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INTROSPECTION (from Lat. introspicere...

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Originally appearing in Volume V14, Page 717 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.

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INTROSPECTION (from Lat. introspicere, to look within)

INTROSPECTION (from See also:
LAT
Lat. introspicere, to look within) , in See also:

psychology, the See also:

PROCESS

process of examining the operations of one's own mind with a view to discovering the See also:

LAWS

laws which govern psychic processes. The introspective method has been adopted by psychologists from the earliest times, more especially by See also:

HOBBES, THOMAS (1588–1679)

Hobbes, See also:

Locke, See also:

Berkeley, See also:

Hume, and See also:

ENGLISH

English psychologists of the earlier school. It possesses the See also:

ADVANTAGE

advantage that the individual has See also:

fuller knowledge of his own mind than that of any other See also:

PERSON, OFFENCES AGAINST THE

person, and is able therefore to observe its See also:

ACTION

action more accurately under systematic tests. On the other See also:

hand it has the obvious weakness that in the See also:

TOTAL

total content of the psychic See also:

state under examination there must be taken into See also:

account the consciousness that the test is in progress. This consciousness necessarily arouses the See also:

ATTENTION (from Lat. ad-tendo, await, expect; the condition of being " stretched " or " tense ")

attention, and may divert it to such an extent that the test as such has little value. Such psychological problems as those connected with the emotions and their See also:

PHYSICAL

physical concomitants are especially defective in the introspective method; the fact that one is looking forward to a See also:

SHOCK, or COLLAPSE

shock prepared in advance constitutes at once an abnormal psychic state, just as a See also:

NERVOUS

nervous person's See also:

heart will See also:

BEAT (a word common in various forms to the Teutonic languages; it is connected with the similar Romanic words derived from the Late Lat. battere)

beat faster when awaiting a See also:

DOCTOR (Lat. for " teacher ")

doctor's diagnosis. The purely introspective method has of course always been supplemented by the comparison of similar psychic states in other persons, and in See also:

MODERN

modern psycho-See also:

PHYSIOLOGY (from Gr. 4 i s, nature, and koyos, discourse)

physiology it is of comparatively See also:

minor importance. See PSYCHOLOGY, ATTENTION, &c.; a clear statement will be found in G. F. Stout's See also:

MANUAL

Manual of Psychology (1898), i. 14.

End of Article: INTROSPECTION (from Lat. introspicere, to look within)

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