Origins of psychology

• Wilhelm Wundt is credited with being the father of psychology and moved the study of the mind from philosophy into the scientific field.
• The structuralist approach was developed by Wilhelm Wundt, who believed that consciousness could be broken down into its component parts to understand how it worked.
• Wundt set up the first experimental psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany in 1879 and used it to study the nature of human consciousness
• Wundt's aim was to try to analyse the nature of human consciousness and this was the first systematic attempt to study the mind under controlled conditions. He developed a technique known as introspection.
• Introspection process:

  1. Presented with stimulus (e.g. the sound of a metronome or turning on a light)
  2. Inspecting own thoughts: participants reported back on their own emotions, sensations and thoughts
  3. Comparing results: Responses from participants were compared to establish similarities and differences
• Wundt's research formed the start of psychology as a science.
• Structuralism aimed to identify the basic building blocks of thought and behaviour by breaking them down into small parts.
• Wundt’s approach became known as structuralism because he used experimental methods to find the basic building blocks (structures) of thought and investigate how they interacted
• The structuralist approach is focused on the study of sensation and perception, breaking participants’ observations of objects, images and events down into constituent parts
• Wundt used the scientific method to study the structure of sensation and perception
• Wundt believed that consciousness was made up of sensations which were then combined together to form perceptions
• Wundt's version of introspection involved an external stimulus being designed to produce a scientifically observable experience of the mind.
• Wundt's introspection relied on the use of "trained" observers.
• Wundt's introspection used repeatable stimuli that always produced the same experience in the subject.
• The aim of Wundt's experimental requirements was to eliminate “interpretation” in the reporting of internal experiences.