approaches A01 Flashcards
who is Wundt
the father of experimental psychology. His approach became known as structuralism - he used scientific methods to study human consciousness by breaking its structure down into smaller components, such as sensations and perceptions.
what is introspection
the process in which a person examines their inner world, by consciously observing their thoughts and emotions. Wundt trained participants to do this in controlled environments, often exposing them to stimuli (e.g. noises) to investigate introspection
assumptions of the psychodynamic approach
- The unconscious lies at the root of this hugely influential theory.
- The unconscious is inaccessible to conscious awareness.
- Traumatic memories from childhood are repressed.
- The unconscious mind can reveal itself through psychoanalysis.
Ego
balances demands of Id and Superego. not present at birth and arises in response to control by others, specifically parents during the anal stage of development (see below), at around two years old.
Superego
our sense of right and wrong
characterised by the ‘inner voice’ that tells us when we have crossed into the boundaries of unacceptable behaviour.
The superego is the internalised parent and develops in response to parental discipline around five years old.
ID
Primitive part of personality - operates on pleasure principle
the id gets what it wants
part of the personality which is present at birth.
Repression - psychodynamic defence mechanisms
- occurs when a traumatic or distressing memory is forced out of conscious awareness and into the unconscious mind.
E.G - An adult who experienced neglect as a child may have no conscious awareness that this trauma occurred - may show distrust of others in later life.
Denial - psychodynamic defence mechanism
- involves a refusal to accept the truth or reality of a situation, acting as though nothing distressing has happened.
E.G - Someone with a gambling addiction may deny that they have a problem with their finances despite being in a large amount of debt
Displacement - psychodynamic defence mechanism
- when the feelings towards a target individual cannot be expressed directly and are therefore transferred onto someone/something else.
- E.G -Someone who was bullied at school may go home and take it out by being mean towards their younger sibling.
psychosexual stages (psychodynamic approach)
children pass through several psychosexual stages of development: oral, anal, phallic, latent and genital.
During each stage, the child has its desires for bodily pleasure denied and redirected by its parents until they focus exclusively on the appropriate sexual outlet for the given stage.
if a child fails to resolve the conflict at each of the psychosexual stages, they may develop a fixation where they display certain behaviours/characteristics in their adult life.
oral stage
- 0-2 years
- infant experiences pleasure through their mouth, particularly sucking and biting.
- in later life a person might engage in behaviours like smoking, nail-biting
anal stage
- 2-3 years
- focuses on anus- The child becomes aware of the reality principle imposed by the parents, must undergo potty training in order to control their bowel movements. It is during this stage the Ego develops.
- in later life Anal fixation can manifest in two ways:
1) Anal retentive: here a person might become an obsessive perfectionist
2) Anal explusive: here a person might be messy and thoughtless
phallic stage
3-6 years
- focus on genitals
- major feature of this stage is the Oedipus complex in which infant boys must overcome their unconscious sexual desire for their mother by identifying with their father. It is during this stage that the Superego develops.
- in later life one can develop reckless and narcissistic behaviours.
laten stage
- 6 years - puberty
- focus is hidden
- sexual energy which has driven the previous stages now becomes latent, so the individual can focus on the world around them and form friendships.
- no unresolved conflict or fixation
Genital stage
- puberty onwards
- Forming heterosexual relationships
- final stage culminates with the psychosexual energy taking residence in the genitals, to be directed towards the formation of adult relationships.
- in later life A person who becomes fixated at the genital stage might struggle to form heterosexual relationships.
key assumptions of behaviourist approach
- Psychologists should only study observable, quantifiable behaviour.
- All behaviour is learned and can be unlearned.
- Humans are no different from animals and should not be regarded as
more complex. - Research on animal behaviour is directly relevant to humans.
what is classical conditioning
- type of learning in which an existing involuntary reflex is associated with a new stimulus.
- tested his theory using dogs,
1) dogs were conditioned to associate the sound of a bell (neutral stimulus) with food (unconditioned stimulus)
2) resulted in the dogs producing a salivation response (conditioned response) at the sound of a bell (conditioned stimulus), even when no food was present. - repeated exposure to an event leads to a learned and uncontrollable behaviour
- This process can be used to explain the acquisition of phobias and the development of attachment.
what is operant conditioning
- He found that three types of reinforcement will affect behaviour:
1) positive reinforcement – when a behaviour is followed by a desirable consequence (reward) and is more likely to be repeated;
2) negative reinforcement – when a behaviour is followed by the removal of an adverse consequence and is more likely to be repeated;
3) punishment – when a behaviour is followed by an unpleasant consequence and is less likely to be repeated.
key assumptions of social learning theory
- Behaviour is learned through observation and imitation of others
- Learning can occur through direct experience or indirect experience
- We can learn through vicarious reinforcement
- Cognitive processes influence our behaviour
Bandura, Ross & Ross (1961) – The Bobo Doll Experiment
- Aim: To investigate whether aggression can be learned through social learning theory principles.
- Method: 72 children (36 male and 36 female) aged between 3 and 6 years old were put into one of three groups for 10 minutes:
- 1) Aggressive model – the child played in a room while an adult hit and shouted at a “Bobo doll” This group was further sub- divided by the gender of the child and the adult model, creating four conditions
- 2) Non-aggressive model – the child played in a room while an adult played quietly with a construction set - further sub-divided once again by the gender of the child and the adult model, creating another four conditions.
3) Control group – the child did not see a model. - Results: Children who saw the aggressive model produced more aggressive acts than those in either of the other two groups. Boys imitated same-sex models more than girls. Girls imitated more physical aggression if they saw male models, and more verbal aggression if they saw female models.
- Conclusion: Aggressive behaviour can be learned, in children, through observation and imitation of a model.
Observation, Imitation, Reinforcement
- Learning occurs through observing and imitating behaviour performed by role models
- When children observe the behaviour of a model, they imitate it. They will imitate it again if they are positively reinforced for doing so
- Children observe the consequences of behaviours. If outcomes are positive, the child is likely to repeat them; if negative, they will not. This vicarious reinforcement
Mediational Processes
- Attention: observation cannot take place without paying attention
- Retention: our ability to remember what we observe
- Reproduction: our ability to imitate what we remember
- Motivation: whether we want to imitate what we remember
humanistic approach key assumptions
- Subjectivity should be emphasised to understand individuals
- We have free will over our behaviour and development
- Humans are complex and cannot be understood by studying them in parts
free will - humanistic approach
- every individual can assert free will and have a choice in how they behave.
- ## everyone can consciously control and influence their own personal destiny, even within the constraints that exist in life from outside forces
maslows hierarchy of needs
- A model of psychological development where deficiencies at each level need to be fulfilled to progress up to self-actualisation.
- satisfying physiological and safety needs prepares people for achieving love and belonging, then self-esteem, and finally self-actualisation.
- Maslow suggested that it is often
the case that individuals ‘work up’ through the hierarchy step-by-step, he recognised that this is not always the case for everybody. For example, someone may need to address their need for self-esteem before finding love.
Self-Actualisation
- ## when it is achieved, takes the form of peak experiences which are characterised by feelings of euphoria and seeing the world with awe and wonder, without any fear or inhibitions
Focus on The Self
- the need for self-worth and the need for unconditional positive regard from other people.
- Both emerge from good relationships with supportive parents in childhood, and later with friends and partners. An individuals’ self-worth has a direct impact on psychological well-being.
The Role of Conditions of Worth
- Conditions of worth are a type of expectation whereby an individual feels that their approval is dependent upon meeting them in order for other people, such as parents, to see them favourably. It is possible that a person will only feel self- acceptance should they meet these conditions of worth set by others which can produce a feeling of incongruence.
Congruence
- when there is an agreement between an individual’s self-concept and their ideal self, they are said to be in a state of congruence.
- it is uncommon for a person to be congruent all of the time, so most individuals will have, or are experiencing, some degree of incongruence.
counselling in psychology
- to close the gap of incongruence between self-concept and the ideal self, and thus allow an individual to recognise both their psychological limits and their strengths, and achieve a realistic balance between them.
- an individual would be helped to make positive steps towards resolving their issues, learn a deeper understanding of themselves and, ultimately, achieve self-actualisation.
- therapists provide unconditional positive regard to the client by expressing acceptance, empathy and understanding of their condition.
assumptions of cognitive approach
- Internal mental processes influence our behaviour
- We must draw inferences from experiments to understand behaviour.
The Role of Schema
Schemas are mental frameworks of information that we use to organise past experiences and to interpret and respond to new situations.
- example of top-down information-processing, provide us with expectations about what will happen in the world, rather than requiring us to process every single detail, all of the time.
- “filling in the gaps” in our knowledge.
Theoretical Models
Visual representations of internal mental processes are used to help researchers simplify and study complex processes. They are diagrams that show how information is passed between the different systems. E.g. WMM.
Computer Models
Computers in the 1960s led to computer models to explain different mental processes. E.g, the analogy of LTM being the hard disk and STM being the computer’s RAM (Random Access Memory) has been applied to the human mind.
Cognitive Neuroscience
- Bridges the gap between cognitive and biological approaches.
- Results from developing techniques for scanning the living brain while
actively processing information. - Non-invasive brain scans are used to understand cognitive processes,
such as thinking. - brain scans have highlighted the distinction between different types of long-term memory (LTM). The hippocampus is associated with episodic memory; the temporal lobe is associated with semantic memory, and the cerebellum and motor cortex are associated with procedural memories.
-successful in establishing a link to certain mental health disorders, such as the association between obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and the parahippocampal gyrus.
key assumptions of biological approach
- All behaviour is first physical (e.g. genetic)
- Nature is more powerful than nurture
genetics (biological approach)
- Genes carry information for characteristics, such as eye colour and IQ.
- Genotype: a person’s genetic makeup
- Phenotype: the expression of genes which leads to observable
characteristics of a person and is influenced by the environment.
this approach have found evidence that some behavioural or psychological characteristics, such as intelligence or psychological illness, can be inherited in a similar way to physical characteristics, such as eye and hair colour
research into twins (genetics in biological approach)
- monozygotic (MZ) twins because they share 100% of their DNA (often called identical twins) in comparison to dizygotic (DZ) twins (non-identical) who share 50% of their DNA.
- MZ twins have an increased concordance rate of developing schizophrenia compared to DZ twins.
- McGuffin et al. (1996) found that if one identical twin has depression, there is a 46% chance that the other twin will also have depression. This suggests that there is a genetic component to illnesses like schizophrenia and depression.
Biological Structures
- structure of organs, such as the brain, central nervous system (CNS), the peripheral nervous system (PNS) and the endocrine system determine our behaviour.
- research has shown that the different lobes of the brain are linked with general functions, for example, the occipital lobe is associated with visual perception, and the parietal lobe is linked to the processing of sensory information.
- effect of damage to the brain is demonstrated by the case study of Phineas Gage who lost his ability to inhibit antisocial behaviour after an explosion sent an iron bar through his head, destroying a large portion of his frontal cortex. This case study demonstrates the influence of a biological structure (frontal cortex)
on behaviour (inhibition).
Neurochemistry
- imbalances in the number of neurotransmitters are associated with atypical behaviour, for example, too little serotonin has been associated with depression and too much dopamine has been associated with schizophrenia.
- recent research suggests that abnormally low levels of serotonin are linked to aggressive behaviour, indicating that this neurotransmitter is important in regulating behaviour and impulse control (Crockett et al., 2008).
- Carre et al., (2006) found that high levels of testosterone are associated with defensiveness and territoriality in a study investigating the behaviour of ice hockey players.
