Max Wertheimer facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Max Wertheimer
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| Born | April 15, 1880 |
| Died | October 12, 1943 (aged 63) |
| Nationality | Austria-Hungary |
| Alma mater | University of Prague |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Psychology |
| Doctoral advisor | Oswald Külpe |
| Doctoral students | Rudolf Arnheim, Erika Fromm, Kurt Lewin |
| Influenced | Hans Cornelius Heinrich Klüver |
Max Wertheimer (born April 15, 1880 – died October 12, 1943) was a psychologist from what is now the Czech Republic. He was one of the three main people who started Gestalt psychology. The other two were Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler.
Wertheimer is famous for his book, Productive Thinking. He also came up with the idea of the phi phenomenon. This was a key part of his work in Gestalt psychology.
He became interested in psychology and studied at the University of Berlin. Later, he earned his PhD in 1904. He then started teaching at Frankfurt University. He also worked at the Berlin Psychological Institute for a while. In 1929, he became a full professor back in Frankfurt. Eventually, Wertheimer moved to the United States. He joined the faculty at The New School in New York. He taught there until he passed away.
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Early Life and Education
Max Wertheimer was born on April 15, 1880. This was in Prague, which was then part of Austria-Hungary. His parents were Wilhelm and Rosa Wertheimer. His father was an educator and financier. His mother, Rosa, had a great classical education. The Wertheimer family was very active in their Jewish community. Their home was a place of learning and ideas. Max learned a lot from his parents. He discussed politics and education at home. He also took piano and violin lessons. When he received a book by Baruch Spinoza as a gift, he became very interested in philosophy.
Max started school at age five. He went to a private elementary school run by the Piarist order. It was common for Jewish children in Central Europe to attend Catholic schools then. At age ten, he finished grammar school. He then enrolled in a high school that would prepare him for university. He began to think about his future. He realized he loved philosophy deeply.
He first studied law at Charles University. But he also explored philosophy, music, and psychology there. After one year, Max moved to the University of Berlin. There, he focused on philosophy. He worked with important thinkers like Carl Stumpf. In 1903, he earned his PhD from the University of Würzburg. His research there was about the lie detector.
Later Life and Moving to America
Max Wertheimer began his teaching career in Frankfurt. This university later became the University of Frankfurt. He left Frankfurt from 1916 to 1929. During this time, he worked at the Berlin Psychological Institute. He returned to Frankfurt in 1929 as a full professor. He stayed there until 1933.
In 1923, while teaching in Berlin, Wertheimer married Anna Caro. She was a doctor's daughter. They had four children together: Rudolf, Valentin, Michael, and Lise. Max and Anna Wertheimer divorced in 1942.
Wertheimer served as a captain in the army during World War I. After the war, he continued his research on perception and Gestalt psychology. He worked at the University of Berlin until 1933. However, in 1933, the government in Germany changed. Wertheimer felt his Jewish background put him in danger. He decided to leave Germany.
The Wertheimer family moved to the United States. Their move was arranged through the U.S. consulate in Prague. They arrived in New York on September 13, 1933. The family became American citizens. This is why Max Wertheimer is sometimes called a German-American psychologist.
When he moved to America, Wertheimer was 53 years old. He accepted a job at the New School for Social Research in New York City. He taught courses there for the last ten years of his life. He kept in touch with his friends and colleagues from Europe. Many of them had also moved to America. Kurt Koffka taught at Smith College. Wolfgang Köhler was at Swarthmore College. Kurt Lewin taught at Cornell University and the University of Iowa.
Even though his health was declining, Wertheimer kept working. He researched how people solve problems. He called this "productive thinking." He finished his only book, Productive Thinking, in September 1943. He died from a heart attack just three weeks later. This happened at his home in New Rochelle, New York. He is buried in Beechwoods Cemetery. His son, Michael Wertheimer, also became a psychologist.
Understanding the Phi Phenomenon
Max Wertheimer started the official founding of Gestalt psychology in 1910. He began by doing experiments on the phi phenomenon. He wrote about these experiments in a paper. It was called "Experimental Studies on the Perception of Movement."
The phi phenomenon is when you see movement even though nothing is actually moving. It happens when lights flash on and off in different places. Wertheimer showed this using a special machine. It had two separate lights in different spots. Even though the lights stayed still, when they flashed one after another, your eyes saw them as moving.
Wertheimer worked with his partners, Koffka and Köhler. They gathered information that led to the start of the Gestalt movement. Their findings showed that the whole picture is different from just adding up its parts. For example, with the phi phenomenon, you don't just see two flashing lights. You see one light moving. This is because your eye moves in response to the flashes. The researchers believed that human perception often creates these kinds of illusions. They thought it was more natural for our brains to connect events that happen close together.
Ideas on Productive Thinking
As a Gestalt theorist, Max Wertheimer was interested in how we see things. But he was also very interested in how we think. These ideas became the basis for his book, Productive Thinking. This book was published after he passed away in 1945.
Wertheimer wanted to show the difference between two types of thinking:
- Reproductive thinking is like repeating something you already know. It's about habits or familiar ideas.
- Productive thinking is about coming up with new ideas and breakthroughs. It's based on sudden understanding or "insight."
Wertheimer believed that only insightful thinking could truly help us understand problems. He encouraged learning traditional logic. He thought logic helped stimulate thinking. However, he also believed that logic alone wasn't enough for productive thinking. He felt that creativity was also very important.
In Productive Thinking, Wertheimer used real-life examples. He showed how people go from being confused (S1) to suddenly understanding everything clearly (S2). He pointed out that just following rules without understanding them stops you from finding the real solution. Max Wertheimer's ideas about productive thinking are still important today. They relate to modern ideas about how we organize our knowledge.
What is Gestalt Theory?
Wertheimer developed his Gestalt theory in 1910. He was on a train from Vienna, going on vacation. The word "Gestalt" doesn't have one perfect English translation. It can mean things like "configuration," "form," "holistic," "structure," or "pattern."
According to Gestalt psychology, our perception is about seeing things as a whole. This means how we see things can shape what we experience with our eyes and other senses. The theory also says that the whole is not just bigger than its parts. It's also different from those parts. For example, a melody is more than just a collection of notes. It's the way the notes fit together.
By 1920, Wertheimer added that the properties of any part are controlled by the overall structure of the whole. Wertheimer and his colleagues at The New School worked on Gestalt psychology. Their ideas were different from the behavioral approach to psychology.
Wertheimer helped start the cognitive school of psychology. His ideas also challenged other ways of thinking. For example, he disagreed with structuralism and atomism. These ideas focused on small parts of an object. But Wertheimer and other Gestalt psychologists cared more about the whole picture.
See also
- Berlin School of experimental psychology
- Nicola Cuomo
