JO GROEBEL

Jo Groebel (born 1950) received the Diplom-Psychologe ( 1974) and the PhD
( 1981) from the Technical University of Aachen. His specialties include social
psychology, media psychology, and research in aggression and terrorism. Among
his publications are Aggression and War: Their Biological and Social Bases
(with Robert Hinde), Terrorism (with Jeffrey Goldstein), and Fernsehen und
Angst (Television and anxiety).

Groebel is the editor of Medienpsychologie: Zeitschrift für Individual und
Massenkommunikationand serves on the editorial boards of Aggressive Be-
haviorand School Psychology International. Groebel is currentlyAkademis-
cher Oberratat the University of Rheinland-Pfalz, Landau, Germany and chair
of the Department of Social Psychology, University of Utrecht, the Netherlands.

Germany has played an important role in the development of
psychology as an independent science. Wilhelm Wundt ( 1832- 1920) founded
the first department of psychology, at the University of Leipzig in 1879. In his
works Beitärge zur Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung (Contributions to the theory
of sensory perception) ( 1862) and Vorlesungen über die Menschen- und Tierseele
(Lectures on the psyche of man and animal) ( 1863), Wundt created the bases
of experimental psychology. He defined psychology as the science of inner
experience and consciousness, to be measured through experiment and self-
observation. Among other achievements, he systematically described the
connection between psychological and physiological processes, noting the
interaction among external physical stimuli, nerve stimulation, and percep-
tion.

In addition to conducting his own experiments, Wundt integrated the find-
ings of previous researchers such as J. Müller, H. L. F. von Helmholtz, E. H.

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