wundt and introspection 💡

+ early influences

what was psychology initially known as?

experimental philosophy

what was Descartes’s influence on early psychology?

Cartesian dualism - mind and body are separate entities

what was Locke’s influence on early psychology?

empiricism - all knowledge is derived from sensory experience and can be studied using the scientific method

what was Darwin’s influence on early psychology?

evolution set the stage for the emergence of psychology as we know it today - reductionist/study of animals

who was Wundt? why is often considered the ‘father of psychology’?

• published first book on psychology in 1873 (‘Principles of Physiological Psychology’

• opened first psych lab in Leipzig, Germany

• structuralism - a reductionist approach: studying the structure of the human mind, breaking down behaviours into basic elements

• established psychology as a science by using the scientific method

what is introspection?

conscious examination of conscious experience: self observation of own thoughts

what are the 3 stages of introspection?

1. stimulus, e.g. metronome

2. inspect own thoughts, e.g. emotions/sensations

3. draw concs and compare responses

what are the strengths of introspection?

• temporal validity - still used today

• Griffiths (1994) used to study cognitive processes of fruit machine gamblers

• Csikzentmilyi and Hunter (2003) used to study happiness in work on positive psychology

• highly controlled and systematic

what are the limitations of introspection?

• relies on non observable responses - although ppts can report conscious experiences, they cannot comment on unconscious factors relating to their behaviour: we cannot falsify our own thoughts

• produces subjective data → difficult to establish general principles → not reliably reproduced