the origins of psychology

• what is proposed empiricism?

  all knowledge is derived from sensory experiences
• who is wilhem wundt?

  “the father of psychology“

  moved from philosophical root to a psychological
• where is wundts lab?


  opened first ever psych lab in liepzig, Germany in 1870s
• what was wundt interested in?

  • conscious experience
  • wanted to record thoughts and sensations and analyse them into constituent elements
• what is introspection?

  • wundt used it to examine mental processes
  • done through noteing own conscious thoughts or emotions in response to a stimuli
• how are introspections recorded?

  • recorded in standardised procedures, same conditions and stimulus
• John b watson stated introspection produced subjective data, so was hard to establish a general principle.
• what is empiricism?

  • all knowledge obtained through senses or inherited
  • empirical methods are based on actual evidence
• what’s the scientific approach based on?

  • behaviour has a cause
  • behaviour can be predicted
  • behaviour can be tested in diff conditions
• strength and weaknesses of psych as a science (evaluation)

  😍- claims to be scientific

  😭- not all approaches use objective methods