Intro To Psy 8: James

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Bain's view on habit (that influenced James)- voluntary repetition

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Bain wrote about habit. He had argued the importance of voluntary repetition of morally desirable actions if they are to become habitual and automatic. But he also emphasized the moral danger of allowing exceptions to occur while a habit is being formed.

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Renouvier view on free will (that influenced James)

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free will occurred suddenly

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Combining both ideas (Renouvier and Bain)

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James tried to will himself to think more optimistic and less oppressive thoughts, something that followed him for the rest of his life. Gradually, he found he could entertain mechanistic ideas and take them seriously scientifically, without fully accepting them personally

-personal life useful to think and behave towards free will

-as a scientist, he accept the mechanistic determinism

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pragmatism

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this evaluation of ideas relativistically, according to their varying usefulness in varying situations

-Example: since free will seemed a useful concept in personal life, he would accept it as true there; determinism, useful scientifically, could be equally true when he functioned as a scientist.

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stream of thought

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James believed in this. that the contents of human consciousness are better linked to a stream than a collection of discrete elements or ideas. Also, one can never have exactly the same sensation, idea or experience twice. Always something is going to be different.

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Habit

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he stressed the enormously important influence of habitual responses for the maintenance of society. Echoing the ideas of Bain, he noted that the laws of habit formation are impartial, capable of producing either morally good or bad actions. Once a good or bad habitat has begun to be established, it is difficult to reverse the course.

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Emotion

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an emotion is actually the consequence rather than the cause of the bodily changes associated with its expressions. This went against the common sense of the time, by stating that one mental state is not immediately induced by other, that the body manifestations must first be interposed between, and that the more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we cry, and not that we cry because we are sorry.

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James-Lange theory of emotion.

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Since Lange created a similar theory as James to emotion, the idea that emotions represent the perception of bodily reactions has traditionally been called James-Lange theory of emotion.

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Will

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James started to wonder if free will actually existed. For this he started by defining the act of will as one accompained by some subjective sense of mental or attentional effort. then, is the subjectuve sense of effortful attention a completely mechanistically determined consequence of thought process or does it introduces nonmechanistic and nonpredictable influences of its own.

-he adopted free will as socially responsive human being

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mediums

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he hoped to find convincing positive evidence for paranormal phenomena but data proved inconclusive or worse

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he turned his attention to philosophy

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-pierce idea of pragmatism

-new darwinian worldwide

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pierce idea of pragmatism

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scientific ideas and knowledge can never be absolute certain, only subject to varying degrees of 'pragmatic belief'

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new darwinian worldwide

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no adaption to the world should be considered perfect or permanent but always subject to evolution or replacement by a better competitor

-pierce also put this idea to ideas and knowledge

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james adapted pierce term pragmatism to define his philosophy

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extended its approach to include emotional, ethical and religious ideas

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James three most important students

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-Hall

-Calkin

-Thorndike

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Hall

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-founder and institution builder for new science in America

-founder of American Psychological Association (APA)

-made important contributions in the areas of pedagogy, child development and evolutionary theory

-adolescence: fully documentated for the first time the emotional turbulance associated with that phase of life

-his work marks the beginning of general interest in developmental psychology

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Calkin

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-paired associates techinique while conducting an important experimental study of associative learning

-was against behaviorism and Gestalt formulations

-self psychology

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Thorndike

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-puzzle boxes

-law of effect

-transfer of training (with Woodworth)

-intelligence is not a single quality but rather a combination of many specific skills and aptitudes.

-functionalism

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law of effect

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when a particular stimulus-response sequences are followed by pleasure, those responses tend to be strengthened, or "stamped in" the subjects repertoire; responses followed by annoyance or pain tend to be "stamped out"

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transfer of training

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the effect of instruction and exercise in one mental function on performance in a different one. the results agreed with thordike's theory: learning consists of stamping in or out of highly specific stimulus response connections.

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functionalism (contrats with Titchners "structuralism")

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focuses on the utility and purpose of behavior

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structruralism

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only to define and describe the contents of conscious experience