//The origins of Psychology

Question 1

Where did Psychology come from

Answer 1

• philosophy
• biology
• physics

Question 2

What is Psychology

Answer 2

• “the scientific study of the mind and behaviour”

- a theory must be scientifically tested

Question 3

Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)- father of experimental psychology- what did he set up

Answer 3

• 1979- Institute for Experimental Pscyhology in Germany
• seperated Psychology from Philosophy and focused on studying the mid in a much more structured and scientific way
• using a structuralist and reductionist approach, Wundt used methods such as introspection to try to uncover what people were thinking and experiencing

Question 4

Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)- father of experimental psychology- what is introspection

Answer 4

This is a psychological method which involves analysis your own thoughts and feelings internally
-Wundt used introspection to study sensation and perception. PPs asked to describe their experiences when presented with a set of stimuli and reaction times were recorded

Question 5

Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)- father of experimental psychology- what are some problems with introspection

Answer 5

• doesn’t explain how the mind works. It relies on peple describing their thoughs and feelings, which isn’t usually objective
• it doesn’t provide data that can be used reliably- because people are reporting on their experienes, their accounts can’t be confirmed

Question 6

Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)- father of experimental psychology- what is reductionism

Answer 6

• the idea that things can be reduced to cause and effect processes
• Wundt believed that the underlying structure of human experience could be broken down into smaller, measurable aprts- intrsopection is used for this
• structuralism breaks down human thoughts and experiences into basic components

Question 7

What are the 5 features of a science

Answer 7

• objectivity- scientific observations should be recorded without bias and not be influenced by any other factors
• control- scientific observations should be taken under controlled conditions
• predictability- scientists should be able to use results and knowledege gained from experiments to precit future behaviour
• hypothesis testing- theories generate predictions which can be teste to strengthen the support for the theory to disprove it
• replication- each experiment should be able to be replicated

Question 8

Arguments for Psychology as a science

Answer 8

• Allport (1947) said psychology has the same aims as a science- to predict, understand and control
• behaviourist, cognitive and biological approaches to psychology all use scientific procedures to investigate theories. They are usually controlled and unbiased

Question 9

Arguments against psychology as a science

Answer 9

• some approaches in psychology don’t use objective methods to study behaviour- they use unreliable methods e.g. interviews which can be unbiased
• it hs hard to get a representative sample of the population for a study- findings can’t reliably be generalised
• psychology experiemnts are open to extraneous varibables e.g. demand characteristics, which can be hard to control