Approaches in psychology AO1 Flashcards
What is rationalism?
Knowledge is acquired through reason and logical argument
What is empiricism?
Knowledge is acquired through the senses/ experiences
What is psychology?
The scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting behaviour in any given context.
Define objectivity
Based on facts and quantitative data, not influenced by personal opinion or feelings
Describe what the empirical method is
Using observable methods, usually lab based studies to draw conclusions leading to theories.
Who is Wundt and what is his work significant for?
- Founding father of psychology
- Opened the first ever lab dedicated to psychological inquiry in Leipzig in Germany
- work is significant because it marked the beginning of scientific psychology
- Separated psychology from biology and philosophy
What was Wundt’s aim?
To try and analyse the nature of human consciousness and represented the first systematic attempt to study the mind under controlled conditions.
What is introspection?
The first systematic experimental attempt to study the mind by breaking up conscious awareness into basic structures of thoughts, images and sensations.
How did Wundt and his coworkers develop theories about mental processes?
He and his co-workers recorded their expeirences of various stimuli
They would divide their observations into three categories: thoughts, images and sensations
How was structuralism used in Wundt’s research?
The stimuli that Wundt and his co-workers experienced were always presented in the same order and same instructions were issued to all.
What is ‘science’?
A means of acquiring knowledge through systematic and objective investigation, aim is to discover general laws.
Who questioned introspection?
Watson
What was the issue with introspection?
It produced subjective data so it was very difficult to establish general laws
What did Watson and Skinner propose (behaviourists 1900s)?
A truly scientific psychology should only study phenomena that can be observed objectively and measured.
What did behaviourists focus on?
Behaviours that they could see and used controlled experiments.
What did the 1950s cognitive approach contribute?
Gave a new generation of psychologists a metaphor for studying the mind. They likened the mind to a computer and tested their predictions about memory and attention using experiments
What did the cognitive approach ensure?
The study of the mind was a legitimate and highly scientific aspect of the discipline
How did the 1980s biological approach researchers contribute?
Researchers had taken advantage of advances in technology to investigate psychological processes as they happened.
E.g using scanning techniques like an fMRI and EEG
What are the 3 key features of behaviourism?
- We are born as a blank slate (tabula rasa) and we learn behaviour through experience, behaviour is determined by our environment
- We should only study behaviour that can be observed and measured
- The basic processes that govern learning are the same in all species. It is acceptable to use animals in lab experiments
What are behaviourists interested in studying?
Behaviour that can be observed and measured. It is not concerned with investigating mental processes of the mind because these were seen as irrelevant.
What did John Watson reject?
Introspection because it involved too many concepts that were vague and difficult to measure.
What do behaviourists believe?
- All behaviour is learned
- they describe a baby’s mind as a blank slate
- behaviourists suggested that the basic processes that govern learning are the same in all species
What is classical conditioning?
- Learning by association.
- Occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired together (UCS and NS)
- NS eventually produces the same response that was produced by the UCS
What is operant conditioning?
- A form of learning in which behaviour is shaped and maintained by its consequences
- Possible consequences of behaviour include reinforcement and punishment
What did Pavlov do?
- Showed how dogs could be conditioned to salivate to the sound of a bell if the sound was presented at the same time they were given food
- dogs began to associate the bell with food and they would salivate
- Showed how the NS can become a learned response
What did Skinner suggest?
- learning is an active process where humans and animals operate on their environment
- Positive reinforcement is receiving a reward when a certain behaviour is performed
- Negative reinforcement occurs wen an animal avoids something unpleasent, the outcome is positive
- Punishment is an unpleasent consequence of behaviour
What did Bandura’s SLT suggest?
- People learn in a different way, through observation and imitation
- Learning occurs directly through conditioning but also indirectly.
What is vicarious reinforcement?
- Reinforcement which is not directly experience but occurs through observing someone else being reinforced for a behaviour
What are mediational processes?
- Cognitive factors that influence learning and come between stimulus and response
- Attention, retention, motor reproduction, motivation
Define the 4 mediational processes
- Attention= the extent to which we notice certain behaviours
- Retention= how well the behaviour is remembered
- Motor reproduction= the ability of the observer to perform the behaviour
- Motivation= the will to perform the behaviour which is often determined by whether the behaviour was rewarded or punished
Describe identification
- Children are more likely to imitate people they identify with (the role model which leads to modelling)
How does a person become a role model?
- If they are seen to possess similar characteristics to the observer and have high status.
What does the cognitive approach assume?
- Internal mental processes can be studied scientifically
- has investigated areas of human behaviours which were neglected by behaviourists
- study processes indirectly by making inferences
What is a schema?
Definition: a mental framework of beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processing. They are developed from experience and shape our experience of the world
What does schema do?
- Enables us to process lots of information quickly and this is useful as a mental shortcut that prevents us from being overwhelmed by environmental stimuli.
What is one important theoretical model?
- Information processing approach
- suggests that information flows through the cognitive system in a sequence of stages
What is the information processing approach based on?
- the way that computers function
- a computer model would involve programming a computer to see if such instructions produce a similar output to humans
- if they do then we can suggest that smilar processes happen in the human mind
What is cognitive neuroscience?
- the scientific study of the influence of brai structures on mental processes
What did Broca do?
- He identified how damage to an area of the frontal lobe could permanently impair speech production
How did Buckner and Peterson use cognitive neuroscience?
- They were able to show the different types of long term memory which may be located on opposite sides of the prefrontal cortex
What are 3 key assumptions of the cognitive approach?
- Thoughts mediate between stimulus response
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