Summary Detailed notes into Wilhelm Wundt and the origins of psychology.
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This provides detailed notes outlining the importance of Wilhelm Wundt and his contributions to psychology and its emergence as a science. This provides an important structure and outline to a 16 marker in regards to this subject.
The origins of psychology
Wilhelm Wundt was the first person to call himself a psychologist and is known as the father
of psychology. His work marks the separation of psychology from philosophy. Previously, the
mind had only been studied by philosophers. However, Wundt had a background as a
physiologist. He attempted to study the mind using the scientific method. He opened the
first lab dedicated to experimental psychology in Leipzig, Germany.
Wundt’s approach was known as structuralism. Structuralism is a theory of consciousness. It
is the belief that conscious experience could be understood by analyzing the basic elements
of mental experiences such a sensations, feelings, and emotions and discovering how these
elements work together to form more complex experiences.
Wundt is famous for his use of ‘introspection.’ This is known as the conscious examination
and self-observation of your own thoughts. This is used to gain information about a persons
present mental or emotional state.
Participants were presented with a stimulus (such as a metronome.) The participants would
then analyse their own thoughts. They would report back their own thoughts, sensations,
and emotions as the result of the stimulus. The participants responses were compared to
draw conclusions and create theories of perception. Wundt conducted the research in a
highly controlled environment and systematic way so that participants responses could be
compared.
Evaluation
However, Wundt’s methods are unreliable. Skinner and other later psychologists criticized
Wundt’s structuralist approach because it relied on non-observable behaviours. Wundt
expected participants to self-report their own thoughts, feelings, and sensations. This is very
subjective and introspective results were not reliably reproducible by researchers in other
labs. In contrast, researchers like Pavlov and Thorndike were already producing reliably
reproducible results and discovering explanatory principles which could be generalizable to
humans.
Introspection may not be accurate. Nisbett and Wilson claimed that we lack a full
understanding of the processes that underpin human behaviour and attitudes. It is possible
that unconscious influences such as racism, sexism, and stereotypes may influence how a
person behaves and thinks. Attitudes are unconscious and would not be detected through
introspection. Therefore, introspection may have limited value. Although, introspection still
has some use in scientific psychology today. One researcher aimed to investigate
participants ‘happiness.’ The participants were given beepers which went off at random
times throughout the day. The participants were asked to write down their thoughts and
feelings at this time. Therefore, introspection can still be used by researchers who wish to
record the effects of tasks on participants feelings and thoughts.
Wundt created an important starting point for psychology. Wundt even trained 186
graduate students throughout his academic careers. 116 of these graduate students went
on to specialize in psychology. Wundt also created the first psychological textbook known as
the ‘Principles of physiological psychology’ which allowed his research on psychology to be
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