Approaches Flashcards
What is the conscious?
What we are aware of in the current moment
What is the preconscious?
Thoughts and ideas that can be accessed if desired
What is the unconscious?
The part of the mind that we are unaware of but continues to direct a lot of our behaviour
What is the id?
The pleasure principle.
Relates to the selfish drive we are born with.
Demands immediate gratification.
What is the ego?
The reality principle.
It balances the conflict of the id and the superego.
Compromise.
What is the superego?
Morality principle.
Feels guilty for doing something wrong.
Internalised moral voice of your parents.
Name the ego defence mechanisms.
Repression, denial and displacement
Define defence mechanisms.
Unconscious strategies that the ego uses to manage the conflict between the id and the superego
What is repression?
Forcing a distressing memory into the unconscious mind because it causes us too much anxiety.
What is denial?
Refusing to acknowledge some aspect of reality
What is displacement?
Transferring feelings to a substitute target
Describe the oral stage.
Focus of pleasure is in the mouth, mother’s breast is the object of desire
What are the consequences of unresolved conflict in the oral stage?
Oral fixation - smoking, biting nails, sarcastic, critical, overeating
At what age is the anal stage?
1-3 years
At what age is the oral stage?
0-1 years
Describe the anal stage.
Focus of pleasure is in the anus.
Child gains pleasure from withholding and expelling feces.
What are the consequences of unresolved conflict in the anal stage?
Anal retentive personality - perfectionist, obsessive.
Anal repulsive - thoughtless, messy.
What age does the phallic stage occur?
3-5 years
Describe the phallic stage.
Focus of pleasure is in the genital area.
Children experiences the Oedipus or Electra complex.
What are the consequences of unresolved conflicts in the phallic stage?
Phallic personality - narcissistic, reckless, possibly homosexual + issues with gender identity
What happens during the latency stage?
Early conflicts are repressed as child gains life skills and develops superego.
Describe the genital stage.
Sexual desires become conscious alongside onset of puberty
What is a consequence of unresolved conflicts in the genital stage?
Difficulty forming heterosexual relationships
How can the unconscious influence us?
Freudian slips which is when you say one thing but mean another.
Explain the relevance of the psychosexual stages?
Personality is influenced by whether you successfully resolve conflicts at different ages.
If you fail to resolve these you will fixate which involves retaining certain characteristics into adulthood.
What age is the latency stage?
5 - puberty.
Explain how the psychodynamic approach has good application.
10,000 patient cases were reviewed and found 80% benefited from treatments devised from the approach.
The successful therapy gives credibility to the theory on which it is based.
Explain how the sampling of the psychodynamic approach is a weakness.
Based on case studies of people with mental health problems.
Difficult to generalise findings to the behaviour of alll people.
Approach lacks validity.
Explain how the psychodynamic approach is based on untestable concepts.
The unconscious mind is not something we can see or measure so it is difficult to scientifically test concepts.
Therefore approach lacks validity.
Name the 3 evaluations for the psychodynamic approach.
Untestable concepts.
Good application.
Based off of case studies in people with poor mental health.
What is free will and how does it relate to the humanist approach?
People take an active roll in how their life turns out.
Approach attempted to reject all scientific principles of human behaviour.
What are the 5 stages of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Physiological needs.
Safety.
Belongingness and love.
Esteem.
Self actualisation.
Give an example of physiological needs.
Food, water, warmth, rest.
What are safety needs?
Security and safety.
What are belongingness and love needs?
Intimate relationships, friends.
What are esteem needs.
Prestige and feeling of accomplishment.
Define self actualisation.
Achieving one’s full potential.
Explain actualising tendency.
Innate drive to reach own full potential.
Very few people self actualise.
Explain Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
A series of needs someone must fulfil in order to be happy and achieve their goals.
You can only progress to the next level once you have satisfied the previous one.
Explain Roger’s self theory.
In order for an individual to grow and reach their potential there needs to be congruence between their actual self and ideal self.
Define congruence.
Agreement.
Particularly between the self image and ideal self.
What is the self-image?
Perceived self.
How they view themselves.
What is the ideal self?
Who someone wants to be.
Why is incongruence bad?
Causes low self esteem.
What is client centred therapy?
Therapist provides the patient with unconditional positive regard which encourages them to love themselves for who they are.
Therefore improving congruence.
Explain how the humanist approach is not reductionist.
Does not try to reduce behaviour down to a series of factors e.g. genetic factors in the biological approach.
Takes a more holistic view.
Gives greater validity.
Explain how the humanist approach has practical application.
As the approach has influenced modern counselling by helping people raise their self esteem through achieving congruence.
This means that it has a positive effect in the real world.
Explain how the humanist approach has untestable concepts.
Difficult to scientifically measure concepts such as congruence and self actualisation and there is little attempt to provide evidence.
People are likely to question the credibility of the claims of the approach.
Therefore lack’s validity.
Name 3 possible evaluations of the humanistic approach.
Not reductionist.
Practical application.
Untestable concepts.
Define genotype.
The genes you are born with.
Define phenotype.
How genes interact with environmental factors to determine how genes are expressed.
What are the assumptions of the biological approach?
Everything psychological is at first biological.
The mind lives inside the brain, meaning all thoughts, feeling, emotions ultimately have a physical basis.
Define unconditional positive regard.
Being loved and cared for who you are and not what you do.
No conditions of worth.
What are conditions of worth?
When a parent places boundaries on the love of their children.
What does conditional positive regard mean?
Only loved for what you do and not who you are.
Conditions of worth put on you.
How is the genetic basis of behaviour investigated?
Concordance rates in twin studies.
How does neurochemistry influence behaviour?
An imbalance of neurotransmitters may be a cause for some mental disorders.
What is neurochemistry?
The action of chemicals in the brain.
Neurotransmitters transmit messages.
How are twin studies used to investigate if there is a genetic basis for behaviour.
If Mz concordance is significantly higher than Dz - behaviour is partly due to nature.
If Mz concordance is similar to Dz - behaviour is entirely due to nurture.
If Mz concordance is 100% - entirely due to nature.
Mz concordance significantly less than 100% - partly due to nurture.
Describe Kaij’s twin study.
174 pairs of participants (48 Mz, 126 Dz) all male born in Sweden.
Kaij categorised each twin on their level of alcohol usage.
Total of 5 categories ranging from not drinking to chronic alcoholic.
What were the results of Kaij’s twin study?
54% of identical twins were in the same category.
28% non identical.
As level of alcohol usage increased, there was more concordance between identical twins.
What does Kaij’s study show?
Alcohol usage has a genetic component as Mz rates are higher but also due to nurture as rate is not 100%.
Explain one strength of twin studies.
Twins are a naturally occurring variable.
Mz twins share 100% of DNA whilst Mz twins only share 50%.
As it is naturally occurring, there is less risk of researcher bias.
Explain one weakness of twin studies.
May not be representative of others.
Twins are rare - Dz is 1.5% of UK births and Mz is only 0.5%.
There may be other unusual features of Mz twins besides genetic similarities.
Name one strength and one weakness of twin studies.
Twins are a naturally occurring variable.
Twins may not be representative of others.
How are adoption studies measured?
Using correlation between behaviour of children and their adoptive and biological parents.
Explain what adoption studies show.
If behaviour is due to nurture.
As there is no biological connection between the parent and child, if child shares traits of parents they are probably due to nature.
What does the correlation in adoption studies show?
Correlation with adopted parents is higher than biological - behaviour partly due to environment.
Lower than biological parent - behaviour partly due to genetics.
Explain one strength of adoption studies.
Good real life application.
Can show that good parenting can correct bad genes.
Therefore giving children a second chance.
Explain one weakness of adoption studies.
May not be representative of others.
Children have been separated from biological parents possibly due to trauma/difficult circumstances.
Trauma may be the cause of behaviour rather than genetics.
Name one strength and one weakness of adoption studies.
Good real life application.
May not be representative of others.
Define evolution.
The changes in inherited characteristics in a biological population over successive generations.
What is natural selection?
Genetics that improve the chance of survival of an animal are passed down generations.
Describe one adoption study.
20 year period.
Over 5000 adults who were adopted in early life were contacted and the incidence of schizophrenia was noted.
Biological and adopted parents also contacted and presence of schizophrenia noted.
Describe the results of the adoption study.
33 of the 5000 adults were found to have schizophrenia.
14% of biological parents were found to have it also.
Compared to 2.7% of adoptive parents.
What do the results of the adoption study show?
Findings provide evidence for a genetic factor in schizophrenia as biological parents showed a much higher incidence of schizophrenia than adoptive parents.
Explain how scientific methods is a strength of the biological approach.
Brain scanning techniques used to investigate behaviour.
Done under highly controlled conditions.
Makes data from studies that supports the approach more reliable.
Explain how the biological approach has good application.
Drug treatments/SSRIs have been created to help people deal with depression as research found that low levels of serotonin is linked to depression.
The approach has helped people in some way.
Explain one weakness of the biological approach.
Determinist explanation.
Says we have no free will to stop ourselves becoming mentally ill if we have inherited the genes.
Not the case as just because we have relatives who suffer from depression does not mean that we will be ourselves.
Name 3 evaluations of the biological approach.
Uses scientific methods.
Good application.
Determinist explanation.
Define the term psychology.
The scientific study of the brain and behaviour.
Define science.
Discovering the physical and natural world systematically and objectively using empirical methods such as observation and experimentation.
What is the process of introspection?
- Participants trained to report conscious experiences objectively
- Asked to focus on a sensory object, often ticking metronome
- Systematically report experiences y breaking their thought into separate elements - sensations, feelings and images
Ow did Wundt develop psychological theories?
Making inferences about what may be driving their behaviour when many people behaved the same way.
Name 2 evaluations for introspection
Work is highly scientific.
Subjective methods.
Explain one strength of introspection.
Highly scientific.
Used controlled experiments, large sample sizes, transparent methods - systematic approach allows other people to replicate his studies.
Good replicability which supports the idea of psychology being a science.
Explain one weakness of Wundts methods.
Considered subjective.
Self reports may be biased, lies or influenced by demand characteristics.
Therefore not classified as truly scientific.
What are the impacts of conditional positive regard?
Worthlessness and low self esteem.
Describe Pavlov ’s research into classical conditioning.
Condition dogs to salivate using classical conditioning.
Before - UCS - food, UCR - salivation, NS - bell.
Bell and food occur together.
After - CS - bell, CR - salivation.
Neutral stimulus becomes conditioned stimulus for new learned response.
What is classical conditioning?
Learning through association.
Define operant conditioning.
Learning through consequences.
Describe Skinners research into operant conditioning.
Cages designed for rats and pigeons.
When activated a lever or pecked a disk, rewarded with food pellet.
If pressing lever meant avoiding an electric shock, behaviour would be repeated.
Desirable consequence led to repeated behaviour.
What are 3 consequences of behaviour?
Positive reinforcement.
Negative reinforcement.
Punishment.
Define positive reinforcement.
Producing something the animal likes. - behaviour is strengthened.
Define punishment.
Presenting something organism doesn’t like.
Decreases chance of behaviour repeating.
What is negative reinforcement?
Taking away something unpleasant.
Strengthens behaviour.
Name 3 evaluations of the behaviourist approach.
Ethical issues with animals.
Scientific credibility.
Real life application.
Explain why there is ethical issues within behaviourism.
Working with animals.
Animals exposed to stressful conditions in skinners box experiment - may have affected usual behaviour.
Reduces validity of findings.
Explain the real world applications of the behaviourist approach.
Principles of conditioning applied to token economies in prisons and psych wards - shown to be successful.
Token economies are where good behaviours are rewarded with tokens which can be exchanged for rewards.
Shows operant conditioning works and can be helpful to a wife range of people.
Describe how behaviourism has scientific credibility.
Experiments focus on measurement of observable behaviours in highly controlled settings.
Therefore providing objective and replicable results.
Helps psychology to continue to develop as a science.
Define imitation.
Copying the behaviour of others.
Define identification.
Observer associates themselves with a role model and wants to be like them.
Define modelling.
Observers perspective - imitating behaviour of a role model.
Models perspective - demonstration of behaviour which may be imitated.
What is vicarious reinforcement?
Behaviour which is seen to be rewarded (reinforced) is more likely to be imitated than behaviour which is punished.
Reinforcement occurs through watching of others.
What are meditational processes?
Cognitive factors that influence learning.
Come between stimulus and response.
What are the 4 main mediational processes?
Attention.
Retention.
Motor production.
Motivation.
Describe attention as part of the mediational processes.
The extent to which we notice certain behaviours.
Explain retention.
How well the behaviour is remembered.
Explain motor production.
Ability of the observer to perform the behaviour.
Explain motivation as part of the mediational processes.
The will to perform the behaviour, often determined by if behaviour was reinforced or punished.
Which stages of mediational processes relate to the learning of behaviour?
Attention.
Retention.
Which stages relate to the performance of a learnt behaviour?
Motor production.
Motivation.
Explain the process of Banduras original research.
24 children watched each of 3 conditions - adult is aggressive towards bobo doll, non aggressive towards bobo doll, no model shown.
Describe the findings of Banduras original research.
When given own doll to play with, children who had been in aggressive condition were most aggressive - demonstrates imitation.
Describe the process of a variation of Banduras research.
Children watched aggressive model be rewarded with sweets, punished or receive no consequence.
Describe the results of Banduras variation of research.
When given own doll, children who watched aggressiveness be rewarded were most aggressive - demonstrates vicarious reinforcement.
Name 3 evaluations of the social learning theory.
Use of lab studies.
Little reference to biological factors.
Recognises cognitive factors.
Explain why the use of lab studies in SLT is a strength.
Done in controlled environments, using standardised procedures, matched pairs design - eliminates EVs.
Giving the findings greater validity.
Explain why the lack of reference to biological factors is a weakness of SLT.
Consistent finding that boys are more aggressive than girls despite conditions, perhaps as have more testosterone.
Banduras may have underestimated the role of an important factor in social learning.
Describe the use of cognitive factors as a strength of SLT.
Behaviourism explanations for behaviour are mechanistic as only explain stimulus and response.
SLT recognises the processes which occur between this to allow for response to occur.
Therefore SLT is a more complete explanation of behaviour.
What is the similarity between SLT and behaviourism?
Both agree that learning occurs through experience.
SLT recognises the mediational processes involved in this.
What are the 3 main assumptions of the cognitive approach?
Mental processes can be studied scientifically by using lab studies to produce objective results.7
Information processing approach.
Mental processes are affected by schemas.
Explain the information processing approach.
Using computer models to map out mental processes.
Consists of input, processing, and output.
What are the 2 types of models used in the cognitive approach?
Computer.
Theoretical.
Explain theoretical models.
Flowchart representations of steps of mental processes e.g. multi store model of memory.
Explain computer models.
Internal mental processes work by receiving inputs and generating inputs through a series of programmed steps.
Explain one advantage of theoretical models.
Create testable hypotheses.
Each assumption can be scientifically tested, if observation matches models predictions, suggests model is valid.
If doesn’t match, model can be adjusted.
Therefore these models help to develop psychological research.
How are inferences used in cognitive psychology?
Unable to directly observe mental processes, so make a conclusion based on observable behaviour.
