Approaches Flashcards
Wundt - parent
• Father of psychology
Wundt paradigm shift
• Philosophy to psychology
Wundt method
- Used introspection to study mental states
* Laboratory experiments
Wundt A03
- Self – report
- Lab experiment – high control
- Hunter – introspection is still used today (method has good temporal validity)
- Arguable that we cannot know we are thinking)
Psychodynamic - defining behaviour
- All behaviour can be explained in terms of the inner conflicts of the mind
- Freud highlights the role of the unconscious mind and the influence of early childhood experiences
- Believes that the unconscious mind determines most of our behaviour and we are motivated by emotional drives
Psychodynamic - parts of mind
- Id – instincts and drives. It is motivated by the pleasure principle
- Ego – mediates conflicts between id and superego using defense mechanisms. Motivated by the reality principle.
- Superego -it pushes the ego with guilt for wrong – doing. Motivated by the morality principle.
- To be mentally healthy, the ego has to be able to balance the demands of the ego and the superego
Psychodynamic - defense mechanisms
repression (used by ego to keep disturbing memories in the unconscious mind)
displacement (an impulse is redirected from original target onto a more acceptable one)
denial where the existence of unpleasant realities is refused and kept out of conscious awareness
Psychodynamic - psychosexual stages of development
oral (lead to smoking and aggression)
anal (obsessiveness and tidiness)
phallic (vanity and inferiority), latent
genital
Psychodynamic - A03
- Difficulty in studying unconscious (not empirical or falsifiable)
- Treatment – talking cure
- Determinist – rejects the idea of free will (we are shaped by unconscious motives)
- Highlights the importance of childhood
Behavioural - defining behaviour
- Behaviours learnt from environment
- Focus on observable behaviour
- Animals and humans – learn in same ways
Behavioural - methods
• Objective – use mainly lab experiments
Behavioural - conditioning
- Classical conditioning – learning by association
- Pavlov’s dog and bell
- Operant conditioning – learning by consequences (if pleasant – repeat this behaviour; if unpleasant, stop this behaviour)
- Negative reinforcement (versus positive reinforcement) – when performing an action stops something unpleasant happening. Increases a behaviour
- Punishment – bad consequence and decreases behaviour
- Skinner’s rats – activated lever and food dispensed (learnt to go straight to lever – positive reinforcement which increases chance of behaviour)
Behavioural - A03
- Practical application – phobia treatment
- Extrapolation
- Scientific methods
- Reductionist
Humanistic - Maslow
• Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – physiological needs, safety, love and belonging, esteem and self - actualisation
Humanistic - beliefs
- Each person has their own unique way of perceiving and understanding the world – aim is to understand people’s subjectivity
- People are self – determining and we have free will to make choices about the way they think and act
- Self – actualisation – all people have an innate tendency towards growth and fulfilment of their potential. Wishing to become everything they are capable of
- Maslow – we have needs before this stage (hierarchy of needs)
