origins of psychology Flashcards
Who was Wilhelm Wundt?
- known as the father of Psychology and was the first person to call himself a psychologist
- in 1879 (in Germany) he set up the first laboratory dedicated purely to the scientific study of psychology
what did Wilhelm Wundt study/believe?
- believed that all aspects of nature including the human mind could be studied scientifically
- his aim was to study the structure of the mind (sensation and perception) and he only studied aspects of human behaviour that could be strictly controlled
Introspection
- the process by which a person gains knowledge about his or her own mental and emotional states as a result of examination or observation of their conscious thoughts and feelings
- technique used by Wundt
the first psychology laboratory
set up in 1879 in Germany by Wilhelm Wundt
Wundt’s approach/study
His aim was to study the structure of the mind and he believed the best way to do this was to break down behaviours such as sensation and perception into their basic elements. This approach is referred to as structuralism and the technique he used called introspection.
Wundt’s introspection experiments
- participants would engage in introspection
- comparison of thought of participants to same stimuli
- break down these thoughts into basic elements (structuralism)
- could then establish general theories about mental processes
structuralism
- the break down and analysis of these mental processes into their basic elements
- approach used by Wundt
significance of Wundt’s work
- Wundt’s work marked the separation of psychology from its early philosophical roots.
- He later recognised that higher mental processes were difficult to study using his procedures and this encouraged others to look for more appropriate methods and techniques, paving the way for approaches such as brains scanning.
- Introspection is still used today in areas such as therapy and studying emotional states demonstrating its value as one way mental processes can be investigated.
strengths of Wundt’s work
- controlled conditions (for the time)
- easily repeatable or to be rolled out on a wider scale
- still used in therapy today, beneficial to people - still has practical applications now
practical applications
has continued real-world use
limitations of Wundt’s work
- subjective, its not measurable
- its based on peoples accounts of their thoughts which is not entirely reliable (self-report method)
self-report method
when a subject has to give their own account for the research eg. their account of their conscious thoughts
- this is not a reliable source of data
unreliable
if somebody repeated the test, they would not be able to produce similar results
validity
- accurate and works all the time
- can’t have validity without reliability
the emergence of psychology as a science
- value of introspection as a scientific method of investigation was being questioned (particularly by Watson) because its data was too subjective and establishing general principles of behaviour was very difficult
- Watson suggests true scientific psychology should only study observable and measurable behaviour and was an advocate for empiricism
- this formed the basis of the behaviourist approach which would dominate psychology for next 50 years
- Watson brought the methods from natural sciences into Psychology: carefully controlled laboratory experiments to investigate behaviour
- focus on the experimental/scientific method has broadened further and the study of mental processes is now seen as a legitimate and highly scientific area within psychology
- advancements in technology have developed the ability to investigate physiological processes as they happen including sophisticated brain scanning techniques such as jMRI and EEG.
