterministic and the stuff studied is less complex than psych phenomena.
* Titchener tried to use a physics like approach – e.g., few observations from trained introspection – does not work
* Our understanding of stats influenced how we do science
53
Ronald Fischer
* Ronald Fisher – developed ANOVA. One of his first job was to analyse data in agriculture. Wanted to compare crops but each crop was put in different places and times (loads of confounds). So, he developed analysis of covariance to get rid of this.
* He also insisted that scientists better control their work to remove confounds
54
Dalton's bad contributions to psychology - Eugenics
* He had a Utopian vision of society
* The idea was to improve the human race via selective breeding
* Should encourage the most able to intermarry and have more kids than the parents of lesser ability
* Quite like the scientific stage of society by Comte where we should organise society based on society
* The Russians bred foxes to be pets cos they can easier get their coats. Also bred a breed of aggressive foxes. The difference is huge. The reason eugenics is shocking is because it might work
* Imagines a competition where the winners would be “married by the Queen” and give them subsidies – not too far off of the Batchelor today
* They should be identified early so they can have many kids – this was a driver behind the development of intelligence tests
55
The Americans and Eugenics
Dalton's vision of Eugenics was positive
• In the USA there was much negative Eugenics – e.g., castration
• Iowa had a sterilisation law to “remove” undesirables
• In the states that had eugenics laws they had buildings dedicated to them
• About 64000 people were sterilised
• Canada did it too – two provinces had Eugenic laws: Alberta and BC. The founder of U of A was a prominent Eugenist.
• People were very racist – maybe we could ship the Chinese to Africa. Then we would get rid of the Chinese and would also improve Africa cos even though they are a lower race they are better than Africans. This was printed in the New York Times
56
Who was G. Stanley Hall
* Functionalism again
* Hall was James’ student. Although James was the father of Psychology, Hall is the main institution builders in the USA
* Obtained the first PhD on a psychological topic in the USA although this was in the dept of philosophy
* Goes to study with Wundt
* Comes back and taught at Harvard in education then goes to Johns Hopkins as a professor in Education and Psychology
* 1887 establishes the American Journal of Psychology
* Becomes the first president of Clark University, not know now but under Hall in the 1890s, produced half of the PHDs in psychology in the USA
* In 1892 he founded the APA and became its first president. After WW2 the number of members exploded. Two wars made a need for psychology. After WW2 clinicians were allowed in. Only after WW2 applied psychologists were allowed in. Before, just research
* Was a developmental psychologist
57
To what extent was Hall a Racist and a Sexist ?
given the times he was living in, maybe not so bad
| • He graduated the first black student despite what he said
58
Hall and Recapitulationism
Hall and Adolescence
Hall and racist ideas about adolescence
* Recapitulationism: The idea that the stages of each person’s intellectual, emotional and psychological development pass through the same stages as our ancestors as the developed into the humans of today
* The development of the individual parallels the development of the species
* 1904 Writes a book. Introduces adolescence into its own phase
* Documented the emotional turbulence associated with this phase – did not invent the word but brought it into common usage
* His theory of adolescence is touched by Recapitulationism
* When kids arrive at adolescence, they are like little savages
* We should let adolescence live out this period – express the ancestral stocks that pass through their veins – and live through them. This influx of ancestral traits is more numerous in children of “mongrel” stock – i.e., American vs. Purer Europeans
* Only good for Whites. Other races have not reached advanced stages so there is nothing to surpass – no point in prolonging adolescence for them – there is nothing to pass through, this is as far as they can go
* Maybe if for a few generations we let adolescents go through this period, the whole Caucasian race will evolve in a favourable manner
59
Hall and Women
* Also believed in the variation hypothesis
| * Women are not well-suited for intellectually strenuous education
60
Hall and some of his sillier ideas
* Hall confirmed the prevalent notion that masturbation was bad for neurological development
* Religious conversion is a normal part of adolescence
* He thought that traits inherited through ones own development could be passed down though Lamarckian processes (like the giraffes)
* Thorndike did not think he was credible
61
Are we immune to ideas like racism today?
* It is always worth remembering that these people thought that what they were doing was for the good of society
* We do not know if we are still doing this because we would not recognise that we were doing bad today
* Research was indicating that opioids were good and non addictive before, it has lead to the opioid crisis – a good example of science going wrong within our lifetime
62
Francis Cecil Sumner
* He was a black PhD student under Hall
* Trained at Clark university and there were a lot of students there
* Was Hall’s last student
* Came from Virginia at a time when it was hard for black people to go to high school – his parents taught him well even though he could not get formal schooling
* Went to Lincoln College, now University and smashed it
* Got a second bachelors in English at Clark
* Begun PhD, went to army (drafted) and returned becoming the first black m,an to get a PhD in psychology – dissertation was on psychoanalysis. Hall and Freud both interested in sex
* Head of psychology at Howard – a big African American school
* Not scientifically particularly remarkable about his research but very important in terms of his impact institutionally
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The Clarks
What was their main experiment?
The Clarks.
• Sumner trained Mamie Phipps Clark and Kenneth B. Clarke who studied the effects of race and racial prejudice on personality development
• This was a contribution to Brown v. Board of Education which outlawed segregation of public schools in the USA
• This was the first time that data from social sciences was used by a supreme court
• They did the doll experiment. The black girl says the nice doll is the white girl and the bad doll is the black doll. Could mean there is an association between bad and black – internalisation between black and bad. Which was used in the judgement.
64
How does Hall’s having a black student fundamentally fit with his racist theories?
* (1) It could have been that the first time that Hall got into a relationship with a black American. They liked and respected one another. Maybe if he had lived longer, Hall would have changed his mind.
* (2) The evolutionary theories that Hall’s developmental model fits under do not assume that races do not evolve – every race will have better people than others. Hall could have seen him as an exceptional black man and so within Eugenics, Hall should have helped him move forward to improve his race
* Either way, he did take him under his wing and down the way, this had positive consequences
65
Edward Thorndike
Puzzel Boxes
Animal experiments
* Student under James at Harvard
* Got hooked and wanted to study psychology
* James recommended he studied education (functionalism – practical)
* He was in a rush so decided to study chicken instead of children
* The idea under Darwin = there is no fundamental difference between humans and animals
* The dept at Harvard did not want chickens around, kept them in his room and his landlord kicked him out – went to James and the chicken lived in his cellar
* Pioneering research – the first on animals
* Thorndike leaves James (with permission) and went to Cattel at Columbia – student of Wundt who was good at building things for experiments
* Thorndike took his chicken to New York. After a while, realises its better to do his experiments with cats
* Studies how cats figure out how to get out of “puzzle boxes”
* In the box, the animal has to figure out how to get out – usually a button or a level. Eventually the cat learns how to get out. Sometimes the cat must learn a complex sequence
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Trial and error learning - Thorndike
* Thorndike realises they go through trial-and-error learning
* Cat learns the thing that works by trying many things. After the cat learns this, will repeat it again and again and the cat will do it faster
* E.g., the first time the cat pulls the lever, but does not realise what he did to escape
* Second time, goes to the right area and eventually works it out
* Eventually, cat has learned concretely what he has to do and does it very fast
* Now is an efficient action
67
Low of effect - Thorndike
* Law of effect
* Certain stimulus-response pairings that are followed by pleasure get “stamped in” while those followed by annoyance or pain get “stamped out”
* Stimulus response framework – it’s the S-R that gets stamped in or out
* He used the term law – imported from physics and following its structure
* Kind of one of the first laws of psychology
* Can be thought of as the beginning of behaviourism
* Made him famous and respected as a psychologist historically
68
Did Thorndike use animals forever?
• Using animals was never something he chose, just the most expedient method – once he is a prof, he never goes back to animals – all from now on will be done with kids. He made important contributions to education but is more remembered for his earlier work
69
Robert Sessions Woodworth and the idea of trasfer of learning
Does this fit the law of effect and how?
What controversial did he believe in?
* Follows in Thorndike’s path – studies with James and Cattel
* Worked together on a variety of tasks – PhD: the transfer of training, getting good at one thing can be transferred to others
* This idea was used to justify teaching classics to students
* Woodworth and Thorndike showed that this does not happen
* There is no transfer of learning
* Fits the Law of Effect. The response between S and R is SPECIFIC and not general
* In neuropsychology, for a long time all we could do was measure lesions, there was no rehabilitation. For a while did cognitive training; the more reserve we have the more resistant to dementia we are (if we have risk factors) so do cognitive tasks to increase this – it did not work
* No real transfer of training
* One of the leaders of functionalism
* Also believed in eugenics
70
George Romanes and the origin of intelligence as a concept
How did Thorndike carry on?
Why was a special word for this needed?
* In 1901 there was a dictionary of psychology and there was no term intelligence in the book
* By 1910-20, everyone in psychology uses it as if it had always existed
* In 1905 Binet made an intelligence test – but why label it an intelligence test?
* At a conceptual level, there had to be a shift before the test came out
* Galton was probably not really looking at intelligence – is interested by natural ability; the qualities that lead to become exceptional. Not intelligence
* In psychology it comes from George Romanes - evolutionary biologist. Published animal intelligence as a book. In here he made many anthropomorphisms which he was criticized for
* He was the first person to use intelligence
* This book inspired Thorndike to write a book in the same name (and to use animals to investigate stuff)
* He was a follower of Darwin and understood that there was no fundamental difference between humans and animals
* No qualitative difference
* Romanes was tempted to use reason as a word, but reason has different connotations. So, he uses the work intelligence instead.
* Reason for Descartes was special to humans.
* By Hume’s time, reason is just a set of problem-solving capacities
* In the time of Darwin, this reason is not unique to humans
* So, because reason has changed many times, a new word is needed as this is unclear
* Use intelligence
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The history of the term Intelligence
How does it relate to Darwin?
How did Spencer add something to Darwin's ideas?
What is the difference between intelligence and instinct?
* The history of the term Intelligence
* Comes up in French in discussions on the “problem solving abilities” of animals in the context of Lamarckian evolution
* Then in English used by spencer, another evolutionary theorist who published a book 4 years before Darwin principles of psychology
* Darwin is not the first evolutionary theorist, but he came up with natural selection
* Spencer is known for his expression survival of the fittest – evolution leads to the selection of the organism that are the best adapted (this is his reading of Darwin)
* Tests are laid out by nature, every living thing is always under tests
* Within this context, intelligence as a concept originates in this context of evolutionary theory
* So, there is a distinction to be made between intelligence – how as an individual you learn to adapt vs instinct – hereditary patterns you are born with
* E.g., bedbugs are very adapted, but they are not smart. Their instinct makes them adaptable, but they are not intelligent
* Intelligence is individual learning and is flexible – you can learn a response
* Instinct – related to the evolution of the species and is inflexible
* As soon as you assume that intelligence is something quantitative between species, the next logical step is that there is gradation within instead of between
* Intelligence as used to compare humans is used first by person and spearmen (followers of Galton)
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Binet biography
* Don’t have tests yet but have the concept in 1904
* Tests come from France – Binet
* Worked on hysteria with Charcot – who was prominent at this time but caused controversy with his ideas about hypnotism and so Binet left
* Went to the Sorbonne in Paris which was a copy of Wundt’s lab
* In 1894 did a PhD in the correlation between physiology and behaviour of insects
* Becomes the director of the laboratory for physiological psychology
* Very interested in intelligence and child development
* Institution builder – first French journal in psych
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What did Binet's statistical tests reveal to him about intelligence?
* Tests kids on Galton like tests and uses statistics which were new then and realises that mere numbers cannot bring out the intimate essence of the experiment
* i.e., the same performance on a test can be reached using different strategies – the number misses a lot
* He develops a program of research individual psychology – building tests that can capture the complexity of individual behaviour
* Uses many things like prospective tests – often uses his two children
* Like ink blots
* In 1903 published the book the Experimental Study of Intelligence
* Here he stresses that intelligence is more complex than we can put in a certain number:
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How did Binet's daughters manifest their intelligence?
* His two daughters manifest intelligence in different ways –
* Older one is more an observer – like a scientist – can accurately make detailed descriptions
* Younger one is more an imaginer – very creative description of an imagined story
* His conclusion in 1904, it is premature to make a test in a limited time to diagnose. Infact you need a lot time to see them over a long time to assess individual psychology
75
Despite Binet's aversion to using a nuumber to describe intelligence, he made an intelligence test. Why?
* In 1882 education became compulsory in France
* In 1904 the government wanted someone to design tests to help decide which kids get a normal education and which get special education
* France is trying to be scientific about it (popular to think science was good at this time)
* Other psychologists tried Galton like tests – did not work
* Made Binet a good offer to conduct the research
* Worked with Simon on it
* In 1905 came up with a test, it is a success – can determine if a child has special needs or not
* It works
* The important thing is that there is no single item to determine normal/impaired – it is the average across all items and to know what children can do at each age
* And so, there is chronological and mental age
* It must be adapted to the level of the children
* 1908 and 1911 revisions
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How did Sten influence intelligence?
* In 1912 stern introduced the IQ – it is the ratio, not the difference between chronological and mental age that matter
* Binet had defined mental retardation as a difference between chronological and mental age, but it was not certain whether this would be maintained through time
* 2 hypotheses
* (1) The difference stays the same – if you have a mental sage of 3 at 5 years old, you will have a mental age of 28 at 30. By this time, it does not matter. FALSE
* (2) Children with difficulties do not develop as fast and the gap between mental and chronological age grows as children grows TRUE
* Stern used 2 to propose that the ratio is the important thing because the ratio is stable
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Binet's final thoughts on intelligence
Binet succeeded in making a convenient test for the school he stayed true to his original thought: Do not use “brutal” numbers to summarise a complex thing – children can achieve the same scores through different combinations of questions
• He recognised that motivation is Important – you can fail a test if you are not motivated
• He recognised that culture is important – this test was developed for screening kids for school; if your first language is not French, you would fail
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Binet and mental orthopedics
* He felt that intelligence is something that can be improved with time and can be improved
* He recommended mental orthopedics to improve and develop intelligence
* This was his vision, it was distorted.
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Why did Binet Succeed?
Binet succeeded where others had failed. He probably succeeded because he had a clearer mandate. He was mandated to design a test to decide if people got normal or special schooling. It was really good at this. He was also a qualitative researcher and went much further than his IQ number. He cautioned that IQ is not everything; motivation, culture are both important and intelligence can change over time. Proposed the idea of mental orthopedics. Kind of like transfer of training (Thorndike and Woodworth).
80
What is the Flyn Effect?
What does the Prof. think is behind it?
The Flynn Effect – IQ scores keep increasing with time. The tests get renormalized every decade, if we kept reusing the scoring of the 50s, IQ scores would on average be higher. Approximately 3 IQ points per decade. Genetics have not changed; environment must have done.
Prof thinks it is due to education. It is now more accessible and equal with better technology. This confirms Binet’s idea that there are strong effects of environment on intelligence testing and IQ.
81
What was Danziger’s critique of the use of intelligence tests at school?
Binet had a positive conceptualisation of intelligence and IQ. Popular with the prof. He was careful and right to be. Danziger however, really criticized it. For him, one of the results of transforming education into a system for the manufacture f pedagogic output was that everyone within the system – pupils, teachers and administrators – was potentially accountable for perceived failures to make the system work more efficiently. If the graduation rate is not good, then the government will investigate the admin, who will blame the teachers. BUT at this point, they are likely to defensively put the blame on children. They are not equally able to succeed in school. And he says this is why IQ tests become popular at this time it gives the admin a way out of explaining the quality of the system. Probably at least in part true.
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How did intelligence make Psychologists money?
What insulting medical terms were used at the time?
Medical evaluations were being routinely done to deem certain people unfit and to put them in asylums, but those students that were “unfit” for regular education did not need this! Just special classes. Not social misfits. So, it is not typically a medical issue, and so do not need a doctor but they seem to need something that is not in the educational system, they seem to need a professional between education and medicine. Psychologists are ready to take this spot.
At the time, idiot, low grade imbecile, medium imbecile, high grade and moron (invented at this time) were medical terms.
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French VS Anglo perspective of “intelligence” in the early 20th century
French (Alfred Binet & Theodore Simon) – were very cautious. Results for them are not over-interpreted i.e., IQ Is not really a measure of intelligence, just a means to select who is fit for regular education and who needs more help.
Anglo (Charles Spearman, Lewis Terman and Henry Goddard) – Bullish. Individuals and groups are constantly being tested for their “fitness”. School is just another example of this. It Is an arena where their innate endowment is tested. Intelligence for them is the fitness of the person to the environment. They jumped on intelligence tests as this allowed them to measure this.
Quite possible the only time in the history of humanity where the croissant botherers were right :/
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Charles Spearman and the two-factor theory of intelligence
(g)
(s)
Following the line of Galton, is a psychologist/statistician. He applied stats to intelligence. By taking the tests and apply principal component analysis, he will discover g. A general intelligence factor. All the tests on the battery, although they are different, test one factor: General Intelligence (g).
If you are good on one test, you should do well on others, they are all correlated. There must be an underlying factor. This is true at a statistical level but what does that mean really? There is something being reliably measured but we are choosing to call it intelligence. After this discovery, he proposed a two-factor theory of intelligence: the performance of all intelligence tasks requires both a single, common factor which he called general intelligence (g) and a second, specific factor (s) which is unique to the task. I.e., if some of it is accounted for a general factor then there must be something specific to account for the rest.
85
What were spearmans four domains of intelligence?
He described 4 domains for the specific factors: mechanical, logical, spatial and arithmetical. The S factors are specific motors designed to perform a task. General intelligence is like the strength of the fuel.
86
What justification did spearman give for his theory?
Spearman mostly gave a statistical justification for this theory.
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Who brought intelligence testing to the USA?
Henry H. Goddard:
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Henry H. Goddard: Feeblemindedness and the Kallikak family
Interested in low IQs or what he called feeblemindedness (those with below average IQs. He also created the term Moron (from the Greek Moros – dull or foolish). Did his PhD with Hall at Clark. Hired by the Vineland school for the feebleminded – a school which accepted children with intellectual disability.
He introduced the Binet-Simon test and is very impressed by how well it works to classify the degree of feeblemindedness. He is big into eugenics. But how do you identify them? You cannot see feeblemindedness on people’s faces. He advocates for the use of IQ testing.
Also wrote a kids book the Kallikak family which features in psychology books until the 1950s. Is based on a patient that comes from the Vineland region, is very large and has many branches. He traced the family back to Martin Kallikak who was a soldier in the revolutionary war.
He married a worthy Quaker lady and had many great kids. But before he married her, he had an affair with a feebleminded tavern girl which led to the bad branch of the family. Kallikak was not the real name, comes from Greek – Kalos – good, Kakos = bad). It is used to prop up eugenic arguments. Take a good seed and combine it with good seeds = good family. Add it to bad = bad family and down the line, social problems.
Deborah Kallikak was the original patient. Came to the school, mental age never surpassed 9 years old.
Goddard was a nice and committed man to his patients. Realised that if she left the institution, he says she would be taken advantage of, and he says she should be cared for. Definitely in the line of positive eugenics. He would say no kids maybe for her, but we should care for her.
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Goddard and his later work in Ohio
In 1918 he leaves the Vineland facility and begins to work for Ohio with juvenile delinquents. He starts to realise the environmental causes. He realised they were not born this way and their environment that was hard probably contributed. He changed his mind somewhat towards the end of his career.
90
Lewis therman, where did he work and what was he interested in?
PhD from Clark – goes to Stanford as a professor in educational psychology. Wanted to identify those who would become gifted and would be prominent. Dalton’s idea really.
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Therman and the stanford binet test
1916 does the Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon Scale. Purchased the rights to the test and translated/adapted it to English. Used a larger sample and multiplied it by 100 to get a number centred on 100
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Therman and his work in WW1
. In 1917-1918 he worked with others including Goddard and Woodworth on the beta and alpha tests for the army as part of their war efforts.
The USA did not join until 1917. At this time, it was not the military superpower that we know now, they were politically isolated. The had to build an army. Enrolled 500000 men. They did not know what they were doing so needed a way to determine who is fit for the army and who will become officers. They also had no time, so the alpha and beta tests were very short versions. This is the first timed version of the tests. These tests are very brutal, quickly administered and people take the number and that is it. The number determines their role in isolation of everything else. At first, they found everyone that is not an English speaker fails, then they realised it was because the tests are linguistic. So, they made the beta tests, better adapted to non-English speakers.
93
Contast the racism of Terman and Goddard
Terman, unlike Goddard etc. really was racist. According to him other races are inferior, and this is a problem for the nation.
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Terman and gifteness: IQ by biography
He is really interested in genius or giftedness as measured by IQ way over 100. The first thing he does is go through biographies of famous people and ascribes them an IQ number. Quite similar to Galton’s study of families. Unsurprisingly, he scored Galton very high (200). But Galton wrote his biography with this in mind so he fell for it! Faraday only scores 105 (bullshit). This list is silly. Not valid at all. BUT his point is had there been an IQ test at that time, it would have been possible to ID them early and perhaps we missed geniuses that we could have supported to the betterment of mankind.
95
Terman Study of the Gifted.
* Very long longitudinal study, technically still going on!
* Identified 1528 gifted people (IQ > 140) out of 250,000 California kids born between 1900 and 1925 – “termites”
* Mostly white and middle to upper class (not well controlled for the environment) (95-99%)
* Results have been published in 5 books
* Termites were more likely to succeed in life (50% went to college vs 8% average in California). Looks like even if you control for environment this is still true.
* Many become famous (including the APA president) but some took humble jobs
* “At any rate, we have seen hat intellect and achievement are far from perfectly correlated”
* Clearly, we need more than IQ to be successful professionally
This was most of Terman's career once it started
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David Weschler and his early work
Romanian, immigrated to USA and gets a PhD at Columbia under Woodsworth. Worked on the army tests like everyone did, more as a research assistant. Became what we would now call a clinical psychologist – became the chief psychologist at Bellevue psychiatric hospital. Realised that the Stanford Binet was focused on school achievement and so was not really adapted to adults. You only got one number too. He wanted one adapted to adults, more nuanced and gives a quantitative test.
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David Weschler and the WAIS
Developed a larger one with subtest and subscales. In 1955 he produced the WAIS Weschler Adult Intelligence Test Which is still used. In 2008 we got the WAIS-IV which is the most current one. Have to be correctly trained, not everyone gets to do it. Obviously, they make a lot of money doing this, purchasing it is in the thousands. Plus scoring sheets for 100 dollars. The Weschler family is loaded.
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Why is the WAIS better
The first innovation is focused on tabulating the score.
Means you have a systematic a thorough normalisation process. He took large and representative samples of the population and administered it to different age brackets. Mental age/Chronological age was the original so if you are 100, this wont favour you so account for that
Centre it around 100
You can now extract the standard deviations
Are you one, two or three SDs from the mean – you can use this to ID 2 SDs below to help them – intellectual disability is <70
He also made 2 subscales for nuance
Verbal and nonverbal or performance scale
Even under this there are subcategories
And Tests within this
Much broader than the original and more nuanced
We still use this. For neuropsychology, we can test if they are intellectually normal. Because if this is so, we can say that their problems at school are not caused by just intelligence. There are 2 alternative versions which you can use if you have to readminister it.
99
Why are IQ tests still used?
Psychology now had a niche between education and medicine. This allowed them to claim to be scientists, studying real natural objects that exists in the world and be a profession. And we have the technology to measure it. This model will be used a lot in psychology later.
This may be part of the reason why these lasted so long and why psychologists cling to it is this is what we do as a profession. The problem with this is that there is circularity. The object that is being studied and the measure itself – the object is defined by the measure, and it might not exist without it.
100
Jean Piaget Biog
Born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland (French part) – super smart.
1911-1917: voluntary assistant to the director of Neuchâtel’s natural history museum. Publishes 21 papers on mollusks. Between 15 and 21 years old. Astonishing!
Received a curator’s job offer in Geneva from someone not knowing his age! Has to refuse because he has not finished high school!!!
Troubled by « the demon of philosophy »: how is it possible to know True things about the world?
Might have gone through a similar crisis as James. What helps him get out of this epistemological dead end is the idea that biology might help to get out of this.
« The identification of God with life itself was an idea that stirred me almost to ecstasy because it now enabled me to see in biology the explanation of all things and of the mind itself… It made me consecrate my life to the biological explanation of knowledge. » VERY spinosa
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Henri Bergson and the evolutionary origins of the mind
Henri Bergson (1859-1941): creative evolution – the mind as progressively adapting to and understanding the external reality. If you start considering our minds as biological entities and in addition to that you add the theory of evolution, you realise that our minds have been selected for. Therefore, our minds have been shaped by the external environment. Yet it is through our minds that we are born with that we access the external reality. There is a circulatory relationship here. Our minds are both shaped by adaptation to the environment and are the means of dealing with it.
102
What do Piaget, Gergson and Kant have in common?
How does this change the idea of the mind
This is pretty Kanty. A priori knowledge is what we are born with, and we contribute to our understanding of the world. We do not directly experience casualty, we impose it. Piaget says these a priori impositions are a product of biological evolution. The world put these here because these conferred us an evolutionary advantage. Why? Because the world probably really is like this – there probably really is causality in the world. So, Piaget was synthesising biology and philosophy.
103
Piaget after his PhD
What did he do?
Gets his PhD on molluscs again – mostly because he did not want to leave home. He knew he wanted to do psychology.
Immediately moved to Zurich and studies with Jung but he wanted something more experimental.
Moved to the Sorbonne to work with Theodore Simon who had taken over from Binet.
Starts translating reasoning tests made by Cyril Burt – not IQ tests but kind of in this area.
At first, he thought this was boring but he realised, the reasons the kids got it wrong were fascinating. From this research he was able to see what kids could do and at what ages.
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What does Piaget realise about the infiant development of intelligence?
What he realises is that intelligence does not grow quantitatively but qualitatively. Children go through stages where their thinking changes. He was, therefore, able to cut through the brutal numbers. He saw something similar in the development in the species and that of children.
105
What did Piaget think this would tell us about knowledge?
What is genetic epistemology?
He felt that by understanding how thought processes mature we can understand the nature of knowledge itself. Study how kids learn, we can understand what it is to learn and therefore what is knowledge. We could answer the question of what is out there by studying how the brain or the mind as a biological entity, learns to understand the world.
This is his concept of genetic epistemology (he means developmental epistemology). Not hereditary. He is interested in how children develop their understanding of the world.
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What is Piaget's Stage Theory of Cognitive Development.
What are the four stages?
Intelligence grows qualitatively.
Sensorimotor
Preoperational
Concrete Operational
Formal operational
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Outline the sensorimotor phase
What is it's ultimate goal?
Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 y.o.): The children experience the world through movement and their senses. During the sensorimotor stage children are extremely egocentric meaning they cannot perceive the world from others' viewpoints. Must develop Object constancy: Knowledge that objects continue to exist even when they’re not within immediate sensory awareness. In Kant’s view this is a priori because we do not learn it from sensory experience. In his term this is the schema of substance, it is real and permanent in time. Piaget was studying here what Kant would have termed a priori knowledge.
Ultimately leads to naming of the object.
PSYC 403
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