Approaches- Origins of Psychology

Question 1

What is psychology?

Answer 1

The scientific study of the mind and behaviour

Question 2

What are the different approaches?

Answer 2

Behavioural, cognitive, biological, psychodynamic and humanistic

Question 3

Who is Wilhelm Wundt?

Answer 3

He opened the first psychology lab in Germany in 1879

Question 4

What is introspection?

Answer 4

Breaking up conscious processes into thoughts, images and sensations

Question 5

What did Wundt use introspection to study?

Answer 5

Sensation and perception

Question 6

What are problems with introspection?

Answer 6

• Doesn’t explain how the mind works as it relies on people describing thoughts and feelings, which isn’t usually objective
• Doesn’t provide reliable data because people are reporting on their own experiences

Question 7

What is reductionism?

Answer 7

The idea that things can be reduced to simple cause-and-effect processes

Question 8

What are the features that make something a science?

Answer 8

Objectivity, control, predictability, hypothesis testing and replication

Question 9

What are the arguments for psychology being a science?

Answer 9

• Allport said psychology has the same aims as science- to predict, understand and control
• Behaviourist, cognitive and biological approaches all use scientific procedures which are usually controlled and unbiased

Question 10

What are the arguments against psychology being a science?

Answer 10

• Other approaches in psychology are unreliable as they don’t use objective methods
• Hard to get a representative sample so findings can’t be reliably generalised
• Psychology experiments are often open to extraneous variables