Introspection

• Origins of psychology?

  • cartesian dualism - mind and body are separate
  • John Locke - we are born with little knowledge, behaviour obtained from environment, built foundations for behaviourism
  • Darwin - natural selection, humans and animals adapted to changing environment
• Wilhelm Wundt

  • opened the 1st experimental psychology lab in Germany
  • wanted to explore the mind in a more objective way
  • believed in structuralism
  • presented trained participants with sensory stimuli and asked them to report their experiences
  • used introspection to try and find out about the different components of the mind
• what is introspection?

  participants examine and report their own conscious thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions in a controlled environment
• what is structuralism

  believing that the mind is made up of different components that connect to make consciousness (sensations, perceptions, feelings)
• what is consciousness?

  continuous flow of thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions that we experience
• what is a metronome?


  • device that ticks back and forth
  • used by Wundt to control timing and study how rhythmic stimulus affected attention, perception and timing of experience
• examples of sensations?

  colours, sounds and textures
• what are perceptions?

  how we interpret sensations
• what are feelings?

  emotions that arise
• evaluation of introspection - scientific and subjective data

  Scientific data (strength)

  • done in a controlled environment - extraneous variables minimised
  • all participants received standardised instructions - extraneous variables minimised

  Subjective data (weakness)

  • wundt relied on self-reported information, which is subjective
  • people may not have been honest or may have been responding to demand characteristics
  • difficult to create laws of behaviour from this information
• is psychology a science? - Evaluation

  • Modern psychology - majority of psychology is scientific as it used techniques from the natural sciences which are empirical like cognitive psychology and MRIs
  • Subjective Data - not all approaches use objective methods (humanism rejects scientific approach), people are active subjects of study meaning they can respond to demand characteristics
  • No paradigm - psychology has no paradigm as there is alot of internal debate