História da Psicologia

1. Raízes filosóficas da psicologia moderna: contributos de Platão, Aristóteles, Descartes,

Locke, Mill.
2. Raízes fisiológicas da psicologia moderna: contributos de Helmholtz, Gall, Broca.
3. O início da psicologia científica: contributos de Fechner, Wundt, Ebbinghaus.
4. Origens da psicologia científica na América: contributos de James, Hall, Cattell.
5. Estruturalismo e funcionalismo: contributos de Titchener, Dewey, Angell.
6. O nascimento da psicologia aplicada: contributos de Binet, Yerkes, Münsterberg.
7. A psicologia gestalt: contributos de Wertheimer, Köhler, Lewin.
8. Psicanálise: contributos de Freud, Breuer, Jung, Fancher.
9. Comportamentalismo e neocomportamentalismo: contributos de Pavlov, Watson, Tolman,
Hull, Skinner.
10. Psicologia cognitiva: contributos de Bartlett, Mandler.
11. A psicologia no século XXI.

 Raízes filosóficas da psicologia moderna – Gregos

Pressupostos: O mundo pode ser compreendido e predito; Os humanos são parte do mundo;
As explicações devem ser deste mundo – explicações naturais (e não sobre-naturais); “logos”
/ “sofia” vs “mythos”. Philosophy (literally, the love of knowledge or wisdom) began when
natural explanations (logos) replaced supernatural ones (mythos).

Pré-socráticos: Idealistas (a ideia forma o mundo) e materialistas (a matéria já existe antes

da perceção)

 Sócrates:
Racionalista/ A principal característica humana é a razão.
Sócrates (ca. 470–399 B.C.) agreed with the Sophists that individual experience is important.
He took the injunction “Know thyself,” inscribed on the portals of the temple of Apollo at
Delphi, to indicate the importance of knowing the contents of one’s own mind or soul. He
went so far as to say, “The life which is unexamined is not worth living”.
The first philosophers were called cosmologists because they sought to explain the origin,
the structure, and the processes governing the cosmos (universe). However, the Greek word
kosmos did not only refer to the totality of things but also suggested an elegant, ordered
universe. The aesthetic aspect of the meaning of the term kosmos is reflected in the English
word cosmetic. Thus, to the early Greek cosmologists, the universe was ordered and pleasant
to contemplate. The assumption of orderliness was extremely important because an orderly
universe is, at least in principle, an explicable universe—an idea that would become central
to Western civilization, and one that paves the way for the various modern sciences.
Thales was important because he emphasized natural explanations and minimized
supernatural ones. That is, in his cosmology, Thales said that things in the universe consist
of natural substances and are governed by natural principles; they do not reflect the whims
of the gods. The universe is therefore knowable and within the realm of human
understanding.

 Platão:
Racionalista/Análise lógica; A alma esta na cabeça; Sugere que o cérebro é o mecanismo dos
processos mentais.
The Pythagoreans believed that although numbers and numerical relationships were
abstractions (they could not be experienced through the senses), they were nonetheless real
and could exert an influence on the empirical world. As already mentioned, the Pythagorean
theorem is absolutely true when applied to abstract (imagined) triangles but is never
completely true when applied to a triangle that exists in the empirical world (for example,
one that is drawn on paper).
This discrepancy exists because, in the empirical world, the lines making up the right angle
will never be exact. Plato took an additional step. According to his theory of forms,
everything in the empirical world is a manifestation of a pure form (idea) that exists in the
abstract. Thus, chairs, chariots, cats, and Corinthians are inferior manifestations of pure
forms. For example, the thousands of cats that one encounters are but inferior copies of an
abstract idea or form of “catness” that exists in pure form in the abstract. What we
experience through the senses results from the interaction of the pure form with matter; and
because matter is constantly changing and is experienced through the senses, the result of
the interaction must be less perfect than the pure idea before that idea interacts with matter.
Plato replaced the essence that Socrates sought with the concept of form as the aspect of
reality that was permanent and therefore knowable. That is, Socrates accepted the fact that a
thorough definition specified an object’s or a concept’s essence; whereas for Plato, an
object’s or a concept’s essence was equated with its form. For Plato, essence (form) had an
existence separate from its individual manifestations. Socrates and Plato did agree, however,
that knowledge could be attained only through reason.
 Aristóteles:
Empirista/Observação externa; Alma e corpo não estão separados; Sugere que o coração é o
mecanismo dos processos.
Importantly for us, Aristotle was the first philosopher to extensively treat many topics that
were later to become part of psychology. In his vast writings, he covered memory, reasoning,
sensation, motivation, morality, social behavior, education, development, geriatrics, sleep
and dreams, language, and learning. Taken alone, Aristotle’s contributions to psychology are
truly impressive. It must be realized, however, that with the possible exception of
mathematics, he made substantial contributions to almost every branch of knowledge.
Both Plato and Aristotle were primarily interested in essences or truths that go beyond the
mere appearance of things, but their methods for discovering those essences were distinctly
different. For Plato, essences corresponded to the forms that existed independently of nature
and that could be arrived at only by ignoring sensory experience and turning one’s thoughts
inward. For Aristotle, essences existed but could best become known by studying nature. He
believed that if enough individual manifestations of a principle or phenomenon were
investigated, eventually one could infer the essence that they exemplified.

 Inatismo vs Empirismo- Nature vs Nurture

Inatismo: Conhecimento e características são inatas Hereditariedade e fatores genéticos;
Mecanismos da aquisição da linguagem (Chomsky) forcefully argues that language is too
complex to be explained by operant principles, maintaining that the human brain is
genetically programmed to generate language. Indeed, the very fact that most of the
language we utter every day is novel represents a challenge to traditional learning theories
that are often based on reprising past associations. Each child, says Chomsky, is born with
brain structures (a language acquisition device) that make it relatively easy for the child to
learn the rules of language; the deep grammar and syntactical structures that are common to
all languages.
Empirismo: Conhecimento guiado pela experiência; Aprendizagem (Locke, “A mente é uma
tabula rasa”); Comportamentalismo; Associacionismo: conhecimento resulta da ligação da
informação.

 Descartes:
Inatismo e experiência são ambos importantes
Dualismo cartesiano: corpo e mente são entidades separadas; interagem para formas a
experiência humana; Faz uma primeira abordagem aos comportamentos voluntários e
involuntários.
“Penso, logo existo”, colocou o cérebro como a única estrutura para o funcionamento mental;
o corpo sem a mente é apenas uma máquina complexa.

Descartes’s version of dualism is called interactionism. Descartes also believed that the
mind contained several innate ideas. Descartes brought much attention to the mind–body
relationship, caused great controversy over innate ideas, introspectively studied the
phenomena of the mind, stimulated animal research (and thus physiological and
comparative psychology), and was the first to describe the reflex—a concept that was to
become extremely important in psychology.

 Thomas Hobbes
Motivado politicamente, defende que o homem é um “animal agressivo”, organizado em
“bandos” para se proteger de outros; Contrato social: troca de liberdade e direitos por
segurança e ordem; A estrutura social marcadamente hierarquizada é a única forma de
manter a integridade do grupo; defende a monarquia absoluta; As pessoas precisam de um
governo forte que as proteja delas próprias.
After visiting Galileo, Hobbes became convinced that the universe consisted only of matter
and motion and that both could be understood in terms of mechanistic principles. Why,
asked Hobbes, could not humans too be viewed as machines consisting of nothing but matter
and motion? Galileo was able to explain the motion of physical objects in terms of the
external forces acting on them—that is, without appealing to inner states or essences.
It is, according to Hobbes, fear of death that motivates humans to create social order. In
other words, civilization is created as a matter of selfdefense; each of us must be discouraged
from committing crimes against the other. Unless interfered with, humans would selfishly
seek power over others so as to guarantee the satisfaction of their own personal needs.
Although Hobbes accepted Descartes’s deductive method, he rejected his concept of innate
ideas.
For Hobbes, all ideas came from experience or, more specifically, from sensory experience.
Following in the tradition of Democritus, Hobbes was also a materialist. Because all that
exists is matter and motion, Hobbes thought it absurd to postulate a nonmaterial mind, as
Descartes had done. All so-called mental phenomena could be explained by the sense
experiences that result when the motion of external bodies stimulates the sense receptors,
thereby causing internal motion.

 Julien de la Mettrie
Pessoas são máquinas, e tudo pode ser explicado com conceitos mecanicistas; Hedonismo
(prazer vs dor) é o principal motivador, não a razão; Os animais também pensam, logo a
cognição é universal.
To La Mettrie, it was clear that whatever influences the body influences the so-called thought
processes, but La Mettrie went further. He believed that there is nothing in the universe but
matter and motion. Sensations and thoughts are also nothing but movements of particles in
the brain. Thus, La Mettrie, like Hobbes and Gassendi, was a thorough going materialist.
La Mettrie concluded Man a Machine with the statement, “Let us then conclude boldly that
man is a machine, and that in the whole universe there is but a single substance differently
modified. The single substance, of course, was matter, For La Mettrie, to believe in the
existence of an immaterial soul (mind) was just plain silly. According to La Mettrie, only a
philosopher who was not at the same time a physician could postulate the existence of an
immaterial soul that is independent from the body.
In any case, humans differ from nonhuman animals only in degree, not in type: “Man is not
molded from a costlier clay; nature has used but one dough, and has merely varied the
leaven”.

 Fisiologia
Os filósofos colocam as questões mas não as operacionalizam enquanto que os fisiologistas
oferecem a forma de testar as questões colocadas pelos filósofos.

 Fisiologia do Sistema Nervoso

Este período histórico é caracterizado por avanços no conhecimento do sistema nervoso;
Grande contributo da escola alemã (nasce a psicofísica); Esta nova área estabelece a relação
entre fenómenos físicos objetivos e a subjetividade da sensação humana.

 Charles Bell
Procurou estudar o sistema nervoso; Identificar o contributo das raízes nervosas; Conhecer
a especificidade dos nervos sensoriais face aos restantes.
Primeiras experiências com animais para conhecer as funções sensoriais nervosas;
Manipulação de estímulos sensórias e da resposta motora através do isolamento das raízes
dos nervos; Identificou a especificidade funcional dos nervos sensoriais.

After Bell and Magendie, it was no longer possible to think of nerves as general conveyers of
vibrations or spirits (like Descartes’ view). Now a “law of forward direction” governed the
nervous system. Sensory nerves carried impulses forward from the sense receptors to the
brain, and motor nerves carried impulses forward from the brain to the muscles and glands.
The Bell-Magendie law demonstrated separate sensory and motor tracts in the spinal cord
and suggested separate sensory and motor regions in the brain.

 Helmholtz
Estudo da visão e das cores; Sensação e perceção; Visão materialista (princípios iguais para
explicar matéria viva e não viva, assim como o mental e o não mental.

Materialists saw nothing mysterious about life and assumed that it could be explained in
terms of physical and chemical processes. Therefore, there was no reason to exclude the
study of life or of anything else from the realm of science. Helmholtz sided with the
materialists, who believed that the same laws apply to living and nonliving things, as well as
to mental and nonmental events. What this group of materialists accepted when they
rejected vitalism were the beliefs that living organisms, including humans, were complex
machines (mechanism) and that these machines consist of nothing but material substances
(materialism). The mechanistic-materialistic philosophy embraced by these individuals
profoundly influenced physiology, medicine, and psychology.

-Perception
Although he believed that the physiological apparatus of the body provides the mechanisms
for sensation, Helmholtz thought that the past experience of the observer is what converts a
sensation into a perception. Sensations, then, are the raw elements of conscious experience,
and perceptions are sensations after they are given meaning by one’s past experiences.

-Theory of color vision

Helmholtz’s answer was to expand Müller’s doctrine of specific nerve energies by postulating
three different types of color receptors on the retina. That is, instead of saying that color
vision had one specific nerve energy associated with it, as Müller had thought, Helmholtz
claimed it involved three separate receptors, each with its own specific energy. It was
already known that various combinations of three colors—red, green, and blue-violet, the
additive primary colors—could produce all other colors. Helmholtz speculated that there are
three types of color receptors corresponding to the three primary colors. If all these
primaries are shown at once, one experiences white. If the color shown is not a primary
color, it would stimulate various combinations of the three receptors, resulting in a
subjective color experience corresponding to the combination of wavelengths present. For
example, presenting a red and a green light simultaneously would produce the subjective
color experience of yellow. Also, the same color experience could be caused by several
different patterns of the three receptor systems firing. In this way, Helmholtz explained why
many physical wavelengths give rise to the same color experience. The Young–Helmholtz
theory of color vision was extremely helpful in explaining many forms of color blindness. For
example, if a person lacks one or more of the receptor systems corresponding to the primary
colors, he or she will not be able to experience certain colors subjectively, even though the
physical world has not changed. The senses therefore actualize elements of the physical
world that otherwise exist only as potential experiences. Helmholtz was continually amazed
at the way physiological mechanisms distort the information a person receives from the
physical world, but he was even more amazed at the mismatch between physical events and
psychological sensations (such as the experience of color).

-Auditory perception
For audition, as he had done for color vision, Helmholtz further refined Müller’s doctrine of
specific nerve energies. He found that the ear is not a single sense receptor but a highly
complex system of many receptors. Whereas the visual system consists of three types of
nerve fibers, each with its own specific nerve energy, the auditory system contains
thousands of types of nerve fibers, each with its own specific nerve energy. Helmholtz found
that when the main membrane of the inner ear, the basilar membrane, was removed and
uncoiled, it was shaped much like a harp.
 Gustav Fechner
Físico; Psicofísica; Relação entre as alterações físicas dos estímulos e a experiência sensorial
Elementos da psicofísica: No livro apresenta o estudo da relação entre a sensações
(psíquicas) e os estímulos (físicos) que as originam; formulou a lei que estabelece essa
relação – Lei de Weber-Fechner. “a resposta a qualquer estímulo é proporcional ao logaritmo
da intensidade do estímulos”
Fechner desenvolveu e criou novos métodos de medição mental > deu raízes da psicologia
experimental quantitativa
Ele acreditava que: tudo é dotado de uma alma; nada existe sem uma base material; mente e
a meteria são a mesma essência, mas visto de lados diferentes. Através de experiências
psicofísicos em psicologia, estas afirmações podiam ser demonstradas e comprovadas.
He believed that consciousness cannot be separated from physical things, his position
represents panpsychism; that is, all things that are physical are also conscious.

He wanted desperately to solve the mind–body problem in a way that would satisfy the
materialistic scientists of his day. Fechner’s mystical philosophy taught him that the physical
and mental were simply two aspects of the same fundamental reality. Thus, as we have seen,
he accepted the double aspectism that Spinoza had postulated. But to say that there is a
demonstrable relationship between the mind and the body is one thing; proving it is another
matter. His insight to this problem was that a systematic relationship between bodily and
mental experience could be demonstrated if a person were asked to report changes in
sensations as a physical stimulus was systematically varied. Fechner speculated that for
mental sensations to change arithmetically, the physical stimulus would have to change
geometrically. In testing these ideas, Fechner created the area of psychology that he called
psychophysics.
Fechner assumed that as the magnitude of a stimulus increased from zero, a point would be
reached where the stimulus could be consciously detected. The lowest intensity at which a
stimulus can be detected is called the absolute threshold. That is, the absolute threshold is
the intensity of a stimulus at or above which a sensation results and below which no
detectable sensation occurs. According to Fechner, intensity levels below the absolute
threshold do cause reactions, but those reactions are unconscious.
Fechner’s analysis of sensation started with the absolute threshold, but because that
threshold provided only one measure, it was of limited usefulness. What Fechner needed was
a continuous scale that showed how sensations above the absolute threshold varied as a
function of level of stimulation. This was provided by the differential threshold, which is
defined by how much a stimulus magnitude needs to be increased or decreased before a
person can detect a difference. With his equation, Fechner believed that he had found the
bridge between the physical and the psychical that he sought—a bridge that was scientifically
respectable.

A fundação da Psicologia Moderna

 Wilhelm Wundt
1879- Laboratório de psicologia experimental Foi o primeiro a referir-se como psicólogo.
Entre as ciências tradicionais e as ciências sociais; Isto permitiu utilizar os métodos
experimentais clássicos a questões da Psicologia; Começa a dar aulas na Universidade de
Leipizig e acaba por montar o seu primeiro laboratório.

Wundt era muito focado em estudar a sensação e a perceção

Tinha reservas em relação ao potencial do experimentalismo para estudar processos mentais
mais complexos (ex formação de conceitos, resolução de problemas)

-Laboratório de psicologia experimental (1876)

Wundt regente da cadeira de filosofia na Universidade de Leipzig; Equipamentos em suas
demostrações do ensino e investigação (estimuladores elétricos, temporizadores, dispositivos
de mapeamento sensorial, chronoscopes, pêndulos, taquitoscópio…)
Em 1879 iniciou experimentos que não faziam parte do seu ensinamento- ele marca isso
como o início de seu laboratório. Existiram críticas a legitimitade dos seus estudos realizados
de forma autónoma.
A psicologia sai entre as ciências físicas e sociais; Os métodos experimentais e de
investigação utilizados nas ciências físicas deveriam ser aplicados a questões psicológicas;
três principais subdivisões; (1)Ciência experimental indutiva; (2)Reflexões de processos
mentais superiores como linguagem estética, mitos, religião e costumes sociais através da
literatura e observação naturalista; (3)Metafísica científica- uma teoria coerente do universo
através da junção entre física e ciências sociais.

-Princípios da psicologia fisiológica: primeiros volumes sobre a psicologia; os conteúdos

demostram a forma como a psicologia era encarada; a fisiologia e morfologia ocupavam uma
parte central do conhecimento e da investigação

 Herman Ebbinghaus
Realizou experiências em memória, e em outras áreas dos processos psicológicos; Ficou
sobretudo conhecido pela teoria conhecida como Learning Curve
A wide variety of modern interests, from intelligence testing, to the capacity of
consciousness, to primacy and recency effects, as well as many matters in learning and
memory

Psychology in the US

 William James
Functionalism (based on Darwin); pragmatism; free will; laboratorio de psicologia em 1875

 Stanley Hall
1º doutoramento com o título de “Psicologia” em 1878 (W. James)
Fundador da APA (1892)
Fundador do American Psychological Journal (1887) e do Journal of Applied Psychology
(1917); 1º aluno americano de Wundt

 Mary Calkins
Aluna PhD de James e Munsterberg
1ª mulher presidente da APA
Memória e Self

 Munsterberg
PhD com Wundt
Diretor do laboratório de Harvard com James
Presidente da APA
“Basics of pshychology” dedicado a James
Psicologia clínica, forense e industrial

 Teoria de Darwin
Diferenças individuais; adaptação ao ambiente; métodos de pesquisa diversos: introspeção,
comportamento animal, doença mental, etc… ; Aspetos práticos- aplicação (terapia, etc)

 Estruturalismo
Introspection and the awareness of subjective experience
Método da introspeção (em condições controladas) > Identificar os elementos básicos das
estruturas da experiência psicológica
Mapeamento dos elementos da mente / consciência, elementos das sensações
Enfase na observação sistemática e controlada => contributo para a psicologia cognitiva

Introspeção: Pedir ao participante para descrever exatamente a sua experiência

durante a tarefa mental, tais como ver cores, ler uma página num livro, ou resolver
um problema matemático.
Participante a ler um livro- pode reportar que vê uma linha negra e curvas num
fundo branco

Tempos de reação: Wundt descobriu que os indivíduos demoravam mais tempo

para reportar o som que tinham ouvido do que tinham ouvido um som > Sensação é
diferente de Perceção do estímulo

 Edward Titchener
Aluno de Wundt, Fundou um laboratório nos EUA, Cornell University; Identificação
de mais de 40 mil sensações (visão, audição, sabor…); Demostração de que os eventos
mentais podiam ser quantificados, psicologia como ciência

Limitação: apenas introspeção como método; Dificuldade de relatar as sensações; processos

inconscientes difíceis de relatar

 Funcionalismo
Métodos: Introspeção, Questionários, Testes mentais, Experiências com animais
Limitação: Métodos não muito rigorosos

Aplicação da Teoria da Evolução de Darwin às características psicológicas > compreender

porque os animais e seres humanos desenvolveram aspetos psicológicos particulares; os
processos mentais são adaptativos; consciência é um contínuo, funcional, seletiva

“Functional psychology is interested in mental operations rather than in conscious

elements, but even mental operations in isolation are of little interest. Mental processes
mediate between the needs of the organism and the environment. That is, mental functions
help the organism survive. Behavioral habits allow an organism to adjust to familiar
situations; but when an organism is confronted with the unfamiliar, mental processes aid in
the adaptive process. Mind and body cannot be separated; they act as a unit in an
organism’s struggle for survival.”

Na atualidade o funcionalismo é a psicologia evolutiva

 John Dewey
Despite the fact that functionalism was never a well-defined school of thought, as
structuralism was, its founding is commonly attributed to John Dewey (1859–1952), even
though James, Münsterberg, and Hall certainly laid important groundwork.
Dewey’s primary argument was that dividing the elements of a reflex into sensory processes,
brain processes, and motor responses for analysis was artificial and misleading. According to
Dewey, dividing behavior into elements was no more justifiable than dividing consciousness
into elements. Showing the influence of James’s Principles, Dewey claimed that there is a
stream of behavior just as there is a stream of consciousness. The three elements of a reflex,
said Dewey, must be viewed as a coordinated system directed toward a goal, and this goal is
usually related to the survival of the organism.

 Edward Thorndike
Aprendizagem: ocorre gradualmente: ocorre sem envolvimento de processos mentais; os
mesmos princípios aplicam-se a todos os mamíferos, incluindo os humanos.
Thorndike’s work was to have a significant influence on psychology, and it can be seen as
representing the transition from the school of functionalism to the school of behaviorism.

 Psicologia Aplicada
Psicologia Aplicada é a ciência psicológica que procura conhecimento para resolver
problemas específicos; A Psicologia Aplicada concentra-se em encontrar formas de resolver
os problemas sociais e identificar soluções eficazes => resolução práticos humanos e sociais

 Munsterberg
Psicologia clinica, forense, industrial, educacional…

Clínica: Tratamento dos sintomas; alcoolismo, droga, fobias…

Forense: psicologia no interrogatório, deteção da mentira pela análise da pulsação e
respiração
Industrial: Testes para seleção dos trabalhadores; Processo de aprendizagem e formação;
marketing e publicidade
Educacional: Testes para avaliar as diferenças de aptidões individuais; curriculum escolar.

Surge como resposta a mudanças civilizacionais relevantes nos sistemas educativos

(democratização através da obrigatoriedade); Procura desenvolver procedimentos que
permitam uma escola inclusiva; Desenvolvimento de medidas padronizadas de avaliação e
estratégias para a educação especial; Os contributos de Binet e de Simon foram essenciais
para o desenvolvimento de medidas padronizadas de inteligência; A WWI trouxe uma
aceitação maior pelos testes psicológicos; As décadas de 20 e 30 trouxeram os primeiros
cursos de Psicologia da educação a vários níveis; O surgimento da APA permitiu um maior
reconhecimento.

 Galton
Percursor da Psicologia diferencial;
Estudo da herança das diferenças individuais;
Eugenesia: leis da herança e aperfeiçoamento da espécie
Inteligência: Observou diferenças na capacidade para experienciar imagens mentais;
permanência nas respostas aos estímulos

Galton assumed that intelligence is a matter of sensory acuity because humans can know the
world only through the senses. Thus, the more acute the senses, the more intelligent a
person was presumed to be. Furthermore, because sensory acuity is mainly a function of
natural endowment, intelligence is inherited. And if intelligence is inherited, as Galton
assumed, one would expect to see extremes in intelligence run in families. Assuming that
high reputation or eminence is an accurate indicator of high intellectual ability, Galton set
out to measure the frequency of eminence among the offspring of illustrious parents as
compared to the frequency of eminence among the offspring of the general population.
Galton’s conclusion raised a fascinating possibility: selective breeding. If intelligence is
inherited, could not the general intelligence of a people be improved by encouraging the
mating of bright people and discouraging the mating of people who were less bright?
Galton’s answer was yes. He called the improvement of living organisms through selective
breeding eugenics.

Galton (1874) clearly stated the nature—nurture controversy, which is still the
focus of much attention in modern psychology: The phrase “nature and nurture” is a
convenient jingle of words, for it separates under two distinct heads the innumerable
elements of which personality is composed. Nature is all that a man brings with Galton
(1874) clearly stated the nature—nurture controversy, which is still the focus of much
attention in modern psychology: The phrase “nature and nurture” is a convenient jingle of
words, for it separates under two distinct heads the innumerable elements of which
personality is composed. Nature is all that a man brings with

 Cattell
Investigação básica: psicofísica, tempos de reação, testes mentais; segue o pressuposto de
Galton que a inteligência pode ser estudada através dos processos sensoriais e motores

Under Galton’s influence, Cattell came to believe that intelligence was related to sensory
acuity and was therefore largely inherited

 Binet
Aluno de Wundt; Laboratório de psicologia experimental em Paris;
Testes de inteligência: criou com Simon, a escala Binet-Simon: previsão do desempenho
escola futuro das crianças; identificação de deficiências; diagnóstico da idade mental

In 1904 Binet and Simon set out to create tests that would differentiate between
intellectually normal and intellectually subnormal children. Their first step was to isolate
one group of children clearly diagnosed as normal and another group diagnosed as
subnormal. The second step was to test both groups in a number of different ways, hoping to
discover measurements that would clearly distinguish members of one group from the other.
Binet and Simon offered the Binet–Simon scale of intelligence as a valid way of
distinguishing between normal children and children with mental deficiencies—a way that
was to replace the less reliable physical, social, and educational signs being used at the time
to identify children with mental retardation.

We see in the Binet–Simon scale a reflection of Binet’s belief that intelligence is not a single
ability but several. With this belief Binet reflects faculty psychology, although he did not
accept the nativism that often accompanies such a rationalistic viewpoint. He did believe that
inheritance may place an upper limit on one’s intellectual ability, but he also believed that
almost everyone functions below their potential. Therefore, he believed strongly that
everyone could grow intellectually, and that fact should be of prime importance to educators.

 Psicologia Gestalt
About the same time that the behaviorists rebelled against structuralism and functionalism
in the United States, a group of young German psychologists were changing German
psychology. Whereas the focus of the behaviorists’ attack was against the study of
consciousness, these Germans assaulted Wundt’s elementism.
For them, the type of conscious experience Wundt and the structuralists investigated was
artificial.
These young psychologists believed that we do not experience things in isolated pieces, but
in meaningful, intact configurations. We do not see patches of green, blue, and red; we see
people, cars, trees, and clouds. These meaningful, intact, conscious experiences are what
psychology should concentrate on. Because the German word for “configuration,” or “form,”
is Gestalt, this new type of psychology was called Gestalt psychology.

In 1910 Max Wertheimer was on a train, on his way from Vienna to a vacation on the
Rhineland, when he had an idea. The idea was that our perceptions are structured in ways
that sensory stimulation is not. That is, our perceptions are different from the sensations
that comprise them. To further explore this notion, Wertheimer got off the train at
Frankfurt, bought a toy stroboscope (a device that allows still pictures to be flashed in such a
way that makes them appear to move), and began to experiment in a hotel room. Clearly,
Wertheimer was perceiving motion where none actually existed.