Wundt Flashcards
(21 cards)
When did pyschology come into exsistnece?
150 years ago
what did pyschology used to be subsumed with?
philosophy
what was william wudnt known as?
the father of experimental pyschology and the first person to usher pyschology into being an acedmic disapline
when and where was the first pyschological labatory set up?
1879
Leipzig
what was wundts approach known as?
structuralism
what is structuralism?
his aim was to investigate the nature of human consciouss and believed that the best way to do this was to breakd own a -ersons observations of objects, images, events into seperate parts. using basic empirical methods to find the basic ‘structures’ of thought and to investiagte how they interact.
what is introspection?
Wundt after coming up with structuralism he went on to develop a process known as ‘introspection’ to infer more about the process involved. Introspection is a process by which a person gains knowledge about his/ her own mental and conscious states.
who did wundts procedure involve?
his colleauguees and students
what was wudnts procedure of introspection?
-participants were presented with carefully controlled stimuli in most cases thus was typically images or auditory tones.
-they were then asked to provide a description of the inner processes they were experincing such as thoughts and emotions while looking at stimuli
-the information wundt recieved from his participants was used to shed light on the processes involved in human consciousness
what is a science?
over the years psychology has become accepted as a science through the methods that many apptoachs use in its study.
There are 5 key features needed for a subject to be reguarded as scientific?
-control
-objectivity
-predictability
-falsifiability
-replication
council of pancake flipping rebel
when was the bheaviourist approach established?
1900
when was the pyschodynamic approach established?
1913
when was the humanistic approach established?
1950s
when was the social learning approach established?
1960s
when was the biological appraoch established?
1980s
when was cognitive neuroscience established?
late 21st century
evaluation
weakness-subjective data
strength-high control
strength-pioneer
subjective data
Wundt relied on ppts’ self-report which is highly subjective and therefore unreliable. It is difficult to establish meaningful findings from such data, therefore Wundt’s research would be considered flawed by today’s scientific standard.
ou cant be aware of everything in your mind as you can forget or not say everything or lie.
-only conscious thoughts are reported
-perception of mental disorders can affect the validity
high control
Wundt’s methods were systematic and well-controlled. All introspections were recorded in lab, ruling out all extraneous variables. Procedures were also carefully standardised. Suggests Wundt’s research was a forerunner for later scientific methods.
Strength - Pioneer
Wundt was the first to undertake such psychological studies so it can be expected that there would be some flaws in his work. However, this doesn’t negate the massive impact his work made on later research, inspiring many
