Wundt AO1

• Wundt is considered the founder of experimental psychology and established the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany in 1879.
• He published one of the first psychology textbooks called "Principles of Physiological Psychology" which helped to establish the subject as an independent branch of science.
• His approach was structuralist.
• Structuralism means to study the structure of the human mind NOT focusing on philosophy. It suggested the best way to do this was to break down behaviours such as perception and sensation into basic elements.
• He studied the human mind through introspection.
• He didn't invent introspection.
• Introspection is a psychological method which involves analysing your own thoughts and feelings internally.
• Introspection is used to study sensation and perception by asking participants to describe their experiences when presented with a set of stimuli and often, their reaction times were recorded.
• Wundt used controlled environments to establish general theories about mental processes.
• What higher mental processes did Wundt identify?

  Learning, language and emotions- these could not be studied in a controlled manner.
• Wundt was also involved in the field of cultural psychology based n general trends of behaviour in groups of people.