Via:      UK.AC.HULL.SEQ;  1 SEP 92 13:27:28 BST
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Original-Sender: psp.dasilvaalvo@uk.ac.hull.seq
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.psycgrad
Date:         Tue, 1 Sep 1992 08:30:33 -0400
              <PSYCGRAD@UOTTAWA.BITNET>
From:         "psp.dasilvaalvo" <psp.dasilvaalvo@SEQ.HULL.AC.UK>
Subject:      RE: Introspectionism

 Remo,
Your point/question:
> Is there any reason why you can't observe subjective experience, or even
> collate multiple observations of subjective experience?
>
is something which may go as far back as human thinking. Wundt in fact didn't
believe that higher mental processes like memory, thought, and creativity
could ever be studied experimentally. (See Wundt, Principles of Physiological
Psychology). Only sensation and perception. In fact it was Ebbinghaus (1879)
who contradicted Wundt's ideas by establishing a lab in memory and human
learning (see On Memory, 1885). For some cognitivists he is the founder of
cognitive psychology. But is the study of memory, creativity, memory, human
learning, imagery, skills, subjective? It was Watson (1913) who, due to his
very clear and succint ideas about behavior and behaviorism, sweept away
structural psychology and introspectionism. But nowadays can one say that
what goes inside 'the black box' is irrelevant? That one should not pay
attention to consciousness, imagery, memory and others just because it's
inside a black box?
For an experiment one has to have dependent and independent variables and
a hypothesis. The variables usually derive from the hypothesis, the
hypothesis, usually, derives from theory or models or just an idea. The
question then is where do ideas, models or theories come from? This is
the one that quite a few psychologists cannot answer. Why? Because they are
mainly based on one's perception, training, values, and so on. A bahaviorist
when gets a client will usually think that the problem the client has is
mainly due to some unpleasant stimulus the client experience in the past, (
the white rabbit thing [this is a pun]), the cognitivist probably will say
that the client has a cognitive predisposition for making the problem bigger
than it actually is, the Freudian (i better not go into this one). Therefore
can one actually say that experimentally psychology is not subjective. Yes,
some psychologists may try to be as independent as possible, but can they
be totally independent? When people ask me why i become a psychologist i tend
to say that i like watching people. How about you psychologists out there,
why do you become a psychologist. Why do you spend hours and hours looking
at animals in mazes, or looking at videos, or through one-way mirrors, of people
acting in ways which one *thinks* are abnormal or normal?
Jorge
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Jorge daS. Alvoeiro,                Tel:(0482) 465778
  Dept. of Psychology,                Fax:(0482) 465599
  Hull University,                    E_Mail: psp.dasilvaalvo@uk.ac.hull.seq
  Cottingham Road,
  Hull HU6 7RX,
  England
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU