Origin of Third Degree

The classification of the qualities of objects by
degree - heat and cold, moisture and dryness etc. was commonplace in the middle ages.
 Henry
Lyte's translation of Dodoens' Niewe herball or
historie of plantes, 1578 includes a description of rue:
"Rue is hoate and dry in the thirde degree."

Shakespeare went on to apply the degree
classification to drink, in Twelfth Night, 1602:
 "For
he s in the third degree of drinke: hee's drown'd:
go looke after him.”
Present Meaning



“The third degree” is well-known to all US crimefiction enthusiasts as “an intensive, possibly brutal
interrogation” appearing as early as Forbes (1900)
In Masonic lodges there are three degrees of
membership: Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and
Master Mason. When a candidate receives the third
degree in a Masonic lodge, he is subjected to some
activities that involve an interrogation and it is more
physically challenging than the first two degrees.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Xjs6iTjdJc&feature=player_embedded
CHAPTER 7 – GESTALT
PSYCHOLOGY IN GERMANY
& THE UNITED STATES
Dr. Nancy Alvarado
Gestalt Psychology

This was the major alternative and challenge to
structuralism during the early 20th century.
 Founded


by the successors to the people in Chapter 6.
Gestalt means “shape” or “form.”
Major proponents:
 Max
Wertheimer – developed Gestalt principles
 Kurt Koffka – developed laws of perception
 Wolfgang Kohler – worked with apes on insight
 Kurt Lewin – developed “Field theory”
Conceptual Foundations


Gestalt Psychology grew out of the perceptual
theories of physicist Ernst Mach and the
experimental work of Christian von Ehrenfels.
Mach described properties of spatial and auditory
forms (squares, circles, simple melodies).
 As
perceptual wholes these forms have qualities that
distinguish them from their elements (parts).
 Its form quality gives an object perceptual or
psychological permanence despite changes in sensation
 A song sung by different voices remains the same song.
Max Wertheimer (1880-1943)


Wertheimer studied under Stumpf in Berlin, then
Kulpe in Prague (psychology of legal testimony).
Fascinated by the apparent motion of objects
outside a train window, he bought a stroboscope to
study “where does movement come from?”
 Schumann
loaned him a tachistoscope and introduced
him to Koffka and Kohler (students of Stumpf).

Apparent motion of a white stripe from horizontal
to vertical was demonstrated.
Phi Phenomenon Demos


http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/mot_reversephi/index.html
http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home/George_Mat
her/TwoStrokeFlash.htm
Early stroboscopic
entertainment devices
Four Principles of Gestalt Thinking




Holistic thinking – the whole is always more than the
sum of its parts, called supersummativity.
Phenomenological basis – analyzing the essence of
phenomena is the subject matter of psychology.
Methodology – lifelike experiments using small
numbers of subjects.
Isomorphism – psychological processes are directly
related to biological (brain) processes.
Tactile Phi Perceptions




Benussi showed that when two points on the skin are
stimulated the stimulus appears to move in an arc
through space, like a flea hopping.
Von Bekesy produced a tactile phi perception of a
vibration jumping from knee to knee or between.
Geldard & Sherrick produced a progression of
jumps up the arm from wrist to elbow (like a rabbit).
In all of these, the perceptual experience had a
property (movement) not present in the components.
Rubin’s Vase

The figure emerges as a whole, not piecemeal,
demonstrating that perceptions are active, lively
and organized, not passive receivers of stimuli.
Gestalt Principles of Perception
proximity
good
continuation
(good gestalt)
similarity
closure
Good Gestalts
Poor performance on perceptual closure tests (right)
has been associated with right hemisphere impairment.
Generality of Gestalt Principles

Closure applies to memory, not just visual stimuli.
 Waiters
can remember checks until the bill is paid.
 Zeigarnik Effect -- she gave 18-22 tasks but
interrupted half part-way through. Later, interrupted
tasks were 90% more likely to be recalled.
 TV cliff-hanger episodes generate tension.

Alpha the chimp filled in the missing wedge of a
pie-shaped figure.
 Results
with other chimps produced inconsistent
results, perhaps because they were too young.
Illusions and the Physical World

Koffka distinguished between the geographic
environment and the behavioral environment.
 The
man in the snowstorm who crossed a lake not a
plain without knowing it. His behavioral environment
was plain, not lake.
In both cases, the
horizontal line seems
shorter than the vertical
one, yet they are the
same lengths.
Ascendancy of Gestalt Psychology


Despite the turmoil in Germany after WWI, Gestalt
Psychology flourished in the 1920’s.
Wolfgang Kohler succeeded Carl Stumpf as
director of the Berlin Psychological Institute.
A
decade later, the Nazi’s wrecked it.
 In 1933, Jewish professors, including Wertheimer,
Kohler & Koffka, were expelled from the university (27
psychologists).
 Many were assisted in finding jobs in the USA, some at
the NYC New School for Social Research (Univ. in Exile).
Nazi Collaboration & Heroic
Opposition



Germany’s most celebrated philosopher, Heidegger,
supported the Nazi’s anti-intellectualism & Hitler.
Under Nazi leadership, Wundt’s lab became a folkcell or center for ultra-nationalistic activities.
Kohler (not Jewish) vigorously opposed the Nazis.
 He
wrote the last anti-Nazi article published, mocked
the Hitler salute and gave an anti-Nazi lecture.
 He refused to take a loyalty oath to Hitler and
agitated for reinstatement of Jewish colleagues.

He emigrated in 1935, going to Swarthmore.
The University in Exile

Wertheimer studied human thought and education
at the New School for Social Research (1933).
 Fromm’s
interviews with major scientists at the New
School was lost until republished in 1997.


Wertheimer wrote “Productive Thinking” (1945)
recommending a Gestalt approach to teaching.
He developed new methods of teaching math and
thought insightful productive thinking could be
cultivated in all children (not just math geniuses).
Wolfgang Kohler (1887-1967)


Kohler studied with Stumpf, then went to the
Canary Islands (Tenerife) to study primates and was
stranded there for 7 years by WWI.
Kohler questioned the S-R learning approach of
Thorndike (trial & error), arguing that animals are
capable of reasoning in the right context.
 He
said animals were unable to demonstrate higher
level reasoning in puzzle boxes.
 He devised situations that animals could
solve using insight.
Barrier Problems (Umwegen)
G
Barrier
S
House Wall
Dogs and one-year-old
children could do this task
easily but chickens could not.
Experiments with Chimps

Chimps seemed to use insight to solve more
complicated problems involving combining tools or
using objects to reach bananas, with transfer.
 They
seemed to have moments of insight, jumping up
with inspiration after giving up on a problem.
 Animals were tested in social situations where they
learned by observation and imitation.
 Kohler reported his results descriptively without
numbers and statistical interpretations.

British intelligence thought he was a spy.
Transposition
I
II
II
Predicted by
S-R theory
Predicted by
Gestalt theory
III
In both
tasks the
chicken
pecks the
square on
the right.
Are chickens recognizing a particular gray stimulus or are they
making a comparative judgment?
Other Studies


Apes were able to find buried food immediately
but not after a delay – ape memory is limited.
He demonstrated that fear is not a learned
response by showing that apes reacted with fear to
novel stimuli such as camels or masks not paired
with punishment.
Sample devil masks
used in Sri Lankan
dancing (Ceylon) where
the Cingalese people
live.
Kurt Lewin (1890-1947)

Lewin studied in Berlin under Stumpf but found
Wundtian psychology irrelevant and dull.
 He
organized a series of workers classes to teach basic
skills -- considered subversive by the university.

He volunteered for WWI winning an Iron Cross, then
published “The War Landscape” describing the
soldier’s experience of the war.
 He
used terms like life space, boundary, direction and
zone, which became important in his later topological
theory & described depersonalization of the enemy.
Kurt Lewin
Applied Interests

Returning to the Berlin Psychological Institute, he
found Gestalt psychology interesting but had a
more applied focus.
 Two
papers on the laborer in agriculture and industry.
 In 1919 he returned to the idea of life space,
comparing agricultural and industrial spaces.
 He criticized the time-and-motion studies of Frederick
Winslow Taylor (Principles of Scientific Management),
arguing work has life value and must be humanized.
 He inspired Zeigarnik’s research on waiter’s recall.
Topological Psychology

An individual is a complex energy field, a dynamic
system of needs and tensions directing behavior:
B  f ( P, E )

where behavior (B) is a function f of a person (P)
interacting with an environment (E).
Each person moves in a life space that contains
goals with positive or negative valence.
 Goals

create vectors that attract or repel.
He used non-quantitative geometry to represent this
Lewin’s Eggs (Potatoes)
Nonpsychological
E
(P)
E
Nonpsychological
Lewin used diagrams like this to describe life spaces
Studies of Child Behavior

Lewin criticized statistical approaches to child
behavior and conceptions of “the average child.”
 The
totality of a child’s life must be studied and since
each life space is different, using intensive case study.



An infant’s life space is small and undifferentiated
but grows larger and more differentiated with age.
Lewin conducted detour studies similar to Kohler but
used topology to explain the results.
“Environmental Forces in Child Behavior &
Development.”
Detour Studies
Chocolate
Barrier
C
This task is difficult for a
young child because the
child must move in a
direction opposite to the
vector to obtain the
chocolate.
V
picnic
C
play with
friends
This choice is easy because both
options are positive
Conflict Diagrams
Tree
±
C
Here the conflict between
two undesirable events
results in deflection
sideways to a third vector
R – escape from the field.
The child wants to climb the tree
but is frightened creating an
approach/avoidance conflict –
vectors wax and wane.
Task the child
doesn’t want to do
R
C
Punishment
Lewin in the USA

Lewin left Germany because of Hitler & antisemitism at the Univ. of Berlin.
 Ogden
(Kulpe’s student) got him a 2-yr job at Cornell in
home economics studying eating habits of children.


Lewin tried for an appointment at Hebrew Univ.
studying displacement of Jews but Freud opposed it
He was appointed at the Univ. of Iowa’s Children
Welfare Research Station under a grant from the
Rockefeller Foundation.
Research at Univ. of Iowa

People reach for the pie at the back of the counter.
 The
amount of effort expended strengthens the valence
of a goal – goals become more attractive with effort.


Under conditions of frustration, children’s behavior
becomes dedifferentiated (regresses to an early
stage).
Authoritarian vs democratic leadership styles have a
strong influence on children’s behavior.
 Authoritarian
styles lead to more child aggression.
Lewin’s Applied Research


In this too, he stressed democracy over autocracy.
Lewin used “action research” – reflective team
problem solving -- to diagnose productivity
problems in Harwood Manufacturing.
 Workers
felt productivity goals were unachievable.
 When allowed to set their own goals and solve their
own productivity problems, in improved considerably.

Lewin used this approach in his own lab, stating that
he could not think productively as an individual.
War Efforts

With Margaret Mead, he showed that group
discussions led to more behavior change (eating
visceral meats) than facts her in dynamic lectures.
 He
also worked on propaganda, leadership, military
morale, and rehabilitation issues.
 William Wyler’s “The Best Years of Our Lives”


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU0d3DVcKoY&NR=1
To better carry out his activities he founded the
Research Center for Group Dynamics at MIT.
Four Major Programs of Research




Ways to increase group productivity and counter
the tendency of groups to stray from their goals.
Studies of communication and the spread of rumors.
Areas of social perception and interpersonal
relations, group membership and individual
adjustment.
Studies in leadership training, leading to the
formation of T groups (training groups) designed to
open communication and combat prejudice.
Programs to Combat Prejudice

Founded the Commission on Community
Interrelations (CCI) for the American Jewish
Congress to conduct studies of discrimination.
 Interviews
with customers of black or white clerks
showed no effect of race on sales.
 This finding was publicized to combat job discrimination

Interviews with people in integrated vs segregated
housing projects showed greater pride & community,
less suspicion & hostility in the integrated projects.
 Most
positive results were for 70% black occupancy.
Other Studies



Lewin had found that you can change attitudes by
changing behavior, so he encouraged the AJC to
challenge the college admissions quota system.
A study of Ways of Handling a Bigot found that in
playlets enacting bigotry, 80% of the audience
wanted to see the bigot challenged, but calmly.
Lewin died in 1947 of a heart attack, but his work
continued at his institutes.
 Those
more interested in applied research split off and
moved to the University of Michigan.
Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt therapy is not really derived from Gestalt
psychology.
 Although
it borrowed some terms like closure and
insight (defining them differently), it is recognized to
have little to do with Gestalt psychology.
 Perls admitted never reading the books of the Gestalt
psychologists but dedicated a book to Wertheimer.
 Henle: “The most grotesque misunderstanding of
Gestalt psychology is the notion that it has some
relation to Gestalt therapy…there is nothing in common