2. Edward Bradford Titchener: Early Life
Edward Bradford Titchener brought Wilhelm Wundt's system of psychology from Germany to the
United States, but he altered it significantly and developed his own approach called
structuralism.
Wundt focused on the organization and synthesis of mental elements through apperception,
while Titchener focused on the analysis of the elements themselves and their mechanical linking
through association.
Titchener's fundamental task in psychology was to discover the nature of elementary conscious
experiences and determine the structure of consciousness.
Titchener spent his most productive years at Cornell University, where he wore his Oxford
University academic gown to class and delivered dramatic lectures.
3. Titchener's early life included scholarships, studies at Oxford University, and earning his doctoral
degree at Leipzig under Wundt's guidance.
He faced skepticism in England and eventually moved to Cornell University in the United States,
where he taught psychology and directed the laboratory for the rest of his life.
Titchener published numerous scholarly articles and translated Wundt's books into English.
His textbooks, such as "Experimental Psychology: A Manual of Laboratory Practice," influenced
the growth of laboratory work in psychology and were widely used and translated.
Titchener was known as an outstanding teacher, and his lectures attracted large audiences.
As he aged, Titchener developed hobbies in music and coin collecting, and he withdrew from
social and university life, becoming a living legend at Cornell.
4. PROHIBITED WOMEN
The Titchener Experimentalists were a group of psychologists who began meeting in 1904 to
compare research notes. Edward B. Titchener, the leader of the group, selected the topics and
guests and prohibited women from attending the meetings.
Women students from Bryn Mawr College attempted to attend the meetings but were ordered
to leave. Some hid under a table to listen to the discussions.
Lucy May Boring, a woman with a Ph.D. in psychology, worked quietly on her husband's projects
and her contributions were generally unacknowledged.
Christine Ladd-Franklin, a renowned psychologist, requested to participate in the
Experimentalists' meetings but was refused by Titchener due to her gender. She protested
against the exclusion of women and criticized Titchener's policy as immoral and unscientific.
Titchener continued to exclude women from the meetings but supported their advancement in
psychology. He accepted women in his graduate studies program at Cornell, while other
universities refused them admission.
5. Titchener awarded more doctoral degrees to women than any other male psychologist of the
time and favored the hiring of women faculty, despite objections from colleagues.
Margaret Floy Washburn, Titchener's first doctoral student, became the first woman to earn a
doctoral degree in psychology. Titchener supported her and other women in their careers.
After Titchener's death, the Experimentalists transformed into the Society of Experimental
Psychologists, which admitted women members and continues to exist today.
Titchener believed that the subject matter of psychology is conscious experience as it is
experienced by individuals. He emphasized the importance of studying human observation and
experience, distinguishing psychology from other sciences that focus on independent
phenomena.
6. STIMULUS ERROR
Titchener warned against the stimulus error, which is the confusion between the mental process
and the object being observed.
He believed that observers should focus on the conscious content of their experience rather
than describing objects in everyday language.
Titchener defined consciousness as the sum of experiences at a given time, while the mind is
the accumulation of experiences over a lifetime.
Titchener saw psychology as a pure science concerned with discovering the facts of the structure
of the mind, rather than applying knowledge to practical purposes.
His form of introspection, called systematic experimental introspection, involved trained
observers describing the elements of their conscious state rather than using familiar names for
stimuli.
Titchener emphasized the analysis of complex conscious experiences into their component
parts, contrary to Wundt's emphasis on the whole.
7. He considered observers in his laboratory as passive reagents, like mechanical recording
instruments, detached and impartial in their observations.
Titchener proposed an experimental approach to introspection, following the rules of scientific
experimentation for accurate and repeatable observations.
8. In his experiment, Titchener presented participants with different colored stimuli and asked
them to introspectively describe their conscious experience of each color. He sought to identify
the basic components of color perception, such as hue, saturation, and brightness, and how
these components could be broken down and analyzed.
For example, a participant might be presented with a red stimulus and report their introspective
experience as follows:
"I see a vivid and warm color. It appears intense and vibrant. I perceive it as distinct from other
colors like blue or green. The color sensation feels dominant and attention-grabbing."
Titchener aimed to collect such introspective reports from multiple participants, analyze the
common elements, and propose a structural understanding of color perception.
9. Criticisms of Structuralism:
Obsolete Principles: By the early 20th century, the intellectual climate in psychology had
changed, but Titchener's structural psychology remained unchanged. Many psychologists viewed
it as clinging to outdated principles and methods.
Declining Influence: Titchener's influence was on the wane, and his theory and method were
considered unnecessary by the newer generation of psychologists.
10. Criticisms of Introspection:
Altered Conscious Experience: Immanuel Kant argued that introspection inherently alters the
conscious experience being studied by introducing an observing variable into it.
Impossibility of Self-Observation: Auguste Comte claimed that self-observation would require
the mind to divide itself into two parts, which he considered impossible.
Lack of Agreement: Critics pointed out that there was little agreement among introspectionists,
and their observations were biased and unreliable.
Difficulty in Defining Introspection: Titchener struggled to define the introspective method
precisely, and it encompassed various specific methodical procedures.
Meaning Words and Stimulus Error: Observers were instructed to ignore meaning words and
focus on elementary forms of experience. This led to disagreements and limited the
development of an introspective language.
Retrospection and Forgetting: Critics argued that introspection was a form of retrospection as
time elapsed between the experience and reporting, leading to loss of
11. Alteration of Experience: The process of introspection itself could alter the experience being
observed, potentially distorting the results.
Unconscious Mind: The concept of the unconscious mind introduced by Freud made
introspection inadequate for exploring certain aspects of mental functioning.
12. Additional Criticisms of Titchener's System:
Artificiality and Sterility: Critics claimed that analyzing conscious processes into elements
resulted in an artificial and incomplete representation of unified wholes of experience. The
Gestalt school of psychology opposed this reductionist approach.
Limited Scope of Psychology: Titchener's exclusion of certain areas, such as animal and child
psychology, was criticized as being too narrow and limited to encompass the evolving field of
psychology.
13. Contributions of Structuralism:
Clear Definition of Subject Matter: Structuralists defined their subject matter, conscious
experience, with clarity.
Scientific Research Methods: Structuralism employed observation, experimentation, and
measurement, aligning with scientific principles.
Legacy of Introspection: While the specific method of introspection as practiced by structuralists
is no longer widely used, the broader concept of self-reporting based on personal experience
remains relevant in various areas of psychology.
Target of Criticism: Structuralism served as an established orthodoxy that newer psychological
movements could challenge and reformulate, leading to the advancement of the field.
