There are 7 schools of thought Structuralism Functionalism Gestalt psychology Cognitive psychology Behaviorism Humanistic psychology Psychoanalysis Structuralism proposes that the structure of conscious experience could be understood by analyzing the basic elements of thoughts and sensations It is considered as first school of thought Thinkers associated with this school are : 1. Wilhelm Wundt 2. Edward Titchener The focus of structuralism was breaking down mental processes into most basic components Structuralism involves use of a method introspection Wundt’s ideas formed the basis of first school of though, Structuralism. Edward B. Titchener who formally developed this school of thought was the student of Wundt. Wundt's aim was to record thoughts and sensations, and to analyze them into their constituent elements, in much the same way as a chemist analyses chemical compounds, in order to get at the underlying structure. The school of psychology founded by Wundt is known as voluntarism, the process of organizing the mind

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structuralism
S c h o o l o f t h o u g h t s

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Major schools of thought in psychology
• There are 7 schools of thought
1. Structuralism
2. Functionalism
3. Gestalt psychology
4. Cognitive psychology
5. Behaviorism
6. Humanistic psychology
7. Psychoanalysis
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Structuralism
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• Structuralism proposes that the structure of conscious experience
could be understood by analyzing the basic elements of thoughts and
sensations
• It is considered as first school of thought
• Thinkers associated with this school are :
1. Wilhelm Wundt
2. Edward Titchener
• The focus of structuralism was breaking down mental processes
into most basic components
• Structuralism involves use of a method introspection

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Wilhelm Wundt
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• Wundt’s ideas formed the basis of first school of though,
Structuralism.
• Edward B. Titchener who formally developed this school of thought
was the student of Wundt.
• Wundt's aim was to record thoughts and sensations, and to analyze
them into their constituent elements, in much the same way as a
chemist analyses chemical compounds, in order to get at the
underlying structure.
• The school of psychology founded by Wundt is known as
voluntarism, the process of organizing the mind

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Edward Bradford Titchener
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• Elements of mind:
• Wundt's theory was developed and promoted by his one-time student,
Edward Titchener (1898), who described his system as Structuralism,
or the analysis of the basic elements that constitute the mind
• Tichener said that there are three types of mental components that
could be considered to constitute conscious experience
1. sensation ( component of perception)
2. Images (components of thoughts)
3. Affections (components of emotion)
• According to Titchener, an element could be known only by listing its
attributes.

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CONTINUE…
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• The attributes of sensation and image are:
1. Quality – “cold” or “red”: distinguishes each element from the others
2. Intensity – how strong, loud, bright etc. the sensation is.
3. Duration – course of a sensation over time; how long it lasts.
4. Clearness (attensity) – role of attention in consciousness – clearer if
attention is directed toward it
5. Extensity -- impression that a sensation or image is more or less
spread out in space
• Affections could have the attributes of quality, intensity, and duration
but neither clearness nor extensity

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Physical and mental relationship:
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• When Titchener distinguished the elements of the mind and the
specific interactions that they make with each other, his theory was
concerned with figuring out for what reason the components
cooperate in the manner they do.
• Specifically, Titchener was keen on the connection between the
physical process and the conscious experience - he wanted to
specifically discover what was it between the two of them that was
responsible for most of the interactions between them.
• Titchener accepted that physiological cycles give a nonstop
foundation that give mental cycles a coherence they in any case
would not have. As a result, the sensory system doesn't cause any
form of conscious experience, yet can be utilized to clarify a few
attributes of mental occasions

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Structuralism’s main technique
INTROSPECTION
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• Introspection is the process by which a person looks inward at their
own mental processes to gain insight into how they work. It is the self-
observation of one's consciousness
• Titchener trained his students to become skilled at trained
introspection, and to report only the sensations as they were
experienced without reliance on “meaning words”, which he called a
stimulus error
• "A stimulus error is the error in a response due to focusing on the
meaning or semantic status of a stimulus instead of its properties”
• For example, a red rose has to be described by the subject. The
subject instead of describing the color, brightness or feeling of
watching the redness of the flower jumps to the description of the
object or the stimulus.

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Strengths of structuralism
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• Structuralism is important because it is the first major school of
thought in psychology.
• The structuralist school also influenced the development of
experimental psychology.
• While Wundt's work helped to establish psychology as a separate
science and contributed methods to experimental psychology,
Titchener's development of structuralism helped establish the very
first "school" of psychology.
• Structuralism itself did not last long beyond Titchener's death

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Criticism
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• By today’s scientific standards, the experimental methods used to
study the structures of the mind were too subjective—the use of
introspection led to a lack of reliability in results.
• Other critics argue that structuralism was too concerned with internal
behavior, which is not directly observable and cannot be accurately
measured
• the decline of the school of structuralism was inevitable. Structuralism
was essentially an attempt to study scientifically what had been the
philosophical concerns of the past.
• side from the apparent unreliability of introspection, structuralism
came under attack for other reasons. With its focus on understanding
the normal, adult, human mind, structuralism excluded several
developments that researchers outside the school were showing to be
important. For example, animal behavior held little meaning for those
hoping to find the basic elements of human consciousness

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Thank You