Wundt introspections

father of psychology

The nickname provided for Wundt due to his contributions to the development of psychology.

what is psychology

the scientific study of the mind behaviour and experience

explain wundts investigation

1. Participants were presented with a stimulus (e.g. the sound of a metronome or the turning on of a light)

2. Participants were then asked to inspect their own thoughts, emotions & sensations

3. Conclusions were made (i.e. answers from the participants were compared to see what was similar or different)

introspection

A technique for examining people’s own conscious thoughts, feelings and sensations as developed by Wundt. (a process of looking inward at our own thought)

what is structuralism

The analysis of basic element that constitute ( make up) the mind

how did people self report wunts introspection

Systemically they broke it down into parts eh sensations and emotional reactions

1. Explain Wundt’s contribution to the development of psychology (3 marks)

1. development of the first psychological laboratory in Leipzig

2. Wundt made the first attempts to move psychology away from moral discussion and towards more objective experimentation and analysis. for example introspection was more objective and research was carried out in a more scientific way

3. Whilst his methods were not completely objective, they resulted in new scientific approaches to psychological study such as behaviourism, hence why he became known as the “father of psychology”.

emergence

1.Psychology first emerged as a science when Wundt moved it away from philosophical and physiological discussion by developing the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany in 1879.

2. This was more scientific as it was an attempt to move psychology towards experimental psychology using techniques such as introspection and structuralism which attempted to analyse the structures of conscious thought and measure cognitive thoughts, feelings and images when exposed to an everyday stimulus such as a metronome.

3.Wundt’s work also laid the foundations for more objective methods as behaviourism developed as a response to the subjective approach used by Wundt, meaning that psychology developed towards even stricter experimental techniques.

One strength is that he helped develop psychology

One of the main advantages of wunt work is that he was a lead in developing psychology as a science hence he became known as the father of psychology.

This is advantageous because his development of the first psychological laboratory enabled more objective research methods to be used that drew upon ideas of determinism and prediction.

for eaxmple he would use stimului such as a swinging pedulum to examine the speed of mental processing by asking ps to make predicitions on its movement. It was then inferred that the longer the response the more mental processing was required.

During his academic career Wundt trained how many graduate students in psychology?

116

Give one example of a test that Wundt would do with his participants to examine their sensations.

Participants would be exposed to a standard stimulus (e.g. a light or the sound of a metronome) and asked to report their sensations. 

What is introspection?

A highly practiced form of self-examination 

Who came up with the theory of structuralism which was a development of Wundt’s work?

Titchener 

strength is he aided the development of psychology

One of the main advantages to wunts work is that he was a leader in developing psychology as a science hence he became know as the father of psychology.

He developed the first laboratory in Leipzig Germany. This enabled more objective research methods to be used that drew upon the ideas of determinism and predication.

For example he would would use stimuli such as swinging pendulum to examine the speed of mental processes by asking ps to predict its movements. It was then inferred that the longer response meant more mental processes were required.

Overall this systematic approach whist not perfect allowed the development of further scientific approaches such as behaviourism as well as influencing cognitive psychologist to make inference about brain structure of internal processes such a memory

One limitation is wundt reliance on inference

nevertheless a final limitation is that wundts methods rely upon the use of inferences

This is problematic because we cannot directly measure inner mental processes.

skinner for example pointed towards this as a problem and argued that only that which can be seen can be measured

This means that wundt’s work on introspection lacks reliability of behaviourist methods and though it may have influenced cognitive psychology does not carry the same scientific credibility of approaches such as behaviourism.

one limitation is that wunts work lacks credibility

despite this wunts work has been criticised for lacking objectivity.

This is problematic because his use of introspection is based upon inner mental processes which cannot be seen and therefore cannot be measured directly.

For example his work using the metronome. He asked people to report on their mental states using self report methods but these may be biased, mistaken or influenced by demand characteristics.

Overall wundt’s work can therefore be said to lack the scientific credibility of other approaches in psychology such as behaviourism and the biological approach

A strength is that this work had been applied to determinisium

A contrasting argument, however is the application of wundts work on determinism.

This is a benefit because wunt techniques have been and continue to be relevant to the study of unobservable emotional states as well as inner mental processes.

For example Griffiths has used introspection to study the cognitive processes of fruit machine gamblers thereby gaining insight into the thoughts, feelings and sensations associated with gambling addictions.

Overall this means that wundts work on determinism continues to be applicable today and can be utilised within psychological therapy such as biological treatments in health and the development of interventions for criminal behaviour within the field of forensic psychology.