Discuss the basic tenets of phrenology. Also discuss the reasons for phrenology’s popularity and its influence on psychology.
Franz Joseph Gall believed that faculties of the mind transforms and acts on the sensory information that changed the entire history of faculty psychology. Thus, Gall suggested that the magnitude of one’s own faculties could be determined by depressions of skull regions and studying the bumps that collectively refers to as the concept of phrenology.
In context with phrenology, Gall was considered as the first person that relates certain behavior patterns and distinct personality traits to study the functions of brain. He also noted that some individuals had a pleasant personality traits and a well-developed brain structure that attributes to each other functions. Thus, after observing such as relationship in one individual, he would generalize it to all other individuals.
Phrenology became enormously popular and embraced by some of the leading physiologists in Europe. It became popular due to the reputation of Gall’s considerable approach that provided enough hope for a materialistic and objective analysis of the mind actions and thoughts. It also offers practical information about mental philosophy that is one of the main reasons for the popularity of phrenology.
Phrenology also influences psychology in a number of different ways that are as follows:-
1. It distinctively argued that the brain and mind are closely related to each other.
2. It stimulated intense research on the localization of the functions of the brain.
3. It focused on the importance of furnishing practical information.