Wilhelm Wundt and his work -Wundt was the first person to call himself a psychologist, believing all aspects of nature, including the human mind, could be studied scientifically. His approach paved the way for the acceptance of psychology as a direct science. In his laboratory in Leipzig, Germany, he studied only those aspects of behaviour that could be strictly controlled under experimental conditions. Wundt’s aim was to study the structure of the human mind. His approach was referred to as structuralism and the technique he used as introspection.

Emergence of Psychology as a Science - When empirical methods were first applied to the study of human beings by Wundt and his followers, psychology began to emerge as a distinct entity. The new ‘scientific’ approach to psychology was based on two major assumptions. First, all behaviour is seen as being caused. Second, if behaviour is determined, then it should be possible to predict how human beings would behave in different conditions. The technique used to explore these assumptions became known as the scientific method.

Evaluation

Wundt’s methods were unreliable - A criticism of Wundt’s structuralist approach was that it relied primarily on ‘non-observable’ responses. Wundt’s approach ultimately failed because of the lack of reliability of his methods.

Introspection is not particularly accurate - Most psychologists tend to accept Nisbett and Wilson’s (1977) claim that we have very little knowledge of the causes of our behaviour and attitudes, a claim which would challenge the value of introspective reports. They found, for e.g participants were remarkably unaware of factors that had been influential in their choice of a consumer item.

Strengths of a scientific approach to psychology -

• Because of its reliance on objective and systematic methods of observation, knowledge acquired using the scientific method is more than just the passive acceptance of facts.

• Because scientific methods rely on a belief in determinism, they are able to establish the causes of behaviour through the use of methods that are both empirical and replicable

• If scientific theories no longer fit the facts, they can be refined or abandoned, meaning that scientific knowledge is self corrective.

Limitations of a scientific approach -

• Much is the subject matter of psychology is unobservable, therefore cannot be measured with only degree of accuracy

• Not all psychologists believe that all human behaviour can be explored by the use of scientific methods

• By concentration on objectively and control in observations, scientific psychologists create contrived situations that tell us little about how people act in more natural environments