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Approaches Flashcards

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1
Q

What is the timeline of the approaches?

A

Wundt and introspection

Psychodynamic

Behaviourist

Humanistic

Cognitive

Social Learning Theory

Biological

Cognitive neuroscience

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2
Q

What was the nickname for Wilhelm Wundt?

A

Father of psychology

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3
Q

What did Wundt do?

A

Opened the first institute of experimental psychology in Leipzig in 1879

Created first ever psychology experiment of introspection

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4
Q

What is introspection?

A

Examination or observation of one’s own mental and emotional processes

Inspecting thoughts and feelings

Looking inwards

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5
Q

What does introspection focus on?

A

Being objective

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6
Q

What was the experiment of introspection?

A

Wundt would ask people to focus on an everyday object and look inwards, noticing sensations, feelings and images

Structuralism

SYSTEMATIC reporting of an experience of object

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7
Q

Strength of origins of psychology - practical application

A

Led to creation of cognitive psychology

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8
Q

Limitation of origins of psychology - issue/debate

A

Some psychologist argue you cannot know all conscious thoughts

Freud

Participants may not be aware of all the different factors which had influenced their decision - Nisbett and Wilson

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9
Q

Strength of origins of psychology - evidence

A

Temporal validity - still used today to measure happiness

Hunter 2003

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10
Q

AO3 origins of psychology - scientific or not

A

Scientific
- standardised procedure
- systematic break down of thoughts

Not scientific
- self-report
- participants reporting own unobservable experiences

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11
Q

What is the role of the unconscious?

A

Driving/motivating force behind our behaviour/personality

Protects conscious self from anxiety/fear/conflict/trauma

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12
Q

What is the structure of personality?

A

Id

Ego

Superego

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13
Q

What is the id?

A

Pleasure principle

Wants instant gratification

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14
Q

What is the ego?

A

Reality principle

Mediator between id and superego

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15
Q

What is the superego?

A

Morality principle

Always wants perfect behaviour

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16
Q

What are the defence mechanisms?

A

Displacement

Repression

Denial

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17
Q

What is displacement?

A

Placing emotions from one object/person to another

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18
Q

What is repression?

A

Unconsciously pushed the information out of consciousness and becomes unaware of its existence

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19
Q

Is repression temporary or permanent?

A

Temporary

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20
Q

What is denial?

A

Refusing to accept reality

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21
Q

Is denial temporary or permanent?

A

Permanent

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22
Q

What is the role of defence mechanisms?

A

Help the ego manage conflict between id and superego

Provide compromise solutions to deal with unresolvable conflict

Provide a strategy to reduce anxiety

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23
Q

What are the psychosexual stages?

A

Oral

Anal

Phallic

Latent

Genital

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24
Q

What must be resolved at each stage before the next stage can begin?

A

Unresolved conflict

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25
Q

What age is the oral stage?

A

0-2 years

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26
Q

What is the fixation in the oral stage?

A

Mouth

Mother’s breast

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27
Q

What are the consequences of unresolved conflict in the oral stage?

A

Smoking

Biting nails

Sarcastic

Critical

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28
Q

What age is the anal stage?

A

2-3 years old

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29
Q

What is the fixation in the anal stage?

A

Toilet training

Withholding and expelling faeces

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30
Q

What are the consequences of unresolved conflict in the anal stage?

A

Anal retentive - perfectionist, obsessive

Anal expulsive - thoughtless, messy

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31
Q

What age is the phallic stage?

A

3-6 years old

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32
Q

What is the fixation of the phallic stage?

A

Genitals

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33
Q

What happens in the phallic stage?

A

Oedipus/Electra complex

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34
Q

What are the consequences of unresolved conflict in the phallic stage?

A

Phallic personality

Narcissistic

Reckless

Possibly homosexual

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35
Q

What age is the latent stage?

A

6-12 years

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36
Q

What happens in the latent stage?

A

Oedipus/Electra complex repressed

Unable to remember many of childhood years

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37
Q

What age is the genital stage?

A

12+ years

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38
Q

What happens in the genital stage?

A

Starting adolescence and adult life

Sexual desires become conscious

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39
Q

What are the consequences of unresolved conflict in genital stage?

A

Difficultly forming heterosexual relationships

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40
Q

Strength of psychodynamic - practical application

A

Psychoanalytical treatment

Word association and dream analysis

Problems are in unconscious and need to be brought to the conscious to deal with them

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41
Q

Limitation of psychodynamic - psychic determinism

A

Lack of free will

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42
Q

Strength of psychodynamic - evidence

A

Little Hans

Had night terrors about horses chasing him

Dad wrote letters to Freud about dreams

Said Hans was suffering from the Oedipus complex, yearning for total possession of mother and getting rid of father

Horse reminded Hans of father because blinkers = glasses and black area around horse’s mouth = moustache

Freud suggested Little Hans spent more time with father

Stopped nightly terror

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43
Q

Limitation of psychodynamic - not scientific

A

Lack of falsifiability

Most of Freud’s theory based in unconscious mind which we are unable to scientifically test

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44
Q

What are the basic assumptions of the behaviourist approach?

A

Animals and humans born as blank slate and learn behaviour through experiences

Animals and humans learn in the same way

Focus on studying observable behaviour that can be measured

Importance of objectivity and control = lab studies

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45
Q

What is classical conditioning?

A

Learning through association

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46
Q

What was Pavlov’s research?

A

Before conditioning:
food (UCS) –> dog salivating (UCR)
bell (NS) –> no response (NR)

During conditioning:
food (UCS) + bell (NS) –> dog salivating (UCR)

After conditioning:
bell (CS) –> dog salivating (CR)

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47
Q

What is operant conditioning?

A

Learning through consequences

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48
Q

What are the types of operant conditioning

A

Positive reinforcement

Negative reinforcement

Punishment

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49
Q

What is positive reinforcement?

A

Receiving a reward when behaviour is performed

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50
Q

Does positive reinforcement increase or decrease the likelihood of a behaviour being shown?

A

Increase

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51
Q

What is negative reinforcement?

A

Avoiding something unpleasant when a behaviour is shown

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52
Q

Does negative reinforcement increase or decrease the likelihood of a behaviour being shown?

A

Increase

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53
Q

What is punishment?

A

An unpleasant consequence of behaviour

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54
Q

Does punishment increase or decrease the likelihood of a behaviour being shown?

A

Decrease

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55
Q

What was Skinner’s research?

A

Positive reinforcement:
- rat presses a lever and gets food so presses lever again

Negative reinforcement:
- rat presses lever and avoids getting shocked so presses level again

Punishment
- rat presses lever and gets shocked so stops pressing lever

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56
Q

Strength of behaviourist - practical application

A

Flooding/SD/token economy

57
Q

Limitation of behaviourist - issue/debate

A

Confounding variable of nurture

Problems of being deterministic - lack of free will

58
Q

Strength of behaviourist - evidence

A

Little Albert

Conditioned after 6 negative experiences to fear rats/fluffy things

Affected his entire life

Associated loud bell with white rats

59
Q

AO3 behaviourist - scientific or not

A

Scientific
- observable behaviour
- lab studies

Not scientific
- extrapolation

60
Q

What are the basic assumptions of the humanistic approach?

A

Free will causes our behaviour

Rejects attempts to establish scientific principles of human behaviour

All unique and psychology should concern itself with study of subjective experience rather than general laws

61
Q

What is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?

A

Self actualisation
^
Self-esteem
^
Love and belonging
^
Safety and security
^
Physiological needs

62
Q

What is congruence?

A

When ideal self and real self are similar

63
Q

What is incongruence?

A

When your ideal self and real self are different

64
Q

How does congruence affect a person?

A

More congruent you are, higher your self-worth

Most people are in a state of incongruence and use defence mechanisms to cope with this

65
Q

Who created client-centred therapy?

A

Roger

66
Q

What is client-centred therapy?

A

Help improve people’s self-worth

Problems stemmed from childhood and not receiving unconditional love

67
Q

What are conditions of worth?

A

Not receiving unconditional love in childhood

Parents give statements such as “I will only love you if…”

68
Q

What are the three strategies of client-centred therapy?

A

Congruence - bringing ideal and real self closer

Empathy - validating people’s feelings

Unconditional positive regard - remove conditions of worth

69
Q

Is client-centred therapy directive or non-directive counselling?

A

Non-directive

70
Q

Strength of humanistic - practical application

A

Client-centred therapy

In education and jobs

71
Q

Limitation of humanistic - free will

A

Problems with free will

Cannot establish cause and effect

72
Q

Limitation of humanistic - cultural bias

A

Based on Western (American) culture

73
Q

AO3 humanistic - scientific or not

A

Scientific:
- has created theory

Not scientific:
- lack of empirical evidence

74
Q

What are the basic assumptions of the cognitive approach?

A

Internal mental processing studied scientifically (lab)

Internal mental processing are private so must be inferred

75
Q

What is a schema?

A

An internal “script” for how to act or what to expect from a given situation

76
Q

What are schemas based on?

A

Experiences

77
Q

What is an advantage of schemas?

A

Helps us predict what will happen in our world based on our experiences

78
Q

What is a disadvantage of schemas?

A

Can cause biased recall/see what we expect

79
Q

What are internal mental processes?

A

“Private” operation of the mind (coding, retrieval, perception, attention) that mediate between stimulus and response

80
Q

What is inference?

A

The process whereby cognitive psychologists draw conclusions about the way that mental processes operate on the basis of observed behaviours

81
Q

What are theoretical models?

A

Theories used to explain how we process information

Information processing approach suggest information flows through a sequence of stages that include input, storage and retrieval

At time created, had no physical evidence

82
Q

What are some examples of theoretical models?

A

MSM

WMM

83
Q

What are computer models?

A

Programmes run on a computer to imitate the human mind

Brain is like a computer (focus on internal processes)

84
Q

What are some examples of computer models?

A

Acoustic and semantic coding

85
Q

Strength of cognitive - practical application

A

CBT/REBT/AI

86
Q

AO3 cognitive - issue/debate

A

Strength
- benefit of interactionist

Limitation
- machine reductionism
- ignores the idea of human emotions affecting mental processes

87
Q

Strength of cognitive - evidence

A

Johnson and Scott

Ppts sat in waiting room, believing they were going to take part in lab study

Low-anxiety = casual conversation, man walk through with pen and grease on hands

High-anxiety = heated argument, man walk through with knife and blood on hands

Asked to pick man from 50 photos

49% identified in low-anxiety

33% identified in high-anxiety

88
Q

AO3 cognitive - scientific or not

A

Scientific:
- lab studies

Not scientific:
- use of case studies
- problems with inferences

89
Q

What does SLT stand for?

A

Social Learning Theory

90
Q

What are the basic assumptions of SLT?

A

All behaviour is learnt through experience

Classical and operant conditioning can’t explain all human behaviour

Believes there are important mental processes involved in learning which behaviourist approach missed

All behaviours learnt through observation and imitation of rolemodels

Learn through direct and indirect reinforcement

91
Q

What is identification?

A

How you choose whether someone is a role model to you

Children more likely to imitate a person that they identify with (choose as role-model)

92
Q

What the factors influencing likelihood of choosing a person as a role model?

A

Same sex

Status (higher)

Age (similar)

Attractive qualities

93
Q

What is vicarious reinforcement?

A

Earning through role model’s behaviour (watching consequences)

94
Q

How does vicarious reinforcement work?

A

If role model you are watching is rewarded for their behaviour, more likely to imitate this behaviour

If role model you are watching is punished for their behaviour, will not imitate this behaviour

95
Q

What are the mediational processes?

A

Attention

Retention

Motor reproduction

Motivation

96
Q

What is attention?

A

Watching the role model’s behaviours

97
Q

What is retention?

A

Remembering the role model’s behaviour

98
Q

What is motor reproduction?

A

Whether you can physically repeat behaviours

99
Q

What is motivation?

A

Links to vicarious reinforcement

100
Q

What was Bandura’s bobo doll study?

A

Children watched either adult behaving aggressively or non-aggressively towards a bobo doll

When given own doll to play with, children who had seen aggression were more aggressive towards doll

Children imitated phrases

101
Q

Strength of SLT - practical application

A

Aggression - teach parents ACT against parents

Weymouth and Howe - programme called ACT against violence

Teaches parents against SLT

Helped create positive parenting

Used to decrease aggressive behaviour

102
Q

Strength of SLT - issue/debate

A

Benefit of soft determinism

103
Q

Limitation of SLT - gender differences

A

Males show more physical aggression

Females show more verbal aggression

In bobo doll study

104
Q

Strength of SLT - evidence

A

Bobo doll study

105
Q

AO3 SLT - scientific or not

A

Scientific:
- lab studies

Not scientific:
- problems of inferences of mediational processes

106
Q

What are the basic assumptions of the biological approach?

A

Everything psychological is at first biological

Understanding our brain structure and function explains our thoughts and behaviour

The mind lives in the brain meaning all behaviour has a physical basis whereas cognitive approach sees the mind as separate from the brain

107
Q

What is genetic behaviour?

A

Made up of chromosomes and DNA which makes up our physical and psychological characteristics

All psychological characteristics (personality) are inherited

108
Q

What studies are used to investigate behaviour in the biological approach?

A

Animal studies

Family and twin studies

109
Q

What are monozygotic twins?

A

100% DNA similarity

110
Q

What are dizygotic twins?

A

50% DNA similarity

111
Q

What are concordance rate?

A

Level of similarity

112
Q

What is a genotype?

A

Genetic makeup dictated by alleles (different form of the same gene)

113
Q

What is a phenotype?

A

How genotype is shown, can be influenced by the environment

Seen as interaction between biology and social influences

114
Q

What is evolution?

A

Darwin created natural selection

Beneficial genes are passed onto future generations to help us survive

115
Q

Strength of biological - practical application

A

Drugs

SSRIs/anti-psychotics

116
Q

Limitation of biological - issue/debate

A

Problems of determinism - lack of free will

Confounding variables of nurture

117
Q

Strength of biological - evidence

A

Twin study - Nestadt et al

Reviewed twin studies and heritability of OCD

MZ twins = 68% heritability

DZ twins = 31% inheritability

118
Q

Strength of biological - scientific

A

Lab studies

Objective

119
Q

What is cognitive neuroscience?

A

Scientific study of brain/neurological structures, mechanisms, processes, chemistry that are responsible for cognitive/mental/thinking processes

Using scanning technique

Studies neurotypical individuals to locate physical basis of cognitive processes in the brain

120
Q

Strength of cognitive neuroscience - practical application

A

Helps with surgery - Broca aphasia/Wernicke’s aphasia

121
Q

AO3 cognitive neuroscience - issue/debate

A

Benefit of interactionist/more holistic

122
Q

Strength of cognitive neuroscience - evidence

A

Brain scans of LTM - Tulving

Got ppts to perform various memory tasks while having brain scanned by PET scanner

Found semantic and episodic memories in pre-frontal cortex

Episodic = frontal and temporal lobe
Semantic = frontal lobe
Procedural = cerebellum

123
Q

Strength of cognitive neuroscience - scientific

A

Lab studies

Objective

124
Q

How is introspection scientific?

A

Empirical studies

Replicable (lab study)

Objective (lab study)

Paradigm shift

125
Q

How is introspection unscientific?

A

Subjective

Theory construction

Hypothesis testing

Falsifiability

126
Q

How is the psychodynamic approach scientific?

A

Empirical methods (Little Hans)

Theory construction (psychosexual stages, Oedipus and Electra complex)

127
Q

How is the psychodynamic approach unscientific?

A

Replicability (cannot repeat case studies)

Objective (subjective data - measuring the unconscious mind which cannot be seen)

Hypothesis testing

Falsifiability (cannot disprove the unconscious mind)

128
Q

How is the behaviourist approach scientific?

A

Empirical methods (Pavlov’s dogs, Skinner’s rats)

Replicability (standardised)

Objective (measured observable behaviours)

Theory construction (classical and operant conditioning)

Hypothesis testing

Falsfiability

129
Q

How is the behaviourist approach unscientific?

A

Extrapolation (cannot generalise animal behaviours to humans)

130
Q

How is the humanistic approach scientific?

A

Empirical methods (Q-Sort method)

Theory construction

131
Q

How is the humanistic approach unscientific?

A

Subjective (dislike empirical methods)

Replicability (case studies)

132
Q

How is the cognitive approach scientific?

A

Empirical methods

Theory construction

Replicability (lab study)

133
Q

How is the cognitive approach unscientific?

A

Subjective (inferences)

134
Q

How is SLT scientific?

A

Empirical methods

Theory construction

Replicability (lab study)

135
Q

How is SLT unscientific?

A

Subjective (inferences)

136
Q

How is the biological approach scientific?

A

Empirical methods

Theory construction

Replicability (lab study)

137
Q

How is biological approach unscientific?

A

Confounding variables (nurture, extrapolation)

138
Q

How is cognitive neuroscience scientific?

A

Empirical methods

Theory construction

Replicability (lab study)

Psychology (11 decks)

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