Origins Of Psychology

Question 1

What was Wundt’s role in the development of psychology?

Answer 1

• He was known as the father of psychology as he was the first to call himself a psychologist.
• He was the first to pen a psychology dedicated lab in Germany
• He was interested in scientifically studying every aspect of the human mind e.g. perception
• He paved the way for psychology to be a science
• He used the technique called introspection to study higher mental processes.

Question 2

What is introspection?

Answer 2

The examination of your own thought processes

Question 3

A01: introspection

Answer 3

• A technique used to measure structuralism
• Inculdes a reflection on you own feelings and sensations
• Has to be conducted in a controlled environment
• Involves focusing on being objective, using standardised rocedufes so it can be easily repeated with a number of different people. This makes introspection, as a method, scientific.
• Involves breaking thoughts about an object down into separate elements.

Question 4

A01: The emergence of psychology as a science

Answer 4

• The work of Wundt led to the development of psychology as a science
• He set up the 1st psychology lab and promoted the use of introspection
• Now today psychology is seen as a science as it uses a variety of empirical nettles e.g. lab experiments, control,led observations and brain scans to test hypotheses
• Uses techniques that can be psychically seen and measured such as fMRI scans.

Question 5

A03: Evaluation of the Emergence of Psychology as a Science
+ Can establish cause and effect relationships

Answer 5

I: A strength of this is that as it is scientific we can establish a cause and effect relationship n psychology. This changed the way that psychology was viewed.
E: This is because the use of empirical methods such as lab experiments, can be conducted in artificial environments, meaning they are highly controlled, which is one of the major features of a science. This ensures that any EVs are controlled meaning that it’s only the IV affecting the DV and nothing else.
C: Therefore this adds to the internal validity of the mods used within, contributing to its status as a science and allowing psychologists to establish C and E relationships within the discipline.

Question 6

+ Another strength of the emergence of psychology as a science is that psychological research is likely to be reliable

Answer 6

E: the use of tightly controlled environments in psychological rear each allows resreaxgers to implement standardised procedures. This ensures that everything is kept the same and thus can be easily related. E.g. intorpscton - same questions were used
C: This adds validity and reliability as psychological research is designed to enable other researchers to repeat the experiment to see if they can gain the same results, thus adhering to the major features of a science by providing replicability.

Question 7

• a weakness is that it could produce unrealistic behaviour

Answer 7

E: Some types of experiments used in research are conducted in controlled, artificial environments (lab and quasi. This means the participants behaviour will not be realistic as the conditions that they undertake do not reflect what they would be use to in real life which means they may after their behaviour.
C: This questions the ecological validity, suggesting that certain methods are too artificial and therefore results form those studies will not be an accurate reflection of human behaviour and we cannot generalise them to real life.

Question 8

• Another weakness of the emergence of psychology as a science is that most of the topics within psychology are things that we cannot physically observe.

Answer 8

E: This is because the researchers cannot physically measure participants thoughts and emotions. Therefore, this isn’t empirical and thus cannot be proved nor disproved that the thoughts exist, which means it isn’t falsifiable. An example of this would be Freud’s Psychodynamic approach and work on the unconscious mind.
C: This questions the validity of the origins of psychology as the research cannot always measure what they set out to measure accurately and scientist. Therefore referring to the features of a science, if it isn’t always falsifiable, it could be argued that it isn’t 100% scientific.