Origins

• The idea of psychology as a distinct branch in its own right is generally dated around the 1880 where the first experimental lab was established.
• Wundt, the father of modern psychology, is credited with opening the first psychology lab in Germany.

  He used introspection in his work. This is a technique that is used to gain insight into how mental processes work. The Latin meaning, means to "look into".

  It is the process by which a person gains knowledge about his or her own mental and emotional state. People were trained to report their inner experiences presented with a stimulus and all introspections were recorded strictly under controlled conditions. Each participant was given standardised instructions for replication purposes.
• A03

  • Introspection is too subjective. Research shows that different subjects often provided very different introspective reports about the same stimulus. Even subjects well trained in introspection varied in their responses to the same stimulus from trial to trial which suggests that introspection is an unreliable method of investigation.
• A03

  • Introspection cannot be used to study children or animals as it requires a high degree of complex self awareness and articulation. Furthermore, complex topics are unable to be studied using introspection.
• A03

  • It was the first systematic and experimental method to study the mind by breaking conscious awareness into basic structure of thoughts, images and sensations. It paved the way for later approaches that studied the mind systematically, for example, the cognitive approach.
  • Wundt himself paved the way for controlled methods in psychology, such as lab studies