Approaches Flashcards
What did Wilhem Wundt do
set up the first experimental psychology lab to test the mind, he did this by conducted controlled experiments and presenting a stimulus to find cause and effect - using scientific methods
Wundt’s reductionism
explain how the mind works by looking at the smaller parts
Wundt’s introspection
Wundt would ask the ppts to examine and explain their mental processes (thoughts, sensations and emotions)
key: ppts explain themselves, W didn’t guess or make inferences
Wundt + A03
First person to apply scientific methods to psychology, had a high degree of control over all variables
he also wrote down his methods meaning they were replicable to
Wundt - A03
- his studies lack reliability: when he would call ppts back, they’d give different responses
- he wasn’t directly observing anything, meaning this studies had no empirical evidence, reducing its scientific credibilty
key assumption of the psychodynamic approach
most of our behaviours are caused by the unconscious mind
Comparing approaches
cognitive/behaviourists - studying mental processes
Freud’s ice berg analogy
conscious - everything we are thinking of right now
preconscious - everything in our mind is easily accessed
unconscious - cannot access when awake
Tripartite Structure of Personality
Id: pleasure principle
Ego:
Superego: Morality principle
Tripartite Structure of Personality: Id
Instant gratification/Pleasure principle/Urges/Impulses
come from the unconscious mind
because the unconscious mind is most of our mind, the id is responsible for most of our behaviour
Tripartite Structure of Personality: Ego
mediator
sometimes compromise, sometimes pick one
conscious mind
Tripartite Structure of Personality: Superego
follows rules and morals
can be found in all conscious’
Why Defence Mechanisms
Whatever the id chooses to do, the id will be left with an uncomfortable feeling arising from the unconcsious mind, it will use defence mechanisms to avoid
3 Defence Mechanisms
Displacement
Repression
Denial
Defence Mechanism: Displacement
When the ego displaces the id’s impulses towards something else
i.e not stealing an expensive bracelet from a shop but going home and stealing your sisters bracelet
Defence Mechanism: Repression
Ego will defend against the id by locking it away, pushing it back to the unconscious mind
Defence Mechanism: denial
ignoring the feelings of discomfort/guilt
ego refuses to believe it is allowing the id to take over no regret or guilt
repressed events
Impulses in the unconscious mind are shaped because of childhood experiences which are locked away in the unconscious mind
5 psychosexual stages
Oral
Anal
Phallic
Latent
Genital
Old age pensioners love gold
Oral stage
Birth - 18 months
Id’s main impulse is to eat or put things in it’s mouth
Instant gratification is focused on the mouth
Anal Stage
18 months - 3 years
As the child learns to control feces, the id’s main impulse is to poo
Instant gratification is focused on the anus
As the child is potty trained, some children become overly obsessed with using the toilet and want to use it all the time, Freud suggests they are anally expulsive
Other children become nervous and Freud says they are anally retentive
Phallic Stage
3 years - 6 years
Instant gratification is focused on the penis
Suggests that this is when boys start to learn about the penis and begin to obsess over it.
Boys sexual attraction begins, as there are few women in their lives, the attraction is directed to their mother. They become jealous of their fathers as they believe they have to compete with their dad for their mum’s attention - oedipus complex (+ castration anxiety)
Freud also believes that girls also begin to focus on the penis and feel angry as they have no penis and feeling angry towards their mothers as they believe their mother removed their penis - penis envy
Therefore, girls don’t trust their mothers and become sexually attracted to their fathers - electra complex
Castration Anxiety vs Penis Envy
fear that their father will overpower him and remove his penis
boys develop the oedipus complex
feeling angry towards their mothers as they believe their mother removed their penis
Latent stage
6 years - 12 years
Impulses spread evenly across the body, and because the id is not focused on one part of the body, it will not lead to a psychosexual fixation
Genital Stage
12 years +
Child goes through puberty, id is no longer spread out, instead focused on reproductive organs
Psychological trauma may not cause fixations
Pychosexual Fixations
According to Freud, if a child experiences psychological trauma in any of the first 3 stages, they will repress the trauma in their unconcious mind.
This will effect them throughout their life, and will result in psychosexual fixations
Latent and Genital stage do not have fixations
Oral Fixation
Repressed psychological trauma can lead to oral fixations like being overly dependent and have habits like smoking and biting their nails
Anal Fixation
Anally retentive become neat and organised and money
Anally expulsive struggle to controlling their emotions
Phallic Fixation
If the oedipus/electra complex are not resolved, the child will repress the trauma.
If they are particularly jealous and/or anxious
Little Hans - Support for Psychosexual Stages
Hans’ dad made notes about H’s behaviour and dreams and sent them to Freud, he was very scared of horses and was curious about his penis - phallic stage
Hans didn’t like his father or newborn sister - sharing his mums attention - oedipus complex
Frued suggested his fear of horses was actually his fear of his dad which had been displaced
Limitations of Little Hans
- only found support for the stages using one case study, cannot be generalised to the wider population.
- self report method: responses may not be objective, from his father and no empirical evidence
- case study is a non-experimental method, didn’t manipulate an IV therefore, cannot test cause/effect
Psychodynamic + A03
+ Freud was one of the first psychologists to investigate psychological causes for psychological disorders, rather than spirits etc. he found childhood experiences relate
+ balances idiographic and nomothetic approach, detailed case studies (I) and the tripartate structure applying to everyone (N)
Psychodynamic - A03
there was no way of directly observing the unconscious mind, meaning his studies weren’t based on empirical data, meaning his studies are unfalsifiable and not scientific, as well as this the idiographic methods of case studies means results cannot be generalised
androcentrism - gender bias and relies on outdated gender stereotypes
Cognitive approach - studying mental processes
perception - mental processing of stimuli in the environment
attention - how the mind selects which stimuli to focus on
memory - how the mind stores information
cognitive approach assumptions - information processing model
input = process = output
the mind works like a computer
Theoretical models of the cognitive approach
cognitive psychologists measure behaviour and then make inferences on how mental processes work
using inferences to refine theoretical models
Mental processes characteristics
Have limited capacity
Usually occur in sequence
Sometimes can occur in parallel
Schemas
When we experience something new, we have prior expectations. We have mental frameworks from our previous experiences known as schemas - ie you go to a new restaurant and expect to be given a menu by a waiter, given a bill at the end.
everyone’s schemas are informed by different schemas, meaning everyone has different schemas. As a result, everyone behaves differently
Schemas - assimilation and accomodation
When a new experience matches our schema and is incorporated into our schema, it is assimilated
When we remember an experience, we may change details to assimilate the experience into our schema (A+A)
When an experience does not match our schema, we have to accomodate our schema
cognitive approach
Bartlett had english ppts read a navajo folk tale, he measured how many details they got wrong when they recall the story. he found that they change parts of the story to match their own schemas
Define cognitive neuroscience
the scientific study of the influence of brain structures on mental processes
Emergence of cognitive neuroscience
Advances in brain scanning technology has allowed scientists to describe the neurological basis of mental processes. Including research in memory and different links to disorders
Behaviourist approach
John B Watson said it should be based on empirical evidence
Behaviour is learned
Only concerned about behaviour that can be observed
Can use animals to reach conclusions about humans [Animals and humans have the same learning mechanisms - their justification]
(Beh) Classical conditioning - Pavlov’s Dogs
Learning through association
Pavlov’s dogs
UCS - UCR (food - saliva)
NS - No response (Bell - nothing)
UCS+NS (Bell + Food) repeat over and over
CS + CR (Bell - Saliva)
(Beh) Operant conditioning - Skinner’s Rats
Learning through reinforcement, maintained by consequences
Put rats and pigeons in specially designed boxes. When the lever was activated, pellets of food were rewarded. A desirable consequence led to the behaviour being repeated. (+ve reinforcement)
Another variation had an electric grid, rats would press the lever to avoid the shocks, the rats learned to press the lever to eliminate the unpleasant consequence (-ve reinforcement)
(Beh) 3 Consequences
Positive reinforcement: Reward for an action makes us repeat it (pocket money for cleaning)
Negative reinforcement: The negative outcome is removed, making you more likely to repeat it (cleaning room makes mum stop nagging)
Punishment: when a negative outcome makes us more likely not to repeat (not cleaning my room so mum grounded for a week, will make sure tom cleans his room from now on)
Behaviourist approach A03 - support
+ scientific: based on empirical evidence, Skinner was able to control extraneous variables in his lab experiment, therefore there was high internal validity and reliability
+real world applied to treat and understand. the learning mechanisms can be used to treat (classical conditioning can replace any negative associations)
Behaviourist approach A03 - limitations
- reductionist: ignores the mental processes, biological factors and behaviours. It only focuses on the nurture side of the nature nurture debate, as it believes we are born with a clean slate and all behaviours are learnt.
- animal research: both ethical issues and cannot be generalised.
Social learning theory assumptions
Albert Bandura agreed with the behaviourist approach, that learning occurs through experience and also proposed that learning takes place through
Vicarious reinforcement
Individuals observe other people’s behaviour and take note of its consequences. Behaviour that is seen to be rewarded (reinforced) is much more likely to be copied than behaviour that is punished
Mediational processes
attention: whether behaviour is noticed
retention: whether behaviour is remembered
motor reproduction: being able to do it
motivation: the will to perform the behaviour
unlike behaviourism, learning and performance don’t have to occur together
Identification with role modelf
Children are more likely to imitate the behaviour of people they identify as role models.
Role models are similar to the observer, tend to be attractive and have high status
Bandura’s bobo dolls 2 tests + findings
Children saw an adult either behaving aggressively or non-aggressively to a bobo doll
When given their own bobo doll, the children who witnessed the aggressive behaviour towards the bobo doll acted more aggressively towards the doll.
Children saw an adult being either: rewarded, punished, neither rewarded/punished
When given their own dolls, the children who saw the aggression being rewarded were much more aggressive
Conclusion of the bobo doll study
Suggests that children are likely to imitate acts of violence if they observe this in a role model.
It is also the case that modelling aggressive behaviour is more likely if the behaviour is rewarded (vicarious reinforcement)
Strengths of SLT A03 *
+ can account for cultural differences in behaviour, explains how cultural norms are transferred, for example children understand their gender roles by imitating role models.
+
Limitations of SLT A03
- undermines the influence of biological factors, a constant finding in Bandura’s experiments was that the boys were more aggressive than the girls regardless of the experimental condition, may be explained by the difference in testosterone levels which can be linked to aggression and is higher in boys.
- Relies too heavily on lab experiments, raises demand characteristics, the children may have acted in different ways to their everyday lives
Humanistic Approach assumptions - Maslow
1)All humans have free will
2) Everyone is unique (we cannot generalise)
3) What makes humans different from animals
Explain why the humanistic approach is incompatible with the scientific method.
H cannot generalise findings from experiments to everyone as they believe everyone is unique
H also beleve everyone has free will meaning that they may choose to behave differentlhy in experiments meaning the results cannot be replicated, meaning the study lacks external validity
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs idea
He ranked human needs and how important they are. As the needs are fulfillef, we move up the hierarchy. Once we have reached the top of the hierarchy (self-actualisation), we have reached full human potential.
What are the categories on the hierarchy
Basic needs: physiological (warmth, food and water) Safety (shelter)
Psychological needs: love and belonging
Esteem (respect)
Self-actualisation: knowledge and understanding, creative expression and experiencing beauty
we cannot say what it looks like for everyone because we assume everyone is unique and has different human potential
Carl Rogers - the self
Used counselling to help patients reach their full potential and be happy
Self-concept: how we see ourselves
Ideal self: how we would like to be
Congruence (in agreement)
Where the self-concept and ideal self line up
someone is exactly how they dream of being
Roger’s believes if someones selves are congruent, they will be able to reach their potential, if not they may experience psych issues (depression, anxiety and insecurity) they would benefit from humanistic counselling
Conditions of worth
when someone wants to be something they’re not, they have conditions of self-worth. What they think they need to change about themselves to have self-worth
can be self-imposed or by other peoples expectations
Unconditional positive regard
Humanistic counselling will remove conditions of worth, no COW means we receive UPR.
HC = receive UPR = removal of COW = achieve congruence
Self actualistion - Rogers
When our self-concept and ideal self are congruent by having no conditions of worth, we have self-actualised
- different to Maslow’s self-actualisation
Timeline of Approaches
Origin of Psychology
Psychodynamic
Behaviourist
Cognitive
Biological (in parallel with all)
Biological Approach assumptions
We can explain behaviour mainly in terms of biological factors
Genetics and evolution
genes affect behaviour by changing processes in the brain
Genes
Our DNA is divided into segments called genes
Each gene controls the production of one specific protein
Genes control our physical traits
Gene variation/Gene alleles/Genetic inheritance
An allele is a different version of a particular gene (i.e eye colour)
When a gene has different possible alleles, the trait has genetic variation
Genetic inheritance is when a gene allele has been passed on from our parents (mum is ginger)
gene variation is between species’ and gene allele variation is between the same species
Genotype/Phenotype
Genotype: Description of all the genes and alleles in their body
Phenotypes: physical traits / appearance
phenotypes determined by genotypes and environmental factors
