Approaches Flashcards
What is the timeline of the approaches?
Wundt and introspection
Psychodynamic
Behaviourist
Humanistic
Cognitive
Social Learning Theory
Biological
Cognitive neuroscience
What was the nickname for Wilhelm Wundt?
Father of psychology
What did Wundt do?
Opened the first institute of experimental psychology in Leipzig in 1879
Created first ever psychology experiment of introspection
What is introspection?
Examination or observation of one’s own mental and emotional processes
Inspecting thoughts and feelings
Looking inwards
What does introspection focus on?
Being objective
What was the experiment of introspection?
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
Strength of origins of psychology - practical application
Led to creation of cognitive psychology
Limitation of origins of psychology - issue/debate
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
Strength of origins of psychology - evidence
Temporal validity - still used today to measure happiness
Hunter 2003
AO3 origins of psychology - scientific or not
Scientific
- standardised procedure
- systematic break down of thoughts
Not scientific
- self-report
- participants reporting own unobservable experiences
What is the role of the unconscious?
Driving/motivating force behind our behaviour/personality
Protects conscious self from anxiety/fear/conflict/trauma
What is the structure of personality?
Id
Ego
Superego
What is the id?
Pleasure principle
Wants instant gratification
What is the ego?
Reality principle
Mediator between id and superego
What is the superego?
Morality principle
Always wants perfect behaviour
What are the defence mechanisms?
Displacement
Repression
Denial
What is displacement?
Placing emotions from one object/person to another
What is repression?
Unconsciously pushed the information out of consciousness and becomes unaware of its existence
Is repression temporary or permanent?
Temporary
What is denial?
Refusing to accept reality
Is denial temporary or permanent?
Permanent
What is the role of defence mechanisms?
Help the ego manage conflict between id and superego
Provide compromise solutions to deal with unresolvable conflict
Provide a strategy to reduce anxiety
What are the psychosexual stages?
Oral
Anal
Phallic
Latent
Genital
What must be resolved at each stage before the next stage can begin?
Unresolved conflict
What age is the oral stage?
0-2 years
What is the fixation in the oral stage?
Mouth
Mother’s breast
What are the consequences of unresolved conflict in the oral stage?
Smoking
Biting nails
Sarcastic
Critical
What age is the anal stage?
2-3 years old
What is the fixation in the anal stage?
Toilet training
Withholding and expelling faeces
What are the consequences of unresolved conflict in the anal stage?
Anal retentive - perfectionist, obsessive
Anal expulsive - thoughtless, messy
What age is the phallic stage?
3-6 years old
What is the fixation of the phallic stage?
Genitals
What happens in the phallic stage?
Oedipus/Electra complex
What are the consequences of unresolved conflict in the phallic stage?
Phallic personality
Narcissistic
Reckless
Possibly homosexual
What age is the latent stage?
6-12 years
What happens in the latent stage?
Oedipus/Electra complex repressed
Unable to remember many of childhood years
What age is the genital stage?
12+ years
What happens in the genital stage?
Starting adolescence and adult life
Sexual desires become conscious
What are the consequences of unresolved conflict in genital stage?
Difficultly forming heterosexual relationships
Strength of psychodynamic - practical application
Psychoanalytical treatment
Word association and dream analysis
Problems are in unconscious and need to be brought to the conscious to deal with them
Limitation of psychodynamic - psychic determinism
Lack of free will
Strength of psychodynamic - evidence
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
Limitation of psychodynamic - not scientific
Lack of falsifiability
Most of Freud’s theory based in unconscious mind which we are unable to scientifically test
What are the basic assumptions of the behaviourist approach?
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
What is classical conditioning?
Learning through association
What was Pavlov’s research?
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)
What is operant conditioning?
Learning through consequences
What are the types of operant conditioning
Positive reinforcement
Negative reinforcement
Punishment
What is positive reinforcement?
Receiving a reward when behaviour is performed
Does positive reinforcement increase or decrease the likelihood of a behaviour being shown?
Increase
What is negative reinforcement?
Avoiding something unpleasant when a behaviour is shown
Does negative reinforcement increase or decrease the likelihood of a behaviour being shown?
Increase
What is punishment?
An unpleasant consequence of behaviour
Does punishment increase or decrease the likelihood of a behaviour being shown?
Decrease
What was Skinner’s research?
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
Strength of behaviourist - practical application
Flooding/SD/token economy
Limitation of behaviourist - issue/debate
Confounding variable of nurture
Problems of being deterministic - lack of free will
Strength of behaviourist - evidence
Little Albert
Conditioned after 6 negative experiences to fear rats/fluffy things
Affected his entire life
Associated loud bell with white rats
AO3 behaviourist - scientific or not
Scientific
- observable behaviour
- lab studies
Not scientific
- extrapolation
What are the basic assumptions of the humanistic approach?
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
What is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?
Self actualisation
^
Self-esteem
^
Love and belonging
^
Safety and security
^
Physiological needs
What is congruence?
When ideal self and real self are similar
What is incongruence?
When your ideal self and real self are different
How does congruence affect a person?
More congruent you are, higher your self-worth
Most people are in a state of incongruence and use defence mechanisms to cope with this
Who created client-centred therapy?
Roger
What is client-centred therapy?
Help improve people’s self-worth
Problems stemmed from childhood and not receiving unconditional love
What are conditions of worth?
Not receiving unconditional love in childhood
Parents give statements such as “I will only love you if…”
What are the three strategies of client-centred therapy?
Congruence - bringing ideal and real self closer
Empathy - validating people’s feelings
Unconditional positive regard - remove conditions of worth
Is client-centred therapy directive or non-directive counselling?
Non-directive
Strength of humanistic - practical application
Client-centred therapy
In education and jobs
Limitation of humanistic - free will
Problems with free will
Cannot establish cause and effect
Limitation of humanistic - cultural bias
Based on Western (American) culture
AO3 humanistic - scientific or not
Scientific:
- has created theory
Not scientific:
- lack of empirical evidence
What are the basic assumptions of the cognitive approach?
Internal mental processing studied scientifically (lab)
Internal mental processing are private so must be inferred
What is a schema?
An internal “script” for how to act or what to expect from a given situation
What are schemas based on?
Experiences
What is an advantage of schemas?
Helps us predict what will happen in our world based on our experiences
What is a disadvantage of schemas?
Can cause biased recall/see what we expect
What are internal mental processes?
“Private” operation of the mind (coding, retrieval, perception, attention) that mediate between stimulus and response
What is inference?
The process whereby cognitive psychologists draw conclusions about the way that mental processes operate on the basis of observed behaviours
What are theoretical models?
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
What are some examples of theoretical models?
MSM
WMM
What are computer models?
Programmes run on a computer to imitate the human mind
Brain is like a computer (focus on internal processes)
What are some examples of computer models?
Acoustic and semantic coding
Strength of cognitive - practical application
CBT/REBT/AI
AO3 cognitive - issue/debate
Strength
- benefit of interactionist
Limitation
- machine reductionism
- ignores the idea of human emotions affecting mental processes
Strength of cognitive - evidence
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
AO3 cognitive - scientific or not
Scientific:
- lab studies
Not scientific:
- use of case studies
- problems with inferences
What does SLT stand for?
Social Learning Theory
What are the basic assumptions of SLT?
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
What is identification?
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)
What the factors influencing likelihood of choosing a person as a role model?
Same sex
Status (higher)
Age (similar)
Attractive qualities
What is vicarious reinforcement?
Earning through role model’s behaviour (watching consequences)
How does vicarious reinforcement work?
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
What are the mediational processes?
Attention
Retention
Motor reproduction
Motivation
What is attention?
Watching the role model’s behaviours
What is retention?
Remembering the role model’s behaviour
What is motor reproduction?
Whether you can physically repeat behaviours
What is motivation?
Links to vicarious reinforcement
What was Bandura’s bobo doll study?
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
Strength of SLT - practical application
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
Strength of SLT - issue/debate
Benefit of soft determinism
Limitation of SLT - gender differences
Males show more physical aggression
Females show more verbal aggression
In bobo doll study
Strength of SLT - evidence
Bobo doll study
AO3 SLT - scientific or not
Scientific:
- lab studies
Not scientific:
- problems of inferences of mediational processes
What are the basic assumptions of the biological approach?
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
What is genetic behaviour?
Made up of chromosomes and DNA which makes up our physical and psychological characteristics
All psychological characteristics (personality) are inherited
What studies are used to investigate behaviour in the biological approach?
Animal studies
Family and twin studies
What are monozygotic twins?
100% DNA similarity
What are dizygotic twins?
50% DNA similarity
What are concordance rate?
Level of similarity
What is a genotype?
Genetic makeup dictated by alleles (different form of the same gene)
What is a phenotype?
How genotype is shown, can be influenced by the environment
Seen as interaction between biology and social influences
What is evolution?
Darwin created natural selection
Beneficial genes are passed onto future generations to help us survive
Strength of biological - practical application
Drugs
SSRIs/anti-psychotics
Limitation of biological - issue/debate
Problems of determinism - lack of free will
Confounding variables of nurture
Strength of biological - evidence
Twin study - Nestadt et al
Reviewed twin studies and heritability of OCD
MZ twins = 68% heritability
DZ twins = 31% inheritability
Strength of biological - scientific
Lab studies
Objective
What is cognitive neuroscience?
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
Strength of cognitive neuroscience - practical application
Helps with surgery - Broca aphasia/Wernicke’s aphasia
AO3 cognitive neuroscience - issue/debate
Benefit of interactionist/more holistic
Strength of cognitive neuroscience - evidence
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
Strength of cognitive neuroscience - scientific
Lab studies
Objective
How is introspection scientific?
Empirical studies
Replicable (lab study)
Objective (lab study)
Paradigm shift
How is introspection unscientific?
Subjective
Theory construction
Hypothesis testing
Falsifiability
How is the psychodynamic approach scientific?
Empirical methods (Little Hans)
Theory construction (psychosexual stages, Oedipus and Electra complex)
How is the psychodynamic approach unscientific?
Replicability (cannot repeat case studies)
Objective (subjective data - measuring the unconscious mind which cannot be seen)
Hypothesis testing
Falsifiability (cannot disprove the unconscious mind)
How is the behaviourist approach scientific?
Empirical methods (Pavlov’s dogs, Skinner’s rats)
Replicability (standardised)
Objective (measured observable behaviours)
Theory construction (classical and operant conditioning)
Hypothesis testing
Falsfiability
How is the behaviourist approach unscientific?
Extrapolation (cannot generalise animal behaviours to humans)
How is the humanistic approach scientific?
Empirical methods (Q-Sort method)
Theory construction
How is the humanistic approach unscientific?
Subjective (dislike empirical methods)
Replicability (case studies)
How is the cognitive approach scientific?
Empirical methods
Theory construction
Replicability (lab study)
How is the cognitive approach unscientific?
Subjective (inferences)
How is SLT scientific?
Empirical methods
Theory construction
Replicability (lab study)
How is SLT unscientific?
Subjective (inferences)
How is the biological approach scientific?
Empirical methods
Theory construction
Replicability (lab study)
How is biological approach unscientific?
Confounding variables (nurture, extrapolation)
How is cognitive neuroscience scientific?
Empirical methods
Theory construction
Replicability (lab study)
