Origins of psychology Flashcards
who was Wilhelm Wundt?
- One of the founders of psychology
- Used a structuralist approach = aimed to study the structure of the human mind, thoughts and sensations, and break them down into basic elements (looking at the structure of our abilities and behaviours)
- Used a key technique called introspection
What is introspection?
- Investigating internal events (inner mental and emotional states) by examining conscious thoughts and feelings as a form of data collection.
- Allows us to observe and report on our inner world and thoughts and feelings in terms of intensity, duration and quality.
- Wundt and his co-workers would record their own conscious thoughts, with the aim of breaking these down into their constituent parts.
- Wundt specially trained his co-workers to be able record their conscious thoughts in as much detail as possible. All introspection was done under controlled conditions with standardised stimuli and instructions.
what is empiricism?
Wundt’s approach relied on empiricism: knowledge and abilities come from observation and experience alone, rather than being innate.
Believes all behaviour has causes (its determined) and can therefore be predicted.
To explore these assumptions, we must use the scientific method.
what is the scientific process?
An observation is made of phenomena in the world
A theory is developed to explain the observation and a hypothesis is written in line with the theory
A hypothesis is tested using empirical methods
Results are analysed to evaluate whether the hypothesis is supported or not
*look in book for missing details
what is falsifiability?
all theories and research must be capable of being tested and potentially disproved, if they are not (e.g. we cannot measure a concept) it is unfalsifiable and not scientific.
what is recability?
To be considered scientific, research procedures should be capable of being repeated to check the consistency of the findings. This means procedures should be standardised so that the only variables that could affect what is measured are those being manipulated by the researchers.
what is objective?
for a measure to be objective, it should be observable and measurable on an agreed scale that is not open to interpretation. This means that any researcher bias or expectations cannot influence the collection of their data.
what are the general laws?
This involves using evidence to develop basic generalisable principles about human or animal behaviour that apply to all individuals.
what is systematic?
evidence or recordings (e.g. of introspection tasks) are carried out in a controlled orderly manner using direct observations/measurement.
what are the positive evaluations on the orgins of psychology?
- led to some useful general laws =
Wundt struggled to create universal general laws, modern researchers have used introspection more successfully. Hunter et al (2003) used introspection with teenagers to try and identify what makes them happy or unhappy throughout the day. Through teenagers questioning their own thoughts they were able to identify that when energies were focused on challenging tasks, they were far more upbeat.
- practical applications =
look in book
what are the negative evaluations of the origins of psychology?
- can be highly subjective =
-Participants record their own conscious thoughts - this can easily change and is vulnerable to bias
-His participants were his own students - demand characteristics!
-Everyone’s experience is different - they will reflect on their own sensations and emotions very differently to other people
-Brain / thoughts are too complex - this is not giving a holistic view
-Nowadays we have fMRIs / EEGs etc.
- scientific approach has limitations =
-Studied himself and his coworkers
-Very small sample of upper class white men from the 19th century
-Lacks temporal validity / androcentric / ethnocentric
-Results cannot be applied to society as they are unrepresentative
