Wolfgang Köhler - Gestalt Psychology

Gestalt Psychology

In 1910-13, he was an assistant at the Psychological Institute in Frankfurt in which he worked with fellow psychologists Max Wertheimer and Kurt Koffka. He and Koffka functioned as subjects for Wertheimer’s now-famous studies of apparent movement (or the phi phenomenon), which led them in turn to conclusions about the inherent nature of vision. They collaborated on the founding of a new holistic attitude toward psychology called Gestalt theory (from the German word for “whole"), aspects of which are indebted to the earlier work of Stumpf (Köhler’s teacher) and Christian von Ehrenfels (whose lectures at the University of Prague Wertheimer had attended). In an introduction to the book The Task of Gestalt Psychology, Carroll Pratt emphasizes Köhler’s irritation regarding a misinterpretation of his famous quote, “The whole is different from the sum of its parts”. Though perhaps a simple error made in translation, many lectures in textbooks of modern-day psychology quote Gestalt theory by saying “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. It is difficult to imagine that a translation error occurred here, especially when considering that ‘greater’ translates to ‘größer’ and ‘different’ translates to ‘unterschiedlich’ in German, respectively. Considering Köhler’s frustration towards this error, one must assume that these two minor variations of the quote harness different meanings. When the word ‘greater’ is used, it implies that the whole still resembles the parts that created it. However, when the word ‘different’ is used, as Köhler originally stated, it implies that the whole bears no resemblance to the parts creating it.