Chapter 10: The Role of Observational Methodology and The Application of Film in Early American and European Developmental Psychology

The thesis of the existence of two different cultures in psychological thinking is traced back to fundamental distinctions of models for psychological functioning like those, for example, offered by Kant (1724–1804) (1781/1968, 1788/1968) and Tetens (1736–1807) (1777/1979) on the one side, and Locke (1632–1704) (1690/1911) and Hume (1711–1776) (1748/1964) on the other. These two strains of theories about human thinking can be followed over time into the various models and world views in today’s psychology. This schism is present even in developmental psychology as in the view on the developing child in two basically different perspectives: as a personality endowed with the possibility to rationality and morally, intentions and motifs, on the one hand, or as a perceiving subject, dependent from the incoming stimuli, a product of drives and learning processes, based on stimulus-reaction chains, on the other. To put it in drastic terms, a full-fledged individual and intentional human being with high developmental potential against a more or less mechanical construction reacting to inner or outer forces.