Approaches Flashcards
origins timeline.
Wundt, psychodynamic, behaviourist, humanist, cognitive, SLT, biological, cognitive neuroscience.
Origins - Wundt.
- First ever psychology lab, Germany.
- Introspection.
- Controlled environment.
- Record own conscious thoughts and breaking them into constituent parts.
- Stimulus is presented and you are asked to record thoughts.
- Analysis of thoughts is broken into components e.g. sensations, feelings, visual imagery.
Psychodynamic approach.
- Sigmund Freud.
- Unconscious mind.
- Tripartite personality.
- Psychosexual stages.
- Defence mechanisms.
Unconscious mind.
- Store of biological instincts.
- Determine behaviour and personality.
- Threatening + disturbing memories that are repressed and forgotten.
- Protects using defence mechanisms.
- Thoughts can be accessed through parapraxes.
- Unaware of.
- Preconscious= unaware of but can be accessed.
- Conscious= aware of.
Structure of personality.
ID.
- Primitive.
- Pleasure principle.
- Unconscious drives and instincts.
- Selfish and demands instant gratification of needs.
EGO.
- Defence mechanisms.
- Reality principle.
- Mediator (reduces conflict) between id and super ego.
- Develops around 2 years old.
SUPER EGO.
- Internalised sense of right and wrong.
- Morality principle.
- Moral standards.
- End of phallic stage.
Psychosexual stages.
-Each stage= conflict.
- Child must resolve conflict to move to next stage.
- Fixation= Child doesn’t resolve conflict.
1. ORAL. (0-18 months).
- Fixation results in passivity, gullibility, immaturity and manipulative personality.
2. ANAL. (18-36 months).
- Anal retentive: Obsession with organisation or excessive neatness.
- Anal expulsive: Reckless, careless, defiant, disorganised.
3. PHALLIC. (3-6 years).
- Oedipus complex.
- Electra complex.
- Resolution of these complexes form gender identity and superego.
4. LATENCY. (6 years- puberty).
- People don’t tend to fixate or extremely sexually unfulfilled.
5. GENITAL. (11+years)
- Frigidity, impotence, unsatisfactory relationships.
Oedipus + Electra complex.
OEDIPUS.
- Male.
- Boys develop a sexual desire for mother and envy dad.
- Experience castration anxiety and fear dad.
- Resolved by engaging in masculine behaviours and identify with father.
ELECTRA.
- Female.
- Penis envy and desire father.
- Resolved by repressing desire for penis with desire for baby.
- Blame mother for castration + repress feelings.
Ego defence mechanisms.
- Repression.
- Forcing a distressing memory out of the conscious mind. - Denial.
- Refusing to acknowledge some aspect of reality. - Displacement.
- Transferring feelings from true source of distressing emotion onto a substitute target.
Psychodynamic evaluation.
- Can be considered subjective.- Freud developed approach based on his own personal interpretations of human behaviour, not all psychologists would agree. - e.g. others may interpret Oedipus and Electra complex differently. - reduces validity.
+ Research support.- Little Hans. Evidence for phallic stage, suggested his phobia of horses was linked to castration anxiety and feared his father.- increases validity. - Quality of RS sample.- gender bias. case study. - can’t be generalised. - decreases validity.
Behaviourist approach.
- Pavlov and Skinner.
- Classical and operant conditioning.
Behaviourist assumptions.
- Studying behaviour that can be observed and measured.
- Uses lab studies to maintain control and objectivity.
- Behaviour is learned.
- Baby’s mind is a blank slate (Tabula rasa).
-Basic processes govern learning are the same in all species.
Classical conditioning.
- Learning through association.
- Pavlov’s dogs.
1. BEFORE.
food = salivation. (uncon stimulus = uncon response).
2. BEFORE.
Bell = no salivation. (neutral stim = no con response).
3. DURING.
bell + food = salivation. (neutral + uncon stim = uncon response).
4. AFTER.
bell = salivation. (conditioned stim = conditioned response).
LITTLE ALBERT EXPERIMENT.- WATSON + RAINER. - 9 month old child- feared loud noises.
1. Given stimuli such as white rabbit, dog, monkey and rat.- no fear shown.
2. 2 months later = rat + noise.
3. When shown rat = crying + avoidance.
Operant conditioning.
- Learning via reinforcement.
1. Positive reinforcement.= Rewarded for pro-social behaviour.
2. Negative reinforcement.= Action stops something negative from happening.
3. Punishment.= Unpleasant consequence.
SKINNER’S BOX.
1. Hungry rat in cage.
2. Lever= food (positive reinforcement).
3. Rats learn to go to lever.
- Rat in cage.
- Uncomfortable electric current.
- Lever = stops current.
- Rats learn to go to lever (negative reinforcement).
Behaviourist evaluation.
+ Research support.- Little albert, skinner’s rats, Pavlov’s dogs.- Increases validity.
- Quality of research support.- Sample bias.- Case study, male, cross-species validity.
- Ignores free will.- Behaviour is only determined by reinforcement from our past experiences.- Ignores conscious decision making process outlined in other approaches.
+ Practical applications.- School reward system, point systems and detentions.- Increases validity.
Social learning theory.
- Bandura.
- Mediational processes.
- Vicarious reinforcement.
- Identification.
SLT assumptions.
- Behaviour is learned.
- People learn through vicarious reinforcement.
- Considers behaviourist and cognitive.
Bandura’s bobo doll experiment.- (part 1).
- 36 girls, 36 boys.
- 3 conditions.
- Quiet adult, aggressive adult, Control group (no adult).
1. Playroom 10 mins, no adult.
2. Playroom 10 mins, adult/ no.
3. Playroom 10 mins, behaviour observed. - Behaviour was influenced by adult.
- Learn by observing and imitation.
Bandura’s bobo doll experiment.- (part 2).
- Showed videos to children of adults playing aggressively with bobo doll.
G1. Praised for behaviour.
G2. Punished for behaviour.
G3. No consequences of behaviour. - Findings= G1. Lowest aggression levels. G2. Highest aggression levels.
- Learn via vicarious reinforcement.
Identification.
- The process by which people are more likely to imitate people they identify with.
Mediational processes.
STIMULUS - MEDIATIONAL PROCESSES - RESPONSE.
- Attention.= The extent to which we notice certain behaviours.
- Retention.= How well the behaviour is remembered.
- Motor reproduction.= The ability of the observer to perform the behaviour.
- Motivation.= The will to perform the behaviour, which is determined by whether the behaviour was rewarded.
Slt evaluation.
- Reductionist.- Reduces complex behaviour down to one factor. Learning. - More factors contribute such as biology. Question validity.
+ Practical application.- Understands aggression, addiction and other behaviours. - Can be learnt by imitation and observation.
+ Research support.- Bandura- Increases validity. - Participants may have shown demand characteristics.- Knew they were being observed.- Figure out aim and change behaviour.- Decreases validity.
Biological approach.
- Emphasises physical processes in the body.
- Neurochemical basis.
- Genetic basis.
- Genotype + Phenotype.
- Evolution.
Biological assumptions.
- Everything psychological has a biological basis.
- We must study biological structures + processes within the body to fully understand behaviour.
- Mind lives within the brain.
Neurochemistry.
- Chemicals in the brain that regulate psychological functioning.
- Most thoughts and behaviour rely on chemical transmission.
- Axon, synaptic vesicle, neurotransmitter, dendrite, post-synaptic nerve terminal, synaptic cleft, post-synaptic receptor.
- Imbalance in neurochemicals has been implicated as a possible cause of mental disorders.
- Low levels of serotonin = OCD.
- High levels of dopamine = Schizophrenia.
Genetic basis.
- Genes= Code for physical and psychological features.
- Studying genetic basis of behaviour.- uses twin studies.
- Concordance rates = No. of twins that both display behaviour.
- Monozygotic = identical.
- Dizygotic = non-identical.
- Monozygotic = higher concordance rates.
- Genotype = Genetic code written in DNA.
- Phenotype = Physical representation of genotype.
Biological evaluation.
+ Practical application. - Knowledge of synaptic transmission.- drugs to treat.
- Biologically deterministic. - Behaviour predetermined by biology. - 4 factors.
+ Scientific methods. - Brain scans - fMRI. - Controlled.
- Difficult to separate nature v nurture. - genotype + phenotype.
- Biologically reductionist.
Humanistic assumptions.
- Person - centred approach.
- Individual has free will.
- People are self-determined.
- Rejects scientific models that attempt to establish general principles of behaviour.
Hierarchy of needs.
- SELF-ACTUALISATION. - Desire to become the most one can be.
- ESTEEM. - Respectful, self-esteem, status, freedom, strength.
- LOVE + BELONGING.- Friendship, intimacy, family, connection.
- SAFETY NEEDS. - Security, health, property, resources.
- PHYSIOLOGICAL NEEDS. - Air, water, shelter, sleep, clothing.
- Progression can be delayed by in congruence.
- AIM = To achieve self-actualisation.
Personal growth.
- Essential.
- Development and changing of a person to become fulfilled, satisfied and goal orientated.
Rodgers and the self.
- In order for personal growth to be achieved an individual must be broadly congruent to ideal self.
- Incongruent = difficult to self-actualise.
Client centred therapy.
- Reduce gap between self-image and ideal-self.
- Rodgers suggests feelings of worthlessness and low self-esteem stem from childhood experiences.
- Lack of unconditional positive regard as a child.
- Parents who set boundaries and limits on love contribute to future psychological problems.
- Discover solutions within a supportive, therapeutic and non-judgmental environment.
Humanistic evaluations.
- Culturally bias. - Individual freedom + personal growth - individualistic western culture. - ignores collectivist cultures.- cant generalise and universally apply.
+ Free will. - Different to others. - ignores determinism.
+ Practical application.
Cognitive approach.
- How mental processes affect behaviour.
Cognitive assumptions.
- Internal mental processes should be observed scientifically.
- Internal mental processes are private and cannot be observed.
- Study indirectly by making inferences about what’s going on in people’s mind.
Internal mental processes.
- Private operations of the mind such as perception and attention that mediate between stimuli and response.
Role of schemas.
- A mental framework of beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processing, developed from experience.
- Babies born w simple motor schemas for innate behaviours.
- adults have developed, more detailed and sophisticated schemas.
- Enable to quickly process lots of info.
- Provide mental shortcut that prevents us from being overwhelmed by environmental stimuli.
- Schemas can distort interpretations of sensory info leading to perceptual errors.
Theoretical and computer models.
- Used to help understand IMP.
Cognitive neurscience.
- Study of biological structures that underpin cognitive processes.
- Broca, Tulving, Brain scans, brain fingerprinting.
- Practical application= OCD, brain finger printing.
Cognitive approach evaluation.
+ RS- Broca.
+ Practical application- brain fingerprinting, verify eyewitness testimony.
+ Scientific- use objective and controlled methods.
- Reductionist.
