Wilhelm Wundt

Wilhelm Wundt
Wundt in 1902
Born
Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt

(1832-08-16)16 August 1832
Neckarau near Mannheim, Grand Duchy of Baden, German Confederation
Died31 August 1920(1920-08-31) (aged 88)
Großbothen, Saxony, Germany
EducationUniversity of Heidelberg
(MD, 1856)
Known forExperimental psychology
Cultural psychology
Apperception
Scientific career
FieldsExperimental psychology, Cultural psychology, philosophy, physiology
InstitutionsUniversity of Leipzig
ThesisUntersuchungen über das Verhalten der Nerven in entzündeten und degenerierten Organen (Research of the Behaviour of Nerves in Inflamed and Degenerated Organs) (1856)
Doctoral advisorKarl Ewald Hasse
Other academic advisorsHermann von Helmholtz
Johannes Peter Müller
Doctoral studentsJames McKeen Cattell, G. Stanley Hall, Oswald Külpe, Hugo Münsterberg, Ljubomir Nedić, Walter Dill Scott, George M. Stratton, Edward B. Titchener, Lightner Witmer

Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (/wʊnt/; German: [vʊnt]; 16 August 1832 – 31 August 1920) was a German physiologist, philosopher, and professor, one of the fathers of modern psychology. Wundt, who distinguished psychology as a science from philosophy and biology, was the first person to call himself a psychologist.[1]

He is widely regarded as the "father of experimental psychology".[2][3] In 1879, at the University of Leipzig, Wundt founded the first formal laboratory for psychological research. This marked psychology as an independent field of study.[4]

He also established the first academic journal for psychological research, Philosophische Studien (from 1883 to 1903), followed by Psychologische Studien (from 1905 to 1917), to publish the institute's research.[5]

A survey published in American Psychologist in 1991 ranked Wundt's reputation as first for "all-time eminence", based on ratings provided by 29 American historians of psychology. William James and Sigmund Freud were ranked a distant second and third.[6]

  1. ^ Neil Carlson, Donald C. Heth: Psychology the Science of Behaviour. Pearson Education Inc. 2010. ISBN 0-205-54786-9. p. 18.
  2. ^ Kim, Alan (2022), "Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt", in Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2022 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 5 March 2023
  3. ^ Butler-Bowdon, Tom (2007). 50 Psychology Classics: Who We Are, How We Think, What We Do: Insight and Inspiration from 50 Key Books. Nicholas Brealey Publishing. p. 2. ISBN 978-1-85788-473-9.
  4. ^ Wundt: Das Institut für experimentelle Psychologie. Leipzig, 1909, 118–133.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Fahrenberg2019 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ J. H. Korn, R. Davis, S. F. Davis: "Historians' and chairpersons' judgements of eminence among psychologists". American Psychologist, 1991, Volume 46, pp. 789–792.