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History Psychology:6. Method of PsychologyThe primary method of investigation in empirical or phenomenal psychology is introspection or reflective observation of our own mental states. This is the ultimate source of all knowledge of mental facts; even the information gathered immediately from other quarters has finally to be interpreted in terms of our own subjective experience. Introspection is, however, liable to error; consequently, it has to be employed with care and helped and corrected by all the supplementary sources of psychological knowledge available. Among the chief of these are: the internal experience of other observers communicated through language; the study of the human mind as exhibited in different periods of life from infancy to old age, and in different races and grades of civilization; as embodied in various languages and literatures; and as revealed in the absence of particular senses, and in abnormal or pathological conditions such as dreams, hypnotism, and forms of insanity. Moreover, the anatomy, physiology, and pathology of the brain and nervous system supply valuable data as to the organic conditions of conscious states. Experimental psychology, psychophysics, and psychometry help towards accuracy and precision in the description of certain forms of mental activity. And the comparative study of the lower animals may also afford useful assistance in regard to some questions of human psychology. By the utilization of these several sources of information the data furnished to the psychologist by the introspective observation of his own individual mind may be enlarged, tested and corrected, and may thus acquire in a certain degree the objective and universal character of the observations on which the physical sciences are built. Introspection is frequently spoken of as the subjective method, these other sources of information as supplementary objective methods of psychological study. |
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