WILHELM WUNDT: BIOGRAPHY AND MAIN THEORIES - PSYCHOLOGY - 2026

Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) was a German psychologist, philosopher and physiologist famous for creating the first experimental psychology laboratory in 1879 in Leipzig, Germany, known as the Institute of Experimental Psychology ("Institut für experiential Psychologie"). He is currently considered the father of modern psychology.

Wundt was also the forerunner of the theory on structural psychology developed by Edward Bradford Titchener, the great exponent of this current. This theory of knowledge tries to analyze the experience of the individual throughout his life, understanding this as a network of elements.

Wilhelm Wundt

University-trained, a doctor, the German psychologist has become one of the most relevant figures of the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th in the field of psychology.

Its importance lies in the fact that it was the first to scientifically investigate human behavior. To do so, he followed in the footsteps of Ernst Heinrich Weber (1795-1878), whom he always referred to as the "founding father of psychology."

The mind and the way of acting of the individual had already been the object of knowledge of other philosophers or psychoanalysts, the difference is in the method used. While other thinkers focused on the abstraction of thoughts or wandering, Wundt incorporates a scientific and systematic method for this discipline.

Wilhelm Wundt had a very productive career and made Leipzig a world reference in psychology. For all this, he obtained some recognitions such as the Pour le Merité Prize for the Sciences and the Arts or the honorary doctorate at the Universities of Leipzig and Göttingen. He was also appointed an honorary member of 12 scientific societies both in Germany and abroad.

Biography

Birth and early years

Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt was born on August 16, 1832 in the Neckarau district, located on the outskirts of the industrial city of Mannheim (Germany). However, Wilhelm spent most of his childhood in a town called Heidelsheim, located in the city of Bruchsal. He was the fourth child of the marriage formed by the Protestant pastor Maximilian Wundt (1787-1846) and Maria Friedrerike née Arnold (1797-1868).

Both on the maternal and paternal side, Wilhelm Wundt had intellectual relatives, doctors, teachers, psychologists, etc. His father, on the other hand, was not a very successful person, as Rieber (2001) states.

Wundt was raised as an only child, as two of his older brothers died before his birth and the only one alive was sent to study with his aunt at the Heidelberg gymnasium, when Wilhelm was still very young.

His childhood was quite uneventful. She never had many friends her age, she preferred the company of adults or devoting herself to reading and studying. She did establish a great friendship with a pastor acquired by her father, Friedrich Müller, who would become her tutor.

Reading was his passion, further fostered by his father's library. After attending several years to the Heidelsheim school, he entered the Bruchsal gymnasium, where he had a really bad time, being the first time he was away from his family.

After missing that academic year, he joined his older brother at his aunt's house to attend the Heildeberg gymnasium.

University studies

In 1856 he received a doctorate in medicine from the University of Heildeberg. During his student days, he spent a semester studying alongside the anatomist and physiologist Johannes Peter Müller and the physicist and physiologist Emil-du Bois-Reymond. This training enabled him as a teacher and he began to teach physiology classes.

From 1857 to 1864 he was appointed Professor at the Institute of Physiology in Heildeberg. Two years later, the physiologist, psychologist, and physicist Hermann von Helmholtz would fill a teaching position and make Wilhelm his assistant.

In 1862 he gave his first lectures on psychology and in 1864, Wundt began teaching as an associate professor of medical psychology and anthropology.

However, when Hermann von Helmhotz went to Berlin in 1871, Wilhelm was ignored to take his place.

Between 1873 and 1874 he published his best known work Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie. In this book Wundt tries to unite physiology and psychology.

Zurich and Leipzig

Also in 1874 he began to teach inductive philosophy at the University of Zurich. There he would exercise only one year, since in 1875 he would accept an offer to teach philosophy classes in Leipzig. His teaching began with the conference called Logic and Methods with Respect to the Methods of Natural Science (Logik und Methodenlehre mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Methoden der Naturforschung).

Leipzig was very important to Wilhelm. It was in the philosophy department that he was able to unleash his mind and gain more knowledge. Almost all his companions were followers of Johann Friedrich Herbart.

There he would meet and support the theories on experimental psychology of Ernst Heinrich Weber and would coincide with the philosopher and psychologist Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887). The latter became the forerunner of the psychological experiments developed by Wundt.

Laboratory

But, above all, it was the University of Leipzig that made him famous when it allowed him to install a laboratory dedicated exclusively to psychology, the Institute for Experimental Psychology.

The founding of the laboratory accompanied it with the publication of the first psychology journal in 1881, Philosophiche Studien, which contained the results of the experiments carried out.

Among the first members of this laboratory were Granville Stanley Hall (1844-1924), Max Friedrich, James McKeen Cattell (1860-1944), Alfred Lehmann (1858-1921), Hugo Münsterberg (1863-1916) and Emil Kraeplin (1856- 1926).

The Institute of Experimental Psychology won him many followers among the university students, who offered to help him with the laboratory and who began to investigate experimental psychology following his guidelines. As a counterpoint, the university institution did not officially recognize the laboratory facilities as part of the campus until 1883.

At the same University of Leipzig he would hold the post of Rector from 1889 to 1890.

Marriage and children

Regarding his love life, in 1867 he met his wife, Sophie Mau (1844-1912), daughter of the theologian Heinrich August Mau and his wife Louise and sister of the archaeologist August Mau. Wilhelm and Sophie were married on August 14, 1872, and had three children: Eleanor, Louise, and Max.

Retirement

Finally, in 1917, the renowned German psychologist retired from teaching and was replaced by his student Felix Krueger.

Wilhelm Wundt died on August 31, 1920 in Grossbothen, a town in Leipzig, at the age of 88.

Experimental psychology

Wundt Research Group, 1880. Author unknown.

Wundt is considered the father of modern psychology, and even by some, the father of psychology in general. He was the first to separate psychology as its own scientific discipline, apart from other disciplines such as philosophy or physiology.

The German psychologist puts aside speculation and formalizes psychology as a science, with an experimental method adapted to his needs. This is what is called experimental psychology.

As Wilhelm Wundt states in the Principles of Physiological Psychology, "the psychology that receives assistance from physiology in the development of experimental methods" should be called experimental psychology.

He understands that life in a broad sense "must cover both the processes of the physical organism and the processes of consciousness." For this reason, just as physiology studies the external manifestations of the body and psychosomatic symptoms, with the help of the psychic, it might be useful for psychology to know the physiological reactions.

For Wundt, the only object of study is the inner experiences that the individual feels. Being so different from the object of study of physiology, it is necessary to complete the scientific method with pure characteristics of the psychological discipline.

The scientific method is completed with an internal observation procedure, which, unlike other ancient thinkers, is not based on speculation, but on experimental science.

Method of experimental psychology

According to Kurt Danzinger in his article The History of Introspection Reconsidered, published in the Journal of the History of the Behavorial Sciences, there are certain ambiguities with Wilhelm Wundt's method that can lead to confusion.

In this section, I try to explain Wilhelm Wundt's proposal and how it differs from other introspective processes of the mind, such as those proposed by philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle.

Wundt, when explaining his method distinguished between the observation of the "self" (Selbstbeobachtung) and internal perception (Innere Wahrnehmung). This distinction has been lost with the translation from German into English of the works of the German psychologist.

Generally, it has tended to call the method of experimental psychology that Wundt proposes as introspection, something that gives rise to confusion, since the philosopher and psychologist was very critical of this way of knowing the mind.

Measurable aspects

The main criticism that Wundt made of this method of internal observation of the individual was the lack of objectivity of the observer, due to the scarce distance from the analyzable experiences.

Therefore, Wilhelm Wundt focuses on measurable aspects or regular behaviors that occur when analyzing inner experiences. In some way, it systematizes that internal perception.

It can be said that it is a naturalistic method, since it copies aspects of the way of knowing the natural sciences. Of course, always taking into account the aspects of psychological discipline.

For this reason, the observers or individuals who experience this internal perception must be previously trained. In this way, you avoid falling into subjectivities.

Furthermore, this kind of introspection, in order to resemble the method of knowledge in the external sciences, must then be combined with the observation and account of these "original" experiences to avoid a process of reflection of consciousness that may distort those perceptions that were obtained in the first place and that are considered as objective.

Finally, Wundt adds other elements that give objectivity to this method, such as reaction times and word association.

For the elaboration of this methodology, Wundt was strongly influenced by Gustave Fetchner.

Wundt's influence on structuralism

Although Wilhelm Wundt is framed within the theory of voluntarism, he had a great influence on the shaping of structuralism.

Volunteerism is the current or philosophical and psychological doctrine that establishes the will as the principle that governs the mind.

With the installation of the experimental psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Wundt recruited a large number of disciples, among whom was Edward Titchener. The latter is known for transferring the knowledge acquired with Wilhelm Wundt and experimental psychology to the United States. From this knowledge, the school of structuralism arises.

This current is so called because it conceives experience as a set of interrelated elements, as a structure.

For Titchener, psychology is responsible for studying consciousness or conscious experiences, as for Wundt.

For the English, consciousness is divided into three elements: physical sensations, feelings and images. Like most of the experiments he carried out in Leipzig with the psychologist Wilhelm Wundt with whom he analyzed, above all, sensations, visual images, etc.

Edward B. Tichtener also adopts the method used by Wilhelm Wundt for experimental psychology; introspection and self-analysis by previously trained observers.

Plays

• Die Lehre von der Muskelbewegung (1858)
• Lehrbuch der Physiologie des Menschen (1865)
• Die physikalischen Axiome und ihre Beziehung zum Causalprincip (1866)
• Handbuch der medicinischen Physik (1867)
• Beiträge zur Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung (1862)
• Vorlesungen über die Menschen- und Thierseele (1863/1864)
• Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie (1874)
• Untersuchungen zur Mechanik der Nerven und Nervencentren (1876)
• Logik (1880 to 1883)
• Essays (1885)
• Ethik (1886)
• System der Philosophie (1889)
• Grundriß der Psychologie (1896)
• Völkerpsychologie (1900-1920)
• Kleine Schriften (1910)
• Einleitung in die Psychologie (1911)
• Probleme der Völkerpsychologie (1911)
• Elemente der Völkerpsychologie (1912)
• Reden und Aufsätze (1913)
• Sinnliche und übersinnliche Welt (1914)
• Über den wahrhaftigen Krieg (1914)
• Die Nationen und ihre Philosophie (1915)
• Erlebtes und Erkanntes (1920)

References

1. Rieber, RW., Robinson, DK. (2001) Wilhelm Wundt in History: The making of Scientific Psychology. New York, Springer.
2. Biographies and Lives. The Biographical Encyclopedia Online.
3. Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
4. Department of Psychology. Universität Leipzig.
5. Wundt, W. Trad: Titchener, E. (1904) Principles of Physiological Psychology. New York, The Macmillan Company.
6. Bustos, A. et al. (1999) Introduction to Psychology. Quezon City, Philippines, Katha Publishing Company.
7. McLeod, SA (2008). Wilhelm Wundt. Recovered from simplypsychology.org.
8. Danzinger, K. (1980). The History of Introspection Reconsidered. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences. 16, 241-262.
9. Buxton, C. (1985). Points of View in the Modern History of Psychology. Connecticut, Academic Press Inc.