Origins Of Psychology

Question 1

What is science?

Answer 1

Discovering the physical and natural world systematically and objectively using empirical methods such as observation and experimentation

Question 2

Wundt: context

Answer 2

Who is he?
- “the father of experimental psychology”

What was psychology before Wundt?
- the study of the mind and behaviour was limited to philosophy and medicine

What did wind t want to control?
- he wanted to use the controlled empirical scientific research techniques used by the physical sciences to study the mind

What did Wundt set up in Germany
- the first psychological laboratory, the institute of experimental psychology in Leipzig- Germany in the 1870s

Question 3

Wundt [the emergence of psychology as a science ]

Answer 3

• The father of experimental psychology
• before Wundt the study of the mind and behaviour was limited to philosophy and medicine
• Wundt wanted to use the controlled empirical scientific research techniques used by the physical sciences to study the mind.

Background knowledge context
- set up the 1st psychological laboratory, the institute of experimental psychology,In Leipzig Germany in 1870
- first person to call himself a psychologist
- produces the world’s 1 St books on psychology
- produced the first academic journal that published psychological experiments

Question 4

Wundt ‘s research [structuralism]

Answer 4

• His research was called structuralisms an attempt to uncover the hidden structure of the mind by describing it in terms of its simplest definable components
• his work focused on the structure of sensation and perception _ the technique was called introspection

Question 5

Process of introspection

Answer 5

1] Spencer train to report conscious experience as objectively as possible
2] Participants would be asked to concentrate on a Sensory object (e.g. A ticking metronome)
3] Participants would systematically report the experience of the object by breaking their thoughts into separate elements so for example sensation feelings and images

Question 6

What did Wundt control in the introspection?

Answer 6

He can control the experimental conditions and environment
He developed general theories of mental processes based experimental data collected

Question 7

What is introspection not directly linked to?

Answer 7

Introspection is not direct observation of mental process Wundt made inferences which means that making a guest or a assumption of the structure of internal mental process based on observed behaviour ( Inferences may be incorrect due to assumptions)

Question 8

Wundt and the origin of psychology evaluations( strengths)

Answer 8

-you work was reading scientific because he can controlled experiments [e.g. large sample size and transparent methods J this systematic approach allow him to develop general theories of mental processes and enabled other researchers to replicate its findings
-The scientific psychologist got inspiration from his emphasis on scientific methodology
-He used inferences The which influence cognitive psychologist these researchers as participants to complete task in the experimental condition and the participants ability to complete these task is used to make inferences about structure of internal mental processes like memory attention and perception

Question 9

Wundt and the origin of psychology evaluation [ weakness]

Answer 9

• Wundt Uses of inference to fight mental states has been criticised inferences are assumptions so they could be mistaken, behavioural psychologist rejected the study study of internal mental state in the mind as a “Black box”
• Wundt’s introspective me tho as may be subjective [not truly scientific ] because participans cannot be relied unto accurately report their mental States.
• self-report may be biased and increase demand characteristics