Wundt

• A01: outline Wundt’s role in emergence of psychology as a science

  • Wundt founded the Institute of Experimental Psychology
  • Wundt published one of the first books on psychology, helping to establish the subject as an independent branch of science
  • description of Wundt's approach - structuralism
  • the use of the scientific method to study the structure of sensation and perception
• A01: outline Wundt’s role in emergence of psych as a science

  • the use of introspection in controlled studies
  • use of controlled environments to establish general theories about mental processes
  • Wundt's identification of higher mental processes (learning, language, emotions, etc.) that could not be studied in a strictly controlled manner
  • the development of the field of cultural psychology based on general trends in behaviour of groups of people.
• A03 Evaluate wundts role in emergence psych as science

  • discuss subjectivity of Wundt's methods in contrast to the objectivity of the scientific process and the difficulty modern psychologists have trying to objectively study unobservable matter
  • introspective methods were 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
• A03 Evaluate wundts role in emergence psych as science

  •  contributions to the development of psychology by early behaviourists, eg Pavlov, than by Wundt, as they produced reliable findings with explanatory principles that were generalisable - much more in keeping with the scientific approach.
  • discussion of the validity of introspection - many aspects of our minds are outside of our conscious awareness, eg research by Nisbett & Wilson, 1977; however, it is still sometimes used in modern scientific psychological research, eg Csikszentmihalyi & Hunter, 2003