James Mill's Contributions to Psychology

James Mill's Associationism

• James Mill believed that all mental events consisted of sensations and ideas (copies of sensations) held together by association.
• He argued that no matter how complex an idea was, it could be reduced to simple ideas.
• Mill's most significant contribution to psychology was his book "Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind".

Factors Affecting Association Strength

• Mill believed that two factors caused variation in strengths of associations: vividness and frequency.
• He referred to frequency or repetition as "the most remarkable and important cause of the strength of our associations".
• Vividness is affected by:
  • Sensations being more vivid than ideas, resulting in stronger associations between sensations.
  • Sensations and ideas associated with pleasure or pain being more vivid and forming stronger associations.
  • Recent ideas being more vivid and forming stronger associations than more remote ideas.

Relationship with Jeremy Bentham and Utilitarianism

• James Mill met Jeremy Bentham, and the two became close, lifelong friends.
• Bentham was the major spokesman for the British political and ethical movement called utilitarianism.
• Utilitarianism believes that the best society or government is one that provides the greatest good (happiness) for the greatest number of individuals.
• Bentham defined human happiness entirely in terms of the ability to obtain pleasure and avoid pain.

Legacy of James Mill's Work

• Mill's "Analysis" is regarded as the most complete summary of associationism.
• He gave us a conception of the mind based on Newtonian physics, where mental experience was as predictable as physical events.
• James Mill's professed goal was to provide the details of associationism that were lacking in Hartley's account.
• His son, John Stuart Mill, was among the first to revise the purely mechanistic, elementistic view of his father.