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Information about Wilhelm Wundt

Wilhelm Wundt

BornJuly 16 1832(1832--)
Neckarau near Mannheim, Germany
DiedJuly 31 1920 (aged 88) Großbothen near Leipzig, Germany[1]
ResidenceGermany
NationalityGerman
FieldPsychology, Physiology
InstitutionsUniversity of Leipzig
Alma materUniversity of Heidelberg
Notable students  Edward B. Titchener, G. Stanley Hall, Oswald Kulpe, Hugo Munsterberg, Vladimir Bekhterev, James McKeen Cattell, Lightner Witmer[2]
Known forPsychology, Structuralism


Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (August 16 1832-August 31 1920) was a German psychologist, physiologist, and professor who is, along with William James, regarded as the father of psychology.[3][4][5] In 1879, Wundt founded the first formal laboratory for psychological research at the University of Leipzig, and the first journal for psychological research in 1881.

Biography

Formative years

Wundt was born in Neckarau, a town near Mannheim, the son of a Lutheran pastor. As a child, Wundt was quiet and stoic, preferring to spend his time in quiet study. He studied at a boarding school beginning at the age of 13, then moving on to study from 1851 to 1856 at the University of Tübingen, University of Heidelberg, and the University of Berlin. During his last year at Heidelberg, Wundt suffered a nearly fatal illness After graduating in medicine from the university in Heidelberg 1856, Wundt studied briefly with Johannes Peter Müller, before joining the University's staff, becoming an assistant to the physicist and physiologist Hermann von Helmholtz in 1858 until 1864. There he wrote Contributions to the Theory of Sense Perception (1858-62). He married Sophie Mau while at Heidelberg.

It was during this period that Wundt offered the first course ever taught in scientific psychology, all the while stressing the use of experimental methods drawn from the natural sciences, emphasizing the physiological relationship of the brain and the mind. His background in physiology would have a great impact on his approach to the new science of psychology. His lectures on psychology were published as Lectures on the Mind of Humans and Animals in 1863. He was promoted to Assistant Professor of Physiology at Heidelberg in 1864.

Wundt applied himself to writing a work that came to be one of the most important in the history of psychology, Principles of Physiological Psychology in 1874. The Principles utilized a system of psychology that sought to investigate the immediate experiences of consciousness, including feelings, emotions, volitions, and ideas, mainly explored through introspection, or the self-examination of conscious experience by objective observation of one's consciousness.

Leipzig years

In 1875 he took up a position at the University of Leipzig, and set up the first psychological laboratory in the world four years later. Scholars from all over the world flocked to Wundt's laboratory, including Edward B. Titchener. Wundt's students would eventually found important psychology laboratories at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Yale, Harvard, Cornell, and Stanford.

He remained in Leipzig until his death, supervising 186 doctoral dissertations in various disciplines.

In his later years, Wundt focused on social and cultural psychology, and before his death in 1920 he had completed his 10-volume masterwork, Social Psychology.

Of Wundt's enormous corpus of 54,000 pages[6] of books and article entries, some of his notable works include: Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology, Essays, Ethics: An Investigation of the Facts and Laws of the Moral Life, Hypnotismus und Suggestion (1892), and Introduction to Psychology.

Wundt's conception of psychology

Wundt himself was a Structuralist, seeking to understand the human mind by identifying the constituent parts of human consciousness, in the same way that a chemical compound is broken into various elements. Thus, Wundt essentially imagined psychology as a science, much like physics or chemistry, in which consciousness is a collection of identifiable parts. Structuralism, though championed by early advocates such as Titchener, eventually faded with the advent of Functionalism and behaviorism.

Though Wundt had a scientific and physiological approach to psychology, he often employed the method of introspection, which is today viewed as scientifically unreliable as it does not rely on empirical, duplicatable data.

Legacy

Wundt is widely recognized as one of the fathers of psychology. Several of his works, including Principles of Physiological Psychology are considered fundamentally important texts in the field of psychology. Though widely recognized as important in the birth and growth of psychology, his influence in psychology today is a subject of debate among experts.

Though Wundt wrote extensively on a variety of subjects, including philosophy, physics, physiology, and of course psychology, the immensity of his collected writings and the 65 year-long duration of his career makes it difficult to identify a single, coherent mode of thought.[7] Doubtlessly, however, Wundt was a devout foundationalist, working tirelessly to understand the intricacies of the areas of knowledge he studied to form a coherent, atomistic understanding of the universe.[8] In recognition of Wundt's work, the American Psychological Association established the "Wilhelm Wundt-William James Award for Exceptional Contributions to Trans-Atlantic Psychology", which recognizes "a significant record of trans-Atlantic research collaboration." [9]

Notes and references

1. ^ :Image:Wilhelm_Wundt_Gravestone.jpg
2. ^ [1]
3. ^ [2]
4. ^ [3]
5. ^ Wundt is also known as the "father of experimental psychology" or the "father of modern psychology" in some circles.
6. ^ Bringmann & Balk, 1992
7. ^ [4]
8. ^ [5]
9. ^ [6]

 •  • [ e]
Psychology
• History • Psychologist
ResearchQuantitative psychological research · Qualitative psychological research · Biological · Cognitive · Comparative · Developmental · Evolutionary · Experimental · Mathematical · Neuropsychology · Personality · Physiological · Social · Positive · Psychopathology · Psychophysics · Transpersonal
AppliedAssessment · Clinical · Counseling · Educational · Forensic / Legal · Health · Industrial and organizational · Relationship counseling · School · Sport
OrientationsBehaviorism · Cognitivism · Cognitive Behavioral · Existential · Family Systems · Feminist · Gestalt · Humanistic · Psychoanalysis · Analytical · Psychodynamic · Transpersonal
Historically important writersB.F. Skinner · Jean Piaget · Sigmund Freud · Otto Rank · Albert Bandura · Leon Festinger · Carl Rogers · Stanley Schachter · Neal E. Miller · Edward Thorndike · Abraham Maslow · Gordon Allport · Erik Erikson · Hans Eysenck · William James · David McClelland · Raymond Cattell · John B. Watson · Kurt Lewin · Donald O. Hebb · George A. Miller · Clark L. Hull · Jerome Kagan · Carl Jung · Ivan Pavlov
ListsTopics · Disciplines · Drugs · Neurological Disorders · Organizations · Research Methods · Schools of theory · Psychologists · Psychotherapies · Publications · Timeline · Counseling
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Großbothen is a town in the Muldentalkreis district in Saxony, Germany. Großbothen has an area of 33.45 km² and a population of 3,568 (as of December 31, 2006).


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Leipzig
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Anthem
"Das Lied der Deutschen" (third stanza)
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"Das Lied der Deutschen" (third stanza)
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Edward Bradford Titchener, D.Sc., Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D. (1867-1927) was an Englishman and a student of Wilhelm Wundt before becoming a professor of psychology and founding the first psychology laboratory in the United States at Cornell University. He was educated in Europe.
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Granville Stanley Hall (February 1, 1844 - April 24, 1924) was a psychologist and educator who pioneered American psychology. His interests focused on childhood development and evolutionary theory.
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Oswald Külpe (August 3, 1862–December 30, 1915) was one of the structural psychologists of the late 19th and early 20th century. He was influenced strongly by his mentor Wilhelm Wundt, but later disagreed with Wundt on the complexity of human consciousness that could be
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Hugo Münsterberg (June 1 1863 - december 19 1916) was a German-American psychologist. He was one of the pioneers in applied psychology, extending his research and theories to Industrial / Organizational (I/O), legal, medical, clinical, educational and business settings.
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Vladimir Bekhterev (January 20, 1857 – December 24, 1927) was a Russian neurophysiologist and psychiatrist who noted the role of the hippocampus in memory around 1900. He founded the field of psycho reflexology, transferring Ivan Pavlov's work on dogs to humans.
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James McKeen Cattell (May 25, 1860-January 20, 1944), American psychologist, was the first professor of psychology in the United States at the University of Pennsylvania.
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Lightner Witmer (1867-1956) is regarded as the inventor of the term "Clinical Psychology" and the co-founder of the world's first Psychological Clinic in 1896 at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Psychology (from Greek: Literally "talk about the soul" (from logos)) is both an academic and applied discipline involving the scientific study of mental processes and behavior.
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Structuralism as a term refers to various theories across the humanities, social sciences and economics many of which share the assumption that structural relationships between concepts vary between different cultures/languages and that these relationships can be usefully exposed
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William James (January 11 1842 – August 26 1910) was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and the philosophy of pragmatism.
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University of Leipzig (German Universität Leipzig), located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony (former Kingdom of Saxony), Germany, is one of the oldest universities in Europe.
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scientific journal is a publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. Most journals are highly specialized, although some of the oldest journals such as Nature
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Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestant Christianity that identifies with the teachings of the sixteenth-century German reformer Martin Luther. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Church launched the Protestant Reformation and, though it was not
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Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen (German: Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, sometimes called the "Eberhardina") is a public university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
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