EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology is defined as the scientific study of behavior and cognitive process. It is a
multifaceted discipline and includes many subfields of psychology such as human
development, sports, health, clinical, social behavior and cognitive process. The five basic
goals of psychology are to describe, explain, predict, control and improve behavior.
Experimental psychology is the study of psychological issues that uses experimental
procedures. It is an area of psychology that utilizes scientific methods to research the mind and
behavior. Experimental psychology had its origin in Fechner’s psychological theory and
psychological methods in the third quarter of nineteenth century. The first psychology
laboratory was established in 1879 by Wilhelm Wundt at Leipzig. With the help of
experiments, psychologists have successfully investigated complex human and animal
behavior, predict behavior behaviour with a good deal of accuracy, and have been able to
improve behavior in real life situations.
The important development came from the work of E.H Weber, a German Physiologist, who
experimented on sensation. Weber attempted to study the quantitative relationship between
changes in physical conditions and accompanying psychological changes. Webber called this
area of experimentation as psychophysics, Weber’s work was further developed by
G.T.Fechner (1801-1887), a German physicist and philosopher who was very much interested
in studying the relationship between mind and body and the problems involved in it. Fechner
has perceived the problem from different angles with his experience and knowledge in physics
and physiology.
Later, various other laboratories were established and were carried out experiments on laws of
association, reaction time, imagery and sensation. Another important development in
experimentation was by Herman Ebbinghaus, regarding the process of memory (retentions of
knowledge) and forgetting (loss in knowledge). This brought higher mental process into the
domain of experimental psychology, E.L Thorndike had come out with this experiments on
learning process and provided the foundation for modern experimental psychology. Soon
experimental psychologists realized the significance of social factors, and the result was the
development of experimental social psychololgy.
An experiment is a planned investigation to provide evidence for or against the hypothesis.
Experimental psychology according to Sheridon is a branch of psychology in which
experimental methods are used. Whenever experimental method is applied to psychological
events, it is an instinct of experimental psychology.
Objectives of Experimental Psychology:
The primary objective of experimental psychology is the study of behavior of an organism
systematically. It also tries to predict the conditions into which the specific psychological event
occurs. It predicts the behavior of the population from the results obtained from the sample, it
tries to fulfil certain functions of measurements, analysis and synthesis of the subject matter.
