Wundt Flashcards
Who is Wundt ?
He founded the Institute of Experimental Psychology, he helped to establish the subject as an independent branch of science.
What was Wundt’s approach ?
His approach was a structuralist. This approach is about how the mind is structured not focusing on philosophy. This suggest that we should break down behaviours into basic elements. He studied the mind through introspection.
What is introspection ?
A psychological method which involves analysing your own thoughts and feeling internally. It is used to study perception and sensation. To do this he used controlled environments to establish general theories about mental processes.
What higher mental processes did Wundt identify ?
Learning, language and emotions.
Weaknesses of Wundt’s methods
Subjective methods, this contrasts with the objectivity of scientific processes and difficulty with objectively studying unobservable matter.
Introspective methods were not reliably reproduced, difficulty with replication due to subjectivity.
Discussion of the validity of introspection, many aspects of the mind are outside of our conscious awareness.
There were greater contributions to the development of psychology by earlier behaviourists which produced reliable findings (Pavlov)
Strengths of Wundt’s Methods
The focus on mental processes through introspection can be seen as a forerunner of the cognitive approach . It is also sometimes still used in modern scientific psychological research.
