Wilhelm Wundt and the Emergence of Scientific Psychology

View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by E-space: Manchester Metropolitan University's Research Repository Wilhelm Wundt and the emergence of scientific psychology Geoff Bunn looks at the gap between what Wundt hoped for intended to take up James’ provocative call- psychology and what actually came to pass to-arms and devote himself to the ‘somewhat suspect borderland between physiology I am prepared to say that Wundt is Then, in 1867, the revered American and philosophy’. He dedicated the last half the founder, not of experimental philosopher William James announced that of his life to this field, and subsequently psychology alone, but of psychology. ‘perhaps the time has come for psychology became known as ‘the father of experimental Edward B. Titchener (1921) to begin to be a science. Some measurements psychology’. have already been made in the region lying Wundt’s claims to this title are impressive. ‘ Virtually everything that happened in between the physical changes in the nerves His Principles of Physiological Psychology (1874) modern psychology was a repudiation and the appearance of consciousness,’ he was psychology’s first textbook. He opened of Wundt. Kurt Danziger (1990) ’ explained, ‘and more may come of it… the first laboratory to be exclusively devoted Helmholtz and a man named Wundt at to psychological experimentation at the n the mid-nineteenth century, Heidelberg are working on it.’ A challenge University of Leipzig in 1879, the event ‘ psychology did not exist as a formal had been laid down. that has been taken to mark the birth of academic discipline. Admittedly a few ’ psychology as an independent discipline. independently wealthy Victorian ‘men of I The father of experimental In 1883 he launched an academic journal, science’, such as Francis Galton and Herbert psychology Philosophical Studies, to publish the Leipzig Spencer, had started to collect statistics on The ‘man named Wundt’ was Wilhelm school’s research. individual abilities and construct elaborate Maximilian Wundt, a conscientious physician theories of human nature. However there and one-time politician who had been born Where are the discoveries? were, as yet, no degree courses, academic in Mannheim in 1832 to religious parents. But there is an irony at the heart of Wundt’s journals or research laboratories devoted to Wundt was still a relatively obscure assistant reputation as the devoted father to a newborn psychology. professor of physiology in 1867, although science: he had no desire to bring a new he had already taught the first university discipline of psychology into the world Signposts course in psychology and had published his at all. His principle goal, in fact, was to Lectures on the Mind of Humans and Animals. revitalise philosophy using physiological history of psychology, introspection In 1872 Wundt informed his fiancée that he methods to produce data about the human 10 Psychology Review February 2017 mind’s capabilities. Furthermore he did not Titchener, who was one of Wundt’s students Introspection leave an enduring legacy of either empirical in the early 1890s, reckoned that Wundt Wundt went on to develop another discoveries or theoretical principles, despite procedure: introspection. This technique whatever his intellectual gifts, could not his legendary productivity. involved the perception of a sensory event have compassed this bulk of scientific Wundt’s first American student, G. Stanley work had he not been dowered with and then reporting on the phenomenological Hall, wrote: a good physical constitution and had experience of the event. This procedure sounds simple. However in practice it was It does not seem to me that he made he not lived a strictly regulated life. His extremely tricky to get right. Firstly, of course, any epoch-making contributions to ‘days passed, in fact, with the regularity psychology, although he will always fill of clockwork (Baldwin 1921). there were large variations in reaction times a large place as the first to establish between subjects. Perceiving a sensory event this science on an experimental basis. Accurate time-keeping was both a personal and then reporting on the phenomenological ‘(Baldwin 1921) value for Wundt and the basis of his scientific experience of the event were not practice. His insistence on exact measurement’ straightforward matters. Experimental We are therefore left with a disconcerting was made possible by restricting the scope of subjects had to be knowledgeable about the puzzle: the methods that apparently psychological investigation to those topics purpose of the experiment and adopt the established psychology’s scientific credentials’ that could be legitimately investigated in the right ‘mental set’ to perceive stimuli correctly. did not generate any discoveries that have laboratory. Seventy percent of his graduate They effectively had to know how to produce stood the test of time. students were therefore assigned fundamental the kind of data Wundt wanted. topics of sensation or perception such as As both experimenter and subject had to be Lessons from early psychology vision, touch or taste. The rest worked on experts on experimental protocol, their roles So why should Wundt’s story interest us memory, attention or methodology. It was a were therefore interchangeable. As a result, today? I believe the answer is that it tells us precise vision for a new science. only a few experimenter-subjects needed to a lot about what happens when psychology be trained in the art of introspection, because attempts to travel across cultural boundaries. Measurement and the aim was to discover the workings of the Psychology is highly sensitive to its social psychophysics generalised human mind that everyone was context because it is both a science and an art. Time was also Wundt’s royal road towards a assumed to share. It strives for the objectivity of numbers, yet scientific model of the human mind. He relied According to Wundt, introspection also craves the subjectivity of meaning. Some on the skills of clock makers to construct the was not about ruminating on one’s own of the categories it studies are real things that delicate instruments his methods demanded. feelings or emotions, in the manner of can be measured because they have a basis in Matthäus Hipp’s chronoscope (1840) for a poet or philosopher. On the contrary, physiology (neurons, genes, hormones, sex). example, an instrument that often featured introspection was a highly controlled process But some of its categories are not things at all in photographs of Wundt’s laboratory, was — a systematic method used to study the and cannot be measured because they have theoretically capable of recording intervals mind by breaking up conscious awareness come down to us from philosophy (neurosis, of 1/1000th of a second. into basic structures of thoughts, images personality, race, gender). The Leipzig group used the chronoscope and sensations. Focusing too much on Wundt was right that psychology exists on to measure ‘reaction time’, the time it took for one’s mental state could compromise the a ‘somewhat suspect borderland’ between the a subject to respond to a stimulus. A credible experiment. In practice, introspective reports two aspects of physiology and philosophy. new science should be able to produce exact tended to consist of simple judgments of These two aspects to his vision for psychology measurements, as another one of Wundt’s the size, intensity and duration of physical each look in a different direction across that American students, James McKeen Cattell stimuli, occasionally supplemented by borderland. (1890), explained: judgments of the simultaneity and succession of stimuli. Wundt’s ambition to construct a As Experimental Physics is devoted Rigorous methods and a theory of the human mind began with this clockwork life to the measurement of time, space and mass in the material world, so simple technique of ‘mental chronometry’. Like any strict father figure, Wundt had strong Experimental Psychology may measure Perception and apperception opinions on what he considered best for his time, complexity and intensity in offspring. At the start of each academic year, ‘consciousness. Wundt knew that experimental methods new students were obliged to stand in line were only useful for investigating the most while Wundt assigned each one a research All the ‘subject’ had to do in a typical elementary psychological processes. In his topic. Anyone who plucked up the courage psychophysics experiment was press a switch theory, he distinguished between perception on had to when he heard the sound of a falling pellet ’hit the one hand, and what he called apperception a metal plate. The chronoscope started when on the other. Stimuli outside awareness are wait for His Excellency to pass from the pellet struck the plate and it stopped when merely perceived, he said, whereas stimuli the laboratory down the corridor to his lecture room. Disappointed ones were the subject heard the strike and released the receiving attention are apperceived. directed to take up their position at a switch. The instrument therefore measured Apperception was therefore affected by certain place on Thomas Ring Street the time elapsed between the stimulus and ‘higher level’ psychological processes such as ‘which he was known to pass daily with the response. A typical reaction time lasted motives, innate tendencies, memory and so clocklike regularity (Kusch 1995) around 300 milliseconds. on. Higher mental processes such as emotion www.hoddereducation.psychologyreview ’ 11 and language were not readily amenable to in business, education and the military. Such experimental investigation and could not a practical ethos evidently had no need for a be reliably studied using introspection and philosophically-informed qualitative theory mental chronometry. This was because they of culture. It was not the right time to reflect were irreducibly historical phenomena, as on the charms of the world’s many languages, Wundt (1916) explained: myths and customs.

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