Wundt

• Wundt's contributions


  Credited as 'the father of psychology'. First person to separate psychology from philosophy. Set up 1st psychology lab in Germany to conduct controlled & standardised research in an attempt to increase the scientific credibility of the subject. Developed introspection as a method of researching mental processes, eg. memory & perception with ppts encountering a sensory experience
• Evaluation of Wundt - Strengths

  Focuses on the inner mental processes paved the way for the mergence of cognitive approach & his methods are still used today - Griffiths used to introspection to assess gambler's thought process in order to understand the cognitive process behind addiction
• Evaluation of Wundt - Weaknesses


  Introspection criticised for being unscientific. Behaviourists believed only observable behaviour was capable of scientific study, but introspection focuses on the study of non-observable behaviours so findings were subjective.
• Introspection

  Ppts are given a stimulus & then have to provide description of what their inner processes are whilst listening to sound etc, Wundt compared ppt's responses & this helped him understand how people perceive things
• Empirical method

  Methods that psychologists use where behaviour can be observed & measured
• Objectivity

  This is where we base findings on fact rather than opinion
• Replicability

  The ability to repeat a study & test the findings aren't use 'fluke', this means that our study is reliable.
• Psychology as a science

  Using methods that are objective, systematic & replicable. Measurement & recording of data is done as accurately as possible. Aims to reproduce results that are replicable by other researchers in order to maintain its reliability. Theory is developed / modified / falsified based on above. The constant testing & development of theories completes the scientific process
• Evaluation of psychology as a science - strengths

  Science relies on the beliefs of determinism so they're able to establish the causes of behaviour which allow us to create treatment for mental health disorders. Scientific theories are able to be repeated, falsified & refined by others, meaning our knowledge of disorders is growing and inaccurate theories are abandoned
• Evaluation of psychology as a science - Weaknesses

  Many causes of behaviour are internal & complex & can't be measured with a great degree of accuracy - inferences still have to be made because a true internal cause is difficult to prove. Shared paradigms - Kuhn: psychology can't be a science because there are too many conflicting theories of behaviour so true objectivity isn't possible
• The emergence of psychology as a science

  Psychology is held together by empiricism: lends itself to the idea that we should only study psychology that we can observe which allows us to make predictions about how people might behave in given situations. Watson & Skinner: brought language, rigour & methods of natural sciences
• Why introspection wasn't considered scientific

  Subjective rather than objective - produced data that varied so much from person to person, which made it difficult to establish any general principles or theories, and science needs general sets of principles to make it scientific. It wasn't 'measurable' therefore isn't based on empirical methods. Introspection focuses on a person's private thoughts - this makes it impossible for us to measure as we cannot see it - true scientific methods should allow us to observe and measure the behaviour.