Wolfgang Köhler
German psychologist and co-founder of Gestalt psychology
German psychologist who, with Max Wertheimer and Kurt Koffka, developed Gestalt psychology. He is known for his work with chimpanzees on Tenerife, which he interpreted as insight rather than blind trial and error.
Why this person matters
Köhler's ape studies became a standard counterexample to purely trial-and-error accounts of animal learning, and his 1929 book Gestalt Psychology reached an American audience. He also published a protest against the Nazi dismissal of Jewish professors in 1933 and left Germany in 1935.
Main contributions
Insight in chimpanzees
From 1913 to 1920 he directed the Prussian Academy of Sciences' primate station on Tenerife; the First World War kept him there. His report (German 1917, English 1925 as The Mentality of Apes) argued that chimpanzees solved problems with insight rather than blind trial and error.
Gestalt theory
With Wertheimer and Koffka he developed Gestalt psychology; he and Koffka were Wertheimer's first experimental subjects around 1910. His 1929 book Gestalt Psychology was written for American readers. He also proposed psychophysical isomorphism: that experienced order matches the structure of activity in the brain.
Berlin Institute
From 1922 he was professor and director of the Psychological Institute at the University of Berlin, succeeding Carl Stumpf. With his student Hedwig von Restorff he studied the role of uniqueness in memory, an effect still called the von Restorff effect.
Context and limits
Köhler's own tests of isomorphism did not settle it: Neisser's memoir says he never proved that brain currents play the role the hypothesis gives them. A biographical account adds that his ape experiments did not fully control for prior experience or imitation, so some trial and error may have occurred. In 1933 he published a protest against the dismissal of Jewish professors; after refusing a loyalty oath to Hitler, he resigned and moved to the United States in 1935.
In your introductory course
Sensation and perception.Appears in the learning chapter as the insight experiments with chimpanzees, and in the perception chapter as part of Gestalt psychology.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 1.2. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1909
Received his PhD from Carl Stumpf at Berlin with a thesis on acoustics.
- 1913
Became director of the Prussian Academy's anthropoid research station on Tenerife.
- 1922
Became professor and director of the Psychological Institute at the University of Berlin.
- 1929
Published Gestalt Psychology for an American audience.
- 1935
Resigned in Berlin and took up a professorship at Swarthmore College.
Sources
- National Academy of Sciences, Wolfgang Köhler: A Biographical Memoir (Neisser)Society or association. Institutional biography inspected.
- New World Encyclopedia, Wolfgang KöhlerReference work. Reference article inspected.
- Gifford Lectures, Wolfgang KöhlerUniversity. Institutional biography inspected.