PSYC 100 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Wilhelm Wundt, Cognitive Revolution, Empiricism
14 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Introduction to Psychology
• Psychology is the scientific study of behaviour, thought, and experience
• Not the study of the brain (though the brain matters)
• Natural science
o Direct and observable
• Social science
• Economics
o An assumption
• Law
o A standard
• Philosophy
o A question
• Psychology
o An empirical question about individuals
• Sociology
o An empirical question about groups
• Philosophical roots of psychology
• Structuralism
o Knowledge through reduction into elements
• Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)
o Sought to identify mental “atoms”
o Used reaction time and introspection
o Simplest thing you can measure in terms of the “atoms” of behaviour
• Functionalism
o Knowledge through understanding utility
• William James (!842-1910)
o Researched the purpose of conscious behaviour
o Experimentation and “naturalistic” introspection
• Empiricism
o Knowledge through sensory observation
• Behaviour is measurable, mind is not
• Introspection failures led to behaviourism
• Rationalism
o Knowledge through reason and logic
• General statements (universals) cannot be a result of finite observation
• Underpinned “cognitive revolution” c. 1960
o Chomsky’s poverty of stimulus in language
• Enables study of thought and experience
• A modern twist
o Empiricists distrust ideas in “private” minds
o Activity of mind now (indirectly) observable
• Roots of Psychology
o Rationalism (reason) + empiricism (observation) + structuralism (elements) +
functionalism (need)…and the scientific method
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