The history of introspection reconsidered

Abstract

The term “introspective psychology” is misleading in that it covers a variety of diverging positions on the theory and practice of introspection. From the beginning there was a basic discrepancy between the British and the German philosophic tradition, w77th the former relying more exclusively on introspection than the latter. Wilhelm Wundt's advocacy and use of introspection was extremely circumscribed and essentially limited to simple judgments tied to external stimulation. During the first decade of the twentieth century some experimental psychologists, notably E. B. Titchener and the Würzburg School, greatly enlarged the scope of introspection, ushering in the brief vogue of “systematic introspection.” The latter never gained wide support in North America and was supplanted in Germany by developments that do not constitute “introspective psychology” in any precise sense.

Temporal discrimination of one’s own reaction times in dual-task performance: Context effects and methodological constraints

“…Asymmetry effect Introspection has been one of the major tools of investigation since the early days of psychological research. Although it was never completely abandoned, with the rise of behaviorism in the beginning of the 20th century introspection fell into disfavor (Boring, 1953;Danziger, 1980). However, recently there has been renewed interest in the limitations of introspection as an object of experimental psychological research, mainly inspired by theoretical developments regarding the relationship between attention and consciousness (e.g., Dehaene, Changeux, Naccache, Sackur, & Sergent, 2006).…”

The Descriptive Experience Sampling method

“…Introspection was banned from psychological science for good reason: it was, a century ago, a spectacular failure (Danziger, 1980). If nothing else, the history of introspection clearly demonstrates that self-reports about inner experience should not be taken for granted.…”

First-Person Experiments: A Characterisation and Defence

“…(Watson, 1913, p. 164) Although much of Introspective psychology involved the attempt to identify sensory elements through the extensive training of subjects (Danziger, 1980), there…”