APPROACHES IN PSYCHOLOGY Flashcards
(325 cards)
Who opened the first ever lab entirely dedicated to psychology
Wilhelm Wundt
What year and where was the first ever lab entirely dedicated to psychology opened
1879
Leipzig, Germany
What significant beginning is market by Wundt’s work
The beginning of scientific psychology
What roots does scientific psychology separate it from
The philosophical roots
What type of attempt did Wundt first use to study the mind under controlled conditions
The systematic attempt
What was wundts aim
To analyse the nature of human consciousness.
What is wundts pioneering method called
Introspection
Define introspection
The first systematic experimental attempt to study the mind by breaking up conscious awareness into basic structures of thoughts, images and sensations
What was wundts main objectives with standardised procedures
Try and develop theories about mental processes, such as language and perception.
What did Wundt and his coworkers record when developing theories about mental processes
Recorded individuals experiences of various stimuli they were presented with, such as different objects or sounds.
What did Wundt and coworkers do with the results when investigating theories about mental processes
Divided their observations into three categories - thoughts, images and sensations
What is the name given to the way in which Wundt was isolating the structure of consciousness
Structuralism
How was Wundt’s work structuralism (talk about stimuli, instructions and order)
The stimuli Wundt and his co-workers experienced were always presented in the same order and the same instructions were used for all participants.
What is one strength of Wundt’s work
Some of his methods were systematic and well-controlled (scientific)
How did Wundt ensure that possible extraneous variables were not a factor
All introspections were recorded in the controlled environment of the lab
What was standardised so that all participants received the same information and were tested in the same way in Wundt’s experiment
Procedures and instructions
What can Wundt’s research be considered as a forerunner for
Later scientific approaches in psychology
What is one limitation to aspects of Wundt’s research
Other aspects would be considered unscientific today
What was Wundt’s method for collecting data
Is this subjective or objective
Subjective as it relied on participants self-reporting their mental processes.
Why is self-reporting subjective
May have personal biases
Participants may have hidden some of their thoughts
What is difficult to establish from subjective data
‘Laws of behaviour’
What approach came around in the 1900s
Behaviourist
Which behaviourist questioned the value of introspection
John B. Watson
What did Watson and later B.F. Skinner propose about truely scientific psychology
It should only study phenomena that can be observed objectively and measured