origins of psych

• empiricism


  the belief that all knowledge comes from the senses
• introspection


  the process in which a person gains knowledge about their own mental states through examination or observation of their conscious thoughs
• origins of psychology - wundt

  • first person to call himself a psychologist
  • believed every aspect of the mind could be studied scientifically
  • studied behaviour in controlled conditions, e.g. reaction time and aspects of sensation and perception
  • structuralism approach
  • used introspection to break down behaviours
• origins of psychology - wundt and introspection

  • believed mental processes, like memory, could be observed systematically
  • e.g. observers shown stimulus and asked to reflect on how they were perceiving it
  • info then used to gain insight of the mental processes used in perception
  • able to compare different participants' reports in response to the same stimuli and therefore establish theories
• psychology as a science

  • relies on empiricism
  • based on 2 assumptions:
  • behaviour is caused
  • behaviour is predictable
  • became known as the scientific method
• the scientific method

  • the use of investigative methods that are objective and replicable (reliable)
• introspection limitations - unreliable methods

  • although ppts could report on their conscious experience, the processes themselves were considered to be unobservable
  • results not reliably reproduced by other researchers
  • therefore results cannot be generalised to everyone
• scientific method strength - tests assumptions about behaviour

  • relies on objective methods of observation
  • therefore able to establish the causes of behaviour through empirical and replicable methods
  • however, if scientific theories no longer fit the facts, they can be refined or abandoned, so scientific knowledge is self-corrective
• scientific method limitation - not always appropriate

  • not all psychologists share the view that human behaviour can be explored by scientific methods
  • if behaviour is not limited to the laws suggested by science, then predictions become impossible and makes these methods inappropriate
  • much of psychology is unobservable and cannot be accurately measured
  • this means that a lot of psychology is inferenced
• introspection limitation - not particularly accurate

  nisbett and wilson (1977)

  • we have very little knowledge of the causes of our behaviour
  • most noticeable in studies of implicit attitudes
  • because such attitudes exist outside of conscious thought, introspection would not uncover them
  • therefore introspection may not explore the roots of our behaviour
• introspection strength - useful in scientific psychology

  csikzentmihalyi and hunter (2003)

  • used introspection as a way to make happiness a measurable phenomenon
  • gave groups of teenagers beepers that went off at random times during the day
  • required teens to write down their thoughts and feelings at the time of the beep
  • most reports indicated that teens were unhappy, but when their energies were focused on a challenging task, they tended to be more upbeat
  • therefore introspection offers researchers a way of understanding conditions that affect happiness