ORIGINS OF PSYCHOLOGY

ORIGINS OF PSYCHOLOGY

PSYCHOLOGY

- The scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those functions affecting behaviour in a given context

SCIENCE

- The means of acquiring knowledge through systematic and objective investigation

- The aim is to discover general laws and cause and effect

WUNDT

- Opened the first lab dedicated to psychology in Germany 1897

- This objective was to describe the nature of the human consciousness (the mind) in a carefully controlled and scientific environment - a lab

- This is known as introspection

- Involved Wundt and his co-workers recording their own conscious thoughts, with the aim of breaking these down into their constituent parts

- Isolating the structure of consciousness is known as structuralism   

INTROSPECTION

- The first systematic experimental attempt to study the mind by breaking

up conscious awareness into basic structures of thoughts images and sensations

CONTROLLED METHODS

- Although Wundt's early attempt to study the mind would have been seen as naive today, Wundt used methods that might be considered scientific today

- All introspectives were recorded under strictly controlled conditions

- E.g they used the same stimulus every time

- The same standardised instructions were given to all participants

- This allowed the procedures to be repeated

- For instance, participants were given a ticking metronome (to pace their responses) and they would report their thoughts, images and sensations, which were then recorded.

EMPIRICISM

- The belief that all knowledge is derived from sensory experience.

- It is generally characterised by the use of the scientific method in psychology

EMERGENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY AS A SCIENCE

BEHAVIOURIST

- The beginning of the 20th-century people were questioning the value of introspection

- John B. Watson argued that introspection:

- Was too subjective

- Varies from person to person

- Is difficult to establish general laws

- Focuses too much on private mental processes

- He said that scientific psychology should only study phenomena that can be observed and measured.

SCIENTIFIC APPROACH - Behaviourist

- Thus, the behaviourist approach was born and psychology emerged as a science

- Watson and Skinner brought the language and rigour of the natural sciences into psychology.

- The behaviourists focus on learning, and the use of carefully controlled lab studies would be the focus of psychology for the next few decades.

- Many psychologists still use experimental methods today but the scope has broadened significantly since then

COGNITIVE

- Following the cognitive revolution of the 1960s, the study of mental processes was seen as legitimate within psychology.

- Although mental processes remain 'private', cognitive psychologists are able to make inferences…