Origins of psychology

• Wundt established the first psychology lab: Opened in Germany in 1879

  The aim was to describe the nature of human consciousness (the 'mind') in a carefully controlled and scientific environment setting - lab
• Introspection: he pioneered introspection, the first systematic experimental attempt to study the mind - saying your thoughts out loud when presented with a stimulus
• controlled procedures: the same standardised instructions were given to all ppts and stimuli (objects or sounds) were presented in the same order (standardised procedures) - e.g. ppts given a ticking metronome and they would report their thoughts, images and sensations which were then recorded
• structuralism: introspection led to identifying the structure of consciousness by breaking it up into the basic structures: thoughts, images and sensations --> this marked the beginning of scientific psychology separating it from its philosophical roots
• Strength: aspects of Wundts work are scientific: for instance, he recorded the introspections within a controlled lab environment - he also standardised his procedures so that all ppts received the same info and were tested in the same way - therefore, Wundts research can be considered a forerunner to the later scientific approaches in psychology that were to come
• Limitation: other aspects of Wundt's research are subjective - Wundt relied on ppts self-reporting their 'private' mental processes - such data is subjective - ppts may also have hidden some of their thoughts - this makes it difficult to establish meaningful 'laws of behaviour', one of the aims of science - therefore, Wundt's early efforts to study the mind were naive and wouldn't meet the criteria of scientific enquiry
• Weaknesses: Wundts approach is limited because it only focuses on conscious mental processes - unconscious mental processes such as motivation and emotion are ignored
• 1900s - emergence of psychology as a science: early behaviourists rejected introspection - Watson argued that a introspection was subjective + influenced by a personal perspective. according to the behaviourist approach, 'scientific' psychology should only study phenomena that can be observed and measured
• 1930s - behaviourist scientific approach dominated psychology: Skinner brought the language and rigour of the natural sciences into psychology. the behaviourists' focus on learning and the carefully controlled lab studies, would dominate psychology for 50 yrs
• 1950s - cognitive approach studied mental processes scientifically: after the computer revolution of the 1950s, the study of mental processes was seen as legitimate within psychology - cognitive psychologists likened the mind to a computer and tested their predictions about memory and attention using experiments
• 1980s - biological approach introduced technological advances: biological psychologists have taken advantage of recent advances in technology, including recording brain activity, using scanning techniques such as fMRI and EEG - and use advanced genetic research
• one strength is research into modern psychology can claim to be scientific: psychology has the same aims as natural sciences (to describe, understand, predicts and control behaviour - learning, cognitive and biological approaches all use scientific methods (e.g. lab studies are controlled and unbiased) - throughout the 20th century and beyond, psychology has established itself as a scientific discipline
• one limitation of psychology is that some approaches use subjective data - humanistic approach doesn't formulate general laws of behaviour - psychodynamic approach use case studies with unrepresentative samples - psychologists who are active ppts and therefore respond to demand characteristics - therefore, a scientific approach to the study of human thought and experience isn't desirable or possible