Origins of Psychology and Wilhelm Wundt

Before the late 1800s, psychology was just a branch of philosophy - imagine trying to understand the mind without any proper experiments! This all changed when Wilhelm Wundt opened the first psychology lab in Leipzig, Germany in 1876.

Wundt's groundbreaking approach involved studying human consciousness under controlled conditions for the first time. His method, called introspection, asked people to carefully observe and record their own thoughts, images, and sensations when presented with different stimuli.

The beauty of Wundt's work was its systematic approach - everyone followed the same procedures, making it much more scientific than previous philosophical discussions. This process of breaking down mental processes into basic components became known as structuralism.

Key Point: Wundt's lab marked the birth of scientific psychology, separating it from its philosophical roots forever.

Psychology Becomes a Science Through Different Approaches

The behaviourist approach dominated psychology for 50 years after John B. Watson challenged introspection in the 1900s. Watson and Skinner argued that psychology should only study observable, measurable behaviours - not subjective thoughts that couldn't be properly tested.

The 1950s brought the cognitive revolution when psychologists began comparing the mind to computers. This cognitive approach made studying mental processes legitimate again, using the computer metaphor to understand memory and attention through proper experiments.

Modern psychology reached new heights with the biological approach in the 1980s. Advanced technology like fMRI scans and genetic testing allowed researchers to study live brain activity and understand how genes influence behaviour.

Cognitive neuroscience emerged as the newest field, combining cognitive and biological approaches to understand how brain structures affect our thoughts and behaviours.

Key Point: Each approach built upon previous work, making psychology increasingly scientific and credible.

Timeline of Psychology's Development

The psychology timeline shows how different approaches emerged and influenced the field over centuries. From philosophical roots in the 17th-19th centuries, psychology evolved through distinct phases that shaped modern understanding.

Freud's psychodynamic approach in the 1900s emphasised the unconscious mind's influence on behaviour, whilst the humanistic approach of the 1950s (Rogers and Maslow) focused on free will and self-determination, rejecting the idea that behaviour is entirely determined by outside factors.

Bandura's social learning theory in the 1960s provided a crucial bridge between behaviourism and the cognitive approach, showing how cognitive factors influence learning through observation and imitation.

The biological approach's dominance from the 1980s onwards reflects how technological advances have revolutionised our understanding of psychological processes.

Key Point: Each psychological approach contributed unique insights that collectively built the comprehensive science we study today.

Evaluating Psychology's Scientific Status

Wundt's introspection had both strengths and limitations that shaped future psychological research. His systematic, well-controlled lab procedures with standardised instructions represented early scientific methodology, laying groundwork for later approaches.

However, introspection relied on subjective self-reports that couldn't establish reliable 'laws of behaviour' - a key requirement for science. Participants might hide thoughts or interpret experiences differently, making it impossible to predict future behaviour.

Modern psychology's scientific credibility comes from sharing the same aims as natural sciences: describing, understanding, predicting and controlling behaviour through objective methods like lab studies.

Yet not all approaches embrace scientific methods - the humanistic approach values individual experiences over objective measurement, whilst the psychodynamic approach uses unrepresentative case studies. Human participants also respond to demand characteristics, affecting results.

Key Point: Psychology's scientific status remains debated because different approaches use varying levels of scientific rigour.

The Behaviourist Approach

Behaviourism revolutionised psychology by focusing solely on observable, measurable behaviour whilst completely ignoring mental processes. Watson rejected introspection as too vague, preferring controlled lab studies that maintained objectivity.

This learning approach assumes all behaviour is learned - babies are born as 'blank slates' with no innate knowledge. Following Darwin's work, behaviourists believed learning processes are identical across species, justifying animal research to understand human behaviour.

B.F. Skinner's operant conditioning showed how behaviour is shaped by consequences. His famous Skinner Box experiments demonstrated that rats and pigeons would repeat behaviours that led to rewards (food pellets) and avoid behaviours that caused punishment (electric shocks).

This active learning process means we 'operate' on our environment - our actions directly influence what happens to us, which then affects future behaviour.

Key Point: Behaviourism established psychology as an objective science by focusing exclusively on what can be observed and measured.

Evaluating Behaviourism

Well-controlled research gives behaviourism strong scientific credibility. By breaking behaviour into simple stimulus-response units within controlled lab settings, behaviourists eliminated extraneous variables and established clear cause-and-effect relationships, like Skinner's reinforcement demonstrations.

However, this approach may oversimplify learning by ignoring human thoughts entirely. The Social Learning Theory and cognitive approaches have shown that mental processes play crucial roles in learning, suggesting behaviour involves more than observable responses alone.

Real-world applications increase behaviourism's value significantly. Token economy systems successfully use operant conditioning principles in prisons and psychiatric wards, rewarding appropriate behaviour with tokens that can be exchanged for privileges.

The approach's major limitation is its deterministic view - Skinner argued that all behaviour results from past conditioning experiences, dismissing free will as an illusion. This extreme position ignores conscious decision-making processes that clearly influence human behaviour.

Key Point: Behaviourism provides scientifically credible but potentially oversimplified explanations of learning that have proven practical applications.

Social Learning Theory (SLT)

Albert Bandura's Social Learning Theory bridges behaviourism and cognitive psychology by explaining how we learn through both direct experience and observing others. Unlike pure behaviourists, SLT emphasises observation and imitation as key learning mechanisms.

Vicarious reinforcement occurs when we learn by watching others get rewarded or punished for their actions. Children are more likely to imitate behaviours they see being rewarded and avoid those that lead to punishment.

Mediational processes are the cognitive factors that influence whether we'll actually perform observed behaviours. Bandura identified four crucial factors: attention (noticing behaviours), retention (remembering them), motor reproduction (having the ability to perform them), and motivation (wanting to do them).

Identification with role models makes imitation more likely. We tend to model people who are similar to us, attractive, or have high status - and they don't need to be physically present to influence our behaviour.

Key Point: SLT shows that learning involves both observation and cognitive processes, making it more comprehensive than pure behaviourism.

Evaluating Social Learning Theory

Recognising cognitive factors makes SLT superior to basic conditioning theories. Humans store information about others' behaviours and use this to judge when certain actions are appropriate - Bandura noted that learning purely through trial and error would be 'laborious and hazardous'.

However, SLT may underemphasise biological influences. Recent research on mirror neurons suggests that observational learning might have biological foundations that Bandura didn't fully consider, indicating that brain structure affects our ability to empathise and imitate.

Lab-based evidence weakens SLT's real-world applicability. The famous Bobo doll studies may have suffered from demand characteristics - children might have thought they were supposed to hit the doll since that's its primary function.

Real-world applications demonstrate SLT's value in explaining cultural differences and behaviours. The theory successfully accounts for how children learn gender roles and cultural norms through modelling and imitation, including media influences.

Key Point: SLT provides a more complete learning theory by including cognition, though it may overlook biological factors and rely too heavily on artificial lab studies.

Applying Mediational Processes

Mediational processes are the cognitive factors that come between observing behaviour and actually performing it. Understanding these four processes - attention, retention, motor reproduction, and motivation - helps explain why we don't imitate every behaviour we observe.

In the exam example, Carissa pays close attention to her aunt's knitting technique and has good retention of the observed behaviour. Her motivation comes from knowing that copying her aunt's method will lead to neat, accurate results.

Motor reproduction involves having the physical ability to perform the observed behaviour. The first two processes (attention and retention) relate to learning the behaviour, whilst the last two (motor reproduction and motivation) determine whether we'll actually perform it.

This separation between learning and performance explains why we might store observed behaviours and reproduce them much later when the situation becomes appropriate or rewarding.

Key Point: Mediational processes explain the cognitive steps between observation and imitation, showing that learning and performance don't always occur together.

The Cognitive Approach

Cognitive psychology directly challenges behaviourism by studying internal mental processes scientifically. Rather than ignoring thoughts, cognitive psychologists investigate memory, perception, and thinking by making inferences from observable behaviour.

Schemas are mental 'packages' of beliefs and information from past experience that help us understand new situations. They're incredibly useful for quick thinking - like accessing your 'Of Mice and Men' schema for exam questions - but can also lead to faulty conclusions and biased judgements.

Theoretical models simplify complex mental processes into understandable diagrams with arrows showing information flow. The multi-store model of memory exemplifies this approach, breaking memory into distinct stages.

Computer models compare the mind to information processing systems, helping psychologists understand how we input, process, and output information. This metaphor revolutionised psychology by making mental processes seem measurable and scientific.

Key Point: The cognitive approach makes studying the mind scientific by using models and inferences rather than ignoring mental processes entirely.