Origins of Psychology Flashcards
(10 cards)
Who is considered the father of scientific psychology?
Wundt, who opened the first psychology lab in Leipzig, Germany in 1879.
What was significant about Wundt’s lab?
It marked the separation of psychology from philosophy, beginning scientific psychology.
What method did Wundt develop to study the human mind?
Introspection – a systematic attempt to study consciousness under controlled conditions.
What was the aim of introspection?
To analyse the nature of human consciousness by having participants report their internal experiences.
What kind of stimuli were used in Wundt’s experiments?
Simple stimuli like objects or sounds, such as a ticking metronome.
How were participants’ observations categorized in Wundt’s experiments?
Into three categories: thoughts, images, and sensations.
What is structuralism in the context of Wundt’s work?
The process of isolating the structure of consciousness by breaking it down into basic elements.
What procedures did Wundt use to ensure standardisation in his experiments?
Stimuli were presented in the same order, and identical instructions were given to all participants.
Strength of Wundt’s research
One strength of Wundt’s work is that some of his methods were systematic and well-controlled (i.e. scientific).
All introspections were recorded in the controlled environment of the lab, ensuring that possible extraneous variables were not a factor. As described on the left, procedures and instructions were carefully standardised so that all participants received the same information and were tested in the same way.
This suggests that Wundt’s research can be considered a forerunner to later scientific approaches in psychology, such as the behaviourist approach.
limitation of Wundt’s research
One limitation is that other aspects of Wundt’s research would be considered unscientific today.
Wundt relied on participants self-reporting their mental processes. Such data is subjective (influenced by a personal perspective). Also participants may have hidden some of their thoughts. It is difficult to establish meaningful laws of behaviour’ from such data. And general laws are useful to predict future behaviour, one of the aims of science.
This suggests that some of Wundt’s early efforts to study the mind were flawed and would not meet the criteria of scientific enquiry.
