wundt

• In 1879, Wundt set up his first laboratory where he adopted the use of introspection.
• Introspection is defined as “a means of learning about one’s own currently ongoing mental states or processes. Introspective knowledge is often held to be more immediate or direct than sensory knowledge”.
• Introspection features 3 conditions:

  The mentality condition (aims to generate beliefs about mental states and events)

  the first-person condition (aims to generate beliefs about the individual’s own mind)

  the temporal proximity condition (generates beliefs and describes the individual’s current mental life)
• Wundt isolated conscious thoughts into basic structures of thoughts, processes and images, in a process called structuralism
• Wundt's method of data recording was highly scientific e.g. the same stimulus was used each time, allowing for replication under standardised conditions, hence producing reliable data.
• Skinner disagreed with the subjective nature of introspection, in which the findings differed greatly from individual to individual, making it difficult to establish general laws and unifying principles of behaviour and cognition.
• Therefore, in the 1930s, Skinner’s idea of radical behaviourism (that private events could be measured and quantified in the same way as observable behaviour) was tested using the laboratory experiment method of research.
• Skinner allowed for the objective measurement of observable behaviour, providing reliable data through controlling and eliminating the effects of extraneous and confounding variables, by using highly controlled conditions. This marks the beginnning of Psychology as a science
• Therapies, such as CBT offered by the NHS, usually use a set framework similar for everyone receiving the intervention. In this intervention, clients are required to reflect on their current state. These concepts are similar to introspection. CBT is widely established as an effective intervention for many psychological illnesses.