William James and the Principles of Psychology

William James and the Principles of Psychology

ANSWERS

3) Which one of the answer bellow is correct regarding William James?

C) Used terms such as phenomena and conditions to to describe psychology as the science of Mental life

4) According to James’ view on consciousness:

b) Consciousness is always changing and is a biological utility

Questions

Publication

3) Which one of the answer bellow is correct regarding William James?

a) James was the founder of Functionalism.

b) A person's sense of self describes how we present our sides of our self to different people.

c) Used terms such as phenomena and conditions to to describe psychology as the science of Mental life

d) Psychological research should be restricted to a single method

e)conscious choice and habit are the same (both conscious and voluntary)

4) According to James’ view on consciousness:

a) Conscious experiences are groups of collections of elements though introspective analysis

b) Consciousness is always changing and is a biological utility

c) We can experience the same though or sensation more than once

d) all of the above

e) Both b and c

Context: Psychical Research

Principles of Psychology

Views on consciousness

The methods of psychology

• Did not like laboratory work
• Introspection as a less-than-perfect form of observation -verified by additional checks/several observations

• Conscious experiences: - not groups of collections - Simple sensation = complex process of inference or abstraction
• Mental life is a unity

• Published in 1890 (two Volumes)
• Major influence on American psychology

- functionalism

• Most influential textbook written in psychology
• Strengthened the development of psych as a science in America

• Opposed Wunds view of consciousness
• Alternative way of looking at the mind

• Stream of consciousness

- adaptive,personal ,and ever changing

-continuous

-cannot be reduced into elements

• Function or purpose of consciousness - biological benefit

• Experimental method important for:

- psychophysics research

- Space perception

- Memory

• Introduced the Comparative method

- investigate psychological functioning of different populations

- uncover variation of mental life

• Influenced functionalism to accept and apply other methods

- broadened the scope of American psych

• Science of Mental Life - phenomena and conditions

• William James and George Beard agreed on the idea of neurasthenia, but there were some things they may have disagreed on.
• Beard considered pseudosciences to be forms of spiritual practices that aimed to measure a faith or religion (Beard, 1879).
• He thought spiritual practices, such as trances and seances, to be highly subjective experiences, so he believed there was no way of accumulating concrete evidence for them (Beard, 1879).

Conscious thought vs habit - habit formation

• James would have disagreed with Beard because, for some time, he was the president of the Society for Psychical Research (James, 1896; Schultz & Schultz, 2015).
• He felt that the mediums, in trances and seances, acquired information from something other than our natural senses and that it was well worth researching (James, 1896).
• He also understood psychical research was frowned upon by individuals in the scientific community (James, 1896).

Theory of emotions

The three-part self

• Contradicted belief about the nature of emotional states

- Reversed the order:

Arousal before emotion of fear appears

• Persons sense of self, components:

1) Material self (anything uniquely our own)

2)Social self (recognition from other people)

3)Spiritual self (inner or subjective being)

Pragmatism

• Validity of ideas is measured by their practical consequences:

»anything is true if it works»

• William James was criticized by many prominent psychologists of the time, such as Hugo Munsterberg, James Cattell, and Edward Titchener; however, he never let any criticism affect his beliefs in the supernatural (James, 1896; Benjamin, 2006).

William James (1842-1910)

Questions

1- What was the name of the first Psychology course that William James taught ?

2- Where was William James born ?

• Soon after James began studying at Harvard his health and motivation began to steadily decline, sending him into a very depressed and neurotic state.
• He began to loose interest in chemistry and showed little excitement for the field of medicine
• It was during this time that William began noting that he was possibly suffering from an illness known as Neurasthenia also know as Americanitis.
• James left Harvard in 1865 so that he could travel to the Amazon River with Zoologist Luis Agassiz so that he could study biology
• As it turns, out James took little interest in collecting and categorizing the different types of data and so admitted that his travels were a big mistake

• Born in New York city
• Williams was born into a very wealthy and prominent family.
• He was the oldest of five children
• His father wanted the best education for William so he sent him across Europe to study abroad in places such as Germany, Italy and France .
• At 18 William decided that he wanted to be a painter
• Having concluded that he lacked the talent to become a painter he decided that he would rather enroll at the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard

• A short three years later, James was married and signing a publishing contract with Henry Holt for a book that would inspire the field of psychology for decades to come.
• Finally in 1890 William James published his most crucial work entitled "The Principles of Psychology" in two volumes.
• James would go on to spend the remainder of his years refining his own philosophy and writing lectures as well as essays that would later be published.
• James is still renounced as the greatest American Psychologist and Leading American Philosopher of his time

• James returned to the states after his expedition and received his medical degree from Harvard in 1869 at the age of 27
• In 1872 he begins teaching a class in Philosophy at Harvard
• He goes on to teach his first psychology course in 1875 entitled "The Relations between Physiology and Psychology"
• This would be known later as the first course to give instructions in the new field of experimental Psychology in the US.
• the first Psychology course that William James took was ironically the one he was lecturing on

Context: Historical

Additional Contributions

• Neurasthenia was commonly diagnosed in the U.S., especially among upper class individuals, and it was considered a nervous disease (Beard, 1880; Lears, 1987), which is what we would now call a mental or neurological disorder.

• George M. Beard was an american neurologist that came up with the term Neurasthenia, or Nervous Exhaustion (Beard, 1880)
• In the late 19th century, physicians would have patients come to them with symptoms of anxiety, high blood pressure, headaches, fatigue, depressed moods, etc., and the diagnosis would usually be neurasthenia (Beard, 1880).

• Neurasthenia was given an informal name, "Americanitis," because it was mainly diagnosed in the U.S. (Marcus, 1998).

• William James popularized the term when he realized that it primarily occurred in the U.S., and that he and some of his peers suffered from it at one point (Schultz & Schultz, 2015; Daugherty, 2015).

• In 1875, William James was the first professor in the U.S. to instruct a psychology course, " The Relations between Physiology and Philosophy" (Schultz & Schultz, 2015).
• James was also responsible for introducing the James-Lange Theory of Emotions, which suggested that physiological arousal/stimulation always came before the subjective feeling of an emotion (James, 1884; Titchener, 1914; Schultz & Schultz, 2015).

• The disease was taken seriously, so drug companies started making elixirs to sell for the treatment of it (Marcus, 1998).

References

Answers

1- The name of the first Psych Course that James taught was entitles " The Relations between Physiology and Psychology "

2- William James was born in New York City!

• Schultz, D. P., & Schultz, S. E. (2015). A history of modern psychology. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning
• Beard, G. M. (1879). The psychology of spiritism. The North American Review, 129(272), 65-80.
• Beard, G. M. (1880). A practical treatise on nervous exhaustion (neurasthenia): Its symptoms, nature, sequences, treatment. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/practicaltreatis00bear
• Benjamin, L. T. (2006). A history of psychology in letters. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
• Daugherty, G. (2015, March). The brief history of "americanitis," Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.smithsonianmag.com
• James, W. (1884). What is an emotion? Mind, 9(34), 188-205.
• James, W. (1896). Address of the president before the society for psychical research. Science, 3(77), 881-888.
• Lears, T. J. Jackson. (1987, Autumn). William James. The Wilson Quarterly. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40257806
• Marcus, G. (1998, January 26). One step back; Where are the elixirs of yesterday when we hurt? The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com
• Titchener, E. B. (1914). An historical note on the James-Lange theory of emotion. The American Journal of Psychology, 25(3), 427-447.

Question

Who popularized the term "Americanitis?"

A. George Beard

B. William James

C. Jame Cattell

D. Edward Titchener

Answer

B. William James