Wundt

• Who opened the first lab dedicated to psychological enquiry?

  Wilhelm Wundt
• What does introspection mean?


  Self-reflection and examining one's own thoughts, judgements and emotions
• What did Wundt want to investigate?

  Introspection
• What did Wundt ask people to do?

  Focus on everyday objects and examine their own sensations and feelings
• What did Wundt do with the records from the participants in his study?

  Break them down to further explain them - he was the first to break conscious awareness into structures of thoughts, feelings, images, reactions and sensations
• What is structuralism?


  Analysing and reflecting on smaller parts of the human consciousness
• What did Wundt later recognise about his research?

  Higher mental processes were difficult to study and it encouraged others to look for more appropriate methods and techniques
• What's an example of an object Wundt would ask his participants to look at?

  A metronome
• What are 2 things that Wundt founded?

  • The institute of experimental psychology
  • The first psychological journal
• Name strengths of Wundt's method of introspection.

  • His methods are still used today (although adapted)
  • It was used to investigate the cognitive biases of gamblers
• Name weaknesses of Wundt's method of introspection.

  • It can only report on conscious mental processes and many occur at an unconscious level, meaning introspection is limited
  • Mental processes are unobservable so studying them means a loss of objectivity and therefore making introspection an unscientific study