Gestalt psychology
Characterising Gestalt psychology
Rise in Germany
Moving to the USA
Demise and legacies
The point: Is the success of a school largely a
function of the quality of its ideas…?
Alan Collins, Lancaster University
Characterising Gestalt psychology
Period: 1890-1967
but main period 1911-mid 1930s.
‘Gestalt’ the idea of unified form
Aimed to understand what it is that people perceive and
what the experiences of perception and learning are
Key practitioners: Kohler, Koffka, Wertheimer .. But also
Lewin and others
Alan Collins, Lancaster University
Characterising Gestalt
The idea of ‘form’ (Mach)
A table has a “form quality” (Gestaltqualitäten) that persists
when sensations change - e.g different lighting.
Titchener introspection … analyse elements: ‘I see three lines’
whereas Gestalt: ‘I see a triangle’
Note phenomenological aspect
Alan Collins, Lancaster University
Examples of approach & findings
Phi phenomenon (Wertheimer in 1912).
an experience that is not sensibly reduced to its elements
Problem solving and insight
Kohler (1925) & apes in Tenerife
Organization of visual array (Wertheimer, 1923)
e.g. proximity, similarity, good continuation, law of
Prägnanz
Alan Collins, Lancaster University
Social psychology
Lewin (1936): Individuals as complex energy fields
with needs and tensions that direct perceptions and
actions.
life space
… and much, much more
Alan Collins, Lancaster University
Characterising Gestalt
Recurring theme: whole is different [note not greater] from the sum
of parts
‘There are wholes, the behaviour of which is not determined by that
of their individual elements, but where the part-processes are
themselves determined by the intrinsic nature of the whole’
(Wertheimer, 1922).
Field theory and physics
Complex electrical fields ... isomorphism
Laws … e.g. of perception
Alan Collins, Lancaster University
Rise in Germany
Carl Stumpf (1848-1936)
philosopher … to … psychologist?
dispute with Wundt
lifelong friend of William James & familiar with
functionalism
Phenomenological emphasis … two forms of reality
Links to Koffka, Kohler,
Wertheimer, Lewin
Alan Collins, Lancaster University
A few biographical details of some key figures
Koffka (1886-1941)
Student @ Berlin with Stumpf
Universities of Frankfurt, Giessen
1926 USA and eventually Smith College
Kohler (1887-1967)
Student @ Berlin … Stumpf & Max Planck
1913-1919 Tenerife
1920 return to Berlin
1935 USA, Swarthmore & Dartmouth colleges
Wertheimer (1880-1943)
Universities of Prague, Berlin & Wurzberg
1933 USA, New York
Alan Collins, Lancaster University
A word on cultural conditions
“the most significant concerns and catchwords of German psychologists in
the 1920s - holism and meaning, biology and development, language
and culture, personality and character. These were also constituting
terms of educated middle-class ideology and self-concept in the
Weimar period.” (Ash)
“… the Gestalt theorists were indeed in tune with the times [as became
clear] when others laid claim to the Gestalt concept.” (Ash, 1995, p.
307)
Alan Collins, Lancaster University
In Germany pre-1914 themes made sharper by WWI
mechanistic science ... What place for human values?
Doubts over human rationality … death on a huge scale
rapid industrialisation and rise of ‘technologies’: more efficient killing?
superficiality of modernity
devaluing of academic life & threats to elite culture
Gestalt psychology appeared to be. a constructive response to many of
these fears
consistent with wider philosophy of holism and the
room it allowed for both science/facts and values
(Harrington, 1996)
Alan Collins, Lancaster University
In addition,
Factors such as
familiarity with the new physics
Wertheimer & Einstein … lifelong friends
Kohler: engagement with ideas of Planck &
Boltzmann
competent in areas outside
psychology e.g. philosophy, maths
comfortable as scientists
Alan Collins, Lancaster University
Gestalt psychology:
resisted mechanistic science in its emphasis on holism
resisted mechanics in adopting the new physics
explicitly placed values at centre of study
knowledge was not given over entirely to the physical sciences
But also attacks for not going far enough
e.g. Kreuger on emotion,
Jaensch on ‘will’, ‘purpose’.
Alan Collins, Lancaster University
A verdict …
Gestalt psychology richly embedded in and resonant with German
culture of early C20
Also ‘Gestalt psychology ... did have an unusual degree of
institutional and intellectual coherence. It was a full-bloodied
attempt to establish psychology as a science by a reexamination of philosophy and hence of the foundations of the
sciences in general, and it was not just an attempt to impose the
methodological prescriptions supposedly characteristic of the
physical sciences.’
Smith, 1997, p681
Alan Collins, Lancaster University
Gestalt psychology in the USA
USA as key in early C20 psychology,
(O’Donnell, 1985)
Movement of major theorists
Alan Collins, Lancaster University
Koffka: 1920s Smith College, New England
1933 Nazi Law on retirement of non-Aryan and
politically suspect state officials
15 psychology profs, 6 lost jobs
Wertheimer, New York, 1933
Kohler, Swarthmore, 1935
Lewin, Cornell, 1933
… yet comparatively less successful in USA (Henle,
1977, Ash 1995 but see Sokal, 1984)
Alan Collins, Lancaster University
Challenges in the USA
Classical and Neo-Behaviorism
place of phenomenology
science: prediction & control
Application of knowledge
Individual lives of major figures
Koffka, Wertheimer, Lewin all dead by 1947
few if excellent students … ‘lack of manpower’ (Ash,
1995)
Alan Collins, Lancaster University
Legacies?
Ideas, topics & findings …
well-formedness in perception
problem-solving & insight (e.g. Duncker, 1945)
purpose in behaviour (e.g. Tolman)
life space/social field
The Place of Value in a World of Fact
(Kohler, 1938)
Alan Collins, Lancaster University
What might reflection on all this tell us?
What enduring psychological issues are apparent when
considering Gestalt ideas
Is the rise & demise of scientific schools of thought or
research largely attributable to the quality of the ideas
making up that approach?
What ideas in Gestalt psychology challenge or are
inconsistent with much of today’s cognitive/social/neuro
psychology?
Is science only about theories & facts? Should science only
be about facts? Can science only be about producing
facts? Etc.!
Alan Collins, Lancaster University