the origins of psychology Flashcards
what is psychology?
the scientific study of the mind and behaviour
what are the different schools of thought called?
approaches
wilhelm wudnt was the father of experimental psychology what did he do?
in 1879 opened an institute for experimental psychology in Germany. he separated psychology from philosophy and focused on studying the mind in a much more complex way
what is introspection?
psychological method which involves analysing your own thoughts and feelings internally
what did wundt use introspection to study?
sensation and perception?
what did introspection allow wundt to analyse?
the quality of sensations people experienced
what are the problems with introspection?
it doesn’t explain how the mind works - it relies on people describing thoughts and feelings which isnt objective
it doesn’t provide data that can be used reliably
what is reductionism?
the idea that things can be reduced to simple cause and effect processes
there is a lot of controversy that psychology is actually a science what are the features which make something a science?
objectivity control predictability hypothesis testing replication
What are the arguments for psychology as a science?
Allport (1947) said psychology has the same aims as science - to predict understand and control
behaviourist, cognitive and biological processes to psychology all use scientific procedures to investigate theories- these are usually controlled and unbiased
What are the arguments against psychology as a science?
- There are other approaches in psychology which don’t use objective methods to study behaviour - they use unreliable methods
- it is very hard to get a representative sample of the population for a study so finding’s can’t really be generalised
- psychological experiments are open to extraneous variables
