Wilhelm Wundt is one of the known psychologists in the world, born in the year 1832 in Germany; he contributed a lot in the field of psychology. He became in involved in various fields, especially in molding psychology as a subject. Wilhelm Wundt is known to be the father of experimental psychology. Additionally, he was the first in the field of psychology to set up a laboratory to deal with Experimental psychology. Furthermore, he offered his services as a teacher and a trainer, nurturing important and famous psychologist in Europe and America. It is very difficult to exhaust the work of Wilhelm Wundt because he changed many views in different subjects. One of his works was introspection, but he criticized subjective and vague thinking. He placed many of his ideas on feelings, stimuli, attention, creativity, causality, judgment, impulses, and volition. Wilhelm Wundt is the father of experimental psychology, as well as modern psychology.
In the year 1879, at University of Leipzig, Wilhelm Wundt found the first formal psychological laboratory for research purposes. The laboratory he created explored the nature of various religious beliefs, abnormal behaviors, as well as identification of mental disorders. The research and study of human behaviors, made him to establish and draw a distinction between science and psychology. Furthermore, Wundt had a lot of interest in consciousness related issues, which later helped him to draw conclusion on actuality principle. Main idea of consciousness is self-control or volition (Keith & Rieber, 2001).
According to his studies, he believed that perception was the ultimate function of sensory organs. Eventually, basing his argument on perception, he concludes that central synthesis was involved in the way we perceive things. Wundt asserted that mental representation like memories and thoughts were entirely part on a single central process. Perhaps, he believed that memory was recreates precedent experiences, rather than basically retrieving ancient times thoughts (Keith & Rieber, 2001). Wilhelm Wundt also felt personal will was the only thing that lasted, but not mental activities. He also studied folk psychology; in this case, he believed that culture, myths, religion, and language are essential towards understanding human nature. He treasured psychological experiment, but asserted that it does not measure all things related to human life. He later demonstrated on automatic actions, and controlled actions. He also contributed on structuralism (Nairne, 2008).
The work of Wundt Wilhelm could not progress without being criticized and awarded credit. According to him, psychology was certainly the study of immediate experience; his definition could not elaborate on all aspects of psychology. He excluded considerations on social and cultural explanations of psychology. Additionally, he believes that there are specific factors towards the understanding of human nature, but critically human nature entails almost everything in human environs (Singh, 1991). He further, elaborates on memory issues, without explaining how human beings process information, and store. Apart from the above mentioned weakness, his work contributed to the differentiation between the field of science as well as psychology. Wundt asserts that the only way to study living system is from inside, which forms psychology. Literally, studying living is from outside with makeup psychology. Through his development of experimental psychology, other aspects of human life could be measured and analyzed (Nairne, 2008).
Conclusively, Wundt is still the father of modern psychology and modern psychology. Up to date, his work still enlightens psychologists, and gave an impressive description on human nature and behaviors. Wundt Wilhelm placed a lot of his ideas on feelings, stimuli, attention, creativity, causality, judgment, impulses, and volition. Wilhelm Wundt is the father of experimental psychology, as well as modern psychology. . It is very complex to tire out the work of Wilhelm Wundt; this is because he changed many views in diverse subjects. Certainly, his studies brought more information on mental disorders. Wilhelm asserted that perception was the ultimate function of sensory organs, and other mental activities.
Reference
Keith, R,. & Rieber, R. (2001). Wilhelm Wundt in History: The Making of a Scientific
Psychology. London: Wiley.
Nairne, J. (2008). Psychology. California: Wadsworth.
Singh, K. (1991). The Comprehensive History of Psychology. New York: Wadsworth.
