Origins of psychology

• Problems with introspection

  -Doesn't explain how the mind works, relies on people describing their thought and feelings, usually not objective.

  -Doesn't provide data that can be used reliably, people report their own experiences, their accounts can't be confirmed.
• Evaluation: Subjective data (limitation) - Emergance of psych


  Not all approaches use objective methods.

  For example: humanistic approach rejects scientific approach, focus on individual and subjective experiences.

  Subject of study - humans - active ppts in research, responding to demand characteristics.

  Scientific approach to the study of human thought and experience may not always be desirable or possible.
• Evaluation: Modern psychology (strength) - Emergence of psych


  Modern psychology can claim to be scientific.

  Same aims as the natural sciences - describe, understand, predict, control behaviour.

  Some approaches rely on scientific methods - lab studies to investigate in a controlled and unbiased environment.

  Psychology has established itself as a scientific dicipline.
• Evaluation: Subjective data (limitation) - Wundt


  Wundt's research today would be considered unscientific.

  Relied on ppts self-reporting their mental processes - data is subjective, personal perspective can have an influence, ppts may hid their thoughts.

  Difficult to establish meaningful 'laws of behaviour' from such data - and these general laws are used to predict future behaviour.

  Some of Wundt's early efforts to study the mind were flawed and wouldn't meet criteria of scientific enquiry today.
• Evaluation: Scientific (strength) - Wundt

  Some of Wundt's methods were systematic and well-controlled.

  All introspections were recorded in the controlled environment - lab. EVs were not a factor.

  Procedures and instructions were standardised, ppts recieved the same information.

  Wundt's research can be considered a forerunner to later scientific approaches.
• 1980s Biological approach


  Researchers have taken advantage of technology to investigate psychological processes as they happen (rg. fMRI). New methods (eg. genetic testing) allows us to better understand relationships between genes and behaviour.
• 1950s Cognitive approach


  Cognitive psychologists linked the mind to a computer (multi-store model), tested their predictions using experiments. Ensuring that the study of the mind was legitimate and highly scientific.
• 1900s Behaviourists

  Researchers (eg. Watson and Skinner) questioned the value of introspection as it produced subjective data - difficult to establish general laws. Proposed that a truly scientific psychology should only study phenomena that can be observed and measured.

  Focused on behaviours they could see and used carefully controlled experiments.
• Structuralism


  Breaks down human thoughts and experiences into basic components.
• Standardised procedures


  One of the main objectives was to try and develop theories about mental processes. He and his co-workers recorded their experiences of various stimuli they were presented with. And divide their observations into three categories: thoughts, images and sensations.
• Introspection


  The first systematic experimental attempt to study the mind by breaking up conscious awareness into basic structures of thought, images and sensations.
• Wundt's aim


  To try to analyse the nature of human consciousness, represented the first systematic attempt to study the mind under controlled conditions - his pioneering method became known as introspection.
• Wundt


  In 1987 Wundt opened the first lab dedicated to psychology in Leipzig - marking the beginning of scientific psychology.