Origins of Psychology Flashcards
Who was the original psychologist
Wilhelm Wundt
What did Wilhelm Wundt do for psychology
His work paved the way for psychology as a science. He made experimental psychology the preffered method of studying the human mind
Where was Wundts labarotory and what did he do there
Leipzig, he exclusively studied actions which could be controlled under experimental conditions, such as reaction time and various aspects of sensation or perception
How did Wundt believe we should study the structure of the human mind
Break behaviours like sensation or perception into the basic elements
What methods did Wilhelm Wundt use
Structuralism and Introspection
What is introspection
Introspection is the process by which a person gains knowledge about their own mental and emotional states as a result of examination or observation of their conscious thoughts and feelings
How deep did Wundt believe introspection could go
Wundt claimed that with sufficient training, mental processes such as memory and perception could be observed systematically as they occurred during introspection
What is an example of one of Wundt’s studies
In Wundt’s studies of perception, participants were presented with carefully controlled stimuli visual images or auditory tones. They would then be asked to provide a description of the inner processes they were experiencing as they looked at the images or listened to the tones. This made it possible to compare different participants reports in response to the same stimuli, and establish general theories about perception or other mental processes
What did Wilhelm Wundt eventually realise
That higher mental processes such as learning, language and emotions could not be studied in this strictly controlled manner
What did Wundt say mental processes like learning, language and emotions had to be described as
Volkerpsychologie or cultural psychology, which describes the general trends in behaviour among groups of people
What are the two fundamental assumptions of scientific psychology
That behaviour is being caused, the assumption of determinism
Because behaviour is determined, then it should be possible to predict how human beings would behave in different conditions
What must investigative methods be to ensure they are scientific
Objective, Systematic and Replicable
What does making an investigation Objective mean
Researchers do not let preconcieved ideas and biases influence the collection of their data
What does making an investigation Systematic mean
That studies should be carried out in an orderly way so that it may be replicated precisely
What does making an investigation Replicable mean
Studies must be able to be done by other researchers to test reliability. If studies are not reliable they should not be accepted as being universally true
How does the development of theories infuence the scientific cycle
The development of scientific theories using these tests and the refining of these theories through further testing completes the scientific cycle
Why might introspection remain relevant to psychology
Although it rapidly fell out of favour as a research tool, it has made a comeback in recent years. Hunter et al used introspective methods as a way of making ‘happiness’ a measurable phenomenon. They gave a group of teenage participants beepers that went off at random times throughout the day, requiring them to write down their thoughts and feelings at the time of the bleep. Most entries indicated that teens were unhappy, but when their energies were focused on challenging tasks they tended to be more upbeat
What is a major flaw of introspection
It is inaccurate. Nisbett and Wilson claim that an individual has very little knowledge of the causes of and processes underlying our behaviour and attitudes. They found this problem to be particularly acute in the study of implicit attitudes, for example a person may be implicitly racist, which influences the way they behave towards a certain racial group. These attitudes exist outside of our conscious awareness, so self-reports would not uncover them
Who actually used introspection in relatively recent years
Hunter
Who pointed out the flaws with introspection
Nisbett and Wilson
What is a strength of the scientific method
The scientific method is self-corrective, allowing for the building of scientific theory over time. Because of the scientific methods objective and systematic methods of observation, knowledge acquired using the scientific method is more than just the passive acceptance of theories about behaviour. This means that scientific methods are able to establish the causes of behaviour through the use of methods that are both empirical and replicable, which means that once the scientific theories no longer fit the facts, they can be refined or abandoned
What is a criticism of Wundt
His methods were not reliable. A criticism levied against him, mainly by behaviourists, was that this approach relied primarily on ‘nonobservable’ responses. Although the participants could report on their conscious experiences, the processes themselves, like memory or perception, were considered unobservable constructions. Wundt’s approach ultimately failed because of the lack of reliability of his methods. Introspective results were not reliably reproducible by other researchers in other labs. In contrast early behaviourists like Pavlov were already achieving reliable results and discovering explanatory principles that could (possibly) be generalised to humans.
