Final answer:
Systematic introspection is a method of self-analysis to understand conscious experiences by breaking them into parts, used by structuralists for psychological study. Its subjectivity, variability, and limitation to conscious processes are significant problems, leading to its decline in favor of more objective methods like behaviorism.
Step-by-step explanation:
Systematic introspection is a method employed by structuralists to study the conscious experience by examining one's own thoughts and emotions in a detailed and systematic way. It involves a trained individual to reflect and report on their mental processes to break them down into their component parts. Structuralists like Wilhelm Wundt used systematic introspection because they believed that the best way to understand cognitive experiences was to dissect them into their basic elements, which could then be analyzed to form a structure of the mind.
However, there are several problems with systematic introspection. Because introspection is inherently subjective, different individuals may experience and thus describe the same mental process in very different ways, leading to inconsistencies in the data. This makes it difficult to have objective, reliable, and valid results, which are essential criteria in scientific research. Furthermore, the method is limited to the examination of conscious experiences, which excludes the study of unconscious processes that may also be significant contributors to behavior and mental functions.
The issues with systematic introspection partly led to the emergence of other psychological approaches, such as behaviorism, which focuses on observable behaviors rather than introspection, as a reaction to the subjectiveness of structuralism.