Origins of psychology

• What is Wundt known for?

  'Father of psychology'

  
  

  - experimental psychology - believed the human mind could be studied scientifically

  - scientific method, his approach as based on empiricism, established psychology as a science

  - standardised method: eg: ticking of a metronome

  - separated psychology from philosophy
• When did Wundt open the first psychological lab?

  Leipzig, Germany - 1879
• Introspection


  A method of self-observation in which participants report their thoughts and feelings. Allows us to reflect on ourselves, observe our internal world and gain knowledge about our mental and emotional states.

  
  

  He and his co-workers recorded their own experineces of stimuli - observations divided into thoughts, images, sensations.

  
  

  Eg: pp sits and listens to a metronome, describing any thoughts, sensations, and feelings they experience

  All pp's are tested in the same conditions to allow comparisons to be made (standardised method)
• Structuralism


  Analyses conscious awareness by breaking it into the basic structures and components of the human mind.

  
  

  Argued that the complex mental processes are made up of basic building blocks - which can be accessed and studied through introspection.
• Wundt's two further scientific assumptions

  1) behaviour is caused (the assumption of determinism)

  2) because behaviour is determined, it can therefore be predicted
• A03 - scientific method (strength and weakness)

  Strength:

  - observations carried out in a controlled environment.

  - minimises influence of extraneous variables.

  - standardised procedures, aim to increase internal validity and reliability

  - relies of empirical, objective, systematic methods, and so is less biased than other methods

  
  

  These principles were developed within the behaviourist approach.
• Features of the scientific method

  - objective: biases or preconceptions don't influence data collection or analysis

  
  

  - systematic measuring / recording of empirical data

  
  

  - replicable, can be replicated by others to determine the reliability of results

  
  

  - scientific cycle: theories are developed, testable hypotheses are developed either supporting the current theory or suggesting the theory should be refined or rejected.

  In this way, nothing is ever proven - falsifiability
• A03 - weakness (introspection) P

  Introspection involves 'non-observable' and sometimes 'non-conscious' processes.
• A03 - weakness (introspection) E

  When using introspection, everyone's reports are likely to be different in the language they use to explain experiences, and everyone is not equally aware of their inner thought processes.

  - for example a person might not be aware of their unconscious bias towards a minority group
• A03 - weakness (introspection) E

  Moreover, as a self-report technique, introspection is limited by its subjective nature.

  
  

  Pp's express their own thoughts, feelings, and sensations, and may change or hide aspects due to social desirability bias.
• Contrast to the behaviourist approach

  In contrast, the behaviourist approach believes you should only study what can be directly observed (empirical method).

  - adheres to the features of science

  
  

  In this way, behaviourists can achieve replicable results leading to explanatory principles that are nomothetic in nature.
• A03 - strength (introspection) - P

  Introspection has lasted the test of time - modern studies often still use introspection as a method of investigation.
• A03 - strength (introspection) - E

  One use of introspection has been to understand the thought processes of gamblers.
• A03 - strength (introspection) - E

  When playing a fruit machine, regular gamblers made more irrational statements - indicating they were engaging in more irrational thoughts - than non-gamblers.
• A03 - strength (introspection) - L

  The decision to use introspection by modern researchers, and the fact that these studies were published in established journals (and so passed peer review) suggests many still see value in this method.
• A03 - weakness (introspection) L

  This means that from introspection alone, we can't accurately establish laws of behaviour. Inferences may be prone to errors, and the lack of replicability makes it difficult to establish reliable patterns of data.