Summary Of Spencer, James And Hollingworth Tested Ideas

Heather Gomez
Psychology 4302
20th Nov. 2017
Mod. 4 Assign. 7
Spencer, James and Hollingworth Tested Ideas In this short essay the ideas of Spencer, James, and Hollingworth will be discussed from the textbook, “A History of Modern Psychology.” This essay will take a look at how each understood the ideas from survival; consciousness and genetic makeup in order to better understand how others view the human body and its abilities. Herbert Spencer believed in Social Darwinism because he thought that all individuals in order to survive had to be able to adapt in order to survive the worlds tough conditions. The conditions could include economic and social systems directed by the government. He did not like that governments could intervene

James also did experimentation with altered states of mind using different medicines to see how the human mind and conscious was affected. James views of the mind and how it worked were very different from William Wundt’s ideas that he admired. He believed that the conscious was a learned part of a person’s experiences that could be inaccurate or could vary depending on their own personal perspectives. He believed that the conscious of a person was constantly changing and so any attempt to sort it from its stream of ideas would distort its original form and not shows the true identity of the conscious thoughts. The never-ending process of thoughts he referred to as a “stream of consciousness” that is important to humankind’s ability to survive in harsh environments even though, it is an imperfect thought process. The ability for a person to use introspective observation allowed for a person to balance their consciousness by weighing where the thoughts were coming from and if they were valid. He believed that the ability to examine and understand a person’s thought process could help people with mental problems. He believed in order to help the mentally ill he would have to look into their ideas and test them to find if they were rational conclusions. James also tested a person’s reaction to physical action to discover a person’s emotional state and what it could show about their consciousness. He found that people separate different sides of their identity by what they have (material self), with whom and exactly how they socialize with groups (social self) and who they believe they are internally (spiritual self). He also considered that who is can be influenced by their daily habits and their ability to control