The Emergence Of The Discipline Of Psychology From Its Early Essay

The Emergence Of The Discipline Of Psychology From Its Early Philosophical And Natural Science Beginnings - Essay Example He and his colleagues focused serious interest on studying the mind through experimental introspection. Introspection is the detailed mental self-examination of feelings and thoughts as they occurred. The research involved meticulous observation of simple events under controlled conditions-one that could be measured as to quality, intensity, or duration-and recording of the responses to variations of those events. The emphasis on control and measurement in these investigations were what first established psychology as a scientific discipline. Wundt initiated the concept of stating mental events in relation to objectively knowable and measurable stimuli and reactions. William James of the same era also followed the psychological method of introspection in The Principles, in which he defines as "the looking into our own minds and reporting what we there discover." However, J.B. Watson questioned the soundness of those approaches, reasoning that if one introspection yield a different result with another wouldn't necessarily mean that one set of results is correct and the other is incorrect. He argued that it was impossible to prove or disprove the results obtained by that method. He suggested that studies be confined to what can be measured and observed by more than one person. With that, Behaviorism was formed.