Wundt and introspection

when was the first lab opened and where

Leipzig, Germany in 1879

define introspection

Wundt and his co-workers recorded their own conscious thoughts and broke them down into thoughts, images and sensations

what are standardised procedures

the same instructions issued to all participants, and this allowed procedures to be repeated in exactly the same way

what is a strength of Wundt’s research

• introspections were recorded in a controlled lab environment with standardized procedures

• minimized extraneous variables, and this suggests his work laid important groundwork for empirical research methods.

what is a limitation of Wundt’s research

• The method relied on participants' subjective self-reports of their private mental processes, which could be inaccurate or hidden

• It is difficult to establish general, predictive laws of behavior from this kind of subjective data