Wundt and Introspection

Origins of Psychology: Wundt and Introspection

Wundt began his career as a medical doctor and neurophysiologist. He later argued that the psychology of humans could be investigated using scientific methods. He was the first to open a psychology lab and distinguished psychology as a genuine scientific field separate from the natural sciences and philosophy.

While working in his role during his early career as an assistant to lecturer Hermann von Helmholtz, a physicist and physiologist, Wundt wrote his first book, Contributions to the Theory of Sense Perception. Six years later, he began to pursue his growing interest in psychology. As an associate professor, Wundt began teaching psychological topics. He published his lectures in his next book, an anthology titled Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology.

Wundt's laboratory was at the University of Leipzig, Germany. It was the first of its kind and sparked the development of psychology into the rich, interesting and scientific discipline that we know today.

Wilhelm Wundt was the first person ever to call himself a psychologist and is widely known for his introspection methods, the first psychological experimental technique to be considered scientific.

Introspection Wundt

As discussed, the term introspection is a research technique developed by psychologist Wilhelm Wundt. It is also known as the experimental self-observation method; Wundt's approach involves careful, systematic and standardised training to allow people to analyse their thoughts' content objectively.

Fig. 1 - Wundt developed the introspection research technique to be used in labs.

Wundt: The First Psychological Laboratory

While studying at the University of Leipzig, Wundt founded the first psychological laboratory. This event, which occurred in 1879, is regarded as the birth of the modern field of experimental psychology. The lab began by employing graduate students, who carried out research led by Wundt himself. It soon attracted the interest of many scholars, all intrigued by the new area of study Wundt had established.

The lab quickly grew from one room with 15 assistants to a whole institute of psychology with its building, officially recognised by the university in 1883. At this time, Wundt was teaching two-hour lectures daily, six days a week, on psychology, anthropology and philosophy. In this groundbreaking lab, he created the experimental technique of introspection.

Wundt's Method of Introspection

Although introspection relies on reflecting on subjective experiences, Wundt argued the research technique is an objective analytic process as the individuals are trained and must adhere to a standardised protocol.

The inner sensations are not based purely on how an individual feels on a random day. Instead, it is the sensations, experiences, thoughts and feelings experienced when presented with an external stimulus in a lab, highly controlled setting.

Wundt, Structuralism and Introspection

Titchener, a student of Wundt's, used his teachings to develop one of the first approaches to psychology, structuralism. The approach aims to break down a phenomenon into simple components to understand behaviour, specifically consciousness. Rather than focusing on their function, it focused on what occurs during mental processes.

The main goal of psychology then and now is to understand phenomena based on evidence. Now we can't see our consciousness. So how can it be measured? This is where introspection comes in.

Wundt argued that we could use introspection techniques to understand what is happening in our consciousness. The process relies on individuals' focusing on their current state.

Think about when you see a spider. You may notice that your heart rate is increasing; you are paying attention to your internal state as we don't have a system that alerts us that our heart rate is rising. From this, you realise you are scared of spiders, so you run away and call for help. In essence, this is introspection.

Introspection Example

In his lab, Wundt aimed to make the process of introspection as systematic, replicable, structured and controlled as possible to present psychology as legitimate science. He instructed that all introspection carried out in his lab should follow set instructions.

In simpler terms, this means that Wundt wanted his observers to know what they planned to observe before they began introspection. The person carrying out introspection should follow the course of their thoughts without losing their focus. He aimed for the observations to be replicated many times, and if they changed due to certain stimuli or environmental changes, for his observers to investigate the effects these changes created.

This controlled method of introspection is often considered the first experimental method in psychology. However, this would not be regarded as scientific by modern standards.

Let's take a look at an introspection example in a research setting.

Wundt and Introspection Evaluation: Strengths of Wundt and Introspection

Wundt's and introspection's strength is that it paved the way and caused a wave of later researchers to develop it into the scientific processes that we use today.

The research methods proposed by Wundt all followed consistent instructions and conditions, meaning that the research could be considered to have high internal reliability.

Practising introspection as an individual rather than in an experimental setting may benefit our mental health. For example, in some therapeutic settings (such as psychodynamic therapies), therapists help clients find the root of their anxieties or stresses, and introspection could help with that.

Observing our thoughts may help us understand them, and when we find patterns in our thinking, we can see what may trigger them, which can help us avoid or interrupt unhelpful thinking patterns in the future.

Wundt and Introspection Evaluation: Weakness of Wundt and Introspection

One main criticism of introspection is that it is a subjective method of experimentation, whereas scientific methods usually aim to be objective. Introspection is subjective as it can be influenced by cognitive biases (e.g., religious beliefs and upbringing).

Another limitation of this approach is that introspection can only be used for certain participants. For example, children or people with severe learning disabilities may be unable to use this technique, and it would be impossible to use it to study animals. We can describe this as having low external validity.

Introspection is criticised as observing our thoughts, usually resulting in our opinions about them, which leads to a new thought separate from the train of thought we had at first—making it challenging to study what it sets out to, lowering the validity of the research.