Structuralism

Structuralism refers to the theory founded by Edward Titchener, with the goal to describe the structure of the mind in terms of the most primitive elements of mental experience. This theory focused on three things: the individual elements of consciousness, how they organized into more complex experiences, and how these mental phenomena correlated with physical events. The mental elements structure themselves in such a way to allow conscious experience. Titchener argues that without experience there can be no cognition, no knowledge. Though all the sciences begin with experience, experience itself can be considered form different points of view. Therefore, according to Titchener, the subject matter of psychology is experience, dependent on the experiencing person.

Titchener believed that the goal of psychology was to study mind and consciousness. He defined consciousness as the sum total of mental experience at any given moment, and the mind as the accumulated experience of a lifetime. He believed that if the basic components of the mind could be defined and categorized, then the structure of mental processes and higher thinking could be determined. What each element of the mind is (what), how those elements interact with each other (how), and why they interact in the ways that they do (why) was the basis of reasoning that Titchener used in trying to find structure to the mind. Titchener’s theory began with the question of what each element of the mind is. He concluded from his research that there were three types of mental elements constituting conscious experience: Sensations (elements of perceptions), Images (elements of ideas), and Affections (elements of emotions). These elements could be broken down into their respective properties, which he determined were quality, intensity, clearness, and extensity. Both sensations and images contained all of these qualities; however, affections were lacking in both clearness and extensity.

The major tool of structuralist psychology was introspection (a careful set of observations made under controlled conditions by trained observers using a stringently defined descriptive vocabulary). Titchener held that an experience should be evaluated as a fact, as it exists without analyzing the significance or value of that experience. For him, the “anatomy of the mind” had little to do with how or why the mind functions. In his major treatise, A Textbook of Psychology (1909–10), he stated that the only elements necessary to describe the conscious experience are sensation and affection (feeling). The thought process essentially was deemed an occurrence of sensations of the current experience and feelings representing a prior experience.

Although structuralism represented the emergence of psychology as a field separate from philosophy, the structural school lost considerable influence when Titchener died. The movement led, however, to the development of several counter-movements (i.e., functionalism, behaviorism, and Gestalt psychology) that tended to react strongly to European trends in the field of experimental psychology. Behaviour and personality were beyond the scope considered by structuralism. In separating meaning from the facts of experience, structuralism opposed the phenomenological tradition of Franz Brentano’s act psychology and Gestalt psychology, as well as the functionalist school and Watson’s behaviorism. Serving as a catalyst to functionalism, structuralism was always a minority school of psychology in America.