Possible Topics
for the papers

  • Such papers are not adequate for the highly specialized meeting in Landau which deal only with modern research on judgment, decision, or choice with no relationship to “authentic Brunswik”.
  • Of course the actual paper can combine aspects of
    1. Brunswik’s ideas (developed between 1927 and 1955) with
    2. modern psychological research.
      But at all event the focus of the paper must be a part of “original Brunswik”.
  • The following list of “topics” is only a first orientation, an offer made by Bernhard Wolf for the localization of the paper.

Topics

  • Probabilistic Functionalism (general concept) (Brunswik, 1955a, 1955b)
  • Principle: Functionalism (Brunswik, 1949b, 1955a, 1955b)
  • Principle: Probabilism (Brunswik, 1939b, 1943; 1952, 1955a; Brunswik & Herma 1951)
  • Principles: Achievement, attainment, accomplishment
  • Principles: Intention, teleology
  • Principle: Survival (Natural Sciences)
  • Grundlegung einer Psychologie vom Gegenstand her (Brunswik, 1934a, 1936a, 1936b) Psychology in terms of objects (Brunswik, 1936c, 1937)
  • Structure of the relation between organism and environment (Brunswik, 1939a, 1952; Wolf, 1995, 2000a web-essay on Brunswik.org).

    Input, information (“Brunswik’s focus”) on the “left side” vs.
    Output, action (“Tolman’s focus”) on the “right side”
    Past vs. Future
    (Causal texture of the environment: Tolman & Brunswik, 1935)
  • Regions: far remote, distal, proximal, peripheral, center of organism (cf. Heider; Koffka): distance towards the center of the organism, on both sides
    • Heider / Koffka
    • Brunswik (1939a, 1952), Wolf (1995, 2000a web-essay on Brunswik.org)
  • Organism
  • Environment
    (semierratic)
  • Subject-dependence of the environment (for example, Lewin) vs.
    Object-relation of the environment (for example, Brunswik) vs.
    Combination of both perspectives (for example, Wolf)
  • Molar vs. molecular (compare: Tolman’s “molar behaviourism”)
  • Life situation (Alltag)
  • Process: “The central navigation” of the interaction between organism and environment: The “lens”
  • Heider’s conception of a lens-paradigm, earlier than Brunswik (Heider, 1926; Wolf, 2003b, 2004a web essay on Brunswik.org)
    1. A precursor-lens-model (Brunswik, 1934a, pp. 96-97 / Habilitationschrift in Vienna)
    2. The classical “lens model” (Brunswik, 1952, p. 20; Wolf, 1995, 2006a web essay on Brunswik.org)
    3. Extension of the classical lens model - double lens - (Brunswik, 1952, p. 51)
    4. Extensions of the lens model by other, modern researchers (often deviant from Brunswik’s ideas)
  • Principle: Vicarious functioning
    (Brunswik 1952; Wolf, 1997, 1999 web essay on Brunswik.org)
  • Principle: Functional validity
  • Principle: Focussing
  • Principle: Redundancy
  • Principle: Balance (compare: Heider)
  • Principle: Utilization
  • Principle: Rivalry and compromise
  • Principle: Mediation (cf. Heider, 1926: Ding und Medium = thing and medium)
  • Principle: Stray effects (Heider, Brunswik)
  • Principle: Ecological validity (concept of Brunswik, deviant from Bronfenbrenner)
    (Brunswik, 1952; Wolf, 2002).
  • Principle: Equivocality, ambiguity
    (Wolf, 1984, 1996, 2001)
  • Principle: Univocality
    (see Equivocality)
  • Ecological Psychology (concept of Brunswik, deviant from Barker)
  • Psychological Ecology (concept of Brunswik)
  • Cognition
    Ratio, rationality, reasoning, ratiomorphism
    (Brunswik, 1948, 1955c, 1957, 1966)
    1. Intuition, irrationality, perception, creative thinking, being of probable things, intuitive statistician, insufficient evidence, wagering, posit, primordial, organic, biological, equivocal (accuracy: “Correspondence”: Hammond)
      (compare Gigerenzer, for example: “gut feelings”, 2007, and earlier books)
    2. Quasi-Rationality
    3. Ratiocination: Perfection of arithmetic inference, precision, thinking, univocal (analysis: “Coherence”: Hammond)
  • Wahrnehmung (1933, 1934a, 1934b, 1938b)
    Perception (1956a, p. 146)
  • Size constancy – Dingkonstanz (1935b, 1940a, 1940b, 1944; Brunswik & Cruikshank)
  • Social perception (1939c, 1945; Brunswik & Reiter, 1937)
  • Brunswik’s perspective of the history of psychology (Brunswik, 1956b, 1959; Wolf, 1985)
  • Einheitswissenschaft
    Unity of science, Unified science
    (Brunswik, 1938a, 1939a, 1943, 1952)
    • Die Eingliederung der Psychologie in die exakten Wissenschaften (1938a)
    • The conceptual focus of some psychological systems (1939a)
    • Conceptual framework of psychology (1952)
  • Principle: Redundancy
  • Principle: Compromise
  • Principle: Complementary solution
    (Brunswik 1943, Footnote 8, page 271; Wolf 1986)
  • Textbook “Experimental Psychology” (1935)
  • Representative Design
    (Brunswik, 1949a, 1951, 1955a, 1955b, 1956a; Dhami et al., 2004
    Wolf 2003a, 2004b, 2005a web-essay on Brunswik.org; many papers for German meetings: realizations of the representative Design in Educational Psychology /two published papers in books, 2005c & 2006h, and one draft for a journal, 2007)
  • Gedächtnis = Memory (Brunswik, Goldscheider & Pilek, 1932)
  • Cross reference to Gestalt-Psychology
  • Cross reference to behaviorism
  • Cross reference to Kurt Lewin
  • The 1941-Chicago-debate (Brunswik, Hull, Lewin)
    (Brunswik, 1943; Hull, 1943; Lewin, 1943)
  • Cross reference to and cooperation with Edward C. Tolman in Vienna and Berkeley
  • Cross reference to Fritz Heider
  • Cross reference to Einheitswissenschaft (Vienna) and (later) Unity of Science Movement (USA)
  • Cross reference to psychoanalysis (Freud in Vienna)
  • Cross reference to Else Frenkel-Brunswik (especially psychoanalysis)
  • Cross reference to (the young) Kenneth R. Hammond in Berkeley (Brunswik, 1951)