origins of psychology

• in 1879 wilhelm wundt opended the first ever lab dedicated entirley to psychological enquiry in germany
• wundts work is significant as it marked the beginning of scientific psychology
• wundts aim was to try to analyse the nature of human consciousness and thus represented the first systematic attempt to study the mind under controlled conditions his pioneering method became known as introspection
• introspection is the first systematic experimental attempt to study the mind by breaking up conscious awareness into basic structures of thoughts, images and sensations
• one of wundts main objectives was to try and develop theories about mental processes by recording him and his co-workers experiences of various stimuli into three different categories: thoughts, images and sensations
• supporting evidence for wundt work ao3:

  -work was systematic and controlled

  -recorded in lab conditions to ensure extraneous variables had no effect

  -procedures and instructions were carefully standardised
• limiting evidence for wundt work ao3:

  -wundts research would be considered unscientific today

  -relied on self-report techniques which makes data subjective

  -some particpants may have hidden some thoughts

  -study was flawed and wont meet criteria of scientific enquiry
• 1900s- behaviourists:

  -value of introspection was questioned as produced subjective data

  -watson and skinner proposed that a truly scientific psychology should only study things that can be observed objectively and measured

  -behaviourists focused on behaviour they could see using carefully controlled experiements
• 1950s-cogntive approach:

  -digital revolution gave cognitive psychologists chance to link the mind to a computer and a new way to study it

  -tested their predictions about memory and attention using experiments

  -ensured study of mind was a legitimate and highly scientific discipline
• 1980s biological approach:

  -taken advantage of advances in technology to investigate physiological processes as they happen

  -genetic testing and scanning techniques
• supporting evidence, psychology as a science ao3:

  -can claim to be scientific

  -learning approaches, cognitive and scientific all rely on the use of scientific methods

  -use lab studies in a controlled and unbiased way
• limitng evidence, psychology as a science ao3:

  -not all approaches use objective methods

  -humanistic approach rejects the scientific approach

  -psychodynamic approach uses case studies which do not use representative samples

  -humans may suffer demand characteristics