gestalt psychology
noun
Simple meaning
A theory of psychology that emphasizes the importance of configurational properties.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
guhstahltsykahluhjeeIPA pronunciation (US)
ɡəstɑltsaɪkɑlədʒi
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
psychology
A theory of psychology that emphasizes the importance of configurational properties
psychology
A school of psychology that emerged in the early twentieth century in Austria and Germany as a theory of perception, that was a rejection of basic principles of Wilhelm Wundt's and Edward Titchener's elementalist and structuralist psychology.
Alternative letter-case form of Gestalt psychology.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A theory of psychology that emphasizes the importance of configurational properties
Used this way, gestalt psychology is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in academic writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Formal and precise
Where it naturally appears
- Academic writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.