Origins of Psychology

• When did Wilhelm Wundt open the first psychology lab?

  1879
• Where did Wilhelm Wundt first open the first psychology lab?

  Leipzig Germany
• What is introspection?


  Is examining one's own thought process and feelings
• What steps are needed to carry out introspection?

  1. Present a stimulus
  2. Inspect your own thoughts
  3. Draw conclusions
• Emergence of Psychology as a Science: Wundt

  • 1879- Wundt opened up the first psychology lab and eventually created his own psychology textbook
  • Tested introspection
  • Structuralism- Isolating the structure of consciousness
  • Controlled lab studies
• Emergence of Psychology as a Science: Behaviourist Approach

  • Early 1900s- Behaviourism was discovered
  • Operant Conditioning- BF Skinner
  • Classical Conditioning- Ivan Pavlov
  • Controlled lab studies
• Emergence of Psychology as a science: Cognitive Approach

  • 1960- Focus on studying internal mental process that were objective and could be replicated
  • The role of the schema
  • Computer and Theoretical Models
• Emergence of Psychology: Biological Approach

  • 1980s- Biological Approach is founded
  • Advances in technology allowed us to study genes
  • Twin studies
• In terms of Emergence of Psychology what has been discovered today?

  Cognitive Neuroscience
• Outline Wundt's method of introspection

  • Process of analysing one's own conscious awareness
  • Wundt would ask people to focus on a stimulus and look inwards for feelings and sensations
  • Focus on being objective
  • Breaking thoughts about an object down into separate elements
• Outline key features of Wundt's approach

  • Wundt was the first psychologist to set up a psychology lab to study the mind and behaviour
  • In this controlled setting he was able to study the building blocks of human behaviour which is structuralism
  • He carried out many experiments on introspection which was getting people to examine their own thought process using stimuli
• AO3 Wundt: Limited Approach

  • Wundt used the introspection method to understand more about human behaviour but it does not explain how the mind works
  • It relies on self reported information from people which is highly subjective and not scientific
  • Wundt's approach goes against the features of science as it lacks objectivity
• AO3 Wundt: Lacks reliability

  • There are no opportunities to assess the reliability of Wundt's interpretations or the people self reporting their own thoughts
  • BF Skinner argues as you are not observing observable behaviour you are not objective
  • This means that it lacks falsifiability as the reporting of the thoughts cannot be disputed
• AO3 Wundt: Uses lab experiments

  • Wundt uses lab experiments
  • This is conducted in a controlled environment and therefore are replicable
  • This was the first paradigm to move psychology towards a science