Origins of Psychology

• Wundt is the founder of experimental psychology and is often referred to as the 'Father of psychology'.
• Wundt:

  • opened the first psychology lab in Germany 1879
  • emphasised objective measurement and the 'scientific method' to separate psychology from philosophy
  • believed in reductionism (that consciousness could be broken down into small observable elements)
• Introspection - method Wundt used to collect data and propose theories about the mind.
• Introspection:

  1. pp focuses on a stimulus (e.g. metronome)
  2. they reflect on and record their own mental processes while focused on the stimuli and brake them down into categories
  3. their responses were compared and analysed by Wundt to identify patterns and propose theories