Origins of Psycholgy - Wilhelm Wundt and Introspection

Wundt

• Approach to psychology = study the structure of the human mind by breaking down behaviours into their basic elements = structuralism

• Used introspection to investigate the human mind – asked Ps to reflect on their own cognitive processes and describe them
• Established psychology as a science using the scientific method, which was based on 2 key ideas:

• All behaviour is caused
• If all behaviour is caused then it should be possible to predict behaviour in different conditions
• Based on empirical evidence

• The scientific method:
  • Replicable…