Wundt Flashcards
Who was William Wundt?
German physiologist, philosopher and professor known as father of Psychology.
He distinguished Psychology as a science from philosophy and biology.
What did Wundt found?
Founded experimental psychology as a discipline and became a pioneer of cultural psychology.
What did Wundt create?
Created a broad research programme in empirical psychology and developed a system of philosophy and ethics from basic concepts of his psychology.
He brought together several disciplines in one person.
What is introspection?
The examination or observation of one’s own mental and emotional processes (self-reflecting)
What is the link between Wundt and introspection?
Wundt believed that introspection finds in consciousness a dynamic mixture of essentially sensory materials.
Wundt developed introspection to allow researchers to understand individuals internal thoughts.
What was Wundts objective?
Objective was to document and describe nature of consciousness using introspection.
Involved ppl “looking into” their own mental and emotional states.
First to attempt to systematically and experimentally study the mind by breaking up conscious awareness into basic structures of thoughts, images and sensations.
Why was Wundt known as the “father of Psychology”
He moved from philosophical to controlled research.
He set up first psychology lab in 1870s in Leipzig.
Experience was analysed in terms of component parts.
His work paved way for later research.
What are the four goals of Psychology?
1) description (what occured)
2) explanation (why a behaviour or mental process occurred)
3)prediction (conditions under which a future behaviour or mental process is likely to occur)
4)changes (applies psychology knowledge to unwanted behaviour)
How did Psychology emerge as a Science?
Watson criticised Introspection as too subjective, as measuring concepts that couldn’t be seen or varied.
Watson proposed truly scientific psychology should restrict itself - can be observed and measured.
Behaviours - focus on involving lab experiments with control/reliability/validity.
