Origins of Psychology

Wilhelm Wundt: Wundt opened the first-ever psychology lab at Leipzig university in 1879. It marked the beginning of scientific psychology, separating it from its broader philosophical roots.

Introspection: The first systematic experimental attempt to study the mind by breaking up conscious awareness into basic structures of thoughts, images and sensations

Standardised Procedures: Wundt and his co-workers recorded their experiences of various stimuli they were presented with, such as different objects or sounds. They would record their thoughts, images and sensations.

Structuralism: Isolating the structure of consciousness into specific categories.

Strength of Introspection: All introspections were recorded in the controlled environment of the lab, ensuring that possible extraneous variables were not a factor. Suggests Wundt’s research can be considered a forerunner to later scientific approaches in psychology.

Limitation of Introspection: Wundt relied on participants self-reporting their mental processes which is subjective data. Also, participants may have hidden some of their thoughts and so it is difficult to establish meaningful ‘laws of behaviour’ from such data.

1900s Behaviourists: Watson and BF Skinner in the early 20th century proposed that a truly scientific psychology should only study phenomena that can be observed and measured. Behaviourists focused on behaviours that they could see and used carefully controlled experiments.

1950s Cognitive Approach: Cognitive psychologists likened the mind to a computer and tested their predictions about memory and attention using experiments. The cognitive approach ensured that the study of the mind was a legitimate and highly scientific aspect of the discipline.

1980s Biological Approach: Researchers within this area had taken advantage of advances in technology to investigate physiological processes as they happen. For example, they used fMRIs and EEGs to study live activity in the brain.

Modern Psychology: Psychology has the same aims as the natural sciences - to describe, understand, predict and control behaviour. The learning, cognitive, and biological approaches all rely on scientific methods, for example, lab studies to investigate theories in a controlled and unbiased way.

Subjective Data: Not all approaches use objective methods. The humanistic approach rejects the scientific approach. The psychodynamic approach makes use of the case study method which does not use representative samples.