Essay on the History of Psychology

Essay on the History of Psychology!

It is against this background that psychology emerged as an experimental science. The laws of association formulated by the British associationists, the work on sense physiology and the experiments on the speed of reaction performed by Helmholtz on the sciatic nerve of a frog, provided a backdrop for the work in the first experimental laboratory of psychology established immediately afterwards. Some of the early experiments were on the operation of the laws of association, different kinds of reaction time and more particularly on the nature of sensory experience (states of consciousness).

The establishment of laboratories facilitated the entry of scientific thought into psychology. By the end of the 18th century, psychology advanced to such an extent that it acquired techniques and equipment to study behaviour.

Disagreement among psychologists regarding the issues, the subject matter of psychology and its methods and techniques led to the formation of different schools of thought in psychology. These schools, in the course of time, underwent various changes and transformed themselves into new schools of thought. By the end of the 19th century, psychology acquired the status of an independent discipline.

Structuralism:

Edward Bradford Titchener established a school called structuralism. According to him the subject matter of psychology was human experience from the point of view of the experiencing person. Just as scientists concentrate on their subject matter, physicists on energy, chemists on elements, botanists on plants – psychologists study human experience. Thus, both physicists and psychologists may be investigating sound and light, but the physicist is concerned with these phenomena from the viewpoint of the physical processes involved, whereas the psychologist is interested in how they are experienced by the observer.

Conscious experience, then, is the subject matter of psychology. But the conscious experiences which take place within the individual can only be observed by the experiencing person. Consequently, a special technique called introspection was evolved to observe this psychological experience.

Introspection as employed by Titchener, was a highly specialised form of self-observation in which a psychologist attempts to study his own conscious experience scientifically. The aim of the observer is to observe the contents of consciousness, not in the haphazard and dreamy manner of everyday reflections, but in a detached, objective and systematic manner. Accordingly, Titchener and his associates stated that every conscious experience is constituted of elements called sensations, images and feelings.

The structuralists’ investigations were restricted only to the conscious experience of normal adult human beings. According to them, conscious processes of children, animals and mentally disturbed individuals cannot become the subject matter of psychology because the method of introspection could not be employed in these situations.

This school remained restricted and narrow due to its over­emphasis on introspective analysis of consciousness and could not survive later developments in the field of psychology. However, structuralism as a movement brought the scientific method into psychology and vigorously worked to establish psychology as an independent science.

Functionalism:

Early experimental psychology as stated above was primarily concerned with the study and analysis of conscious experience and partly with the phenomenon of association. Their main concern was to arrive at universal generalisations and the laws regulating conscious phenomena, along the lines of the laws of physics and chemistry.

In view of this, the individual organism was lost sight of Individual differences did not receive enough attention. Further, the organism itself was implicitly if not explicitly looked upon as a passive recipient of, and reactant to environmental stimuli, perhaps because of an over-influence of empiricism.

It was at this time that some important influences began to make their impact felt on the growing science of psychology. The first was the doctrine of pragmatism eloquently promoted by William James and its heir, the movement of functionalism spearheaded by J R Angel, John Dewey and Harvey Carr.

Through his powerful writings Dewey, a leading figure in the history of educational thought, argued that human activities were meaningful and functional acts and could not be considered in isolation from the social and personal context of these activities.

According to the functionalists the cold mechanical analysis of conscious experience into sterile units took the essence out of human action. Every activity should be regarded as an attempt on the part of the organism to adapt itself to some aspects in the environment, external or internal.

Hence, the meaningful unit for study and analysis should be the functional act which occurs in a context including the individual and the environment. It was at this time that European psychology saw the emergence of act psychology under the leadership of Brentano. Act psychology maintained that human activities when analysed into very elementary and abstract units tended to lose their significance.

Functionalism had an immediate impact on the development and growth of psychology in the United States as opposed to the classical structural approach of Wundt, Titchener and others. Adaptive activity became the subject matter of psychology instead of conscious experience.

An effect of this was to view the activities of the human being as purposeful functions of whole organisms, the purpose of the act itself being more important than its contents. The pioneers in this direction were Angell and Dewey.

Emergence of Differential Psychology:

It is observed that primary preoccupation the work of the early experimental psychologists was with the development of generalized laws, and there was little concern with individual differences. Functionalism, however, shifted the emphasis to the total individual organism, but nevertheless was not very vocal about the differences among organisms.

The work of Sir Francis Galton heralded a new movement. Galton, a versatile genius, developed several techniques of measurement which led him to emphasise individual differences among organisms in their different characteristics.

In this he was influenced by the Darwinian concept of struggle for existence and “survival of the fittest.” Galton’s work laid the foundation for the emergence of differential psychology with its emphasis on understanding, measuring and analysing individual differences.

Galton himself developed early forms of what are today known as psychological tests, well-known among them being his test of imagery. Galton’s work caught the imagination of American psychologists much more than early experimental psychology did, especially that of J. Mckeen Cattell.

The result was the emergence of a large number of psychological tests. These tests were only concerned with the sensory and motor activities. However, the Galtonian movement struck a crucial blow to early experimental psychology in its quest for generalized laws regulating an abstract consciousness.

The emphasis slowly shifted to differences in the adaptive activities of human organisms. Differences between organisms became more important than similarities and it came to be felt that psychology should be concerned with the individual human organism rather than an abstract and general concept of human nature, unlike other sciences.

Influence of Evolution Theory and Animals Studies:

The theory of organic evolution pointed to the continuity and similarity between lower organisms or animals and the human organism.

This helped in knocking out the narcissistic self-image of human being as a special creation of God in his own image. The vital argument of the Darwinian concept was that man emerged from animal ancestry and thus essentially was more similar to, than different from the lower organisms.

In view of this, one of the best ways of understanding the human organism was through the study of animals. Many forms of human activities could be found among animals in a simpler form and this provided an opportunity for understanding the more complicated human activities.

The result was the emergence of the comparative method and animal psychology. The possibility of studying animals as a means of understanding human activities opened up new avenues. For the experimentalist, it was easier to deal with animals and their activities.

Large number of experiments could be carried out and in addition several activities of the human beings which could not be studied experimentally could now be investigated very easily in the case of animals. Helmholtz’s experiment on the speed of nerve conduction had paved the way for the reaction-time experiments on human beings. The result was the development of experimental psychology with animal subjects.

A development yet more significant was the impact of animal psychology on the subject matter of psychology itself. If animal actions and the human action fell in the same continuum, then one should look askance at the definition of psychology as the study of consciousness. Yet animal behaviour was so much related to human behaviour.

This raised a serious question as to the subject matter of psychology itself. The definition of psychology as the study of consciousness raised several problems. Consciousness itself was an abstract concept and was only an inference. When I say that my friend is conscious, I am only drawing an inference from his activities! Hence, it is a very subjective concept.

The concept of consciousness was not applicable in the case of animals. Very often, the study of a person’s consciousness had to depend on the subject’s own report or introspective account. The use of this method would make psychology much less an objective science than other sciences.

Even earlier the functional psychologists had stressed activities rather than consciousness. William McDougall, the British psychologist was one of the earliest to see this point, and said that psychology should be defined as “the subject studying the behaviour of organisms.” He made observations often related to animals such as his own dogs. These developments led to certain epoch-making events.

Thorndike and His Early Experiments:

It was at this time that E.L. Thorndike, originally inspired by William James, came out with what may be described as the really pioneering experiments in psychology. Influenced by the views of James, by functional psychology and also by the limitations of psychology as a study of consciousness, Thorndike was primarily interested in studying how certain adaptive activities are acquired by the organism, through very simple but ingeniously planned experimenting and using the domestic cat as his subject.

Thorndike tried to study how these animals came to acquire certain simple skills. Through meticulous observation Thorndike arrived at his well-known trial-and-error theory of learning and formulated his epoch- making laws of learning.

These laws were simple generalisations relating to the process by which simple movements (skills) were acquired by the organism. The most famous of these laws, the law of effect, until very recently formed the backbone of much of experimental work in psychology of learning.

Pavlov and His Discovery:

From Russia came yet another important but accidental discovery. The Russian physiologist Ivon Pavlov, using dogs as his subjects, hit upon a brilliant observation while carrying out his investigations on the physiology of the digestive process. This observation on the acquisition of the conditioned reflex is perhaps one of the most crucial events which had a telling effect on subsequent developments in psychology. Pavlov’s observation related to how his experimental animals began to salivate even in the absence of food.

While the sight of food could be assumed to be a natural condition to make a hungry animal salivate, it was difficult to explain how his experimental animals exhibited the salivary response in the absence of food. The ‘fact’ that salivation was an unlearnt reflex action intimately tied up with the sight of food as stimulus made it difficult for one to understand how this reflex action could occur in the absence of a fixed stimulus!

The answer as provided by Pavlov who showed that even a simple natural action like salivation could be made to occur by a stimulus originally incapable of eliciting the response, by pairing this stimulus repeatedly with the original natural stimulus. This, in essence, was Pavlov’s observation.

Emergence of Classical Behaviorism:

In the foregoing paragraphs, an attempt was made to bring out some important trends. First was the increasing emphasis on the adaptive nature of human activities emphasized by the functionalists. The second, was the emphasis on individual differences among the organisms.

The third, was the growing trend to study and relate animal behaviour to human behaviour and the fourth, was the emphasis on the understanding of the process of acquisition of certain responses in the organism and the role of the environment or the stimulus situation. The fifth, was the increasing disenchantment with the concept of consciousness as the subject matter of psychology.

The sixth, was the increasing adoption of quantitative experimental methods in the study of psychology. All these trends tended to move psychology farther and farther away from its early philosophical roots and the simple descriptive experiments of Wundt and Titchener. Psychology became a member of the family of the positive and exact sciences. The die was cast and there was no looking back.

A loud proclamation of this change came through the writings of John B Watson and his movement of behaviourism. With his grounding in functional psychology and inspired by the work of Thorndike and Pavlov, Watson felt that the time had come for a total break from traditional psychology. Stating that “behaviour” should be the subject matter of psychology, he observed that mentalistic terms like consciousness had no place in psychology.

The only method open to psychology was objective observation. All that we know about the activities of human organism is that the organism does something which may be called behaviour and this behaviour consists entirely of actions with muscles and glands, the effect or organs of the body.

To extract meanings like consciousness, mind etc. from these would be unscientific and uncalled for. Watson further observed that most activities and organisms were acquired through the influence of the environment. In his well- known book ‘Behaviourism’ he claimed that it was possible to mould any child into any one of an endless variety of adult characters.

The first reaction of many a psychologist to these views was extreme surprise. But they were as attractive as startling and appeared to provide the right type of qualities to make psychology a full-fledged natural science. If the environment was the key factor in the development of all forms of behaviour, then the development of an unwanted behaviour could be prevented from developing by a suitable manipulation of the environment.

Similarly, a well-planned environment would ensure the proper ‘shaping’ of behaviour (the word was used by Skinner in a more restricted sense later) into desirable and useful forms. These observations were almost semi-Gallilean in their impact. The tasks of psychology, according to Watson, had to be prediction and control of behaviour rather than understanding and explanation alone.

This then was the successful advent of American psychology around the first two decades of the twentieth century, a proclamation of revolt and independence. The new psychology of America had ventured forth into an unseen but promising direction.

The response to Watson showed a high degree of polarisation, with the sharp division of psychologists into comrades and reactionaries. But the writings of Watson and the simplicity and attractiveness of his propositions won many militant proselytes who, at least for the time being, had triumphed over the traditional conservative and dry experimental psychologists of the Wundtian, Titchnerian mould.

Ingenious experiments were designed and several pieces of apparatus and gadgets for studying animal behaviour were developed. Animal psychology became the royal road to the understanding of not only animal behaviour but even human behaviour, and the behaviourists moved relentlessly towards the promised land. But whether the promised land was there or whether it was the mirage of an over-enthusiastic and adolescent brand of psychologists had to be judged only by subsequent developments.

Emergence of Gestalt Psychology:

The works of Thorndike, Pavlov and the emergence of behaviourism had some basic implications.

The first was that the emphasis in psychology should be on the understanding of observable behaviour.

Secondly, it was assumed that all behaviour was the result of the operation of the environment with very little depending on the capacities and conditions within the organism.

A third implication was that behaviour is a result of the combination of small units. A complex skill or operation was nothing but a chain of elementary or unitary responses built into a combination, by the Pavlovian principles of conditioning or the Thorndikean concept of effect. But could this be true? At all levels of the animal kingdom especially at the human level, one could observe sudden changes occurring in organism in response to the same situation without any previous practice or conditioning.

Further, complex responses occur so spontaneously that it is difficult to explain them as painfully and ploddingly combined assemblages of simple unitary responses acquired by practice. American experimental psychology ushered in by Thorndike’s work and culminating in the heyday of behaviourism and also inspired by the Pavlovian doctrine of conditioning had virtually reduced the living organism to a passive mass of clay, that could be shaped by, and only by, the vagaries of the environment.

This raised several questions. Is the living organism really so passive?

Does the living organism only react to the environment and try to change the environment?

Are the activities of the living organism reducible simply to muscular movements?

Are all actions of living organisms the result of the slow acquisition of small unitary actions combined by accident into a complex action?

Perhaps not everybody would agree with this.

The revolt against this trend came through the work of a group of German psychologists who believed in the tradition of the act psychology of Brentano to which a reference has been made. The important personalities were Wertheimer, Koffka and Kohler.

The major premise of gestalt psychology was that the experience and behaviour are inherently organised into meaningful units and carry with them a quality of wholeness. Analysis of phenomena into abstract units destroys the reality. The gestalt psychologists drew inspiration from Ehrenfel’s concept of gestalt qualitat. A melody is something more than a combination of notes. It has a distinct quality resulting from the pattern or configuration of the notes.

In substance, the gestalt psychologists argued that the essential quality of any experience is its totality and indivisibility. The whole is more than a sum of its parts. The living organism is dynamic and actively organises the environment. It is the inherent nature of living organisms to organise and react to their environment in terms of meaningful total perceptions.

This view was totally opposed to the behaviouristic view and the approach of traditional structural psychology in as much as it stressed the wholeness of psychological phenomena, whereas structural psychology and behaviourism tended to view experiences as a sum of elements. True empiricism, according to the gestalt psychologists, lies in accepting experience as real and not analysing it into artificial units.

Thus, Thorndike’s cat was not learning a combination of specific moves but was attempting to organise its experience in a total, meaningful situation. What is important, then, in understanding behaviour is how an organism perceives and organises a given situation. When an incorrect solution is given up and the right solution emerges there occurs a reorganization of the total experience.

Through his well-known experiments with chimpanzees, Kohler demonstrated that these animals could solve difficult problems where the solution appeared suddenly, and once it appeared, remained unchanged. This could not be explained by the trial-and-error theory, according to which any skill is acquired gradually as a sequence of elementary moves.

According to Kohler, any learning involves changing perceptual organisation-cognitive restructuring, involving a movement from one perceptual organisation to another, from one meaning to another meaning and not from meaninglessness to meaningfulness. The success of learning especially depends on the capacity of the organism to perceive and organise the varying elements in a learning situation into a meaningful pattern.

To the extent that the situation does not permit this, the situation is difficult. Kohler argued that Thorndike’s cats had to learn through trial-and-error because the situation did not allow the organism to do anything else. In the language of gestalt psychology, the field was closed. It is only in open situations which permit better perceptual organisation that learning takes place.

It is evident then that gestalt psychology viewed the organism as something totally different from what the behaviourists would have liked. The organism according to them is not a passive reacting entity but an active and dynamic agent operating on the environment. It is not a mechanical system but more like an electromagnetic system with inherent structural properties.

Experience has an immediate and meaningful quality and this can be appreciated only if we approach the organism through its own eyes and ears. Kohler’s experiments on learning produced results diametrically opposite to that of Thorndike. The right solution appeared suddenly and not gradually, and once it appeared it tended to remain permanent.

This phenomenon defied any explanation that the trial-and-error theory could offer. Kohler termed this as an insight. According to him insightful learning is not an exceptional phenomenon but the natural phenomenon to be expected when the learning situation is within the capacity of the organism and does not present barriers to learning,. The gestalt psychologists then presented a view of the organism as a central pivotal agent.

The impact of this on the views and findings of Thorndike and the behaviourists was almost catastrophic and called for total reversal of approach to perceptual phenomena. Past experience, according to the gestalt psychologists, is of little significance in understanding present behaviour.

The laws of frequency, recently laboriously elaborated by the British associationists and experimentally demonstrated by Thorndike were shown to be artifacts of the situations. An element of nativism in behaviour was recognised. The gestalt psychologists, in short, emphasised perceptual organisation and not motor acquisition.

The Psychoanalytic Movement:

Psychology was predominantly concerned with phenomena like learning, sensation, perception, reaction-time, etc. These phenomena fell into what are known as cognitive processes.

Experimental psychology had in all its earlier efforts neglected one major component of behaviour, viz., the emotional or the affective side, and the inner nature of man. The human organism has several inner springs of action, referred to by several terms such as instincts, needs, wishes etc. No doubt all the psychologists were aware of certain biological urges and demands in the living organisms but the importance of these and their influence on the behaviour of the organism was not fully recognised.

Man was assumed either to be a rational animal or a passive animal. This was due to the influence of the mechanistic sciences or the traditional natural sciences. Even though gestalt psychology emphasised the dynamic and active nature of the organism, this was limited to the sphere of the perceptual and learning processes.

Yet another revolution had to take place to rectify this situation and this happened through the work of Sigmund Freud, the founder of what is known as the psychoanalytic movement. Freud was a medical man primarily interested in the treatment of nervous disorders.

Psychological abnormality in those days was invariably traced to defects in the nervous system and Freud himself started his work with this belief. But soon, his experience led him to the conclusion that most psychological disorders arose from psychological factors connected with the individual’s emotional life. This belief led him to hit upon some of the most brilliant discoveries in modem psychology. These are stated briefly here.

The division of the mind into the conscious, the preconscious and the unconscious is a structural or a spatial concept. In addition to this, Freud also divides the mind into three functional divisions called the id, the ego and the superego. The id represents all the instinctual impulses which are present at birth and functions unconsciously and automatically

At birth this is the only functional division present and active. Freud grouped the instinctual impulses in the id into two major divisions, the life instincts or the Eros and the death instincts or the thanatos. The life instincts include all the instincts connected with the preservation perpetuation and procreation of human life.

These instinctual activities are carried out with the help of psychic energy. Of all the life instincts, Freud maintains, the sex instinct is the most important. Contrary to early views Freud asserted that the sex instinct is present even at birth and because of dais even the infant is not free from sexuality Just as other instinctual actions undergo a process of development until they reach the normal adult form so does the sex instinct.

According to Freud, this development of the sex instinct is the most crucial aspect of life and influences all other aspects of development. Freud gives the name libido to the energy of the sex instinct and the process of sex development is known as libidinal development. He describes a number of stages through which this development passes before the adult stage is reached. This process of libidinal development is not very smooth.

On the one hand the sex instincts (life instincts) are perpetually in conflict with the death instincts because the two are opposed in their aims, the former being creative and evolutionary and the latter on the other hand being destructive and evolutionary.

This conflict between the two sets of instincts poses a lot of problems. From another angle the sex instincts also come into conflict with the norms, codes and demands of reality which are opposed to an uninhibited expression of the sexual urge. Thus, the id comes into conflict with reality necessitating inhibition or control of the free expression of the instincts. This conflicting situation results in the transformation of a part of the id into a second division known as the ego.

This ego is very much influenced by the demands of reality and its main function is to mediate between the demands of reality known as the reality principle and the demands of the id known as the pleasure principle. The ego is thus responsible for the functions of perception, learning, thinking etc.

It may, therefore, be seen that the elaboration and development of conscious functioning arises out of conflicts. Tracing the developmental processes further, Freud postulates a third division known as the superego which emerges a few years later as a result of intensifying conflicts between the id impulses and the demands of reality.

The superego is primarily concerned with problems of conscience or morality as reflected in the society. It may be seen that the development of the ego and the superego are balancing and adjusting mechanisms calculated to ensure the survival of the organism and also the legitimate satisfaction of the instinctual impulses.

This process of development goes through a maze of conflicts, each conflict only resulting in a further conflict. Life, according to Freud is nothing but a sequence of conflicts and their resolutions. The normal process of development depends on the successful resolution of these conflicts.

Unsatisfactory resolutions of conflicts generate anxiety and a host of other problems. When an individual is faced with such intense anxiety and his main psychic preoccupation revolves around the problem of dealing with it, his behaviour becomes abnormal.

All of us are subject to varying degrees of anxiety. Most of us, fortunately, are able to overcome this, but in some people the problem of anxiety assumes serious proportions and results in the behaviour which is not adaptive and is in some cases even maladaptive.

Freud suggests a number of mechanisms by which the individual can deal with excess of anxiety. These are known as defense mechanisms. Excessive use of defense mechanisms takes the individual away from normal adjustment.

This whole process of development, according to Freud, is completed in the first few years of life. In view of this, the years of early childhood are very crucial. Whether a man is normal or abnormal depends on the way his parents and others handle his childhood.

Psychoanalytic theory proceeds further and explains many aspects of social behaviour, culture, religion, art and civilization on the basis of instincts and the barriers to instinctual expression and the interaction between the two.

The initial reaction to Freudian theory was, of course, disbelief and even hostility. Intellectuals, scientists, men of religion and not to say anything about the common man, were all up in arms against Freud. But gradually the psychoanalytic movement gathered momentum and even today remains probably the most influential system of thought in psychology.

This increasing popularity notwithstanding, differences soon appeared from within the psychoanalytic movement itself. Alfred Adler, a leading disciple of Freud soon parted company and established his own system known as individual psychology Discarding Freud’s elaborate account of the unconscious as well as his monolithic emphasis on the sex instinct, Adler propounded that the most basic urge behind human behaviour was not sex but one of attaining mastery, power and status Failures in achieving these goals result in the development of a strong sense of inferiority, resulting in an inferiority complex.

Urged by a strong inferiority complex, the individual resorts to behaviour which helps him to overcome this inferiority through compensatory achievements. Compensatory behaviour in many instances helps the individual towards normal adjustment and even supenor achievement. Thus, Demosthenes who was a stammerer became one of the greatest orators in history.

Similarly, Eugene Sandow who was a weakling became a strong  man to such an extent that his name became a synonym for describing strong people Excess of compensatory activity, however, can take the individual away from reality, resulting in abnormal behavioural. To Adler, behavioural abnormality is a result of a pathological inferiority complex.

Yet another follower turned rebel was Carl Gustav Jung who deviated from Freud and established his own system known as analytical psychology. The Jungian theory, in a way, was more revolutionary than Freud’s. While affirming the role of the unconscious, Jung went far beyond the Freudian views and hypothesized about the existence of a collective unconscious mind over and above the personal unconscious described by Freud.

According to Jung, this collective unconscious is the most important and powerful agency in human behaviour. He also denounced the undue preoccupation of Freudian psychoanalysis with the sex instinct. While agreeing with the importance of conflicts, he emphasised that conflicts arise not between id and ego or instincts and reality but between the conscious mind and the collective unconscious.

According to Jung, the collective unconscious represents real human nature and this comes into conflict with the so called rational and intellectual attitudes of the conscious mind. It is perhaps not necessary to dwell at any greater length on Jung’s view at this point.

It will be sufficient to say that the Jungian theory elaborated and expanded on Freudian psychoanalysis and took it to the realms of mystery and mysticism. This makes it perhaps true but nevertheless rather abstract. The psychoanalytic theory has been discussed in this article probably in greater detail than the other theories. This is because the theories of Freud, Jung and Adler mark a total departure from the earlier trends in psychology.

The entire basis and approach of psychoanalytic theory was radically different from the academic laboratory psychology of the late nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century. Psychoanalysis was developed in the chambers of the doctors and not the laboratories of the professors. Its formulations were far- reaching and because of this, the impact Jolting.

The Mental Testing Movement:

Galton had also introduced some simple tools and instruments to measure individual differences. It was, however, Alfred Binet of France whose work gave momentum to this trend.

Binet was entrusted with the responsibility of evolving a tool which would help to discriminate children with weak mental abilities from those with adequate mental abilities in some of the schools of Paris. This resulted in the first intelligence test. The Binet test appeared to work, satisfactorily in screening children who were not likely to do well in their studies. Subsequently, Binet improved and revised this test a number of times.

The work of Binet caught the attention of many psychologists, the most outstanding among them being Terman from the Stanford University. Adopting the basic ideas of Binet, Terman after elaborate efforts brought out the first version of the famous Stanford-Binet Test. This was enough inspiration for several other tests of intelligence, aptitudes, interest etc.

The mental testing movement was extended to just about every conceivable area of human activity. Woodworth’s work resulted in the first personality inventory which became the forerunner for many such inventories to follow.

Measurement and diagnosis of individual differences became a very important trend in psychology. Schools, colleges, hospitals and several other institutions adopted psychological tests for use. Tests were developed for special groups like children, uneducated adults, hospital patients etc.

Whipple’s test of imagination, The Rorschach Ink-blot test and Murray’s Thematic Apperception Test of personality etc. were some of the landmarks in the further growth of the testing movement. Today, one finds a flood of psychological tests covering a variety of subjects, some with specific and others with wide applicability.

From Classical Behaviourism to Neo-Behaviourism:

Classical behaviourism, enunciated by Watson, had gripped the imagination of American psychologists. Soon, Watsonian formulations were found to be too simple and inadequate to explain the complexities of behaviour. This led to the reformulation and elaboration of the behaviouristic theory.

While accepting the basic tenets of behaviourism in defining psychology as the science of behaviour, the role of the environment and learning in the acquisition of behavioural traits and also the germinal validity of the Pavlovian concept of conditioning, a group of psychologists, often called neo-behaviourists, embarked on the job of reorganization and a systematic formulation of a behaviour theory based on experimental work. Outstanding among these were C.L. Hull, B.F. Skinner, B.C. Tolman, E.R. Guthrie and N.E. Miller though each of them differed from the others.

Hull’s work was mainly concerned with the problem of how certain stimulus- response connections are formed, the role of the organism in this and also the role of the consequences of these connections on the strength of the connections themselves. Today, perhaps Hull’s theory is the most systematically developed one with meticulous attention and care for even the smallest details. Skinner, on the other hand, introduced the concept of operant behaviour.

While the classical Pavlovian conditioning and the Hullian theory were concerned with the responses of organisms elicited by known stimuli from the environment. Skinner was mainly concerned with the responses of organisms which occur spontaneously or where the stimuli are unknown.

He called them ’emitted responses’ as opposed to the type of ‘elicited responses’ investigated by Hull and his followers. Sometimes a distinction is also made between ‘instrumental responses’ referring to the type studied by Hull and others and ‘operant responses’ to refer to those investigated by Skinner.

The term instrumental is used because these actions are instrumental in the satisfaction or reduction of some drives or needs in the organism like hunger, thirst or fear. Operant responses are those which produce a change in the environment and are in turn affected by these changes.

The distinction may appear to be hairsplitting and many psychologists do not subscribe to this, but one may simplify this by saying that while Hull’s preoccupation was essentially on the connection between a stimulus and a response. Skinner’s preoccupation was mainly with the strength or weakness of the response itself.

Whereas Hull emphasised the stimulus which arouses a certain response, Skinner explained the consequences of a response and the effect of these consequences on the subsequent intensity and frequency of these responses. To a certain extent it may be said that Skinner considered knowledge of stimulus conditions as not having much relevance in increasing or decreasing the strength of a response.

The third among the neo-behaviourists was E.G. Tolman. though not considered by many as a behaviourist, Tolman considered himself a behavioural scientist. While accepting some of the basic principles of behaviourism, Tolman disagreed with some of the formulations of other behaviourists.

Behaviour, according to Tolman, is molar and not molecular. By molar he meant that there is an indivisible unity in the activities of living organisms and this unity derives from the fact that all behaviour is goal directed. This goal directedness develops in a particular situation. Acquisition of behaviour does not take place through a simple process of conditioning or reinforcement.

He introduces the concept of intervening variable which operates between the stimulus and the response. Most of this depends on how the organism relates itself to the situation. Goal directedness, anticipatory tendencies, sign-Gestalt relationships etc. are some of the concepts introduced by Tolman.

In advancing these concepts Tolman brought behaviourism very close to gestalt psychology and also to the purposive psychology of William McDougall. Tolman’s description of molar behaviour bears a lot of similarity to McDougall’s description of instinctive behaviour. Tolman’s system is known as purposive behaviourism.

Neo-behaviourism expanded the scope of early behaviourism and adapted itself in so many ways that little of Watsonian behaviourism is evident in it. The works of Miller, Mowrer, Bollard, Sears and several others have brought behaviourism very close to the views of other schools. As a result, behaviourists today are busy investigating several Freudian concepts.

From Freudianism to Neo-Freudianism:

The psychoanalytic movement was made to the dissenting movements of Jung and Adler. The subsequent years saw the emergence of other dissenting views through the writings of Karen Homey, Erich Fromm, Abram Kardiner, Harry Stack Sullivan and others.

While each of the above theorists differed from the others, all of them raised certain basic objections to the classical psychoanalytic system of Freud. All these theorists disowned Freud’s description of the nature and characteristics of the unconscious mind as well as his total emphasis on biological instincts.

Emphatically disagreeing with Freud’s exclusive emphasis on the sex instinct as well as his scheme of libidinal development, these psychologists were unequivocal in emphasizing the role of the environment, cultural, social and personal.

According to these theorists the most important challenges to man, as well as his support, come from society. Karen Horney, came up with the concept of basic anxiety as the central factor behind human unhappiness and neurosis.

Erich Fromm, going into a historical psychological analysis of modern society emphasizes the impersonal and dehumanized conditions in society, which according to him drive man to a state of helplessness and estrangement, ironically enough, from the society and also from himself. It is this condition which is responsible for human unhappiness, misery and suffering.

Based on his clinical experience, Sullivan also emphasised the role of the social milieu and the pattern of interpersonal relations but from a completely different angle. The human organism grows up in, through and towards a social milieu and the process as undergone through interpersonal relations and interactions. According to Sullivan, the normalcy or abnormality of an individual is a mirror- image of his interpersonal relations.

Neo-Freudian theories are, therefore, socio-psychological in bias unlike the Freudian theory which was bio-psychological. They further emphasise the importance of conscious activities and conscious interactions. While agreeing with Freud on the importance of childhood experience they disagree with his explanation of all adult behaviour solely in terms of childhood experiences.

Neo-Freudian formulations, to a great extent, have helped in bringing psychoanalysis closer to the other viewpoints in psychology. Their emphasis on social conditions made it possible to initiate wide-ranging observations and comparative studies.

Humanistic Approach:

The humanistic approach to human behaviour is of recent origin. The emergence of this approach owes a lot to the views of Carl Rogers, Abram Maslow and Gordon Allport. Over the past two to three decades this approach has gained wide support and currency among academic psychologists, practising therapists, counselors and others concerned with human behaviour.

Essentially the humanistic approach emerged as a reaction against classical psychoanalysis on the one hand and behaviourism of all varieties on the other. The classical psychoanalytic theory viewed human behaviour essentially as being set in motion by instinctual impulses, basically biological.

Further, this view held that human behaviour, to a large extent, is influenced by unconscious forces. Thirdly it was also held by classical psychoanalysts to that adult behaviour is determined to a large extent by childhood experiences.

Of course, many psychoanalysts of the later years belonging to the neo- Freudian group also rejected these views, as seen in the writings of Erich Fromm. But, the humanistic approach totally rejects the above views of classical psychoanalysis. At the same time the humanistic approach with equal vehemence also rejects the general behaviouristic view that human behaviour is essentially a result of past conditioning and the vagaries of reinforcement.

According to the humanistic approach, human nature is not comparable either to that of a machine or an animal. Further, the human being is neither a slave of instincts nor of the past environment. According to the humanistic approach, the human being is an active- initiating entity, rather than a mere passive and reacting entity.

Human actions, generally, are rational and intelligent. Yet another premise of this approach is that the human being is basically positive and there is no inevitable conflict between the individual and the society. The most important premise of the humanistic approach is that human behaviour is not merely an effort at satisfying some physiological or biological needs, for ensuring survival. No doubt, a part of human behaviour may arise in this context. On the other hand, there is an equally strong basic driving force to grow, develop, express and realise one’s potentialities.

While a very young child may be a purely biological entity, just responding to biological needs aroused by deprivations, the same thing cannot be said of normal adult behaviour. The adult human being is a self-anchored, futuristically-oriented, flexible and adaptive creature.

Behaviour problems arise when the individual’s growth needs and developmental tendencies are not allowed sufficient opportunities for expression and satisfaction. This can happen either due to internal blocks or external barriers, or both. According to the leading advocates of the humanistic approach, modern society does not provide such opportunities to most people.

Modern society with its mass characteristic and high emphasis on automation has created a condition where warmth, love, trust and other types of human relationships are on the decline. This results very often in a feeling of impoverishment.

The humanistic approach, while rejecting the reductionism and past orientation of psychoanalysis and behaviourism, lays emphasis on the total human being, the psychological needs and social needs, and looks at the human being as a positively motivated, and dynamic entity.

It is, therefore, necessary for society to orient itself along these lines:

The Systems Approach:

The systems approach had its origin in physics and subsequently it was adopted by biologists. Later on psychologists also adopted this approach. Essentially the systems approach looks at the human being as a total integrated system which is influenced by both internal forces and the external factors.

This total system includes a number of sub-systems each dependent on the other. Just as a human body is made up of a skeletal system, a nervous system, a circulatory system, a respiratory system etc., each having its own functions and yet marked by mutual inter-dependence, one can view personality on the totality of the behaviour as a larger system with sub-systems like knowledge system, ability system, emotional system , motivational system etc. each having its own specific functions and yet inter-dependent on each other.

A change in any one of these sub-systems has its impact on the other systems to different degrees. This is called the principle of permeability. According to this principle, a change in any sub-system will have its effect on the other sub-systems. Thus, a change in the knowledge system will have an impact on our belief systems, attitude systems, emotional systems etc.

A cardinal feature of the systems approach is that it holds that the characteristics of the total system determine the characteristics of the sub-systems. Further the whole system is not a mere combination of the sub-systems, but something more. Systems are dynamic and always move toward equilibrium. Thus, when the conditions outside change the system also changes. Further, this concept of equilibrium is different from the classical concept of homeostasis.

Growth and learning, are some of the internal factors which bring about changes in equilibrium and lead to a different type of equilibrium. The systems approach has just made its entry recently and is already finding its applications at the level of organisations and social groups. But, it has yet to make a serious impact on the understanding of individual behaviour.

Field Theoretical Approach:

The field theoretical approach is in a way an outcome of the gestalt theory. But this approach goes far beyond gestalt theory. Lewin who introduced the approach compares it to the emergence of quantum physics or even as a parallel to the emergence of the Galilean approach as against the Aristotelian approach.

Basically, according to Lewin, behaviour occurs in a life space which is psychological in nature. The life space of an individual is the psychological world of the individual and not the actual concrete space. The life space is again made up of two parts, the person and the psychological environment. Behaviour is a function of a dynamic interaction between the person and the environment.

It is here that the field theory scores over other theories. It emphasises the person, with his biology, motivation, experiences etc., on the one hand and also the environment which he experiences on the other. A second implication is that the properties or characteristics of any event are related to all the other events with which the particular event is related. This means that the totality of the characteristics of any system influences or even determines the characteristics of every part of the system.

The central concept in ‘field theory’ is the life space. All behaviour and behavioural ‘events’ occur within the life space. Life space includes the person and the environment as mutually inter-dependent and inseparable factors. While we may conceptualize the person and the environment as independent entities for purposes of descriptive analysis, in reality such a separation is impossible because the environment depends on the perception of the persons.

A major premise of this approach is what is known as contemporarily. This means that the events which occur including behaviour have to be understood in terms of the forces and influences which are operative at that moment.

Lewin was totally opposed to historical explanation of contemporary behaviour in terms of past experience as done by the S-R theories. Behaviour is a result of the characteristics and the properties as they are present in the psychological space, at the time of occurrence of the behaviour.

Lewin also uses two other concepts, ‘region’ and ‘systems’. The psychological environment is divided into regions. For example, eating is one region, studying is another region etc. Similarly, the person is also divided into systems or need systems. Thus hunger is one system and thirst another.

Whenever a particular need comes into operation a region is said to be activated. As the individual grows and matures both the psychological environment and the ‘person’ get more and more differentiated. Thus, an infant either sleeps or is awake. But as he grows there are more and more differentiated regions of activity like playing, studying etc. and also more and more differentiated need systems.

According to Lewin whenever a system or need system is activated the person moves from one region of the environment to another region. This movement from one region to another, he calls ‘locomotion’. Thus, all behaviour ultimately is nothing but a locomotion from one region of the psychological environment to another consequent on the activation of a particular system or need system. Lewin introduces two other characteristics of behaviour.

The first one is ‘wholesome’, according to which any activity involves the total organism and also has a characteristic of totality and cannot be reduced to hypothetical elementary unit as is attempted by the S-R theories. Finally, yet another major characteristic is ‘psychologism’. This means that psychological events have to be understood in psychological terms and cannot be reduced to physical or physiological units.

Though much of what is known as research in social psychology does not reflect Lewinian influences, there are significant areas of research where the influence of Lewin’s field theory has been pervasive. The development of ‘group dynamics’ and concepts like organisational culture, organisational climate and even studies of leadership have leaned very heavily on the field theory.

The emergence of phenomenological approach is again very much due to the influence of Lewinian formulations. Thus, on the whole, the field theoretical approach has contributed to the emergence of the new areas of research. This approach has had a lot of impact, in studying and understanding organisations, evolving proper organisational systems, in the development of training programmes and in attempting to point out solutions to inter-personal conflicts etc.

A number of studies on cooperation and competition in groups have been inspired by the field theory. The emergence of organisational psychology also owes a lot to Lewinian formulations on behaviour. Organisational investigations on leadership in autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire conditions were directly derived from these formulations.

Today none can dispute the fact that this experiment by Lewin and his associates was one of the pioneering efforts in the emergence of experimental social psychology, organisational psychology and also study of leadership behaviour.

An important contribution of the field theoretical approach is the emergence of action research which has been discussed in this article ‘The Science of Behaviour’. Action research has been found to be very useful in studying and understanding changes in behaviour. This type of research is also very useful in sorting out the right type of strategy for bringing about changes in behaviour, attitudes etc.

The Organismic and Wholistic Approach:

Apart from these major schools of thought, reference may be made to another set of views known as organismic and wholistic views. Organismic and wholistic psychologists never belonged to a well-knit school, held together by an agreed point of view, like the behaviourists, or the gestalt psychologists.

This group includes leading personalities like Goldstein, Maslow and Carl Rogers. Each of them has his own theory. Nevertheless, there are some principles of agreement. The broad organismic viewpoint emphasises the wholeness of the human organism and questions the utility of reducing behaviour into specific units.

Further, it views the human organism as a dynamic purposeful entity with definite future goals. The essential characteristic of human behaviour is that of striving towards these goals. In this we may see a difference from the earlier schools.

Whereas most behaviourists and psychoanalysts emphasised the role of past experiences, organismic psychology tends to lay importance on the future-directedness of behaviour. The living organism is not only a passively adjusting organism but a seeking, striving, growing and unfolding entity trying to actualize itself. Given the proper environment, every organism can reach and realise its full potentialities and grow into a harmonious and productive entity.

In a way, one may say that this view is humanistic and does not lean on the earlier mechanistic, and animal models as was the case with structuralism, functionalism, behaviourism, psychoanalysis and even gestalt psychology. Organismic psychology emphasises the differences between human beings and animals, thus, reversing the trend set by the behaviourists.

In this section an attempt has been made to present to the reader, a brief introduction to the different approaches to psychology. The reader may wonder why there should be so many approaches. True, if psychology were to be a typical science like physics or chemistry, there may not have been so many different approaches. But, the subject matter of psychology is human behaviour which is very complex and influenced by a number of factors. Human behaviour changes and such changes result both from changes within the organism and also changes in the external environment.

Secondly, being a subject, whose findings and theories are expected to be capable of application, there are certain difficulties. Different psychologists have tended to view human behaviour from their own perspective. Thus, clinical psychologists bring a certain perspective.

Experimental psychologists bring in a strong methodological orientation. In addition, human problems arise in the context of the social environment. This being the case, different problems occupy the focal attention of psychologists in different societies and at different stages.

Thus, psychologists in developing societies are concerned with problems of poverty, malnutrition and ill-health, whereas psychologists in affluent societies are concerned with problems of stress, pollution, anxiety and similar problems. If we look at the situation in the light of these, then it appears reasonable to conclude that each approach has its own strength and limitations and that ultimately there will emerge an integrated approach incorporating the valid findings of each of the above approaches and perhaps a few more.

Even if this does not happen, there is no need to feel panicky or even discouraged. The existence of different approaches alone will not render the findings of psychology less valid, nor less useful. What we should be looking for is a scientific psychology and not necessarily a straight jacketed science of psychology. The term ‘science’ unfortunately has become ‘stereotyped.’

Current Picture:

In the above, an attempt has been made to briefly trace the scientific history of modern psychology from its physiological roots. This account is by no means exhaustive or detailed. The intention was to indicate the major landmarks and changing trends and bring out the expanding scope of psychology.

The emergence of each school must be understood as an effort to include within the scope of psychology aspects of behaviour which were left out earlier. Further, each school contributed to the changing methodological approach of psychology. Psychology cannot be simply a mechanistic or natural science.

It has to reckon with these models but more than these it has social ramifications and also individual roots. Today, one can see psychologists working with mathematicians, biologists, economists, political scientists, medical men and with scientists belonging to every other discipline. This shows the pervasiveness of the scope of psychology and at the same time its individual identity.

In the latter half of the 20th century there are no new schools of psychology. Psychologists individually and in groups are actively working on specific problems. The days are gone where one could expect a master psychologist giving an overall view of the human organism or human behaviour and others either owing allegiance to him or bitterly opposing him.

In a way, preoccupation with general viewpoints has given place to active pursuit of research and study of specific problems. But still one may discern a few broad approaches linking together different groups of psychologists. These different approaches are vaguely reflective of the earlier schools of psychology, though they are by no means vigorous and tight-knit schools of thought. A brief indication of these approaches may be relevant.

Contemporary Approaches:

(a) Stimulus-Response-Behaviouristic Approach:

This approach may be traced to classical behaviourism though it is in no way identical with it. Briefly stated, this approach tries to analyse human behaviour in terms of stimulus-response units acquired through the process of learning, mainly through instrumental conditioning.

This approach also emphasises the role of reinforcement and drive states within the organism. The approach lays emphasis on the organisation of the learning and reinforcing situations in explaining the acquisition of human behaviour. Most of the psychologists belonging to this group also believe in the close similarity between animal and human behaviour. Experimentation in laboratories is the main method of these psychologists.

(b) Cognitive Approach:

The cognitive approach on the other hand emphasises the role of perception and cognitive functioning, the changes in these processes arising out of natural growth. While these views do not neglect the role of the environment, they tend to lay more emphasis on the change in the perceptual organisation.

This approach has its roots in gestalt psychology though psychologists with this approach go far beyond. While these views do not neglect the role of the environment they tend to lay emphasis on the changing nature and pattern of the cognitive processes which follow a predetermined pattern inherent in the human organism. Implicit in this is the limitation of the capacity of environmental manipulation to modify cognitive behaviour. The leading figures of this group are Piaget, Bruner, Witken and others.

(c) Dynamic and Psychoanalytic Approach:

Perhaps this is the only system which still survives very nearly in its rigid form. However, the views of several others like Erikson and Sullivan may be included in this. This approach emphasises the role of the instinctual processes, their modification in the course of interaction with the society and the critical points involved in this.

(d) Organismic, Wholistic and Self Approaches:

These psychologists emphasise the central role of the organism. Under normal conditions the organism is not a passive recipient of stimuli but an active, seeking and striving entity trying to master the environment and also master itself.

Not all psychologists may be said to subscribe to any one of these views. Leading psychologists like G.W. Allport, R.B. Cattell, H.J. Eysenck and several others have their own individual views overlapping sometimes with the approaches  but nevertheless distinct.

(e) Existential Approach:

This approach evolved from the writings of European philosophers like Jaspers, Kierkegard and Jean Paul Satre. This approach emphasises human existence- the need to establish a sense of personal identity and to build meaningful links with the world. This approach developed out of the existentialists’ concern over depersonalization of the individuals in our modern, technological, rocket-age society, which is suffering from a loss of meaning in human existence.

They view modern man as an alienated being and a stranger to God, to nature, to other men and even to himself. Such a state of affairs is leading modern man ultimately to an empty existence, to existential anxiety and to psychopathology.

Existentialism tries to reach this modern man, offer him help in terms of clarifying his values and work out a meaningful and purposive existence. Psychologists who shaped this approach further were Rollo May, R.D. Laing, Erich Fromm and others.

Other approaches which emerged and gained popularity in recent years are the interpersonal approach, psychopharmacological approach etc.