lesson 1

Question 1

What is a science?

Answer 1

a science is a means of acquiring knowledge through systematic and objective investigation. The aim is to discover general laws.

Question 2

define psychology

Answer 2

Psychology is defined as the scientific study of the human mind, behaviour an experience.

Question 3

John locke - empiricism

Answer 3

the belief that all knowledge is derived from sensory experience and can be studies using scientific methods - which had an influence on the emergence of psychology as a science.

Question 4

what was Wilhelm Wundt’s contribution to psychology

Answer 4

• published the first book on psychology ‘ principles of physiological psychology’
• in 1879 opened the first lab in leipzig Germany, and considered the ‘father of psychology’.
• he separated psychology from philosophy.
• promoted the use of introspection in order to study the structure of the human mind - called structuralism.
• he mainly studied reaction time, sensation and perception.
• his work paved the way for later co trolled research and the study of mental processes eg by cognitive psychologists.

Question 5

How is introspection carried out?

Answer 5

The sound of a metronome is played and we need to write down anything that we can think of when we hear the sound such as thoughts images and sensations. We are also exposed to pictures such as fire and told to write down how it makes us feel.

Question 6

What is introspection?

Answer 6

Means ‘looking into’ and refers to the process of observing and examining your own conscious thoughts or emotions into basic structures eg. thoughts images and sensations.

Question 7

What is the purpose of introspection?

Answer 7

• way of understanding a person’s inner world.
• e.g. ppts are shown an image or a sound is played and asked to describe the inner process when viewing the image or hearing the tone.
• they can compare people’s responses to make theories about thinking and perception.
• Wundt’s aim was the study - the structure of the mind by breaking down behaviours such as perception and sensation into their basic elements. This is known as structuralism.

Question 8

What made Wundt’s introspection scientific?

Answer 8

There was no set limits on the tasks they studied or make any judgements about the relevance of the thoughts.
- he strictly controlled the environments when introspection took place.
- controlled the stimuli and tasks that ppts were asked to think about.
- trained his ppts to give the most detailed observations possible.
- this is known as implementing standardised procedures - every step of the research all the ppts are treated in exactly the same way and all have the same experience.
- Wundt established psychology as a science by using the scientific method - his ideas would lead to multiple different psychological perspectives.

Question 9

Introspection is?

Answer 9

Investigating internal events by examining conscious thoughts and feeling.

Question 10

introspection involves…

Answer 10

reporting present experience

Question 11

scientific method - strength

Answer 11

• Methods were systematic and well controlled.
• instructions and procedures were standardized so all ppts received the same info and tested in the same way.
• introspections were recorded in a controlled environments ensuring possible extraneous variables were not a factor.
• Wundt’s way of research can be an example of later scientific approaches in psychology.

Question 12

Subjective data - limitation

Answer 12

• other aspects of his research would be considered unscientific today.
  -he relied on ppts self reporting their mental processes.
• data collection is subjective (influenced by personal perspective) and thoughts are hidden which means it is difficult to establish ‘laws of behaviour’ from such data. in science general laws of behaviour are useful to predict future behaviour which is one of the aims of science.
• some of his attempts to study the mind were flawed and would not meet the criteria of scientific enquiry.

Question 13

what approaches were founded in chronological order?

Answer 13

learning approaches -
behaviourist and social learning theory
biological approach
cognitive approach
humanistic approach
psychodynamic approach

Question 14

modern psychology - strength

Answer 14

research in modern psychology can claim to be scientific.
has the same aims as natural sciences - to describe understand predict and control behaviour.
the learning approaches, cognitive approach and biological approach rely on the use of scientific methods for example lab studies to investigate theories in a controlled and unbiased way.
throughout the 20th century and beyond psychology has established itself in a scientific discipline.

Question 15

subjective data - limitation

Answer 15

psychology is that not all approaches use subjective methods.
the humanistic approach rejects the scientific approach preferring to focus on individual experiences and subjective experience.
a scientific approach to the study of human thought and experience may not always be desirable or possible.

Question 16

paradigm - limitation

Answer 16

Kuhn argued that any science must have a paradigm a set of principles assumptions and methods that all people who work within a subject agree on.
psychology does not have a paradigm as there is so much internal disagreement.
this suggests that psychology cannot be classified as a science as different approaches believe in a different set of assumptions and methods of studying human behaviour.