Chapter 6: William James

A History of Psychology

(3rd Edition)

John G. Benjafield

William James (1842–1910)

• Family wealth; liberal, democratic values

• Childhood: family visited Europe often

• 1861-1869: studied at Harvard– First atudied chemistry; later medicine

• 1872: taught physiology at Harvard

The Principles of Psychology

• 1878: began writing; took 12 years to complete

• Each of its two volumes is almost 700 pages long

• Principles is a central work in the history of psychology

Habit

• People are largely creatures of habit

• Formation of habits depends on plasticity

• Plasticity: the ability of an organism to alter its behaviour as circumstances change

• Habit = ‘the great flywheel of society’

Habit: Practical Suggestions

• Important to ‘make automatic and habitual, as early as possibly, as many useful actions as we can’

• When first acquiring a habit, be consistent

• Form useful habits

James’ Approach

• Consider every issue in an open-minded fashion

• Introspection: ‘looking into our own minds and reporting what we there discover’– Not perfect, readily prone to error– Indispensable source of data

Phenomenology

• James as a precursor to phenomenology? – Method that follows from Brentano and Husserl

• James did not impose a prior set of categories on experience

• Psychologist’s fallacy: to confuse one’s standpoint with that of the mental fact about which one is make a report

• Psychology = a natural science– Not an experimentalist but acknowledged

experimental and comparative methods

Use of Metaphor

• Characteristic feature of James’ method– Not just a literary device

• Convey overall complexity without necessarily specifying precision

• Ex. The stream of thought

The Stream of Thought

≠ only intellectual events

• ‘Thought’ = all of our experiences

• Later renamed ‘the stream of consciousness’– Vs. ‘train of thought’ or ‘chain of thought’

The Stream of Consciousness

Characteristics:1. ‘Every thought tends to be part of a personal

consciousness’2. ‘With each personal consciousness thought is always

changing’3. ‘Within each personal consciousness thought is

sensibly continuous’4. ‘Consciousness always appears to deal with objects

independent of itself’5. ‘It is interested in some parts of these objects to the

exclusion of others, and welcomes or rejects all the while’

Consciousness is like a bird’s life…

• ‘alternation of flights and perchings’

• Places where the stream flows at different rates– Substantive parts: places were the stream

flows slowly– Transitive parts: places where the stream

flows quickly– Language better suited to describing

substantive parts

Fringe of Consciousness

• Stream of consciousness does not have a well-defined edge– Difficulty to say where it ends and begins

• James discussed events beyond the fringe of consciousness– Ex. Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

The Consciousness of Self

Self divided into two parts:

1. I: knows things, including oneself

= Pure ego

2. Me: what I know about myself

= Empirical self

The Pure Ego

• Can we say anything about a self that exists over and above our experiences?

• James’ conclusion: – Nothing of the pure ego we can observe– If it exists, pure ego cannot observe itself

The Empirical Self

Divided into three parts:• The Material Self

= All those things you would call yours

• The Social Self= Tied to those occasions when other people recognize

us

• The Spiritual Self= A person’s inner or subjective being (≠ Soul)

Prentions

SuccessesteemSelf

Attention

• Descriptions of attention still cited by theorists 100 years after the publication of Principles

• Appreciated the complexity of attention– Inattention: the process by which we do not

pay attention to what we are doing• Very common• Automatic Writing

Memory

• Primary memory: of the present moment= Immediate memory– Tends to be quickly forgotten without

rehearsal– Permits us to recall recent experiences

immediately and accurately

• Secondary memory: of the past

The Emotions

• James-Lange Theory of Emotions– Called Lange because similar viewpoint

advanced independently by C.G. Lange– The theory appears to have been

systematically misinterpreted for decades– Critic: Walter B. Cannon

Will

• 1870: James resolved bout of depression partly by choosing to believe in free will– We cannot freely choose to do anything

whatsoever– But our will can make a difference when we

are in conflict situation

• Preoccupaton with will power– Supported self-help movements

Other Topics in Principles

• Parapsychology

• Religious experience

Distinctions between People

• Tough-mindedness: tends to place great store in facts and is materialistic, pessimistic, and skeptical

• Tender-mindedness: tends to believe in principles and is idealistic, optimistic, and religious

James on Freud

• James met Freud in America in 1909:

‘…I have always wished that I might be as fearless as he was in the face of approaching death’

‘The future of psychology belongs to your work’