THE ROUGH GUIDE TO PSYCHOLOGY
lates awkwardly as cultural
or ethnic psychology. Here
Wundt argued that it is not
enough for psychology to
study individual minds, it
must also dig deeper into
cultural history and the
evolution of local legends,
mores and language. Often
ignored and rarely trans-
lated, some historians say
the series laid the founda-
tion for many aspects of
contemporary psychology.
The science of psychology
faced many battles in its
early years. Psychological
pioneers encountered
resistance from academics
in the field of mental
philosophy – the branch of
that discipline concerned
with topics such as
consciousness, free will and
the relation between the
mind and the body – and provoked scepticism from physical scientists
who felt that inner experiences were beyond the reach of the scientific
approach. At the same time, the public’s perception of psychology was
misinformed by the popularity of pseudoscientific practices such as
phrenology (inferring character traits by the feeling of bumps on the
head), physiognomy (inferring character traits from facial features) and
spiritualism. The advocates of these beliefs often mislabelled them-
selves as psychologists and many also offered questionable advice on
mental ills and marital strife.
The earliest scientific psychologists like Wundt were inspired by
research in physiology that showed the possibility of quantifying
people’s experiences of physical stimuli, such as light and sound.
The physiologist Ernst Weber had shown, for example, that people’s
sensitivity to a change in pressure on their skin isn’t fixed, but
varies in proportion to the pressure currently being applied. This
An illustration from the English translation
of Lavater’s Essays on Physiognomy. The Swiss
clergyman Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801)
was a key figure in the revival of interest in
physiognomy, the belief that you could read a
person’s character from his or her face.