Gest alt psychology is a branch of psychology that originated in Germany. It allows you to study and understand the psyche from the point of view of integral structures that are primary in relation to certain components.
This article will allow you to understand what the theory of Gest alt psychology is and who are its representatives. Further, such points as the history of the emergence of this direction of psychology, as well as what principles are laid down in its basis, will be considered.
Definitions and concepts
Before considering the ideas and principles, it is necessary to define the basic concepts of Gest alt psychology. This is a psychological direction that aims to explain perception, thinking and personality as a whole.
This direction is built on gest alts - forms of organization that creates the integrity of psychological phenomena. In other words, a gest alt is a kind of structure that has integral qualities, as opposed to the sum of its components. For example, a portrait or photograph of a certain person includes a set of certain elements, but other peopleperceive the image as a whole (while in each individual case it is perceived differently).
The history of this psychological trend
The history of the development of the direction of Gest alt psychology dates back to 1912, when Max Wertheimer released his first scientific work on this topic. This work was based on the fact that Wertheimer questioned the generally accepted idea of the presence of separately existing elements in the process of perceiving something. Thanks to this, the 1920s went down in history as a period of development of the Gest alt psychology school. The main personalities who figured in the birth of this direction:
- Max Wertheimer.
- Kurt Koffka.
- Wolfgang Köhler.
- Kurt Lewin.
These scientists have made an invaluable contribution to the development of this direction. However, more about these representatives of Gest alt psychology will be discussed a little later. These people set themselves a difficult task. The first and main representatives of Gest alt psychology were those who wanted to transfer physical laws to psychological phenomena.
Principles of this psychological trend
Representatives of Gest alt psychology found that the unity of perception, as well as its orderliness, is achieved on the basis of the following principles:
- Proximity (stimuli that are close together tend to be perceived collectively rather than individually).
- Similarity (stimuli that have a similar size, shape, color, or shape,be perceived collectively).
- Integrity (perception tends to be simplified and whole).
- Closeness (describes the tendency to complete a figure so that it takes on a complete shape).
- Adjacency (close position of stimuli in time and space).
- Common Zone (Gest alt principles shape everyday perception as well as past experience).
- Principle of figure and ground (everything that is endowed with meaning acts as a figure that has a less structured background).
Guided by these principles, representatives of Gest alt psychology were able to determine the main provisions of this area of psychology.
Basics
Based on the principles, the main points can be described as follows:
- All processes of psychology are holistic processes that have their own structure, their own set of specific elements that will always be secondary to it. Based on this, the subject of Gest alt psychology is consciousness, which has a structure filled with closely related elements.
- Perception has such a feature as constancy. This suggests that the constancy of perception is the relative immutability of certain properties that objects possess (in the presence of changes in the conditions of perception). For example, it can be lighting constancy or color.
Fundamental Ideas of Gest alt Psychology
Representatives of this school identified the following main ideas of this area of psychology:
- Consciousness isa holistic and dynamic field in which all its points are in constant interaction with each other.
- Creation is analyzed using Gest alts.
- Gest alt is a holistic structure.
- Gest alts are explored through objective observation and description of perceptual contents.
- Sensations are not the basis of perception, since the first cannot exist physically.
- The main mental process is visual perception, which determines the development of the psyche and is subject to its own laws.
- Thinking is a process that is not shaped by experience.
- Thinking is a process of solving certain problems, which is carried out through "insight".
Having determined what this direction in psychology is, as well as understanding its basics, one should describe in more detail who the representatives of Gest alt psychology are, as well as what contribution they made to the development of this scientific field.
Max Wertheimer
As noted earlier, Max Wertheimer is the founder of Gest alt psychology. The scientist was born in the Czech Republic, but he conducted his scientific activities in Germany.
According to historical data, Max Wertheimer, while resting, had the idea to conduct an experiment in order to understand why a person can see the movement of a certain object at a time when in reality it is absent. Getting off at the Frankfurt platform, Wertheimer bought the most ordinary toy strobe in order to conduct an experiment right in the hotel. Some time later, the scientist continued hisobservations in a more formal setting at the University of Frankfurt.
In general, these studies were aimed at studying the perception of the movement of objects, which does not actually occur. During the experiment, the scientist used the term "impression of movement." With the help of such a device as a tachistoscope, Max Wertheimer passed a beam of light through the small holes of the toy (one slot of the toy was located vertically, and the second had deviations from the first by twenty to thirty degrees).
During the study, a beam of light was passed through the first slot, and then through the second. When the light passed through the second slit, the time interval was increased to two hundred milliseconds. In this case, the participants in the experiment observed how the light appears first in the first, and then in the second slit. However, if the time interval of illumination of the second slit was shortened, then the impression was created that both slits were constantly illuminated. And when illuminating the second slit for 60 milliseconds, the light seemed to constantly move from one slit to the second, and then back again.
The scientist was convinced that such a phenomenon is elementary in its own way, but at the same time represents something different from one or even several simple sensations. Subsequently, Max Wertheimer gave this phenomenon the name "phi-phenomenon".
Many tried to refute the results of this experiment. In particular, Wundt's theory confirmed thatthe perception of two light strips adjacent, but nothing more. However, no matter how strictly introspection was carried out in Wertheimer's experiment, the strip continued to move, and it was not possible to explain this phenomenon using the existing theoretical positions. In this experiment, the movement of the light line was the whole, and the sum of the constituent elements was two fixed lines of light.
Wertheimer's experience challenged the usual atomistic associationist psychology. The results of the experiment were published in 1912. Thus was the beginning of Gest alt psychology.
Kurt Koffka
Another representative of Gest alt psychology is Kurt Koffka. He was a German-American psychologist who worked with Wertheimer.
He devoted enough time to understanding how perception is arranged and from what it is formed. In the course of his scientific activity, he established that a child born into the world does not yet have formed gest alts. For example, a small child may not even recognize a loved one if he changes some details of his appearance. However, in the process of life, any person undergoes the formation of gest alts. Over time, the child already becomes able to recognize his mother or grandmother, even if they change their hair color, haircut or any other element of appearance that distinguishes them from other, outsider women.
Wolfgang Köhler (Keller)
Gest alt psychology as a scientificthe area owes a lot to this scientist, as he wrote many books that became the basis of the theory, and conducted several amazing experiments. Koehler was sure that physics as a science should have a certain connection with psychology.
In 1913, Koehler went to the Canary Islands, where he studied the behavior of chimpanzees. In one experiment, a scientist placed a banana for animals outside of a cage. The fruit was tied with a rope, and the chimpanzee easily solved this problem - the animal simply pulled the rope and brought the treat closer to itself. Koehler concluded that this was a simple task for an animal and made it more difficult. The scientist extended several ropes to the banana, and the chimpanzee did not know which one led to the treat, so he was more often mistaken. Koehler concluded that the animal's decision in this situation is unconscious.
The course of another experiment was a little different. The banana was still placed outside the cage, and a stick was placed between them (opposite the banana). In this case, the animal perceived all the objects as elements of one situation and easily pushed the delicacy towards itself. However, when the stick was at the other end of the cage, the chimpanzee did not perceive the objects as elements of the same situation.
The third experiment was carried out under similar conditions. Similarly, a banana was placed outside the cage at an inaccessible distance, and the monkey was given two sticks in his hands that were too short to reach the fruit. To solve the problem, the animal needed to insert one stick into another and get a treat.
The essence of all these experiments was toone is to compare the results of perceiving objects in different situations. All these examples, just like Max Wertheimer's experiment with light, proved that perceptual experience has a quality of integrity (completeness) that its components do not have. In other words, perception is a gest alt, and the attempt to decompose it into components ends in failure.
Research made it clear to Koehler that animals solved their problems either through trial and error or through sudden awareness. Thus, the conclusion was formed - objects that lie in the field of one perception and are not interconnected, when solving problems, are connected into a common structure, the awareness of which helps to solve the problem.
Kurt Lewin
This scientist put forward a theory comparing social pressures that determine human behavior with various physical forces (internal - feelings, external - perception of other people's desires or expectations). This theory is called "field theory".
Levin argued that a person is a system in which there are subsystems that are in interaction. Carrying out his experiments, Levin noted that when the feature is active, the state of the subsystem is tense, and when the activity is interrupted, it will still be in tension until the moment it returns to the execution of the action. If there is no logical completion of the action, then the tension is substituting or draining.
In simple terms, Levin tried to prove the relationship between human behavior and the environment. This scientist left the ideas of the influence of experience on the structure of personality. Field theory says that human behavior is absolutely independent of the future or past, but it is dependent on the present.
Gest alt Psychology and Gest alt Therapy: Definition and Differences
Recently, Gest alt therapy has become a very popular area of psychotherapy. The methods of Gest alt psychology and Gest alt therapy are different, and the latter is more often criticized by adherents of the former.
According to some sources, Fritz Perls is a scientist who is considered the founder of Gest alt therapy, which is not related to the scientific school of Gest alt psychology. He synthesized psychoanalysis, the ideas of bioenergetics and Gest alt psychology. However, there is nothing from the school founded by Max Wertheimer in this direction of therapy. Some sources claim that in fact the connection to Gest alt psychology was just a publicity stunt to draw attention to the synthesized direction of psychotherapy.
At the same time, other sources note that such therapy is still associated with the Gest alt psychology school. However, this connection is not direct, but it still exists.
Conclusion
Having understood in detail who the representatives of Gest alt psychology are, and what this area of scientific activity is, we can conclude that it is aimed at studying perception, which is a holistic structure.
Gest alt approaches have penetrated many scientific fields over time. Tofor example, in pathopsychology or personality theory, as well as such approaches are found in social psychology, the psychology of learning and perception. Today it is difficult to imagine such scientific fields as neobehaviorism or cognitive psychology without Gest alt psychology.
As noted earlier, the main representatives of Gest alt psychology are Wertheimer, Koffka, Levin and Koehler. Having learned about the activities of these people, one can understand that this direction has played a huge role in the development of world psychology.
