Wundt and the Scientific Method Flashcards
What is Wundt usually referred to as?
The Father of Psychology
What did Wundt study and what method did he use?
He studied structuralism (breaking down behaviour and their basic elements) using introspection ( a systematic method that involved presenting an everyday object to someone and asking them what they felt when they focused on it. e.g metronome.
What did Wundt believe?
He believed that all aspects of nature including the human mind could be studied scientifically , and so moved psychology away from its philosophical roots to controlled, objective research.
What are the strengths of introspection?
- controlled methods ; all the introspections were recorded under strictly controlled conditions using the same stimulus every time. This allowed procedures to be replicated every single time. Marked the separation of psychology to philosophy.
- it is still used today to gain access to cognitive processes e.g Griffiths used introspection to study the cognitive processes of fruit machine gamblers.
What are the weaknesses of introspection?
- we have very little knowledge of the causes of, and processes underlying our behaviour and attitudes. For example, research as found that participants were remarkably unaware of the factors that had been influential in their choice of a consumer item.
- the data was subjective in that it varied from person to person, so it was difficult to establish general principles. Introspective results were not reliably reproducible by other researchers in their laboratories. This may be because he processes themselves (memory, perception etc) were not observable.
What is empiricism?
The belief that all knowledge is derived from sensory experience i.e observation and experience alone.
What is 2 assumptions is the scientific method based on?
- All behaviour is caused (determined)
- If behaviour is determined, then it should be possible to predict how human beings would behave in different conditions.
What does the scientific method refer to?
The use of investigative methods that are objective, systematic and reliable.
When is research objective?
When researchers do not let their preconceived ideas or biases influence the collection of their data.
When is a method systematic?
When observations and experiments are carried out in an orderly way.
When is an investigation replicable?
When observations can be repeated by researchers to determine whether the same results are obtained.
What are the strengths of the scientific method?
- The reliance on objective and systematic methods of observations means that knowledge acquired using the scientific method is more than just the passive acceptance of facts.
- Because scientific methods rely on a belief in determinism, cause effect can be established using methods that are empirical and replicable.
- If scientific theories no longer fit the facts, they can be refined or abandoned meaning that scientific knowledge is self-corrective.
What are the weaknesses of the scientific method?
- The reliance on objectively and control can create contrived situations that tells us little about how people act in more natural environments.
- Much of what we want to study in Psychology is unobservable and so it can’t be measured with any degree of accuracy. Psychology is the most inferential of the sciences as there is a far bigger gap between actual data obtained in the research and the theories put forward to explain this.
- Not all psychologists share the view that all human behaviour can be explored by the use of scientific methods(e.g humanists). If human behaviour is not subject to the laws implied by scientific methods, then predictions become impossible and these methods inappropriate.
