Discuss the Zeitgeist in American psychology in the second decade of the twentieth century with reference to ideas promoted by the structuralists and functionalists.
The appreciation of the requirement for bigger objectivity for psychology has a huge history. It could be traced back to Descartes, where explanations of mechanism in the operations of an individual were from the earlier steps to the science which was objective.
More significant in the objectivism history is Auguste Comte, a philosopher from France, author of the exercise called positivism which emphasized optimistic knowledge, the certainty for the same, was not questionable.
According to him, the only authentic knowledge is the one which is observed objectively and is naturally social. Such criteria pervert introspection depending on the consciousness which is private to the individual and could not be observed objectively.
By the initial years of 20th century, positivism became the part of Zeitgeist. Watson had hardly discussed about positivism in his articles, nor did any other psychologist from those days, there was no requirement for it.