Titchener’s Relativistic View of Observation and Psychological Processes

Abstract

Hunt makes some very significant points on earlier introspective psychologies which have been either missed, ignored, or misinterpreted by earlier writers on the subject. This is particularly true of the introspective psychology of Edward Bradford Titchener. The nature of Titchener’s psychology was widely misinterpreted and misconstrued even in his own lifetime and has fared even worse since his death. E. G. Boring (1927) called Titchener’s psychology a “cardinal point in the national scientific orientation”:

The clear-cut opposition between behaviorism and its allies, on the one hand, and something else, on the other, remains clear only when the opposition is between behaviorism and Titchener, mental tests and Titchener, or applied psychology and Titchener. (p. 489)