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PSY 202 History / Systems of Psychology (Wundt)

Terms in this set (35)

Wundt
Founder of experimental psychology, believed that psychology was different and separate from mental philosophy.
Wundt's Definition of Psychology
He thought that psychology was NOT mental philosophy. He defined psychology as the study of (human) conscious experience.

Wundt believed that psychology includes humans, and excludes all non-humans (ie. chimpanzees, orangutans).

He thought that psychologists were different, they weren't rationalists or philosophers. But that they were also different from biologists and other scientists.
Study of Conscious Experience (SCE)
Includes volition and voluntarism.
Volition
The act of power of willing. Wundt believed that this is something researchers should be studying, because not all of us have the same capacity.
Voluntarism
Wundt argued that the mind has the capacity to organize mental contents into higher level processes.

Wundt was known for developing the term voluntarism, but also for developing the first school of psychology. He developed a framework of voluntarism, and encouraged research based on voluntarism.
Scope of Psychology
Wundt argued that there should be 2 areas of psychology.
1) Experimental psychology
2) Folk psychology
Experimental psychology
First branch of psychology.
Includes experimental research, and all of Fechner's sensation and perception.
Folk Psychology
Second branch of psychology.
Emphasized on observation and field work.

This branch of psychology later evolved into social psychology and cross-cultural psychology (cultural research).
Psychology as Separate Discipline
Wundt tried to establish Psychology as a separate and legitimate discipline. At the University of Leipzig, he founded the first graduate program in psychology (the Psychological Institute).

He believed that psychology was a separate discipline and was worthy.
Psychological Institute
Was credited as the first experimental lab in psychology.
However, some people argue that credit should be given to William James at University of Pennsylvania instead because he opened his lab before Wundt did. However, James used his lab as a teaching lab and not to conduct original research or publish original studies. Because of this, Wundt's Psychological Institute was a true experimental lab.
Prolific Writer
Wundt was a prolific writer. He wrote 54,000 pages in total between 1853-1920, which averaged to writing 2.2 pages per day.

Not only did Wundt have a long career, but he was always writing and publishing papers. This was a way for Wundt to establish psychology as a separate and legitimate discipline.
Wundt's Contributions
1) Wundt trained psychologists at the University of Leipzig, and also around the world in Italy, Japan, Russia, and the USA.

2) Public Relations -> Especially in the later part of Wundt's career, he worked tirelessly to promote psychology as its own individual scientific discipline. Wundt always agreed to doing interviews and was into marketing psychology.

3) Inspired competing visions of Psychology. Other psychologists would rebel against Wundt's views.
Voluntarism
The will to act, having mental processes.
This became the first major school in psychology after it was founded by Wundt.

Introspection was the key experimental method to voluntarism. Wundt thought you needed introspection because only using socratic questioning would lead to a dead end.
Goal of Voluntarism
To "map" or identify the underlying architecture or structure of mental activities.
Word Association and Introspection
Wundt borrowed the "word association" technique and combined it with introspection.
Example: If you think of green, you may associate it with trees.
Example: If you say pencil, you may associate it with paper or pens.
Mental Processes
Wundt's research lab considered a range of mental processes.
1) Reaction times
2) Sensation and perception
3) Attention
4) Word associations
5) Subjective interpretations of sensations (meaning "feeling at the moment")
Wundt's Key Concepts
1) Study of Conscious Experience (SCE)
2) Tridimensional Theory of Feelings
3) Introspection -> research method
SCE Overarching Goal
The overall goal is to analyze human conscious experience into separate elements. This looks at mental goals of human thought (which is equivalent to the specific elements). There are certain elements of human thought that bind easily together, and some that don't. However, we cant understand human conscious thought without understanding the periodic table.
SCE Chemistry Analogy
Chemistry may be useful in studying conscious experience. He explained human conscious experience using a periodic table.

The overall overarching goal of SCE is to analyze human experience into separate elements, but we won't be able to know that until we understand the individual elements of human thought. So we need to understand elements of human thought in order to explain human conscious experience.
SCE Goals
1. Wundt wanted to analyze conscious processes into basic elements. He wanted to analyze human thought and human conscious processes into small specific elements.

2. Wanted to discover how elements or organized or synthesized. Wanted to see how elements are organized and linked together.

3. Determine laws of connection of the organization of elements. Wundt wanted to move away psychology away from mental philosophy and more towards science. Wundt believed that eventually we would determine laws of human psychology and be able to predict human behaviour and thought.
Wundt's Introspection
Split into 2 categories:
1) Self Observation
2) Internal Perception
Self Observation
In terms of experimental observation, Wundt is not interested in this at all.
Most of us think self observation to be very relevant in modern psychology.

Example: Thinking of something recalls memory -> what our happiest memory is. We are thinking of memory but also emotion. We engage in self observation.

Example: "What is the earliest memory you have?" Considered self observation because you are looking at your own attitudes, beliefs, and experiences.
Internal Perception
Idea of analyzing human thought. Wundt thought that experiences and memory are irrelevant, and only wanted to know how you experience different stimuli in the laboratory.

Example: Presenting you with a visual stimulus and observing what you see.

Example: Presenting an auditory stimulus (ie. a bell) and observing what you just heard.
Elementary Forms of Experience
1. Sensations
2. Feelings
Sensations
The process in which one of the sensory organs is
stimulated, and information reaches the brain. This is done by:
1) Altering intensity
2) Altering duration of exposure to stimulus
3) Altering source (visual, auditory, smell, taste, kinesthetic)

Wundt thought that sensations is one of the elementary forms of understanding human experience. He wanted to understand your thought and human experience after you are stimulated.

Example: With a visual stimulus, Wundt may alter the intensity.
Feelings
A person's subjective interpretation of one or more sensations. Relates to Wundt's Tripartite Theory of Feelings.
Tripartite Theory of Feelings
A 3 part theory of feelings. Wundt used a
metronome to understand his reactions and feelings.

Different states of feelings can be classified according to 3 dimensions:
1) Pleasure <---> Displeasure
2) Tension <---> Relaxation
3) Excitement <---> Depression

Wundt collected different trained observers for a particular stimulus. He felt that you had to be trained before you would be able to distinguish between self-observation and response for stimulus. Wundt proposed that whenever we are exposed to stimulus, we have some level of each of the 3 dimensions. We feel some level of pleasure or displeasure, feel some level of tension or relaxation, some level of excitement or depression, etc.
Wundt's Introspection
Wundt's Psychological Institute research lab at the University of Leipzig was known for strict methodology. Wundt would present a series of stimuli to an "observer". Wundt would then observe and inspect the observer's thoughts and judgements.
Dependent Variables (DV)
Wundt is measuring the observer's judgement of:
1) Size of the stimulus (will be different for all trials)
2) Intensity of the stimulus
3) Duration of the stimulus

The observer (participant) is examining their own mind to report on their thoughts, feelings, and judgements.
Wundt's 4 Major Rules of Introspection
1. Observers must be able to determine when they want the process to be introduced. He only allowed observers with higher education to participate in the experiment, and excluded observers who didn't finish college.

2. Observers must be in a state of readiness (strained attention). He excluded people in a coma, had something to drink, in a hypnosis state, or have a strong intellectual disability from participating.

3. It must be possible to repeat the observation several times.

4. Possible to vary the experimental conditions through controlled manipulation of the stimuli.
Observers Participants of Introspection
Observers had to be trained rigorously. Wundt believed that you had to study conscious experience almost immediately and automatically. He wanted observers to respond immediately to the stimulus and not be affected by other thoughts.

He did this by strict training. This ensured that observers didn't pause to think about the stimulus, or think about any previous experiences or thoughts. Wundt only wanted to know how the human brain responds to the specific stimulus. These studies were not designed to consider the person's past experiences or emotional response, but only their immediate reactions to the stimulus.
Observers of Introspection
Wundt believed that observers were not ready for the stimulus until they passed 10,000 individual introspective observations. Wundt made sure that observers practiced and passed the test. After that, Wundt would make a decision as to whether the observer learnt something in the test before they officially become an observer. The 10,000 introspective observations in the test were not part of the actual experiment. Wundt didn't trust the observers until after the 10,000 introspective observations.
Apperception
The process of organizing mental elements into a whole.

Wundt was the first person in psychology to say that our human brain creates a cohesive full. (Example: Although a picture is made up of individual pixels, we see the whole picture and not the pixels).

This went against the British associationist view, which states that the brain acts in a passive, mechanical way.
Apperception
The brain creates a "mental synthesis".
Relates to the chemistry analogy, in which compounds may have different properties than its elements.

Wundt influenced Gestalt psychologists, by stating that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Criticism of Wundt
1. Introspection as a research method.
Wundt expected to find patterns and expected that the trained observers would be able to do it objectively and immediately.

2. Some American and British criticized Wundt's political statements.
Because Wundt blamed the British Parliament for WWI and Wundt defended the German invasion of Belgium.
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