Origins of psychology

• The cognitive approach is the most popular approach to studying memory
• Cognitive psychologists believe that we have an internal mental representation of our environment, which allows us to make sense of it.
• Wilhelm Wundt opened the first psychology laboratory in

  Leipzig 1879
• Wundt believed that the mind could be studied scientifically.
• Wundt studied behaviour that could be strictly controlled under

  Experimental conditions
• structualism

  Idea that we should break down behaviours into basic elements, using the technique of introspection.
• introspection in Latin means to

  “look into”
• process

  pain knowledge about own mental and emotional states.
• Wundt claimed that mental processes could be observed systematically using

  introspection
• AO1 (knowledge recall):

  Wilhelm Wundt

  Introspection

  Psychology as a science

  • AO3 (evaluation):

  Introspection is unreliable

  Introspection is inaccurate

  Introspection is still useful

  The scientific method is useful for theories

  • The scientific method isn’t always appropriate
• Natural sciences used scientific methods which provided reliable ways to discover knowledge - bc scientific methods allow for replication of research and if consistent results are found then findings are said to be reliable which further means conclusions about theories the methods are testing are valid.
• psych was considered a philosophical subject as it wasn’t scientific - can’t investigate human psyche scientifically
• Wundt founded the Institute of Experimental Psychology
• John B Watson criticided introspection as it can’t actually be observed and some aspects of mind are outside of conscious awareness.
• introspection varied from person to person
• Scientific research should use methods that are use systematic, objective and replicable (not

  ‘private’ mental processes)
• behaviourist - Watson and skinner brought methods of natural sciences into psychology lab experiments
• cognitive revolution in the 1960s brought the study of mental processes into the legitimate realm of psychology (inference)
• biological approach make use of experimental data and modern technology scanning techniques (fMRI, EEG)