Psychology : $b A study of mental life — John Shaqi
Psychology : $b A study of mental lifeWoodworth, Robert Sessions
Science
Psychology : $b A study of mental life
Woodworth, Robert Sessions
Psychology
Now it is not true as a matter of history that either of these types
of objective observation was introduced into psychology by those who
call themselves behaviorists. Not at all; experiments of both sorts
have been common in psychology since it began to be an experimental
science. The first type, the success-measuring experiment, has been
much more used than introspection all along. What the behaviorists
have accomplished is the definitive overthrow of the doctrine, once
strongly insisted on by the "consciousness psychologists", that
introspection is the only real method of observation in psychology;
and this is no mean achievement. But we should be going too far if we
followed the behaviorists to the extent of seeking to exclude
introspection altogether, and on principle. There is no sense in such
negative principles. Let us accumulate psychological facts by any
method that will give the facts.
{14}
General Laws of Psychological Investigation.
Either introspective or objective observation can be employed in the
_experimental attack_ on a problem, which consists, as just
illustrated in the case of memory, in controlling the conditions under
which a mental performance occurs, varying the conditions
systematically, and noting the resulting change in the subject's
mental process or its outcome. Psychologists are inclined to regard
this as the best line of attack, whenever the mental activity to be
studied can be effectively subjected to control. Unfortunately,
emotion and reasoning are not easily brought under control, and for
this reason psychology has made slower progress in understanding them
than it has made in the fields of sensation and memory, where good
experimental procedure has been developed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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