Psychology Approaches - Structuralism

• Wundt's methods


  • Subjectivity in contrast to the objectivity of the scientific process
  • Difficulty modern psychologists have trying to objectively study unobservable matter
• Introspective methods


  • Not reliably reproduced
  • Wundt's difficulty with replication due to subjectivity
• Focus on mental processes through introspection


  Can be seen as a forerunner of the cognitive approach
• Many aspects of our minds are outside of our conscious awareness, eg research by Nisbett & Wilson, 1977
• Introspection is still sometimes used in modern scientific psychological research, eg Csikszentmihalyi & Hunter, 2003
• Early behaviourists, eg Pavlov, made greater contributions to the development of psychology than Wundt
• Early behaviourists produced reliable findings with explanatory principles that were generalisable - much more in keeping with the scientific approach
• Introspection


  A systematic analysis of one's own conscious experience
• Introspection


  • Experiences are analysed in terms of their component parts/reference to 'structuralism'
  • These parts are elements like sensation, emotional reactions etc
  • People were trained to do this analysis to make the data objective rather than subjective
  • People were presented with standardised sensory events like a ticking metronome and asked to report their reactions
• Evaluations for Introspection.

  • Wundt’s methods were subjective in contrast to objectivity of scientific processes of modern psychologist. ❤️
  • Methods not reliable because the study can’t be replicated due to it being subjective. ❤️
  • Focuses on mental processes so it contributes to methods of the cognitive approach in the future. 💚
  • Pavlov provided for contributions to the development of Psychology because he produced reliable findings with generalisable explanations (more scientific). ❤️