Evaluation of Wundt and the Origins of Psychology

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  • Created by: AliceTori
  • Created on: 16-04-17 09:03

Too Subjective

Wundt claimed that trained introspectionists were able to produce accurate and reliable results that could always be replicated in another lab with a different introspectionist.

However, it soon became apparent that this was not true as it was discovered that reporting on inner experiences in this manner was too subjective.

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Too Subjective, again

Wundt developed STRUCTURALISM which influenced the next generation of psychologists.

Structuralism was studying the structure of the human brain by breaking down behaviours into their basic elements.

Titchner used introspection to attempt to break down sensations, images, feelings, etc into their basic elements but again this was too subjective.

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Low Population Validity

Wundt usually performed his experiments on one introspectionist and then, maybe, he would test another to compare the results.

This, as a result, made it very difficult to generalise his findings to a whole population, beyond those who Wundt had studied and therefore meant that Wundts research had a low population validity.

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Empirical Methods of Studying Psychology

Psychology is now accepted more as a scienctific discipline and it now uses many different methods that are empirical (scientific) to investigate the human mind and human behaviour.

However, some psychologists do not believe that psychology is a science and due to this there are many different methods that are used to test behaviour and also there are many different view points.

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