THE ROUGH GUIDE TO PSYCHOLOGY
the Ancient Greek philoso-
phers. Consider Epicurus’s
advice that a circle of close
friends is one of the most
important ingredients for a
happy life. Similar examples
could be taken just as easily
from ancient civilizations in
China, India or Egypt. Or
fast-forward to the seven-
teenth century and examine
the writings of philosopher
John Locke on the “tabula
rasa” – the idea that a baby’s
mind is like a blank slate
waiting to be filled by educa-
tion and sensory experience.
But crucially, these were
psychological musings, not
psychological science. The
application of the scientific
approach to psychological
questions occurred only
relatively recently, with
psychology’s birth usually
traced to the establish-
ment of Wilhelm Wundt’s
laboratory at the University
of Leipzig in 1879. In the
United States, the leading
pioneer in psychology’s early years was William James.
Wundt had stated his intention to form a new science of psychology
in his 1874 book Principles of Physiological Psychology in which he argued
that the same experimental rigour deployed in physiology, such as in
Hermann von Helmholtz’s measures of the speed of nerve transduc-
tion, could similarly be brought to bear on our inner experiences of
the outside world. In his experimental psychology laboratory, Wundt,
along with his students and colleagues, would carefully record people’s
subjective experiences of different sensory stimuli – an approach known
today as “introspection” or “experimental self-observation”. Later in
life, Wundt also wrote ten volumes on Völkerpsychologie, which trans-
Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (1832–1920) is seen
by many as the grandfather of Psychology.
In a remarkable career spanning 68 years,
he trained more than 180 doctoral students,
many in the new science of psychology, and
published more than 50,000 pages of books
and articles. Several of Wundt’s students would
go on to form famous psychology laboratories
of their own.