A 1300 word essay for the 'Historical Perspectives in Psychology' module for the first year undergrad course of psychology.
Answering the question: 'With reference to supporting sources, provide an evaluation of one of the following schools of psychology as an empirical science: Structuralism, Fun...
With reference to supporting sources, provide an evaluation of one of the
following schools of psychology as empirical science: Structuralism,
Functionalism, or Cognitivism.
An empirical science is a science where the supporting evidence for theory is gathered from sense
observation or experience such as data gathered from lab experiments like the ones held at Wilhelm
Wundt’s lab in Leipzig. With regards to empirical psychology, the philosopher Kant said that “There
is also empirical psychology, where I must presuppose observations in order to say something about
the soul”, elaborating on that psychology requires the empirical evidence to form its conclusions like
the natural sciences. Falsification Theory proposed by Karl Popper adds to this as psychology can be
tested and then the claims made can be proven false. Empirical psychological evidence is gathered
by what can be observed from the mind and behaviour via conducting experiments such as lab
experiments gathering quantitative data or observational studies gathering qualitative data. Data
gathered can then be applied to form conclusions about a population, in the case of early psychology
Titchener had a primary focus on the mind whereas other early American psychologists has a focus
on minds.
Structuralism was one of the first schools to form from Wundt, it distinguished psychology
from other the sciences with use of lab experiments such as introspection. Titchener, a former
student of Wundt, furthered this idea by forming a lab in Cornell University, North America. Here
further experiments focused on the mind were conducted to demonstrate mental processes could
be quantified. Titchener set out three aims for structuralism those aims being analysis, synthesis,
and explanation. These were to bring the mind to its simplest elements, how these elements then
combine and what physiological parts of the brain then caused these elements. The aims here were
like the aims put forward by Wundt.
, Historical Perspectives PSYC1092
Titchener based his theories on what he considered evidence from the experiments he
conducted in his lab; these experiments used a mix of experimental equipment such as a ‘lip key’
and telegraph key to gather observational data but the main method still in use was introspection.
This supports claims made from Titchener and the structuralist view as it is shows that objective data
can be gathered thus showing how structuralism is an empirical science. Introspection was used to
gather data; Wundt however, had found it unreliable so dismissed it despite this Titchener
continued to use it in his lab for his studies. The issue with introspection is that findings from it are
highly subjective meaning they lack reliability, as stated Wundt found this to be the case so had
stopped its use, Titchener did not. Further issues with introspection were that even fully trained
research participants were unable to successfully report back on the subject experience, this could
be due to the inadequate definition of what Titchener termed ‘System Errors’. Introspection was
used along with self-report which itself has issues of reliability as people either lie or change answers
frequently for what is considered most desirable, data gathered can also be difficult to analyse if it is
qualitative. Interpretations of the data can be subjective and then lack validity too. It was found that
from tests using simple mathematical problems that one cannot necessarily describe the
unconscious process of how it was done, so participants were not able to accurately report on all
their experiences. This however did show the importance of the unconscious mind to structuralists
and further schools, Freud being one to heavily focus on the unconscious mind. The issue of the
methodology lies with the lack of reliable methods to gather proper empirical evidence as no
observational evidence was able to be gathered of the unconscious mind, this hinders the school
from being an empirical science as data gathered cannot be observed through experimentation,
regardless there is an importance to the school as it did carve the path for other schools to continue
a more scientific approach using methods to gather more substantial empirical evidence to support
ideas. To add to this Titchener in response to criticisms rejected all introspections that did not agree
with his and what he thought, saying that the researchers involved were not trained correctly, this
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