Wundt & Introspection

Cards (12)

  • What was Wundt known as?
    The father of psychology as the subject moved from philosophical roots to controlled, objective and scientific research.
  • What did Wundt do in 1873?
    Published the first book on psychology 'Principles of Physiological Psychology' helping to establish the subject as an independent branch of science
  • What did Wundt do in 1879
    Set up the first psychology lab in Liepzig Germany
  • What did Wundt promote?
    The use of scientific methods when investigating introspection as a way of studying mental processes.
  • Define introspection
    The systematic analysis of own conscious experience of a stimulus
    An experience was analysed in terms of its component parts such as sensations and emotional reaction
  • What did Wundt work pave the way for
    Later controlled research and the study of mental processes such as cognitive psychologists
  • What did Wundt strictly control?
    -the environment where introspection took place , controlled the stimuli and tasks ppts were asked to think about and limited the range of responses ppts might give

    -ppts were presented with standardised sensory events like a ticking metronome and asked to report their reactions
  • A positive criticism of introspection is that it is still used today to gain access to cognitive processes
    -E.g. Griffiths used introspection to study the cognitive processes of fruit machine gamblers and asked them to think aloud while playing

    -This research led to treatment for gambling and therefore introspection has a positive application in modern society
  • Another Positive criticism of Wundt is his use of scientific methods
    -from this causes of behaviour can be established that are empirical. This means other psychologists can replicate his research

    -furthermore the high level of control means less influence from EV's and greater certainty the IV impacted the DV
  • However today's psychologists (e.g Skinner) argue that introspection were not scientific even if the methods used to introspect were.

    -Skinner claims the results of introspection are subjective and cannot be verified because only observable behaviour can be objectively measured
  • A positive criticism is that Wundt is considered the father of psychology
    -his work stimulated an interest in cognitive psychology and it could be argued that he paved the way for the emergence of cognitive neuroscience
    -his greatest contribution was to show that psychology could be a valid experimental science
  • A negative criticism of the use of introspection is that 

    -one can only infer that ppts are thinking about things you asked them to
    -therefore one could argue that introspection is not a scientific method for studying human behaviour