1. Origins of Psychology 4.2.1: Approaches in Psychology Origins of Psychology: Wundt, introspection and the emergence of Psychology as a science. Pages 104-105 of course text book

2. What is ‘science’? Think-pair-share With the person sitting next to you, discuss what ‘science’ means – what do you see as the criteria for classification as a science?

3. The beginning? In contrast to the natural sciences (physics, chemistry and biology), Psychology is a relatively new scientific discipline. It has its roots in 17 th and early 19 th century philosophy and was indeed once known as experimental philosophy. Early influences included Rene Descartes, and his concept of Cartesian dualism, which simply means that the mind and body are separate entities, the brain is not the same as the mind. This is a clear starting point for psychology.

4. The work of John Locke and his concept of empiricism, the belief that all knowledge is derived from sensory experience and can be studied using the scientific method also had an influence on the emergence of psychology as a science. Finally, the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin set the stage for the emergence of psychology as we know it today. The beginning

5. Wilhelm Wundt In 1873 Wilhelm Wundt published the first book on psychology ‘Principles of Physiological Psychology’ and in 1879 opened the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany. He is often considered to be ‘the father of psychology’ His approach to psychology was to study the structure of the human mind, by breaking down behaviours into their basic elements, hence his approach became known as structuralism.

6. Wundt used introspection to investigate the human mind. Introspection comes from Latin and means ‘looking into’. Basically, participants were asked to reflect on their own cognitive processes and describe them. Wundt established psychology as a science by using the scientific method – his ideas would lead to multiple different psychological perspectives. Introspection

7. Wundt’s new ‘scientific’ approach to psychology was based on two major assumptions. 1.All behaviour is seen as being caused (determined) 2.If behaviour is determined, then it should be possible to predict how human beings would behave in different conditions (predictability) This technique used to explore these assumptions became known as the scientific method What is the ‘Scientific Method’?

8. The scientific method refers to the use of investigative methods that are: objective systematic replicable What is the ‘Scientific Method’? How are these achieved and why are they important?

9. Evaluating the scientific approach to psychology Strengths: Knowledge acquired using scientific methods are more than just the passive acceptance of facts Causes of behaviour can be established through the use of methods that are empirical and replicable Scientific knowledge is self- corrective meaning that it can be refined or abandoned Weaknesses: Scientific psychologists create contrived situations that create artificial behaviours Much of the subject matter of psychology is unobservable, therefore cannot be measured with any degree of accuracy Not all psychologists share the view that that human behaviour can be explored through scientific methods Discuss with your partner the strengths and weaknesses of using the scientific approach in psychology

10. Introspection relies primarily on non-observable responses and although participants can report conscious experiences, they are unable to comment on unconscious factors relating to their behaviour. Introspection produced data that was subjective (varied greatly from person to person), so it became very difficult to establish general principles. This means that introspective experimental results are not reliably reproduced by other researchers. In contrast, the early behaviourists such as Pavlov and Thorndike were achieving reliably reproducible results and discovering explanatory principles that could be easily generalised to all human beings Introspection

11. Introspection may not seem particularly scientific, but it is still used today to gain access to cognitive processes. For example, Griffiths (1994) used introspection to study the cognitive processes of fruit machine gamblers. He asked them to ‘think aloud’ whilst playing a fruit machine into a microphone on their lapel. Csikzentmilyi and Hunter (2003) used introspection to study happiness in their work in the area of positive psychology.

12. Psychology as a science Psychology has four goals: 1.Description – tells us “what” occurred 2.Explanation – tells us “why” a behaviour or a mental process occurred 3.Prediction – identifies conditions under which a future behaviour or mental process is likely to occur 4.Change – applies psychological knowledge to prevent unwanted behaviour and to bring about desired change

13. Can you? 1.Explain Wundt’s contribution to the development of psychology 2.Outline one criticism of Wundt’s contribution to psychology 3.Explain what is meant by introspection 4.Outline two criticisms of introspection as a method of investigation 5.Explain the emergence of psychology as a science 6.Outline one strength and one limitation of the scientific approach in psychology Answer the ‘Check it’ questions on page 105

14. Homework Ensure you have written up your class notes to include the following: The emergence of Psychology as a science The scientific method (definition/strengths/weaknesses) Wilhelm Wundt’s contribution to psychology Introspection (definition/strengths/weaknesses) Overview of different approaches in Psychology