Association Psychology
The association psychology refers to a psychological direction which is the main explanatory principle the classical concept of the association used. Concepts and thoughts are therefore composed of elementary contents of consciousness, in particular sensory impressions ( percept ). Association psychology can therefore be characterized as a reductionist or atomistic psychology. In terms of the history of science, association psychology has undoubtedly promoted the progress of empirical-experimental research in the fields of perception, memory, and cognitive psychology.
Concept of association in antiquity and among English empiricists
The “concept of association” already appears in the Phaedo of Plato. The factory About the memory and the memory of Aristotle means association that thoughts are determined by the environment and not "God-given" are. So the memory of an absent object occurs either through resemblance or non-resemblance to a present object.
The British empiricists Thomas Hobbes , John Locke , David Hume , Alexander Bain and David Hartley take up this idea .
Classical Association Laws
The "classical association psychology" goes back to the facts already presented by Aristotle, see → Association . Their main representatives in recent times are Hermann Ebbinghaus , Georg Elias Müller and Theodor Draw . According to Thomas Brown (1778–1820) the "primary laws of association" are:
- the law of similarity ( assimilation theory ),
- the law of contrast,
- the law of spatial and temporal relationships ( contiguity theory ).
Work by Ebbinghaus and his successors
Based on the principle of association, Ebbinghaus developed an experimental approach to researching memory performance, whereby primarily meaningless syllables are used as teaching material. In general, the regular connection of psychic phenomena was recognized by association psychology, but it was interpreted as mechanical.
Regardless of the (from today's point of view) inadequate foundations of association theory, its representatives discovered fundamental knowledge about elementary memory and reproduction laws, such as the curve of forgetting and retention by Ebbinghaus. It says that the retention is approximately proportional to the logarithm of the time that has elapsed since the impressions.
Methods from Ebbinghaus
Basic methodological principles were developed by Ebbinghaus and his successors:
- the so-called savings method (i.e. reduced number of repetitions required to relearn a subject),
- the method of reproduction (i.e. the percentage of correct memories after a period of time)
- the method of recognition, which is still used today in varied forms as a criterion for memory performance.
Association psychology, however, ignored the systemic character of mental activity and essential differences in their level of appearance and development.
Idealistic interpretation of association psychology
Idealists such as Thomas M. Brown, John Stuart Mill , Alexander Bain and Johann Friedrich Herbart can also be assigned to association psychology. In the “idealistic interpretation” the association turned from a means of scientific analysis into a means of breaking down consciousness into primary forms with the aim of constructing not only the entire psychic activity but also the objective reality from them .
Materialistic interpretation of the term association
Ivan Michailowitsch Setschenow and Iwan Petrowitsch Pavlov developed a “materialistic and deterministic conception” of the term association: the reflective theory of consciousness. Setschenow explained in his work Brain Reflexes (1863) certain mental and purposeful actions through neurological mechanisms that were demonstrated in the laboratory. Pavlov (1934) understood association to mean the connection of reflexes, but not of isolated elements of consciousness. The conditioned reaction is an association between psychological and somatic processes.
At present one understands by association not only the connection of ideas, but also the "connection" of other psychological contents, e.g. B. of ideas with feelings, of stimulus situations with verbal and motor behavioral expressions or of behavioral sequences. The American educational psychology is very much based on association psychology .
Secondary Laws of Association
In addition to the classic association laws, so-called "secondary association laws" were formulated in the course of extensive experimental investigations, e. B. the effect of the duration of the original impression, the frequency of the repetitions, the number of competing impressions, but also the constitutional psychological and physical differences of the impression recipients and their habits.
Association psychology is to be seen as the starting point of behaviorism and depth psychology , the development of which can also be understood from the analysis of association theory.
References
- ↑ Plato: Phaedo , Chapter 18, 19
- ^ Translation by Friedrich Schleiermacher
- ^ Wilhelm Karl Arnold et al. (Ed.): Lexicon of Psychology . Bechtermünz, Augsburg 1996, ISBN 3-86047-508-8 ; Sp. 162 on Lemma "Laws of Association".
- ↑ Peter R. Hofstätter (Ed.): Psychology . The Fischer Lexicon, Fischer-Taschenbuch, Frankfurt a. M. 1972, ISBN 3-436-01159-2 ; P. 29 on Lemma "Association".