Concept

Structuralism (psychology)

Overview

Structuralism in psychology (also structural psychology) is a theory of consciousness developed by Edward Bradford Titchener (1867 – 1927). This theory was challenged later in the 20th century.

Structuralists seek to analyze the adult mind (the total sum of experience from birth to the present) in terms of the simplest definable components of experience and then to find how these components fit together to form more complex experiences as well as how they correlate to physical events. To do this, structuralists employ introspection: self-reports of sensations, views, feelings, and emotions.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.

1. subject and predicate. This explains the psychological fact, that after this process of joining the thought together has passed, the total idea is once again, as at the beginning but this time more clearly, in consciousness. In a similar manner such single thought-compounds are combined into more extensive chains of thought, of which the relatively simplest forms are found in the process of drawing a conclusion.

   Wilhelm Max Wundt, An Introduction to Psychology Translated from the Second German Edition

   States what Structuralism is; the author is tied to Structuralism in the knowledge graph.

   Read the chapter · Open in the reader

2. Before considering modern theories, let us look first at consciousness from the standpoint of conventional psychology, since this embodies views which naturally occur when we begin to reflect upon the subject. For this purpose, let us as a preliminary consider different ways of being conscious. First, there is the way of PERCEPTION. We "perceive" tables and chairs, horses and dogs, our friends, traffic passing in…

   Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind

   States what Structuralism is.

   Read the chapter · Open in the reader

3. It may perhaps help to lessen the arduousness of the subject if I put the first part of what I have to say in the form of a direct personal confession. In the year 1890 I published a work on psychology in which it became my duty to discuss the value of a certain explanation of our higher mental states that had come into favor among the more biologically inclined psychologists. Suggested partly by the association of…

   William James, A Pluralistic Universe

   The author is tied to Structuralism in the knowledge graph.

   Read the chapter · Open in the reader

Philosophers who discussed Structuralism (psychology)

• Wilhelm Wundt

Related ideas

• Mind
• Nature
• Psychology
• Radical behaviorism
• Time
• Introspection
• Leipzig University
• Wilhelm Wundt
• United States
• Edward B. Titchener
• Ernst Mach
• Chemical element
• Consciousness
• Cognitive psychology
• Attention
• Gestalt psychology
• Voluntarism (philosophy)
• William James
• Pragmatism
• Association (psychology)

Place in the tradition

Part of Mind.

Explore Structuralism (psychology) in the interactive graph →