Approaches Flashcards
The Behaviorist Approach: Assumptions
- interested in behaviors that can be observed and measured
- not concerned with internal, mental processes
- maintain control and objectivity within research –> reliance on lab experiments
- Two important forms of learning: classical and operant conditioning
The Behaviorist Approach: Classical Conditioning - Pavlov’s Research
- Learning through association
- Dogs salivate at the sound of a bell if that sound was repeatedly presented at the same time it was given food:
- food (UCS) –> salivate (UCR)
- food (UCS) + bell (NS) –> salivate (UCR)
- ——> after repeated pairings:
- bell (now CS) –> salivate (now CR)
- The dogs associated the sound of the bell (NS) with the food (UCS) and began to salivate (CR) when the bell sound was heard
The Behaviorist Approach: Operant Conditioning - Skinner’s Research
- Behaviour is shaped and maintained by its consequences
Positive Reinforcement: receiving a reward after a certain behaviour - e.g. money for a tidy room
Negative Reinforcement: avoidance/taking away of something unpleasant after a certain behaviour - e.g. tidy room to avoid being told off
Punishment: an unpleasant consequence of a behaviour e.g. being shouted at for not tidying your room
- Positive and Negative reinforcement increase the likelihood that a behaviour will be repeated.
- Punishment decreases the likelihood that a behaviour will be repeated
Positive and Negative reinforcement increase….
…. the likelihood that a behaviour will be repeated.
Punishment decreases…..
…the likelihood that a behaviour will be repeated
Behaviourist Approach: Evaluation (explain each)
P- Real life Applications
E- Token economies
- desirable behaviours encouraged through selective reinforcement
- based on operant conditioning
- When desired behaviour is displayed
- tokens are given immediately as secondary reinforcers which can be exchanged for rewards (primary reinforcers)
C - this is a strength of the approach because it can be used to improve the QOL of people
P- Research Support
E- Skinner’s boxes and Pavlov’s dogs
- association between bell (ns-cs), food (ucs), salivation (ucr–>cr)
- electric floor (negative reinforcement) food pellet (positive reinforcement)
C - increases validity since research results agree with the assumptions
P- Studies are highly controlled:
E - standardised procedures - can be replicated
- focuses on observable behaviour - objective
C - this is a strength a it gives the theory scientific credibility because the research it is based upon is highly objective and replicable
Animal Research: less generalisable
P - Environmental determinism
E - suggests all behaviour is determined by past experiences and conditioning
e.g. skinner = behaviour is all due to reinforcement
- ignores any possible influence that free will may have on behaviour
C - It does not consider other factors such as free will or biology
Little Albert
- Watson and Raynor presented Little Albert with a white rat and he showed no fear.
- Watson then presented the rat with a loud bang that startled Little Albert and made him cry.
- After the continuous association of the white rat and loud noise, Little Albert was classically conditioned to experience fear at the sight of the rat.
- Albert’s fear generalized to other stimuli that were similar to the rat, including a fur coat, some cotton wool, and a Father Christmas mask.
Social Learning Theory: Assumptions
- Learning through observation and imitation
- learn through direct and indirect reinforcement - combining learning theory with cognitive factors.
- Learn through vicarious reinforcement
- Learn by watching models
- Imitation through identification
- involves the role of mediational processes
Modelling
From the observers perspective: imitating the behaviour of a role model.
From the role model’s perspective: The precise demonstration of a specific behaviour that may be imitated by an observer
Vicarious Reinforcement
- Indirect learning/reinforcement
- Observing someone else being reinforced for a behaviour - and imitating the behaviour only if it is rewarded
Identification
- when an observer associates themselves with a role model and imitates their behaviour them to be more like the role model
Mediational Processes: Bandura
- Determine whether there is a response to a behaviour
- Attention: the extent to which we notice certain behaviours
- Retention: how well the behaviour is remembered
- Motor reproduction: the ability of the observers to perform the behaviour
- Motivation: the will to perform the behaviour, which is often determined by whether the behaviour was rewarded or punished.
ARMM
Social Learning Theory: Evaluation (explain each point)
P - Lab Studies
E - a lot of the research that is used to support the slt are lab studies
- for example, the bobo doll study
- the main purpose of a bobo doll was to hit it
- children may have just been behaving how they though they were expected to rather than learning aggressive behaviour
C - lack of external validity they may not learn aggression in the same way in other situations
P - Bobo Doll - research support
E - children who saw an adult model behave aggressively towards a bobo doll were much more aggressive towards the doll and the other toys than those who observed a non-aggressive adult.
C - This supports the idea that children learn behaviour through modelling
P - Ignores Biology
E - e.g. in the bobo doll study found boys were consistently more aggressive than girls this could be due to hormone levels
C - reductionist because it says that behaviour is all down to learning but other factors may also be at play
Bobo Doll - Bandura
Do children imitate what they see?
Study A
- Recorded the behaviour of young children who watched an adult behave aggressively towards a bobo doll e.g. hitting it with a hammer and shouting abuse to it
- When these children were later observed playing with various toys, including the bobo doll, they behaved much more aggressively towards the doll and the other toys than those who observed a non-aggressive adult.
- This shows how children learn through modelling
Study B
- Children were shown videos of an adult behaving aggressively to a bobo doll
- One group saw the adult being praised for their behaviour, a second group saw the adult being punished for their behaviour and the third (control group) saw no consequence.
- When given their own bobo doll the first group showed the most aggression, followed by the third and then the second
- This shows how children learn through vicarious reinforcement and through modelling
Case Study: HM
- Scoville performed experimental surgery on H.M.’s brain to stop the severe epileptic seizures he had been suffering from
- partial medial temporal lobe resection –> removed 8 cm of brain tissue from the anterior two thirds of the hippocampus, and believed he “probably destroyed …. the uncus and amygdala” as well
- H.M. lost the ability to form new memories
- Anterograde amnesia
- He could do a task and even comment that it seemed easier than he expected, without realising that he had done it hundreds of times before.
- He also lost his memory for events that had happened after his surgery: he could not remember moving house, nor that he had eaten a meal thirty minutes previously.
- Retrograde amnesia of events preceding the surgery, such as the death of his uncle three years before.
- His early childhood memories remained intact.
- His intelligence also remained as before, at slightly above average.
The Psychodynamic Approach: Main Assumptions
- Freud
- The conscious mind is the tip of the iceberg
- Most of out mind is made up of the unconscious mind
- The structure of personality: id, ego and superego
- Defence mechanisms: repression, denial and displacement
- Psychosexual stages: Oedipus complex (Little Hans)
The Structure of Persoanlity
id:
- operates on the pleasure principle- gets what it wants, throughout life the id is selfish and demands the satisfaction of its needs
- only part that is present at birth
Ego:
- operates on the reality principle
- mediates the id and the superego, reduces conflict between their demands
- It does this by using a number of defence mechanisms
- developed at age 2
Superego:
- operates on the morality principle
- moralistic part of the personality: how we ought to be
- our internalised sense of right and wrong
id
- operates on the pleasure principle- gets what it wants, throughout life the id is selfish and demands the satisfaction of its needs
- only part that is present at birth
Ego
- operates on the reality principle
- mediates the id and the superego, reduces conflict between their demands
- It does this by using a number of defence mechanisms
- developed at age 2
Superego:
- operates on the morality principle
- moralistic part of the personality: how we ought to be
- our internalised sense of right and wrong
Defence Mechanisms
- ensure that the ego is able to prevent us from being overwhelmed by temporary threats or traumas
- require distortion- long term=unhealthy, undesirable
- Repression: pushes a distressing memory out of the conscious mind
- Denial: Refuses to acknowledge some aspect of reality
- Displacement: Transferring feelings from their true source, on to a substitute target
The Psychosexual Stages
- developments occurs in 5 stages, each marked by a different conflict that the child must resolve in order to fully progress to the next stage
- each stage relate to where the libido is centred in the individual e.g. oral=mouth
- Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency and Genital
- Any psychosexual conflict that is unresolved (frustration or overindulgence) leads to fixation, where the child becomes ‘stuck’ and carries certain behaviours and conflicts into adulthood
Oral Stage
- 0-1 years
- Libido present in the mouth
- can lead to oral fixation e.g. smoking, nail biting, thumb sucking
Anal
- 1-3 years
- Libido present in the anus
- conflict= anal retentive: obsessive perfectionist or anal expulsive: thoughtless and messy
Phallic
- 3-5 years
- Libido present in the genital area
- Oedipus and Electra complexes
- resolved through identification with masculinity or femininity
- conflict= phallic personality: narcissistic, reckless and possibly homosexual
Latency
- 5-puberty
- Libido is dormant
Genital
- Puberty-Adulthood
- heterosexual pleasure (rather than self pleasure)
- earlier conflicts are seen in the ways the individual gains sexual pleasure e.g. oral fixation = kissing
Oedipus Complex
- It is suggested that during the phallic stage boys develop feelings towards their mother and therefore distaste for any rivals (their father)
- Feeling that their father’s may castrate them for this, boys repress their feelings for their mother and identify with their father, taking on his gender role and moral views
Electra Complex
- It is suggested that during the phallic stage girls experience penis envy
- They desire their father - as the penis is the primary love object - and hate their mother
Case Study: Little Hans
- Supported Freud’s theory of the Oedipus conflict
- Hans was a 5 year old boy who developed a fear of horses after seeing one collapse in the street
- Freud suggested that this phobia was a form of displacement in which his repressed fear of his father was displaced onto horses
The Psychodynamic Approach: Evaluation
❌
P - case studies: Little Hans
E - evidence is from one person (psychologically abnormal)
- could be a unique case so hard to generalise
- (Han’s dad was also Freud’s friend -may have been trying to help his research)
C - cannot make universal claims on human behaviour based off of one individual who was psychologically abnormal
❌
P - Cannot be scientifically tested –
E - the theory is highly subjective and conceptual
e.g. nobody can prove thy didn’t experience identification through fear of castration –> since Freud states the experience is repressed during latency
C - cannot prove or disprove –> highly unscientific
- unfalsifiable
✔
P - Takes into account both sides of the nature vs nurture debate
E - recognises influence of social factors-we are driven by innate biological instincts (Id =nature),
- but ways these instincts are expressed - shaped by our social & cultural environment - we are taught what is right and wrong (nurture).
C - strength because it considers different aspects that influence behaviour
Gender bias: focus on the male (alpha bias)
Humanism: Main Assumptions
- concerns itself with explanations for health growth in individuals
- Behave and make choices through free will
- every person primary goal: self-actualisation
- Must fulfil the hierarchy of needs in order to reach full potential (self actualisation)
- self-concept must be similar to the ideal self in order to grow personally (congruence/incongruence)
- A person may have conditions of worth enforced on them which affect their self-worth - we should aim for unconditional positive regard within our relationships (not condition positive regard)
Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs
- stages that an individual must work through in order to reach self-actualisation and fulfil potential
- deficiency model = must complete current stage in order to move on to the next stage
- physiological needs, safety and security, love and belonging, self-esteem and status and self-actualisation
Rodgers Research
- The ideal self: who we want to be
- Self-concept: how we see ourselves
- Incongruence: ideal self and self-concept are misaligned –> leads to negative feelings of self-worth and prevents self-actualisation
- Conditions of worth: conditions imposed on us which we feel we must fulfil in order to feel worthy
e. g., ‘i’ll love you if you..’ - conditional positive regard - if we do not fulfil these conditions we feel unworthy
- we should aim to enforce no conditions of worth in our relationships and achieve unconditional positive regards
Humanistic Counselling
- client-centred therapy
- focus on present problems
- the individual is an expert on their own condition
- client is encouraged to discover their own solutions
- Provides client with genuineness, empathy and unconditional positive regard
- Aim: increase a person’s feelings of self-worth, reduce incongruence between the self-concept and ideal self and help the person become more fully functioning
- Has been found to help conditions such as anxiety and low self-worth
Humanism: Evaluation
P - Applications:
E - Humanistic counselling,
- focus on the individual, genuine and unconditional positive regard
- Rogers found evidence for success with anxiety and transformed psychotherapy techniques
C - support because the theory helps improve the quality of live of individuals –> help them reach elf actualisation (main aim of the approach
P - research support
E - Harter et al.
- adolescents who feel that they must fulfil certain conditions in order to gain their parents approval –> end up not liking themselves
C - evidence for conditions of worth
- adolescents feel that in order to feel worthy they must reach certain expectations
P- Cultural Bias
- Self-actualisation is only the ultimate goal in Maslow’s westernised culture.
E- Nevis found that in eastern areas such as china love and belonging is far more fundamental than physiological need and community contributions were regarded as self-actualisation rather than individual development and merit
C- A lot of the research that humanism is based on is subject to ethnocentrism
Repression
pushes a distressing memory out of the conscious mind
Denial
Refuses to acknowledge some aspect of reality
Displacement
Transferring feelings from their true source, on to a substitute target
self-concept
- How we see ourselves
- important to good psychological health.
ideal self
- This is the person who we would like to be
- It consists of our goals and ambitions in life, and is dynamic – i.e., forever changing.
conditional positive regard
- praise, and approval, depend upon the child, behaving in ways that the parents think correct.
- the child is not loved for the person he or she is, but on condition that he or she behaves only in ways approved by the parent(s).
self actualisation
to fulfill one’s potential
unconditional positive regard
- parents, significant others (and the humanist therapist) accepts and loves the person for what he or she is
- Positive regard is not withdrawn if the person does something wrong or makes a mistake.
congruence/incongruence
- self-concept must be similar to the ideal self in order to grow personally –> congruent
