Origins of psychology - Wundt and
🔥
introspection
Wundt =
• Wundt opened the rst ever laboratory in Leipzig Germany in 1879 dedicated to the scienti c study of
psychological processes - established the subject as separate from other disciplines (biological and
philopsophy) - he published rst psychology book - his approach was known and structuralism
• This encouraged the objective study of the mind —> means that when a researcher is not in uenced by
personal feelings - thinks when studying psychology you should be objective - aimed to make scienti c
• Came up with the technique of introspection
·
Introspection =
De nition:
• was the rst systematic attempt at examining ones own thoughts, feelings and emotions
Procedure:
• using controlled conditions allowing replication/accurate measures
• The aim of introspection was to break down thoughts/perceptions/emotions into smaller parts to try and
understand these mental processes
• Ppts were instructed to listen to a metronome
• They were asked to record their conscious thoughts, images and sensations
• Wundt would give you a stimulus, e.g picture of a cat
• Wundt provided standardised instructions - same standardised instructions were given to all ppts and
stimuli, e.g objects or sound, and presented in the same order
Structuralism:
• introspection led to to identifying the structure of consciousness by breaking it up into the basic
structures - thoughts, images and sensations
• This marked the begininning of scienti c psychology - separating it from its broader philosophical roots
+ = aspects of wundts work are scienti c - e.g he — = recognised mental processes were di cult to
recorded the introspections within a controlled lab study during his procedures - his methods were not
environment - he also standardised his procedures so always considered to be scienti c as they were still
that all ppts received the same information and were subjective as it required ppts self reporting their
tested in the same way - ensured that extraneous private mental processes and also ppts may have
variables can be controlled - therefore wundts hidden some of their thoughts - so results were not
research may have helped pave the way for later easily replicated
scienti c approaches in psychology
— = any behaviour that is outside conscious
awareness could not be tested - other approaches
made greater contributions to psychology becoming a
science - e.g work of skinner and Pavlov - therefore
Wundt may have been credited for the emergence of
psychology as a science but he isnt the most
in uential
flfi
fi fi fi fi fi fi ffi
fi