Approaches Flashcards
Wihelm Wundt
Established the first psychology lab in Germany.
Aimed to measure the nature of human consciousness in a carefully controlled, scientific environment.
Method of introspection - first systematic experimental attempt to study the mind.
Conscious awareness is broken up into thoughts, images and sensations.
Evaluation of Wundt’s work
✓ He issued the same standardised procedures to all participants - can be replicated.
✓ Wundt’s work is significant as it marked the separation of modern scientific psychology from its philosophical roots (lab experiment)
✗ Some aspects of research aren’t scientific - they self-reported their ‘private’ mental processes = subjective data.
✗ Wundt made general laws that may not apply to everyone.
Emergence of psychology as a science
1900 - behaviourists rejected introspection (Watson) - data was subjective, scientific psychology should be observable and measurable.
1930 - behaviourist scientific approach dominated psychology (Skinner)
1950 - cognitive approach used scientific procedures to study mental processes
1990 - biological approach introduced technological advances - fMRI, EEG, advanced genetic techniques.
The Learning Approach: Behaviourism
Focus on observable behaviour - rely on lab studies, use of animals.
The Learning Approach: Behaviourism
Classical conditioning = PAVLOV
Learning through association, conditioned dogs to salivate when bell rings.
Before conditioning: UCS (food) - UCR (salivation) = NS - no response (bell)
During conditioning: NS + UCS occur at same time
After conditioning: CS (bell) - CR (salivation)
A neutral stimulus can come to elicit a new learned response through association.
The Learning Approach: Behaviourism
Operant conditioning: SKINNER
Learning is an active process where humans and animals operate on their environment. Behaviour is shaped and maintained by its consequences.
When a rat activated a lever/ a pigeon pecked a disc - rewarded with food pellet. A desirable consequence led to a behaviour being repeated.
Increase the likelihood of repeating a behaviour:
Positive Reinforcement: receiving a reward when behaviour is performed.
Negative Reinforcement: animal/human produces behaviour that avoids something unpleasant.
Punishment: unpleasant consequence of behaviour.
Evaluation of the Learning Approach: Behaviourism
✓ Behaviourism gave psychology scientific credibility - objectivity, replication, controlled lab settings.
✓ Laws developed by behaviourists have real life application - token economy systems use operant conditioning, used in prisons and psychiatric wards.
✗ Mechanist view - animals and humans are seen as passive and machine-like respondents to environment.
✗ Environmental determinism - ignores free will, Skinner suggested free will was an illusion. Ignores the influence of conscious decision-making processes.
✗ Animal research has ethical issues - validity can be questioned as their behaviour wasn’t normal.
The Learning Approach: Social Learning Theory = BANDURA
Learning occurs through experience - observation and imitation.
Vicarious Reinforcement: reinforcement that isn’t directly experienced, occurs through observing someone else being reinforced for a behaviour.
Mediational Processes: play a crucial role in learning
Attention - noticing behaviour
Retention - behaviour remembered
Motor Reproduction - being able to do it
Motivation - the will to perform the behaviour.
Identification with role models - children are more likely to imitate behaviour with who they identify with.
Social Learning Theory: Bandura’s Study
Imitation of aggression study:
1) Children watched an adult behaving either aggressively towards a bobo doll, or non aggressively
- children who had seen aggression were also aggressive towards doll.
2) Children saw an adult who was either rewarded/ punished/ neither
- children who saw aggression rewarded were more aggressive.
Evaluation of the Learning Approach: Social Learning Theory
✓ SLT - emphasises the importance of cognitive factors in learning, more complete explanation of human learning than behaviourist approach.
✓ Can account for cultural differences in behaviour - children learn from other people around them, as well as through the media and this explains how cultural norms are transmitted.
✓ Less determinist than behaviourist approach
✗ Relies too heavily on research from lab studies - demand characteristics, children may have been behaving as they thought was expected. May tell us little about aggression in everyday life.
✗ Underestimated the influence of biological factors - boys showed more aggression than girls. May be explained by the differences in levels of testosterone (linked to aggression).
The Cognitive Approach
The study of mental processes.
Processes are ‘private’ and cannot be observed, psychologists make inferences.
The use of theoretical models when describing and explaining mental processes. e.g. MSM, computer processes.
Schema - packages of information developed through experience. Act as a ‘mental framework’ for the interpretation of incoming information.
Babies are born with simple motor schema for innate behaviours such as sucking and grasping, they become more developed as we age.
Cognitive neuroscience - study of the influence of brain structures on mental processes.
Evaluation of the Cognitive Approach
✓ Scientific and objective - lab studies, enabled two fields of cognitive and biological psychology to come together, psychology is more credible and scientific.
✓ Application to everyday life - advances in brain-scanning techniques: scientists are able to describe the neurological basis of mental processes, including memory, disorders (OCD. Development of robots.
✓ Less determinist (soft determinism).
✗ Machine Reductionism - input - process - output computer analogy has been criticised. Human emotion and motivation have been shown to influence accuracy of recall e.g. EWT. The approach oversimplifies human cognitive processing.
✗ Lacks external validity - psychologists can only infer mental processes from behaviour they observe. Approach is too abstract. Often carried out using artificial research (learning lists of words).
The Biological Approach
Everything psychological is, at first, biological.
Behaviour has a genetic and neurochemical basis (low levels of serotonin in OCD)
All thoughts, feelings, behaviour ultimately have a physical basis (contrasts with cognitive which separates the mind and the brain)
Twin studies - concordance rates between twins: higher concordance rates among monozygotic twins than dizygotic twins.
68% of MZ twins have OCD, 31% of DZ twins.
Genotype: particular genes a person possesses.
Phenotype: characteristics determined by both genes and the environment.
Theory of evolution - Darwin, Natural Selection: any genetically determined behaviour that enhances survival and reproduction are passed on (adaptive genes). E.G. attachment in newborns promotes survival.
Evaluation of the Biological Approach
✓ Scientific methods - scanning techniques (fMRI) and drug trials. Reliable data.
✓ Real-life application - increased understanding of biochemical processes in the brain, led to the development of psychoactive drugs that treat depression: revolutionised treatment for many as sufferers are able to live relatively normal lives.
✗ Based on determinist view of behaviour - governed by internal biological causes which we have no control of. This challenges the legal system which sees offenders as responsible for their actions. The ‘criminal gene’ may complicate this principle - may excuse their behaviour.
The Psychodynamic Approach: FREUD
Unconscious mind has an important influence on behaviour. It is a vast storehouse of biological drives and instincts that influence our behaviour.
Conscious (what we’re aware of) and pre-conscious (memories and thoughts we are not currently aware of, but can be accessed.
