WEEK'S PSCHOLOGIST

The Father of Modern Psychology

WILHELM WUNDT (1832-, 1920)

Wilhelm Wundt is the man most commonly identified as the father of psychology. Because Wundt's formation of the world's first experimental psychology lab is usually noted as the official start of psychology as a separate and distinct science. By establishing a lab that utilized scientific methods to study the human mind and behavior, Wundt took psychology from a mixture of philosophy and biology and made it a unique field of study.

Wilhelm Wundt graduated from the University of Heidelberg with a degree in medicine. He went on to study briefly with Johannes Muller and later with the physicist Hermann von Helmholtz. Wundt's work with these two individuals is thought to have heavily influenced his later work in experimental psychology. Wundt later wrote the Principles of Physiological Psychology (1874), which helped establish experimental procedures in psychological research. After taking a position at the University of Liepzig, Wundt founded the first of only two experimental psychology labs in existence at that time.

Wundt was also associated with the theoretical perspective known as structuralism, which involves describing the structures that compose the mind. He believed that psychology was the science of conscious experience and that trained observers could accurately describe thoughts, feelings, and emotions through a process known as introspection.

Wilhelm Wundt's Influence:

The creation of a psychology lab established psychology as a separate field of study with its own methods and questions. Wilhelm Wundt's support of experimental psychology also set the stage for behaviorism and many of his experimental methods are still used today.