The origins of psychology Flashcards
Empiricism:
The belief that all knowledge is derived from sensory experience.
It is generally characterised by the use of the scientific method in psychology.
Scientific method:
Refers to the use of investigative methods that are objective, systematic and replicable, and the formulation, testing and modification of hypotheses based on these methods.
Wilhelm wundt:
Wundt’s aim was to study the structure of the human mind, and he believed that the best way to do this was to break down behaviours such as sensation and perception into their basic elements.
Because of this, his approach was referred to as structuralism and the technique he used as introspection.
Although Wundt originally believed that all aspects of human experience could be investigated experimentally, he eventually came to realise that higher mental processes, such as learning, language and emotions, could not be studied in this strict controlled manner.
These topics could instead be described in terms of general trends in behaviour among groups of people.
He referred to this latter field as Völkerpsychologie (cultural psychology).
Introspection:
The process by which a person gains knowledge about his or her own mental and emotional states as a result of the examination or observation of their conscious thoughts and feelings.
Just as our perceptual ability enables us to observe and make sense of the outer world, our introspective ability enables us to observe our inner world.
Wundt claimed that, with sufficient training, mental processes such as memory and perception could be observed systematically as they occurred using introspection.
For example, observers might be shown an object and asked to reflect upon how they were perceiving it.
This information could then be used to gain insight into the nature of the mental processes involved in perception, reaction time, etc.
For example, in Wundt’s studies of perception, participants would be presented with carefully controlled stimuli (e.g. visual images or auditory tones).
They would then be asked to provide a description of the inner processes they were experiencing as they looked at the image or listened to the tone.
This made it possible to compare different participants’ reports in response to the same stimuli, and so establish general theories about perception and other mental processes.
EVALUATION/DISCUSSION
Wundt’s methods were unreliable
Introspection is not particularly accurate:
Introspection is still useful in scientific psychology:
Wundt’s methods were unreliable:
A criticism of Wundt’s structuralist approach, mainly from behaviourists, was that this approach relied primarily on ‘nonobservable responses.
Although participants could report on their conscious experiences, the processes themselves (e.g. memory, perception) were considered to be unobservable constructions.
Wund’s approach ultimately failed because of the lack of reliability of his methods.
Introspective ‘experimental’ results were not reliably reproducible by other researchers in other laboratories.
In contrast, the early behaviourists such as Pavlov and Thorndike were already achieving reliably reproducible results and discovering explanatory principles that could be easily generalised to all human beings.
Introspection is not particularly accurate:
Nisbett and Wilson (1977) claim that we have very little knowledge of the causes of, and processes underlying, our behaviour and attitudes.
Nisbett and Wilson found this problem was particularly acute in the study of implicit attitudes, i.e. attitudes or stereotypes that are unknown to us.
For example, a person may be implicitly racist, which influences the way they react to members of a different ethnic group
Because such attitudes exist outside of conscious awareness, self-reports through introspection would not uncover them.
This challenges the value of introspective reports in exploring the roots of our behaviour.
Introspection is still useful in scientific psychology:
Despite the fact that introspection rapidly fell out of favour as a research tool, it has not been entirely abandoned by psychologists, and in recent years it has made something of a comeback.
Csikszentmihalyi and Hunter (2003) used introspective methods as a way of making ‘happiness’ a measurable phenomenon.
They gave a group of teenagers beepers that went off during random times throughout the day, requiring them to write down their thoughts and feelings in the moment before the beep.
Most of the entries indicated that the teens were unhappy rather than happy, but when their energies were focused on a challenging task, they tended to be more upbeat.
Introspection therefore offers researchers a way of understanding more clearly the momentary conditions that affect happiness, and as such may help them to improve the quality of our lives.
