Describe Gestalt Psychology and its key concepts (in your own words), including

Question

Describe Gestalt Psychology and its key concepts (in your own words), including how it is different from behaviorism.

Thinking back over all of the psychology courses you have taken, what contributions of Gestalt Psychology, or remnants of Gestalt Psychology, do you see in modern psychology? Explain how aspects of modern psychological science show roots in Gestalt Psychology. Note that this question is not about how you see Gestalt Psychology in modern life, but is about how this historical viewpoint impacts the scientific field today. Do you see any examples of Gestalt Psychology and Behaviorism coming together in modern psychology?

Explanation / Answer

Gestalt psychology focuses on the way we perceive things- we perceive stimuli in connection with one another and in reference to it's context. i.e., our perception is holistic.Gestalt in German means "Whole". We are bombarded with several stimuli each day and Gestalt psychology basically helps us perceive these stimuli in groups and interpret them. It tells us how we perceive stimuli in an organised manner. In layman terms, Our brain forces us to reduce the chaos created by bombarded information from the many parts and tries to create a relation, form a group and then assign these parts to the group. Gestalt Psychology revolves around the mantra "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts" and states that we perceive the things around us in relation with each other. as a group. as a whole. as similar to each other. Gestalt Therapists often focus on where energy is in the body, how it is used, and how it may be causing a blockage. Blocked energy is a form of resistance, for example, tension in a part of the body, not breathing deeply, or avoiding eye contact. Gestalt Therapy is about finding and releasing the blockages that may be inhibiting awareness. The five principles of Gestalt are simple but influential laws of visual perception, stemming from Gestalt theory in psychology. The principle of similarity states that if objects or units look similar to one another, then they will be visually perceived as part of a group, structure or pattern. For example, if units share similarities in characteristics such as shape, color or size, the human mind will group these units together. The continuity priniciple, law of perception states that humans seek relationships between units and therefore will follow shapes and lines beyond their ending points. Human perception tends to continue the created order or pattern rather than deviate from what has already been established. The law of continuity works with spatial patterns, but also across time as well. For example, as opposed to hearing individual notes, listeners tend to hear a melody. The figure-ground principle holds that human perception separates an object from its surrounding. A unit is either perceived as either a "figure"-- the object of focus or the ground -- the surrounding background area. The law of proximity maintains that humans tends to visually group units or shapes together if they are close to each other. Items far apart from each other are perceived as separate. For example, readers tend to see words composed of letter units as wholes, because the specific letters are closer to each other in each group. The law of closure exists when human perception tends to see complete, whole figures, even if there are gaps or missing pieces of information. The human brain has a tendency to close gaps and provide the missing information, especially when the pattern or form is familiar. For this closure to occur, the gaps between the pattern or form must be easily filled. This principle is used in cartoon animation to create motion between still images. The Gestalt psychologists were the first to challenge the behaviorist point of view. They criticized behaviorism for its reductionistic tendencies, and felt it was too dependent on external behaviors to explain learning. Gestalt psychology has impacted the field of psychology to a huge extent mainly in terms of perception, memory and learning and is used even today. The concept of isomorphism which means similiar,is used in modern scientific psychological field to study visual perception,i.e. how people perceive similar objects in space and color,and the damage can lead to what perceptual problems. Gestalt therapy is also used till today which focuses raising an individual's needs, senses, feelings as well as boundaries. It contributes to the individual well-being and self-respect. Gestalt therapy is a form of self-discovery and it gives patients the necessary skills to face stressful situations.Till today,it helps people to understand their actions and behaviours better.

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