Psychological Theories from a Structuralist Point of View

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. Psychological Theories from a Structuralist Point of View

   • Hans Westmeyer

   Pages 1-12

3. A Reconstruction of Sigmund Freud’s Early Theory of the Unconscious

   • W. Balzer, P. Marcou

   Pages 13-31

4. Festinger’s Theory of Cognitive Dissonance

   • Rainer Westermann

   Pages 33-62

5. A Net of Psychological Utility Theories

   • Ekkehard Stephan

   Pages 63-102

6. Anderson’s Theory of Cognitive Architecture (ACT*)

   • Elke Heise, Rainer Westermann

   Pages 103-127

7. Structuralism as a Method of Theory Construction

   • Martti Kuokkanen

   Pages 129-144

8. The Theory of Behavior Interaction

   • Hans Westmeyer

   Pages 145-185

9. Interruption of Action and Stress

   • H. Holling, R. Suck

   Pages 187-202

10. Back Matter

    Pages 203-213

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Metatheoretical and, more generally, methodological analyses of psychological problems and theories have a long tradition; however, their impact on scientific practice, especially on the clarification and testing of existing psychological theories and the formulation of new ones, has so far been less than spectacular. The increased interest in theoretical psychology visible during the past ten or twenty years is associated with the hope that a change of this situation will gradually be effected. Thus, in their preface to the proceedings of the founding conference of The International Society for Theoretical Psychology, Baker et al. (1987, pp. Vf)1 take up 2 once more the objectives of a theoretical psychology formulated by Koch already in 1951: (a) Education in the methodology and logic of science. (b) Analysis of methodological or foundational problems that are more or less unique to psychology. . .. (c) Internal systematization of suggestive, but formally defective, theoretical formulations. (d) Intertranslation and differential analysis of conflicting theoretical formulations. ( e) Construction of new theory. Reflecting on possible reasons for the relative inefficacy so far of methodological and metatheoretical analyses in psychology, it seems to me that the following two have been of prime importance: (1) Many of the existing analyses are at best tenuously connected to concrete existing psychological theories, i.e., they deal with their subject matter in a too abstract, detached way. This detracts from the persuasive power which their results might otherwise have, and impedes the realization of these results within scientific practice.

• Freud
• Freud, Sigmund
• Philosophy of Science
• Psychological Theories
• Structuralist Approach
• Strukturalismus
• The Unconscious
• Theoretical Psychology

• Institute of Psychology, Free University of Berlin, Berlin 33, Germany

  Hans Westmeyer

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