Titirshu Sharma

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Structuralism
Introduction
Wilhelm Wundt founded structuralism as an early school of thought
focused on analyzing the structure of the mind and conscious
experiences. Its method involved breaking down mental processes
into fundamental components through introspection and
experimentation.

Wundt’s Structuralism
Even though Titchner founded structuralism
psychology as a school of thought, Wundt is
acknowledged as the original founder of structuralism.
The complex human sensations that may be observed
through sensory data are referred to as immediate
experience, according to his definition of the science of
immediate experience.
Psychological voluntarism, which was Wundt's main
thesis, held that our volition can advance our mind into
a higher degree of thinking and thought process.

Titchener’s Structuralism
Perception, association, and voluntarism were
among Titchener's study's characteristics of
structuralism. Even more so than he had done with
the multiple natural classifications, he continued to
classify and describe the numerous mental
formations. All scientific knowledge, in Titchener's
view, must be acquired from observable facts;
unobservable facts and conjectures have no place in
the field.

Strength
As was already mentioned, structuralism is widely acknowledged as the
first important school of psychology thought, and it significantly
influenced the birth and growth of experimental psychology.

Wundt's structuralism-inspired characteristics contributed in the

division of psychology from other scientific disciplines while making
substantial contributions to the field of experimental psychology. On
the other hand, the first school of thought, Titchener's somewhat
modified structuralism, gave psychology a more solid grounding.

Criticisms
Given how antiquated structuralism is, modern scholars and detractors
have highlighted several of its flaws. They argue that the experimental
methods used by this school are too arbitrary to grasp the nature of
the mind. And to make matters worse, the results are unreliable.

Furthermore, structuralism attracted a lot of criticism for never using

examples or tests and for completely ignoring important factors
unrelated to the theory, such as personality.

In-depth details regarding the numerous places where the theory fell
short are provided in the structuralism PDF that several researchers
put online. You can look them up to learn more.