German psychologist Wolfgang Köhler: biography, achievements and interesting facts

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

Wolfgang Köhler was born in Estonia on January 21, 1887. The father of the future psychologist was the director of the school, the mother looked after the household. When the boy was five years old, he moved with his parents to the north of Germany. Wolfgang's childhood passed in Germany, where he began his studies. He received an excellent education at the best universities in Tübingen, Beaune and Berlin.

The biography of Wolfgang Köhler deserves special attention, because already at the age of 22 he received a doctorate in philosophy and psychology from the University of Berlin. And from 1909 to 1935 he headed the Institute of Psychology in the capital of Germany.

Scientific activity

The beginning of Wolfgang Köhler's career can be considered 1909, when the psychologist defended his doctoral dissertation from Karl Stumpf. Following the professor went to the University of Frankfurt. From 1913 to 1920, Koehler conducted research on the habits and character of great apes within the island of Tenerife. A psychologist went to the island at the suggestion of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. Six months after the professor settled in the Canary Islands, the First World War began. Koehler claimed that it was not yet possible for him to return to Germany, while some of his German colleagues returned to their homeland without any problems.

This prompted one of his colleagues to suggest that the psychologist Wolfgang Köhler is spying for Germany, and the research work is just a cover. As evidence, the fact that the professor hid a radio transmitter in the attic at home was used. Koehler justified the presence of such an apparatus by the fact that through it he transmitted information about the movement of the Allied ships. No other evidence was found to support the theory, and it was subsequently completely refuted. The psychologist reflected the results of his work in his work “A Study of the Intelligence of Great Apes”, published in 1917. The second edition was published in 1924, the works were translated into English and French. No one knows what really happened there, but the fact remains: Wolfgang Köhler spent 7 long years on the island of Tenerife, studying the intelligence of monkeys. The published book confirms this. However, the question of who Wolfgang Köhler was, a spy or a scientist, remained open.

Return Home

Only in 1920, Koehler returned to Germany and in 1922 received the post of professor of psychology, where he worked until 1935of the year. Such a prestigious position went to the psychologist for his merits, namely for the publication of the book "Physical Gest alts at rest and in a stationary state." The difficult situation in the country forced Wolfgang to resign in 1935. The Nazis began to actively interfere in university affairs and research. That is why Koehler was forced to resign and move to live in America.

International recognition

In the 1925-1926 academic year, the professor lectured at Harvard and Clark University. An interesting fact is that, in addition to his lectures, Köhler taught tango students.

Truly, the professor received a worldwide name after a series of large-scale studies and experiments that were aimed at studying the perception of the environment and the intelligence of a chimpanzee. After that, Koehler was appointed director of the Institute of Psychology, which operates at the University of Berlin. It was in this place that the professor investigated the theory of gest alt and already in 1929 published a manifesto of gest alt psychology - a book that most fully reflected the views of the new direction. Its co-authors were K. Koffka, M. Wertheimer. An important stage in Koehler's career is 1938, when a work en titled "The Role of Values in the World of Facts" was published.

Career sunset

The German psychologist Wolfgang Köhler left his native country in 1935, the professor's conflict with the new regime contributed to the emigration. It all started with the fact that the professor at one of his lectures openly criticized the fascistgovernment, after which a group of Nazis burst into the auditorium. But Koehler's criticism of the regime did not end there either. Later, the professor wrote a letter to a Berlin newspaper in which he was indignant at the injustice of the expulsion of Jewish professors from German universities. After the letter was published in the newspaper, Koehler expected that the Gestapo would come to him in the evening, but there was no reprisal and the professor was given the opportunity to leave the country without noise. After emigrating to the States, Koehler took a job teaching at the College of Pennsylvania and even wrote several papers.

By 1955, Wolfgang settled down at the Institute for Advanced Study in the United States. Hard work and numerous studies helped him three years later become a professor of psychology at Dartmouth College. Already in 1956, Koehler was awarded the "Outstanding Contribution to Science" award by the American Psychological Association and was soon elected president of this organization.

Kohler's theories

As we already know, Koehler began his career with experimental studies of the intellectual abilities and behavioral characteristics of chimpanzees. It was this research work that led the psychologist to one of his most significant discoveries. This is insight, or insight.

The professor created specific situations in which the chimpanzees had to solve their problems and find workarounds in order to achieve their goal. Animal actions were called biphasic because they consisted of two specific components. For example, the first action of a chimpanzee- with the help of one object, get another, which would just help the animal solve the problem it faces. The simplest example is the following: the monkey, with the help of a small stick, which lies in a cage, should get a long one, which lies a little further. This is the first action performed by an animal to achieve a goal. The next step is to use the received tools to achieve the primary goal. Such a target was a banana, which was far enough away from the chimpanzee.

The essence of the theory

The purpose of such experiments was the same: to determine how this or that problem is solved. It can be a blind search for the right solution through trial and error. Or maybe a spontaneous "grasping" of relationships, an understanding of what is happening. The research work proved that the actions of the chimpanzees were based precisely on the second option. Simply put, there is an instant understanding of the current situation and the right solution to the goal is immediately formed.

Private life

In the mid-twenties, Wolfgang Köhler faced serious family problems. The professor divorced his wife and preferred a young student from Sweden. This state of affairs enraged his ex-wife, and Wolfgang was deprived of any contact with his children, of whom he had four. Such a difficult situation left a mark on the he alth of the psychologist, his hands began to tremble, especially during periods of excitement. The workers of the laboratory in which Koehler worked every morning determined his mood precisely byhands.

In conclusion

After successfully serving as a professor, Koehler died at Enfield on June 11, 1967. The Gest alt psychology of Wolfgang Köhler is still relevant today.