wundt

Question 1

Who is Wundt?

Answer 1

• The first to call himself a “psychologist”
• Opened the institute for experimental psychology in 1879
• Seperated psychology from philosophy and physiology

Question 2

What is reductionism?

Answer 2

Consciousness could be broken down into its basic elements without sacrificing any of the properties as a whole

Question 3

What is introspection?

Answer 3

“Looking into” - a process where people gain knowledge about their own mental and emotional states

Question 4

What is the process of introspection?

Answer 4

Giving participants carefully controlled stimuli ( eg an image) , and asking them to describe the inner mental process they experience as they look at it. These are then compared to establish general theories.

Question 5

What are strengths of introspection?

Answer 5

• Helps people gain knowledge about their mental states : can be used to identify treatments.
• It’s a controlled and standardised procedure : can be replicated to see where same findings occur.

Question 6

What are the limitations of introspection?

Answer 6

• Other researchers were not able to reproduce the same results as Wundt : doubts validity

-Nisbett and Wilson argued that introspective reports are not useful because they give little understanding about the causes for mental processes

• Diverse experiences make it hard for introspection to uncover common patterns of behaviour