Approaches: Origins of Psychology

Question 1

What is psychology?

Answer 1

the scientific study of the mind and behaviour

Question 2

What are the approaches you need to know?

Answer 2

• behavioural
• cognitive
• biological
• psychodynamic
• humanistic

Question 3

Who is the father of experimental psychology?

Answer 3

Wundt

Question 4

Describe Wundt’s contributions to psychology:

Answer 4

• opened an Institute for Experimental Psychology in Germany
• separated psychology from philosophy and focused on studying the mind scientifically
• introduced methods such as introspection to study the way people think and how people experience the world
• used a structuralist and reductionist approach

Question 5

What is introspection?

Answer 5

the examining of one’s own mental activity/conscious and breaking down conscious awareness into perceptions (thoughts) and sensations

Question 6

Describe the process of introspection:

Answer 6

• introspections were recorded under strict, controlled conditions, using the same physical surroundings, and the same stimulus (e.g. a clicking metronome)
• participants were given the same verbal instructions, and were asked to describe their experiences (thoughts, sensations, and feelings) when presented with the stimuli
• the reaction time of the participants were also recorded

Question 7

What is reductionism? What is structuralism?

Answer 7

• reductionism: the idea that things can be reduced to simple cause and effect processes
• structuralism: the idea that the underlying structure of human experience can be broken down into smaller, measurable parts

Question 8

How is introspection structuralist?

Answer 8

• participants were asked to break down their consious awareness into basic structures of thoughts and sensations
• the isolation of the structures of consciousness is known as structuralism

Question 9

Evaluation of instrospection:

Answer 9

• introspection is unreliable. participants provided very different introspective reports to the same stimulus.
• the validity and objectivity of introspection is questioned. because it is based on self report, their accounts cannot be verified. self report is also very subjective.
• introspection cannot be used to study children or animals, as they are not capable of expressing their thoughts and feelings.
• higher mental processes, such as a emotion, learning, personality, etc, cannot be investigated through introspection
• introspection does not explain how the mind works, as it relies on the description of thoughts and feelings, which is subjective to each person
• introspection can be used alongside other scientific methods to study though processes. it can provide useful insights into how specific groups of people think (e.g. gamblers), and the similarties of their thought processes.

Question 10

What is science?

Answer 10

science is the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experimentation

Question 11

What makes something a science?

Answer 11

• objectivity - observations should be recorded without bias / influence from other factors or other people
• control - observations should be made under controlled conditions to ensure they are valid (measuring what they intended to)
• predictability - observations should be used to predict future behaviour
• hypothesis testing - predictions from theories should be able to be tested to support or disprove the theory
• replication - experiments should be able to be replicated to ensure the reliability of the results

Question 12

How did psychology emerge as a science?

Answer 12

• J.B Watson was highly critical of introspection and its difficulty of finding generalised principles (results from introspection cannot be generalised to everyone, as they are highly specific to one person)
• he proposed that psychology should only study behaviour that can be observed and measured
• he suggested psychology should be studed empirically, using observations and experiments to gather facts and evidence
• this lead to the behaviourist approach

Question 13

What is empiricism?

Answer 13

the idea that knowledge should be gained through experience

Question 14

How is psychology a science?

Answer 14

• experiments and studies done to support theories are done using the scientific method
• this involved controlling variables, and using objective measurements to establish cause and effect relationships

Question 15

Evaluation of psychology as a science:

Answer 15

• strength: use of the scientific method separates fact from opinion, and so observations can be used to make inferences about the cause and effect of behaviour - this can applied practically in the real world.
• strength: use of the scientific method in experiments and studies mean that the results can be used to support theories, giving psychology credibility.
• strength: peer reviews mean that research is heavily scrutinised, increasing the validity of studies.
• weakness: by using the scientific method, experiments are often done in artificial conditions, to increase control. this means the studies often have low ecological validity, and so we do not know for sure how people behave in natural, real life environments.