approaches

Question 1

wilhelm wundt

Answer 1

• founding father of scientific psychology
• transformed psychology from philosophy to a scientific study of human behaviour
• established the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany in the 1870s

Question 2

introspection

Answer 2

• a systematic analysis of one’s own conscious experience of a stimulus, involves describing:
  
  • thoughts
  • sensations
  • images
  • feelings
• breaking an experience like this down into these parts is known as structuralism
• example: participants would describe their mental experience when looking at a ticking metronome

Question 3

emergence of psychology as a science

Answer 3

• 1879: psychology emerges as a distinct scientific discipline
• 1900s: sigmund freud introduces psychodynamic approach and psychoanalysis
• 1910-1913: behaviourist approach emerges through ivan pavlov and john watson
• 1950s: humanistic approach developed by rogers and maslow, cognitive approach reintroduces mental process studies
• 1960s: social learning theory proposed by bandura
• 1980s: biological approach becomes dominant scientific perspective
• 21st century: cognitive neuroscience emerges, integrating cognitive and biological approaches

Question 4

behaviorist approach core principles

Answer 4

• focuses only on observable and measurable behaviors
• rejects introspection and internal mental processes
• proposed lab experiment is the best way to measure human behaviour
• assumes all species learn similarly through environmental interactions, so is acceptable to study non-humans

Question 5

classical conditioning

Answer 5

• involuntary learning through stimulus-response relationships
• illustrated by ivan pavlov’s salivating dog experiment, where a neutral stimulus (bell) becomes associated with an unconditioned stimulus (food)

Question 6

operant conditioning

Answer 6

• voluntary learning through action consequences
• positive reinforcement: repeating behaviours that lead to rewards
• negative reinforcement: repeating behaviors that remove unpleasant states
• punishment: being less likely to repeat a behaviour that leads to a negative outcome

Question 7

skinners research

Answer 7

• focused on voluntary learning through action consequences
• studied rats who learned to press a lever to achieve specific outcomes:
  
  • positive reinforcement: pressing lever led to receiving a food pellet
  • negative reinforcement: pressing lever helped to remove an unpleasant state like an electric shock