Introspection
Observing and reporting what is going on in one's own mind. It was one of the methods of early psychology, but researchers differed widely on how far it could be trusted.
In his 1896 textbook Wilhelm Wundt wrote that mental events are not fixed objects but processes in constant change, and that the very intention to observe them alters them or makes them disappear. Exact observation was therefore possible only as experiment, where the experimenter fixes the moment of onset and can vary the conditions and repeat. Higher mental life, such as language, myth and custom, he said should be studied by observing the products people leave behind[1].
In 1890 William James wrote that introspection is what we must rely on first and foremost and always. In the same chapter he admitted that it is difficult and fallible, just as all observation is[2].
In 1913 John Watson declared that introspection forms no essential part of the methods of psychology. One of his reasons: in physics or chemistry a failed replication casts doubt on the apparatus, while in psychology it was blamed on the observer's untrained introspection[3].
Related terms
- Imageless thoughtThe claim that thoughts as such, made of neither words nor images, are present in consciousness. Psychologists at Würzburg in Germany put it forward in the early 1900s, and it set off a long dispute.
- BehaviorismThe position that psychology should be built as a natural science whose aim is to predict and control observable behavior. John Watson set it out in 1913 in Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It.
Sources
- W. Wundt (transl. C. H. Judd), “Outlines of Psychology, § 3 Methods of Psychology,” Leipzig: Engelmann (1897).
- W. James, “The Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, ch. VII The Methods and Snares of Psychology,” New York: Henry Holt (1890).
- J. B. Watson, “Psychology as the behaviorist views it,” Psychological Review 20(2), 158–177 (1913).