ABSTRACT
Coincidentally with behaviourism’s rebellion in the United States, another very different rebellion, Gestalt Psychology, occurred in Germany. We may at the outset identify one underlying difference: behaviourism sought to become more scientific by emulating the behaviour of natural scientists, Gestalt psychologists by adopting the most advanced theoretical ideas of contemporary physics. Unlike behaviourists, they neither ignored consciousness nor reduced psychological phenomena to atomistic elementary units such as S-R connections, moves they felt were profoundly mistaken. In this chapter I will outline some of the central concepts developed by the three major Gestalt psychologists, Max Wertheimer (the movement’s founder), Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka, who were, as far as one can tell, in complete accord. I will then discuss its fate and some other figures associated with the school.
