Father of psychology sigmund freud

Wundt was important because he separated psychology from philosophy by analyzing the workings of the mind in a more structured way, with the emphasis being on objective measurement and control.

This laboratory became a focus for those with a serious interest in psychology, first for German philosophers and psychology students, then for American and British students as well.  All subsequent psychological laboratories were closely modeled in their early years on the Wundt model.

Wundt’s background was in physiology, and this was reflected in the topics with which the Institute was concerned, such as the study of reaction times and sensory processes and attention. For example, participants would be exposed to a standard stimulus (e.g. a light or the sound of a metronome) and asked to report their sensations.

Wundt’s aim was to record thoughts and sensations, and to analyze them into their constituent elements, in much the same way as a chemist analyses chemical compounds, in order to get at the underlying structure. The school of psychology founded by Wundt is known as

Browse History

Wilhelm Wundt was a German physiologist and psychologist, generally acknowledged as the founder of experimental psychology. He graduated with a medical degree from the University of Heidelberg in 1856. He studied briefly with Johannes Müller, before joining the University of Heidelberg faculty, where he became an assistant to the physicist and physiologist Hermann von Helmholtz in 1858. It was during this period that Wundt offered his course in scientific psychology. Until then, psychology had been regarded as a branch of philosophy to be conducted primarily by rational analysis. Wundt instead stressed the use of experimental methods drawn from the natural sciences. His lectures on psychology were published as Lectures on the Mind of Humans and Animals(1863). He was promoted to Assistant Professor of Physiology in 1864.

In his book Principles of Psychology, Wundt promoted a system of psychology for investigating the immediate experiences of consciousness, including sensations, feelings, volitions, apperception and ideas. He used his own and his colleague

Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt

1. Biographical Timeline

1832
born at Neckarau/Mannheim, August 16
1845
enters Bruchsal Gymnasium
1851–2
study of medicine at Tübingen
1852–5
study of medicine at Heidelberg
1853
first publication “on the sodium chloride content of urine”
1855
medical assistant at a Heidelberg clinic
1856
semester of study with J. Müller and DuBois-Reymond at Berlin;
doctorate in medicine at Heidelberg; habilitation as Dozent in physiology;
nearly fatal illness
1857–64
Privatdozent at the Physiological Institute, Heidelberg
1858
Beiträge zur Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung; Helmholtz becomes director of the Heidelberg Physiological Institute
1862
first lectures in psychology
1863
Vorlesungen über die Menschen- und Tier-Seele
1864
made ausserordentlicher Professor; lectures on physiological psychology (published as Wundt 1873–4)
1870–71
fails to be named Helmholtz’s successor at Heidelberg; army doctor in Franco-Prussian War
1873–4
publishes Grundzüge der

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