Contelllporary Theories and Systems in Psychology

SECOND EDITION, Expanded and Revised

Contemporary Theories and Systems in Psychology

SECOND EDITION, Expanded and Revised

Benjamin B. Wolman
Professor Emeritus Long Island University Brooklyn. New York

IN COLLABORATION WITH

Susan Knapp
Postgraduate Center for Mental Health New York. New York

PLENUM PRESS . NEW YORK AND LONDON

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Wolman, Benjamin B Contemporary theories and systems in psychology. Bibliography: p. Includes indexes. 1. Psychology-Philosophy. I. Knapp, Susan, joint author. II. Title. [DNLM: 1. Psychological theory. BF38 C761] BF38.W78 1980 150.'1 80-21058 ISBN-13: 978-1-4684-3823-9 e-ISBN-13: 978-1-4684-3821-5 DOl: 10.1007/978-1-4684-3821-5

1981 Plenum Press, New York A Division of Plenum Publishing Corporation 227 West 17th Street, New York, N.Y. 10011

All righ ts reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmi tted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher

Preface to the Second Edition

Twenty years is a long time in the life of a science. While the historical roots of psychology have not changed since the first edition of this book, some of the offshoots of the various theories and systems discussed have been critically reexamined and have undergone far-reaching modifications. New and bold research has led to a broadening of perspectives, and recent developments in several areas required a considerable amount of rewriting. I have been fortunate in the last fifteen years to have worked with about 2,000 psychologists and other behavioral scientists who contributed to several collected volumes I have edited. As the editor-in-chief of the In-

ternational Encyclopedia of Psychiatry, Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Neurology, I have had the privilege of reading, scrutinizing, and editing the work

of 1,500 experts in psychology and related disciplines. In addition, I have written several books and monographs and over one hundred scientific papers. Armed with all that experience, I have carefully examined the pages of the first edition. Chapter 8 required substantial rewriting and several new sections have been added to other chapters: "Current Soviet Psychology" (Chapter 2, Section 7); "New Ideas on Purposivism" (Chapter 5, Section 4); "Recent Developments in the Sociological School of Psychoanalysis" (Chapter 9, Section 4); and "Present Status of Gestalt Psychology" (Chapter 12, Section 4). Chapter 15 was omitted, and two new chapters were added: Chapter 14 ("Humanistic Psychology") and Chapter 16 ("Selected Research Areas"). I was fortunate in securing the help of Dr. Susan Knapp in this extensive rewriting. Dr. Knapp is my former student and research assistant in the Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology at Long Island University. At the present time she teaches at the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health in New York City. I would also like to take this opportunity to express my profound gratitude to all my colleagues who have used the first edition of this text in their classes in hundreds of colleges and universities.
BENJAMIN B. WOLMAN

New York May, 1980

v

Preface to the First Edition

The objective of the present volume is to give a comprehensive picture of contemporary psychological theory. The emphasis is on a general psychological theory, and this is why the contributions of Piaget, Rorschach, Terman, and many other great psychologists have been omitted. Moreover, Thorndike's contribution to educational psychology and Freud's studies in psychotherapeutic techniques had to be left out also. Priority was given to methodological problems such as concept formation, relationship to other sciences, methods of research, and interpretation of empirical data. The entire volume is divided into four parts. The first three deal with the theories, grouped in accordance with the principle of "common roots." The first part includes all theories that started with the orientation toward natural sciences. Pavlov and Watson are the leading exponents of this trend. The second part deals with psychoanalytic theories. The third part discusses all the theories that have been influenced by Kant, Windelband, Husser!, Dilthey, and the cultural sciences. The last part, Part IV, devoted to the scientific method, is the expose of my own "philosophy" of psychology. It is divided into a discussion of methodological problems (Chapter 14) and into a series of theoretical proposals (Chapter 15). The various theories are presented, whenever possible, in a chronological order of their appearance, but the logical order of presentation has been given priority over the chronological one. Since this volume is written primarily for American universities, special attention has been given to American psychology. It would have been rather easy to present all the theories in the same logical order, for example, what each of them has to say on a series of questions prepared by the author of the book; this would result in a greater uniformity of presentation but it would not do justice to the respective theorists. Each theorist developed his theory on certain assumptions and in a certain logical order, and there could be no justification for forcing all theories into a uniform frame of reference, foreign to the philosophy of the men who developed them. Each of the four parts of this book is followed by a summary which
Vll

viii

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

highlights the main problems discussed in the respective parts. Each summary gives a bird's-eye view on the issues under consideration and may serve as an introductory statement of these issues. In a book of this type some repetitions have been intvitable. They have been kept at a reasonable minimum dictated by pedagogic co:t"lswerations. In presenting the ideas and theorie s of the various psychological theorists, I tried to be as objective as possible. Hence extensive quotations were introduced in support of the descriptive parts and sometimes even instead of them. Thus the reader has first-hand contact with the creative work of the theorists. New and deviant theories received more attention than faithful elaborations of the works of the masters. For example, the rebellious Rank received several pages whereas the scholarly and orthodox psychoanalyst Fenichel did not. A mere presentation would, however, not do justice to the purpose of this book. Critical comments and evaluations were part of the thinking and working through the ideas of others. Moreover, the selection of authors, the assignment of space, the order, the emphasis on some of their works-all this was inevitably influenced by my preferences. An absolute impartiality could be accomplished only at the price of lack of analytic understanding. The way out was to be as impartial as possible while presenting the views of the various authors and then to make my own opinions explicit, which I did in my remarks at the end of each presentation. For the idea of this book and the initiative to write it, for the friendly encouragement and competent advice during the work, I am immensely indebted to the editor of their series, Gardner Murphy. It took six years to implement the idea. Hundreds of volumes and thousands of journal articles in seven languages have been read, scrutinized, abstracted, and elaborated. Quotations have been made, whenever available, from existing English sources or translations. An extensive bibliography, covering almost the entire relevant literature, has been prepared for each chapter or even for a part of it. Letters have been written to several authors for the sake of clarifying their ideas, but the presentation of their theories is my own responsibility. I am grateful for the advice of my distinguished colleagues, among them K. Goldstein, O. Klineberg, G. Razran, B. F. Skinner, and R. L. Thorndike, some of whom read parts of this book.
BENJAMIN B. W'OLMAN

New York February, 1960

Contents
PART

CONDITIONING, BEHAVIORISM, AND PURPOSIVISM

CHAPTER

1 THE GREAT BEGINNINGS

1. Psychophysical Parallelism and Introspectionism 3 2. Functionalism 20 3. Edward L. Thorndike: Connectionism 31

CHAPTER

2 CONDITIONED REFLEXES

41
41

1. The Objective Study of the Higher Nervous Processes

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Conditioning 47 Theory of Personality 55 Concluding Remarks on Pavlov 60 Vladimir M. Bekhterev: Reflexology 62 Under the Banner of Marx and Pavlov 65 Current Soviet Psychology 73

CHAPTER

3 BEHAVIORISM AND REDUCTIONISM

76

1. 2. 3. 4.

John B. Watson: Psychology as the Science of Behavior 76 The Early Behaviorists 84 Karl S. Lashley: Brain Mechanisms 88 Donald O. Hebb: Organization of Behavior 92
4 NEO-BEHAVIORISM AND LEARNING THEORY

CHAPTER

97

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Edwin R. Guthrie: Learning by Contiguity 97 Clark L. Hull: Deductive Behaviorism 103 B. F. Skinner: Inductive Behaviorism 124 Edward C. Tolman: Purposive Behaviorism 138 Gregory Razran: Evolutionary Levels of Learning 154 Learning Theory Influenced by Psychoanalysis 163 Some Problems in the Theory of Learning 170 The Current Status of Learning Theory 173
ix

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

5 HORMIC AND HOLISTIC THEORIES

180

1. 2. 3. 4.

William McDougall: Honnic Psychology 180 Kurt Goldstein: Holistic System 187 Jacob R. Kantor: Organismic Psychology 193 Some New Ideas on Purposivism 195

Summary of Part 1 197

II 201

PART

PSYCHOANALYSIS AND RELATED SYSTEMS

CHAPTER

6 PSYCHOANALYSIS

203

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Methodology 203 Postulates 208 The Unconscious 216 Theory of Instincts: Eros and Thanatos 225 Developmental Stages 232 Theory of Personality 243 Society and Culture 267 Psychoanalysis as a Philosophy of Life 273 Concluding Remarks on Psychoanalysis 277
7 INDIVIDUAL AND ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGIES
283

CHAPTER

1. Alfred Adler: Individual Psychology 283 2. Carl Gustav Jung: Analytic Psychology 297
CHAPTER

8 NEW THEORIES IN PSYCHOANALYSIS

316

1. Psychoanalysis Modified by Clinical Experience: Orthodox and Unorthodox 316 2. Early Modifications in Psychoanalytic Theory 317 3. Ego Psychology 324 4. Psychoanalysis and Studies of Culture 331 5. Interactional Psychoanalysis 341 6. Psychoanalysis and Experimental Psychology 351 7. Critical Analyses of Psychoanalytic Concepts 359
CHAPTER

AWAY FROM FREUD: THE SOCIOLOGICAL SCHOOL

362

1. New Ways in Psychoanalysis 362 2. Karen Horney: Psychoanalysis without Libido 364 3. Erich Fromm: Historical and Ethical Psychoanalysis 373

CONTENTS

xi

4. Harry S. Sullivan: A Theory of Interpersonal Relations 5. Recent Developments in Homey's Theory 400

385

Summary of Part II 403

PART

III

UNDERSTANDING, GESTALT, AND FIELD PSYCHOLOGIES

407

CHAPTER

10

UNDERSTANDING PSYCHOLOGY

409

1. Kant's Heritage 409 2. Wilhelm Dilthey: The Understanding Psychology 414

CHAPTER

11 PERSONALISTIC PSYCHOLOGY 423 423

1. Edward Spranger: Psychology of Personality 2. William Stem: Persons versus Things 426 3. Gordon W. Allport: Personality Traits 433
CHAPTER

12 GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY 438

1. 2. 3. 4.

Opposition to Associationism 438 Gestalt: Theoretical Foundations 444 Gestalt: Perception, Learning, and Thinking 450 Present Status of Gestalt Psychology 457 13 FIELD THEORY
460

CHAPTER

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Field Theory versus Class Theory 460 Lewin's Mathematical Concepts 467 Lewin's Logical Constructs 473 Locomotion: Theory of Behavior 479 Theory of Personality 487 Group Dynamics 491 Field Theory as an Experiment in Theory Construction 496 14 HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY 507

CHAPTER

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

The Humanistic Movement 507 Andras Angyl 509 Abraham Maslow 510 Henry A. Murray 511 ]. F. T. Bugental 512 Gardner Murphy 512 Carl Rogers 514

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CONTENTS

Summary of Part III

IV

516
519

PART

PSYCHOLOGY AND THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

CHAPTER

15

THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

521

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

First Principles 521 Collection of Data 526 Interpretation of Data and Theory Construction The Language of Sciences 549 Some Current Methodological Problems 552 16 SELECTED ISSUES

539

CHAPTER

557

1. 2. 3. 4.

The Mind-Body Dichotomy 557 Beyond Pleasure and Pain 567 Perception 572 Personality 579

Summary of Part IV BIBLIOGRAPHY 589 AUTHOR INDEX SUBJECT INDEX 627 633

586