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MENTAL MODEL · M1994

Gestalt Psychology

Gestalt Psychology
BehaviorHigh supportPsychology
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Version 1.0.0 · Updated 2026-07-30

CORE DEFINITION

Emphasizes the holistic nature of psychological phenomena, asserting that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and opposes the elementaristic approach that decomposes conscious experience into elements.

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Gestalt psychology, gestaltism, or configurationism is a school of psychology, and a theory of perception, that emphasizes psychologically processing entire patterns (and "configurations"), not merely individual components of situations or events separately. It emerged in the early twentieth centur…

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Advocates that psychological phenomena should be studied as organized wholes, with perception and thinking following the laws of prägnanz, opposing elemental reductionism. The whole precedes and determines the parts.

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Source support: Explicit

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    en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychologyZH · Explicit
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