Origins Of Psychology
- Created by: maggie swan
- Created on: 10-12-21 13:39
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- Origins Of Psychology
- Wilhelm Wundt
- First person to call themselves a psychologist
- All aspects of nature including the brain could be studied scientifically
- Paved the way for the acceptance of psychology as a science
- Study the structure of human minds
- Approach was known as structuralism - breaking down conscious experiences
- The technique used was introspection
- Introspection
- From the Latin word 'looking into'
- Process by which a person gains knowledge about his or her own mental and emotional states
- Result of examination or observation of their conscious thoughts or feelings
- Observe our inner world
- Shown stimulus and reflect upon perception - insight about inner self
- Evaluation (A03)
- Limitation - Wundt’s structuralist approach relied primarily on ‘non-observable’ responses—you could rely on participants own reports. Therefore, there is a lack of reliability in his methods—introspective ‘experimental’ results were not reliably reproducible by other researchers.
- Strength - Still useful today – research has recently used introspective methods as a way of measuring ‘happiness’, participants had to write down thoughts when hearing the sound of the beep. Shows introspection has some relevance.
- Introspection is not particularly accurate—Nisbett and Wilson (1977) found that participants were unaware of factors that had influenced their choice of a consumer item. Suggests that some of our behaviour exist outside of conscious awareness.
- Wilhelm Wundt
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