Origins of psychology Flashcards
What is psychology defined as?
Psychology is the “the scientific study of the mind and behaviour”. It focuses on what people do, why they do it and how they feel
Who was the father of psychology?
Wihelm Wundt
What did Wundt do in 1879?
He opened the first institute for experimental psychology
How did Wundt investigate the nature of human consciousness?
He used structuralist and reductionist approaches as well as methods such as introspection to uncover what people were thinking and believing
What is introspection?
The first systematic experimental attempt to study the mind by breaking down conscious awareness into thoughts, images and sensations. Involves studying your own thoughts and feelings internally
How can introspection be used to study sensation and perception?
Participants are asked to describe experiences when a set of stimuli are presented. The reaction time is recorded. It also allows researchers to analyse the quality of sensations that people experienced.
What are the problems associated with introspection?
Doesn’t explain how the mind works
Relies of people describing thoughts and feelings which isn’t objective
Data is not reliable as personal experiences reported can not be confirmed
Why did Watson criticise introspection?
He says it produces subjective data which varied from person to person. It is also focused to heavily on internal mental processes.o
What was Wundt’s beliefs on reductionism?
He believed that things can be reduced to cause and effect, he came from a biological background so he believed that human could be broken down into small measurable parts
What makes a science?
Predictability- results can be used to predict future behaviour
Objectivity- results recorded with no bias
Replication- must be replicable so people can have confidence in results
Control- controlled conditions
Hypothesis testing- support or disprove a theory
What are the arguments for psychology being a science?
Allport 1947- Psychology has the same aims as science (to predict, to understand and to control)
Behaviourists, cognitive and biological approaches all use scientific procedures to investigate theories which are usually controlled and unbiased
What are the arguments against psychology being a science?
There are approaches in psychology which do not use scientific methods
Psychologists use unreliable methods such as interviews which can be biased and interpreted differently by different researchers
Hard to get a representative sample where findings can be difficult to generalise
Issues of extraneous variables and demand characteristics
