Wilhelm Wundt Essay

Wilhem Wundt, known today as the “Father of Psychology”, was born in Baden in 1832. As both a psychologist and a philosopher, Wundt went on to establish the foundation of psychology and pave the way for hundreds of scientists down the line. After finishing boarding school, Wundt went onto study medicine at the University of Tubingen, Heidelberg, and Berlin. After getting his medical degree in 1856, Wundt remained in Heidelberg as a lecturer in psychology until 1864, when he was appointed to assistant professor in psychology. In 1874, he ventured to Zurich University where he became the chair of inductive philosophy, and soon after, he accepted the chair of philosophy at the University of Leipzig. At the University of Leipzig, Wundt opened the Institute for Experimental Psychology, a

Although Wundt did not conceive introspection, he is often given credit for the method because of his unique use of experimental control. In it’s simplest form, introspection is the study of experience and a form of self-evaluation that is used to extract feelings and sensations and break down the conscious mind. Throughout experiments, different types of stimulus, such as a ticking metronome, were used to begin the process. The goal of the method was to be able to describe an experience without describing what was happening. For example, the subject would interpret the intensity or the senses that occurred during the experience. The subject would then describe their feelings based on three dimensions: activity or passivity, pleasant or unpleasant, and tension or relaxation. Introspection is considered to be subjective, but Wundt believed that through introspective experimentation, we discover how the relationship between sensation and feelings constitutes psychological