Approaches

Question 1

What are the approaches in psychology?

Answer 1

Biological 
Learning 
Cognitive 
Psychodynamic 
Humanistic

Question 2

What is psychology?

Answer 2

The scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those functions affecting behaviour in a given context.

Question 3

What is meant by the term science?

Answer 3

A means of acquiring knowledge through systematic and objective investigation. The aim is to discover general laws.

Question 4

What is introspection?

Answer 4

The first systematic experimental attempt to study the mind by breaking up conscious awareness into basic structures of thoughts, images and sensations.

Question 5

What is the behaviourist approach?

Answer 5

A way of explaining behaviour in terms of what is observable and in terms of learning.

Question 6

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 6

Learning by association. A neutral stimulus, when paired with a second stimulus can, by association, elicit the same response as the second stimulus could by itself.

Question 7

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 7

A form of learning in which behaviour is shaped and maintained by its consequences. Possible consequences include positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and punishment.

Question 8

What is reinforcement?

Answer 8

A consequence of behaviour that increases the likelihood of that behaviour being repeated.

Question 9

What are the basic principles of behaviourism?

Answer 9

• Only interested in studying behaviour that can be observed and measured.
• It is not concerned with investigating mental processes.
• Early behaviourist, such as John B. Watson (1913) rejected introspection as it involved too many vague and immeasurable concepts. As a result, behaviourists tried to maintain more control and objectively within their research relying on lab experiments as a way of achieving this.
• Behaviourist suggested that the basic processes that govern learning are the same in all species. This meant that in behavioural research, animals could replace humans as experimental subjects. Behaviourists identified two important forms of learning; classical and operant conditioning.

Question 10

What the study to show classical conditioning?

Answer 10

Classical conditioning is ‘learning through association’ and was first demonstrated by Pavlov.
Pavlov revealed that dogs could be conditioned (taught) to salivate to the sound of a bell if that sound was repeatedly presented at the same time as they were given food. Gradually, Pavlov’s dogs leaned to associate the sound of the bell (a stimulus) with the food (another stimulus) and would produce the same salivation response every time they heard the sound. Thus Pavlov was able to show how a neutral stimulus (the bell) can come to elicit a new learnt response (conditioned response) through association.

Question 11

What is the study to show operant conditioning?

Answer 11

B. F. Skinner (1953)
This is the idea that learning is an active process. Human and animal behaviour is shaped by consequences. In operant conditioning there are three types of consequences:
Positive reinforcement is receiving a reward when a certain behaviour is performed. This increases the likelihood that the behaviour will be repeated. I.e. you may clean your room again in order to receive more pocket money.
Negative reinforcement occurs when we successfully avoid an unpleasant consequence. This also increases the likelihood of the behaviour being repeated. Another example is handing in homework do avoid detention etc.
Punishment is an unpleasant consequence of behaviour. Unlike positive and negative reinforcement, punishment decreases the likelihood of the behaviour being repeated.

Question 12

What does the Skinner Box show?

Answer 12

Skinner showed how positive reinforcement worked by placing a hungry rat in his Skinner box. The box contained a lever in the side and as the rat moved about the box it would accidentally knock the lever. Immediately it did so a food pellet would drop into a container next to the lever. The rats quickly learned to go straight to the lever after a few times of being put in the box. The consequence of receiving food if they pressed the lever ensured that they would repeat the action again and again.

Question 13

What are the positive evaluating points of the behaviourist approach?

Answer 13

+Scientific credibility - behaviourism was able to bring the language and methods of the natural sciences into psychology by focusing on the measurement of observable behaviour within highly controlled lab settings. By emphasising the importance of scientific processes such as objectivity and replication, behaviourism was influenced in the development of psychology as a scientific discipline, giving it greater credibility and status.
+Real-Life Application - the principles of conditioning have been applied to a broad range of real world behaviours and problems. For instance operant conditioning is the basis of token economy systems that have been successfully used in institutions such as prisons, psychiatric wards and even in schools (merit system). These work by rewarding appropriate behaviour with tokens that can then be exchanged for privileges. Operant conditioning in particular can go some way in explaining the maintenance of phobic disorders, addictions such as gambling and obsessive compulsive disorder (e.g. persistent hand washing rituals reduce the anxiety brought about the obsessive fears of contamination). Treatments that have arisen from behaviourism, such as token economy, require limited effort or insight from patients compared with ‘talk therapies’, making them more appropriate for some people.
+Ethics in animal experimentation - studies such as the Skinner Box have enabled us to achieve a better understanding of the principles of conditioning backed up by controlled, scientific research.

Question 14

What are the negative evaluating points of the behaviourist approach?

Answer 14

• Environment determinism - the idea that human and animal behaviour is the product, or is determined by, the environment is referred to as environmental determinism. Skinner suggests that everything we do is the product of our reinforcement history and that any sense of free will is merely an illusion. When something happens we consider ourselves as having free will in exercising our response to it, however our past conditioning history has in fact determined the outcome. Our sense of ‘free will’ is essentially a recollection of those experiences helping us respond appropriately.
• From a behaviourist perspective, animal (including human) behaviour is seen as a passive response to the environment, with little or no conscious insight or choice in behaviour. Essentially an environmental stimulus occurs to which we respond reflexively. It thus ignores our ability to think independently and employ free-will in our actions.
• Ethics in animal experimentation - studies such as the Skinner Box involved animals with were exposed to stressful and aversive conditions, which may in fact have affected their responses to the experimental situations.

Question 15

What is the social learning theory?

Answer 15

Albert Bandura proposed the social learning theory as a development of the behaviourist approach. He argued that classical and operant conditioning could not account for all human learning - there are important mental processes that mediate between stimulus and response.

Question 16

What are the assumptions of the social learning theory?

Answer 16

Bandura agreed with the behaviourists that much of our behaviour is learnt from experience.
However, he suggested that people learn through the observation and imitation of the behaviours of others within a social context, thus social learning.
Factors such as thinking may mediate between stimulus and response.

Question 17

What is meant by SLT suggesting that learning occurs directly and indirectly?

Answer 17

Directly - we experience the reinforcement e.g. rewards etc.
Indirectly - we observe the associations others make and observe them being reinforced and learn from these observations.

Question 18

What role of meditational process?

Answer 18

SLT is often described as the bridge between traditional learning theory and the cognitive approach because it focuses on how mental factors are involved in learning. These mental factors mediate (i.e. intervene) in the learning process to determine whether a new response is acquired. For mental meditational process in learning were proposed by Bandura:

1. Attention - the extent to which we notice certain behaviour.
2. Retention - how well the behaviour is remembered.
3. Motor reproduction (imitation) - the ability of the observer to perform the behaviour.
4. Motivation - the will to perform the behaviour typically determined by whether the behaviour was rewarded or punished.

Question 19

What is identification?

Answer 19

People (especially children) are much more to imitate the behaviour of people with whom they identify, called role models. This process is called modelling. A person becomes a role model if they are seen to possess similar characteristics to the observer and/or are attractive and have high status.
Role models may not necessarily be physically present in the environment, and this has important implications for the influence of the media on behaviour.

Question 20

What is the study that was designed to test Bandura’s Social Learning Theory?

Answer 20

Bandura (1961)
The behaviour of young children who watched an adult behave in and aggressive way towards a Bono doll was recorded. The adult hit the doll with a hammer and shouted abuse at it.
When these children were later observed playing with various toys, including a Bobo doll, they behaved much more aggressively towards the doll than a second group (control) who had observed non-aggressive adult.

Question 21

What does the social learning theory suggest aggression may be maintained through?

Answer 21

SLT suggests aggression may be maintained through reciprocal determinism. This is, if aggression is successful this affects later behaviour.

Question 22

What are the positive evaluation points of social learning theory?

Answer 22

+Scientific credibility - credited for its scientific value owning to its use of experimental and standardised methods. Much of Bandura’s research used lab experiment or at the very least quasi experiments where there was greater control over the environment leading to helpful cause-effect conclusions to be established e.g. observation of aggression behaviour leads to imitation of the behaviour.
+Practical application - Patterson (1989) demonstrated that role models are important in the development of anti-social behaviour (in both boys and girls) and that parents are the most important ones. Through the use of surveys/questionnaires they found that very aggressive children are raised in homes of high aggression, little affection and little positive feedback. A practical application was the when parents were trained to model appropriate behaviour to their children and reward their good behaviour, aggressive behaviour dropped. This suggests that there is wider academic credibility for the important role played by parents when forming/developing their children’s behaviour.
+Less determinist than the behaviourist approach - Bandura emphasised reciprocal determinism, in the sense that we are not merely influenced by our environment, but we also exert an influence upon it, through the behaviour we chose to perform. Choosing to watch a violent film creates the opportunity for it to exert an influence on us. This suggests there is some free will in the way we behave.
+SLT provides a more comprehensive explanation of human learning by recognising the role of meditational processes.

Question 23

What are the negative evaluating points of social learning theory?

Answer 23

-Over-reliance on evidence from lab studies - Many of Bandura’s ideas were developed through observations of children’s behaviour in lab settings. Whilst these methods are highly scientific, they are also highly contrived and participants may in reality be responding to demand characteristics (behaving how they perceive the experiment requires them to). The main purpose of a Bobo doll is to be struck, so the children could simply be behaving in the way they thought was expected. As such, the research may lack real-life representativeness.