Approaches - done Flashcards
What happened in 1879?
Wundt opens the first psychology lab
When did the behaviourist approach emerge?
1913 to 1920s
Who was the behaviorist approach established by?
The likes of Watson and Skinner
When was the cognitive approach established?
1960s
What did cognitive neuroscience merge?
Cognitive and biological approach
When did cognitive neuroscience become a distinct discipline?
21st century
What was the dominant approach in the 1980s?
Biological
When was humanistic psycology developed?
1950s
Who developed the humanistic approach?
Maslow
When did psychodynamic’s emerge?
Late 1800s to early 1900s
What happened in the 17th to 19th century?
Psychology begins a branch of philosophy called experimental philosophy
What is science?
- It uses research to draw conclusions
- Differs from philosophy which only uses reason
- It is the approach of studying the world through observation and empiricism
What does control mean?
Tests involve holding variables constant in order to establish cause and effect
What is objectivity?
Researchers are unbiased and not influences by their personal feelings and experiences
What does predictability mean?
The aim is to be able to predict future behaviour from research findings
What does falsifiability mean?
- Hypotheses based on theory are tested to see if they are true or false
- Findings that contradict hypotheses are used to develop new theories.
What does replication mean?
Findings should be repeated when tested on different occasions
Who is the first psychologist?
Wilhem Wundt
What did Wunt want from psychology?
He wanted it to be accepted as a distinct science in its own right and attempted to separate psychological theory from earlier philosophical ideas
What was Wundts aim in his research?
- His aim was to investigate human consciousness
- He believed the best way to do this was breaking down a person’s observations of objects, images and events into separate parts.
- This became known as structurism
What kind of method did Wundt use to find the basic structures of thought?
Scientific methods
What does introspection mean?
- ‘Looking into’
- It is a process by which a person gains knowledge about their own mental and emotional states.
What is the method of introspection?
- Participants were presented with a controlled stimuli. This was typically a moving image or sound such as a ticking metronome.
- The participant were then asked to provide a description of the inner processes they were experiencing - such as thoughts, feelings and emotions - whilst still looking or listening to the stimuli.
- Wundt attempted to record and compare peoples responses to specific stimuli
- The stimuli, surroundings and instructions was standardised.
What are the strengths of Wundt’s work?
- He did his research in carefully controlled conditions. This encouraged other psychologists to be more scientific.
- His work had a big impact on later approaches in psychology. For example the cognitive approach focuses on the study of internal mental processes, which originated in Wundt’s work
What are the weaknesses of Wundt’s work?
- Some believed introspection wasn’t scientific or reliable because we can’t study inner processes
- It cannot be used on children or animals to understand their behaviour due to their lack of vocabulary
What are the key assumptions of the behaviourist approach?
- All behaviour is learnt as babies and we are all born as ‘blank slates’
- We learn through a stimulus - response relationship to our behaviour.
- Behaviour should be studied scientifically
What is the key information about John Watson?
- He established the psychological school of behaviourism in the 1920s
- Watson conducted research on animal behaviour, child rearing and advertising.
- Conducted the Little Albert experiment
Denied the existence of the mind and consciousness
What is classical conditioning?
learning through association.
Who did the first experiment on classical conditioning?
- Ivan Pavlov
- He did his research on dogs
- He made a dog saliva when a bell is rang like a dog automatically salivating at food
What is the process of classical conditioning?
Before conditioning:
Neutral stimulus = No response
Unconditioned stimulus = unconditioned response
During Conditioning:
UCS + NS = UCR
After conditioning:
Conditioned stimulus = conditioned response
What are the other 4 features of classical conditioning?
Generalisation: The tendency for a stimulus that is similar to the conditioned stimulus to give the same response.
Discrimination: Having a response to some stimuli but not others.
Extinction: When the conditioned stimulus no longer gives the conditioned response.
Spontaneous recovery: The sudden reappearance of the conditioned response after a period of apparent exticntion.
What is operant conditioning?
Learning through past consequences
What does reinforcement mean in operant conditioning?
Consequences given which means the behaviour is likely to be repeated
What does punishment mean in operant conditioning?
Consequences given which means the behaviour is less likely to be repeated.
What are the 4 features of operant conditioning?
Positive reinforcement: Providing something pleasant which results in the behaviour being repeated.
Negative reinforcement: Taking away something unpleasant which results in the behaviour being repeated.
Positive punishment: Providing something unpleasant which results in the behaviour being decreased
Negative punishment: Taking away something pleasant which results in the behaviour being decreased.
What was Skinner’s research?
- He developed the theory of operant conditioning
- He designed a cage called a skinner box to investigate the process in rats
What was method of positive reinforcement experiment in rats (Skinner)?
- The rat moved around the Skinner box
-When it accidentally presses the lever, food is delivered into the cage. - It is positive reinforcement due the rat increasing the behaviour.
What was the method of negative reinforcement in rats (Skinner)?
- The rat is subjected to a unpleasant stimulus of an electric shock
- If the rat presses the lever, it switches of the current
What is a strength of the behaviourist approach?
- Has practical applications to the real world. E.g. It can be used to treat phobias
- The approach relies heavily on laboratory experiments
What is a weakness of the behaviourist approach?
- Mostly based on animal research
- Provides a deterministic approach
What are the key assumptions of social learning theory?
- We learn by observing and imitating others in social contexts.
- Learning occurs as a result of indirect experiences, we do not need to be directly reinforced for behaviours.
- Considers the important meditational processes that occur between stimulus and response.
Who proposed SLT?
Bandura
What does SLT propose?
All behaviours that are observed will be learnt but we won’t necessarily imitate them all.
What factor is involved in learning in SLT?
Cognitive
What are the four meditational factors in SLT?
Attention: A person must be focused on the model/task they are observing.
Retention: We must be able to remember information in order to imitate in our long term memory.
Replication: The ability to perform a behaviour we have seen a model demonstrate. We are not able to copy all behaviours.
Motivation: The desire to copy the behaviour. This will be influenced by rewards/punishment that follows the models behaviour.
What are the two types of models in SLT?
Live models: Real life people
Symbolic models: Fictional characters
When is imitation most likely to occur, according to SLT?
- If they are perceived positively
- If we share the same characteristics as the model.
- If they are rewarded.
What is identification in SLT?
- Feeling that a model is similar to us in some way
- Research suggests we are more likely to imitate same sex models compared to opposite sex models
- with the model suggests we are likely to experience the same reinforcement/consequences as the model
What is vicarious reinforcement?
- When we see a model be reinforced for their behaviour, it either increases or decreases the likelihood of us imitating the same behaviour.
- When a individual receives vicarious reinforcement, this provides feedback on the consequences of the behaviour and they judge for themselves the likelihood of experiencing the same outcomes if they imitate the behaviour.
What was the aim of the Bobo doll study?
To investigate wether children would learn new behaviours when subjected to a model.
What was the procedure of the Bobo doll study?
- One condition saw the adult being an aggressive model to the children
- A second condition saw the children being subjected to a ‘nice’ model
- A third control condition involved the children not being subjected to any model.
- All participants were placed in each room with similar toys and the researchers observed their behaviour.
What was the result of the Bobo doll study?
- There was a difference in the behaviour shown by the subjects
- When shown a aggressive model the child showed aggressive behaviour
- The most aggression was showered by boys who had been exposed to a male aggressive model
- Same sex gave the highest imitation
How many participants were there in the Bobo doll study?
36 boys and 36 girls
What was the conclusion of the Bobo doll study?
We can be strongly influenced by other peoples behaviour
What are the strengths of SLT?
- Has applications in the real world. E.g. It has been used to explain criminal behaviour and aggression
- It is based on scientific evidence (lab experiments)
What are the weaknesses of SLT?
- The experimental evidence that supports SLT can be criticised for its methodology
- It can be criticised for adopting a nurture position when explaining human behaviour (ignores nature)
What are the key assumptions of the cognitive approach?
- Cognitive psychologists focus on internal mental processes.
- They assume that the mind is similar to a computer in terms of them both having inputs, processes and outputs.
- They believe processes can be studied indirectly by observing behaviour and making inferences about what is happening in the mind
What does cognition mean?
It is the mental action or processes of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience and the senses.
What are the 5 mental processes according to the cognitive approach?
- Language
- Attention
- Thinking
- Memory
- Perception
What is a schema?
- A mental framework about a concept
- We are all born with basic schema’s, but they become more sophisticated over time
- Based on personal experience - indirect or direct
Why are Schema’s useful?
- They provide a mental shortcut
- Help to interpret information quickly and effectively
Why are Schema’s not useful?
- Reliance on Schema’s can lead to perceptual errors and distortion of infomation
What was the aim of the early study in 1947 by Allport and Postman?
The aim was to study the ways schema’s distort memory
What was the procedure of the early study by Allport and Postman?
- They showed an image to participants to study briefly
- Participants then had to read details of the picture