Wilhelm Wundt, The First Psychologist In History?

Perhaps not as well known as others, the figure of Wilhelm Wundt marks the history of our knowledge about the mind ; We are talking about the father of scientific psychology, an honorary title that a good part of psychologists are clear that he deserves.

The origin of psychology as such would have to be looked for perhaps centuries ago. Scientific psychology, however, has a strong root in this figure. Wundt, in the middle of the XIX century, creates the first experimental laboratory.

Let’s get on with the background. Today, psychology has its own academic path. Any student can pursue a university degree, take a master’s degree, choose their specialization, take advantage of non-regulated courses and training to complement their knowledge, etc.

However, if we go back a couple of centuries, psychology as such was not regulated. So, anyone who wanted to study it had to be trained, to some extent, through associated branches, such as medicine or philosophy. The origin of knowledge was situated in philosophical readings, such as those of Plato or Aristotle. Drawn the context, we talk about Wilhelm Wundt and his contribution to change this course.

Now, we understand psychology as a part of our life. It’s like he’s always been by our side. In 1832, the year Wilhelm Wundt was born, not only did such a perception not exist, nor could it be imagined that human behavior deserved a science and / or a field of study in itself.

The importance of Wilhelm Wundt in modern psychology

In this way, it is considered that psychology itself was born in 1879. What happened at that moment in history? It was the year that Wundt inaugurated the first experimental psychology laboratory in history. The event took place in the town of Leipzig. Until that moment, we found philosophers like Hume or Descartes, who worked from the philosophical point of view the nature of ideas, the human perception of the environment, etc.

But the necessary foundations for the study of the brain and statistical matter began with Wundt. In this way, it was easier to understand human behavior, since the first measuring instruments were designed.

It can be said that the time in which Wundt lived was revolutionary in the field at hand. Along with him, other important researchers appeared, such as Francis Galton, who devoted part of his efforts to studying memory experimentally. Together with them, Gustav Fechner was already investigating the physical stimulation produced by stimuli of different intensity and nature.

Wundt’s laboratory

It was the 1950s of the 19th century when Wilhelm Wundt decided to go one step further in the scientific study of the mind. He decided to combine the experimental method with statistics to generate replicable strategies that would allow us to better understand how our brain works.

Wundt took a very important step by dropping his physiology classes at the University of Heidelberg. He left his comfortable teaching job and went to Leipzig, where he introduced mental processes in a controlled environment, the laboratory. The idea was to produce certain oscillations in different variables to analyze the effect of this change, keeping the rest of the parameters not studied constant.

To do this, Fechner’s methodology was used to study perceptions and sensations. For example, exposing volunteers to different stimuli. Then, once he had used the patterns, he would analyze the results he had achieved for associations or differences. In this way it obtained data by eliminating external factors such as noise, position, etc.

So, although today most of Wilhelm Wundt’s theories have been discarded, there is no doubt what his way of trying to answer questions implied, questions that somehow had always been there, enjoying more speculations than data. to solve them.