Origins Of Psychology Flashcards
Psychology
The scientific study of the human mind and behaviour
Science
Acquiring knowledge through systematic and objective investigation
Introspection
Introspection means ”looking into and refers to the process of observing and examining your own conscious thoughts or emotions
Empiricism
All knowledge of reality is gained from sensory experience
Inference
Going beyond the immediate evidence to make assumptions about mental processes that cannot be directly observed
Wilhelm Wundt (1831-1920)
- Wrote his first textbook of psychology (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-4)
- He opened the first Psychology laboratory in Leipzig , Germany, in 1879 and established psychology as a separate discipline in its own right
- Used the scientific method to study the structure of sensation and perception
- Showed that introspection could be used to study mental states in replicable laboratory experiments
Introspection (Wundt)
Wundt was interested in conscious experience and he trained himself and others to describe their experiences through introspection. Before Wundt, introspection had been used by philosophers for studying how new ideas are created.
Introspection refers to the systematic process of observing and examining your own conscious thoughts or emotions in response to a stimuli. And experience was analysed in terms of its component parts e.g. sensations, emotional reactions etc. Wundt strictly controlled the environments where introspection took place.
In Wundts lab, highly trained participants known as ‘observers’ were presented with carefully controlled sensory events. These individuals were asked to describe their mental experiences of these events. Wundt believed that the observers needed to be in a high attention to the stimulus and in control of the situation. The observers were also replicated a numerous time.
Highly Controlled Procedure (of Introspection)
Before Wundt, introspection had been used by philosophers for studying how new ideas are created. These philosophers did not set any limits on the taste they studied or make any judgments about the relevance of thoughts.
In contrast, Wundt strictly controlled the environments where introspection took place, controlled the stimuli and tasks that participants were asked to think about, limited the range of responses they might give and trained his participants so that they could give the most detailed observations possible.
Introspection doesn’t adhere to the scientific method
It’s easy to argue that introspection is not a scientific or valid way of measuring behaviour and it’s based on implicit thought and emotion which is potentially outside conscious awareness and therefore inaccessible through the methods used. Wundt also found participant observations were subject to bias as they relied on participants revealing their own private subjective experience These also could not be replicated and were therefore seen as unreliable. These problems meant that ** Watson** was able to argue that introspection should play no part in scientific psychology and Behaviourism became the dominant approach in psychology.
Introspection has had a useful contribution
Wundt’s work and Introspection has been influential in many Psychological domains and has not been entirely abandoned. Recent research has used methods of introspection as a way of making “happiness” and other emotions a measurable phenomenon. Wundt’s introduction of the scientific method to Psychology has paved the way for controlled empirical research used in the Behaviourist and Biological approaches and Wundt’s use of introspection inspired others to apply it to more complex mental processes, such as learning, language and emotionthe study of mental processes e.g. by cognitive psychologists.
Therefore the concept still has some useful application to Psychology today.
The Emergence of Psychology as a Science
Psychology is fundamentally based on a Philosophical view known as Empiricism. Empiricists believe that knowledge is derived from sensory experience.
This “scientific approach” to Psychology is based on the assumptions:
1. Behaviour has a cause (determined)
2. Behaviour can be predicted
3. Behaviour can be tested in different conditions
Empirical Methods
Based on actual experience rather than on theory or belief. It involves gathering data in an objective way so that researchers’ preconceptions cannot influence the data. It also measures quantitative details so that patterns can be examined and inferences (assumptions made from observation) from the results are credible.
When Wundt first applied empirical and scientific methods to the study of human beings, Psychology began to emerge as a distinct entity.
The Laboratory Experiment
The most important empirical method used in science. Laboratory experiments allow complete control of variables that might affect the results. Therefore, the researcher can be confident it’s only changes in the one variable they manipulate that cause the effect on what they measure.
The control means that methods can be standardised and experiments replicated by other researchers to test they are reliable
