The psychology science is responsible to study the conduct human as well as the personality and structures behavior. For that, it approaches this study through the application of identical methods used by experimental science, that is, through the observation of behaviors and attitudes that reflect in the internal mental processes and in the will. Scientific Psychology
How does scientific psychology arise?
This branch of psychology has a clearly defined origin. The German Wilhelm Wundt was its founder in the 19th century, although the year 1879 stands out as the main moment, as Wundt founded a laboratory in Leipzig to carry out experimental studies on psychic processes.
Throughout his career, Wundt stated that mental life can be reduced to a simple association of basic elements, such as sensations and feelings.
In this way, his way of understanding psychology is usually defined as associationism. Scientific Psychology
Later, Kulpe, who had been a disciple of Wundt, deepened his mentor’s theories by carrying out several experiments to study human thought through active introspection, with the study subject himself being responsible for reporting what happened in his interior. Over the years, this theory has declined because it is not considered reliable and caused changes in the results.
For Wundt, the goal of psychology should not be based only on the study of the external world per se, but focus on the psychological processes that observe this world.
That’s why psychologists’ main tool should be introspection, accomplished through a closely controlled process and comprising objective measures such as word associations or reaction times.
On the other hand, Wundt places psychology at an intermediate point between the natural sciences and the physical sciences, as he used in his work methods of investigation typical of the physical sciences to resolve psychological issues. In this way, Wundt’s focus was on a scientist using experimental methods for the study of life. Scientific Psychology
Therefore, scientific psychology can be considered a science that integrates the social and physical sciences.
