Psychology - Schools of Thought

Schools of Thought
Gestalt Psychology (Wertheimer)
 Explore human behaviour as a whole
 The idea that the whole of personal experience is different from sum of
its parts.
Whole > sum of its parts
 Opposite of structuralism
 Basis of cognitive psychology

Structuralism (Titchener)
 Components of the conscious mind
 Explored the structures of the mind through introspection (observation
of one’s own mental and emotional processes)
 Conscious experience can be broken down into underlying parts.

Cognitive Psychology (Miller and Neisser)
 Without the brain, it is impossible to make sense of behaviour. Finds
behaviourism shallow.
 Focused on mental activity.
From Gestalt Psychology

Cognitive Psychology: Cognitive Neuroscience:
The study of how Interaction of:
People think, learn Cognitive psychologists
Computer scientists
And remember.
Philosophers
Brain researchers



Modern Psychological Perspectives

Psychoanalytic Approach (Freud)
Unconscious motives and experiences in early childhood govern personality
and mental disorders.

Limitation: Not based on experimental evidence; untestable.

Behavioural Approach (Watson)
 Only observable events (stimulus – response relations)