Origins of psychology

Question 1

Wundt

Answer 1

Known as father of psychology

Identified importance of higher mental processes (learning, language, emotions, etc) and how they could not be studied in a strictly controlled manner

Believed all internal mental processes could be studied experimentally using introspection

Question 2

Introspection

Answer 2

Systematic analysis of one’s own conscious experiences including all sensations and emotional reactions

E.g. person could be asked to focus on a maths problem and report on every sensation, feeling and thought they experienced whilst completing it. The psychologist would then systematically and objectively record everything the person said and use it to infer how the mind works when completing such a task.

Question 3

Inference

Answer 3

Making an assumption about the way mental processes work on the basis of observed behaviour

Question 4

Wundt’s focus

Answer 4

On trying to understand psychological processes including perception and consciousness rather than philosophical or biological processes

Later recognised that higher mental processes were difficult to study using his procedures, and encouraged others to look for more appropriate methods and techniques, therefore paving the way for approaches such as the cognitive approach and brain scanning techniques

Question 5

Wundts method (introspection) strength er

Answer 5

Experimentally reductionist

Which is when a theory explains behaviour in terms of cause (IV) and effect (DV)

This is because wundt’s theory focused on experimental study of the mind by breaking up conscious awareness into basic structures of thoughts, images and sensations

Therefore, Wundt’s theory led to the development of psychology as a science and more specifically provided the foundations for the cognitive approach

Question 6

Limitation u

Answer 6

Aspects of his research would be seen as unscientific today

Wundt relied on participants self-reporting their private mental processes. Such data is subjective and participants may not have wanted to reveal some of the thoughts they were having

Participants would also not have had exactly the same thoughts every time, so establishing general principles would not have been possible. General laws are useful to predict future behaviour, one of the aims of science

Wundt’s early efforts to study the mind were naive and would not meet the criteria of scientific enquiry today

Question 7

Strength s of emergence of psychology as a science

Answer 7

Modern research can claim to be scientific

Psychology aims to describe, understand, predict and control behaviour

The learning approach, cognitive approach and biological approach all rely on the use of scientific methods, for example, lab studies are used to investigate theories in a controlled and unbiased way

Throughout the 20th century and beyond, psychology has established itself as a scientific discipline

Question 8

Limitation of emergence of psychology as a science

Answer 8

Not all approaches use objective measures

The humanistic approach is anti-scientific and doesn’t attempt to formulate general laws of behaviour. It is concerned only with documenting unique subjective experience

The psychodynamic approach makes use of the case study method, based on interview techniques which are open to bias, and no attempt is made to gather a representative sample of the population

For this reason, many claim that a scientific approach to the study of human thought and experience is not possible, nor is it desirable, as there are important differences between the subject matter of psychology and the natural sciences