Wundt, Wilhelm Max | Introduction
Introduction
1832–1920
GERMAN EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGIST, UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR
UNIVERSITY OF HEIDELBERG, PhD, MD, 1856
Wilhelm Max Wundt (1832–1920) opened an experimental laboratory that has been called the first of its kind in the history of psychology. By combining the methods of physiological examination with psychology theory, he created a whole new way to understand human behavior. Wundt has become known as the "founder of modern psychology," according to Thomas Hardy Leahey, author of the book History of Psychology. In 1987, Leahey wrote that Wundt "wedded physiology and psychology and made the resulting offspring independent." In 1875 Wundt was named a professor of physiology at the University of Leipzig, and he immediately established his innovative laboratory to empirically research his theories of psychology.
According to the 1997 Biographical Dictionary of Psychology, however, some of Wundt's colleagues disagreed with the designation of his laboratory's as the first of its kind. Two other experimental psychologists and contemporaries of Wundt, William James and G. Stanley Hall, both argued that they and others had employed similar experimentation methods in their labs. Yet Wundt did play a crucial role in the field as science was beginning to explore psychology in a new way. The dictionary comments that,
the study of psychology had remained in the provinces of philosophy and the natural sciences. From philosophy had come (theories of) interactionsim, empiricism and materialism, theories hypothesizing the nature of the mind, mind–body interaction and acquisition of knowledge.
Wundt's early ideas were inspired by his colleague Johannes Müller's (1801–58) work in physiology. Müller used a system of specific procedures in his investigation of the human body that departed from the methods many others had used. Wundt had published his first book, Grundzuge der physiologische Psychologie (Principles of Physiological Psychology), in 1873–74, setting forth the premise on which all of his work would be based. The book contained six volumes and was republished in several later editions, both during his lifetime and following his death. Wundt believed that the core of an organism's movement and motivations was a psychosocial process. In other words, the nature of any response in any organism, including humans, was a product of both physiological and psychological stimuli. His notion that mental occurrences could be objectively knowable and measurable became a fundamental principle that would trigger generations of psychological study and experimentation. Wundt was able to utilize the knowledge both of the sense organs and the control they exerted over the brain and consequently over control of movement. He used introspection as a tool for unlocking the human psyche. Wundt believed that no matter how complicated mental processes might seem, they could be broken down into a series of simple elements.
Wundt's fourth edition of his Physiological Psychology, published in 1893, presented his "tridimensional theory of feeling." Wundt thought that feelings could be classified as pleasant or unpleasant, tense or relaxed, or excited or depressed. Furthermore, any feeling could contain feelings from each of the three categories. His approach eventually came to be known as structuralism, a theory described by his student, E. B. Titchener. Structuralism "sought to describe the structure of consciousness, its basic building blocks, by carefully observing conscious experience," through the use of introspection.
Wundt's research findings laid the groundwork for psychologists for many generations. He was best recognized as having established psychology as a discipline independent of philosophy, incorporating elements of anatomy and physiology. He provided the scientific method to investigate the mind, which had long been believed to be unknowable. But even Wundt did not think that the scientific method could uncover answers to all of the questions in human psychology. "With particular reference to language and its development," one Wundt biographer wrote, "he sought understanding through the study of history and culture rather than through experimental analysis." Wundt would write extensively on those matters during the last years of his life. "His greatest strength was . . . the systematization and synthesis of work that had preceded him, thus preparing the foundation for experimental psychology."