Approaches to Psychology - Dai Jones Flashcards
what is meant by ‘psychology formed as a reflexive discourse’?
attempted to explain human nature in a systematic way
why do different approaches exist?
- different methods
* different perspectives lead to different explanations
what are the four main approaches?
- physiological
- cognitive
- social constructionist
- trait
PHYSIOLOGICAL APPROACH
what is this approach involved with?
purely biological explanation
• brain function and chemistry
• genes
PHYSIOLOGICAL APPROACH
How is this approach reductionist?
behaviour is purely biological
e.g reduces depression’s cause to low serotonin levels
PHYSIOLOGICAL APPROACH
How is this approach deterministic?
behaviour is directly determined by biology
PHYSIOLOGICAL APPROACH
How is this approach useful?
given explanation to key areas in psychology
e.g mental health, individual differences, medical advances in therapy
PHYSIOLOGICAL APPROACH
Why is this approach popular?
easily understood, therefore accepted by most people in society
PHYSIOLOGICAL APPROACH
why is it a NEGATIVE that some evolutionary explanations IGNORE the effect of the environment ?
could lead to the normalisation of rejected behaviours
e.g sexual violence
PHYSIOLOGICAL APPROACH
why is it negative that it is extremely reductionist?
little room for psychological explanations
COGNITIVE APPROACH
what is this approach involved with?
mental processing:
•memory, language and problem solving
COGNITIVE APPROACH
How is this approach expressed?
computer analogy
simple models with arrows to represent flow of information
COGNITIVE APPROACH
How has it has a positive impact on experimental psychology?
can be put into application such as cognitive therapy
COGNITIVE APPROACH
what is the impact of having a range of methods for comparative research?
more faith gained in results
COGNITIVE APPROACH
What is a negative the models and laboratory experiments?
Lacks ecological validity
difficult to apply to real world scenarios
COGNITIVE APPROACH
what does cognitive approach lack that other theories have?
an overall frame work
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST
what is this approach involved with?
the world is socially constructed, which affects our actions
- challenges mainstream psychology
- analysis of language
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST
why is it controversial compared to other mainstream psychology approaches?
rejects reductionism and determinism
anti scientific in it methodology
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST
why is it progressive?
changes views e.g homosexuality, gender, racism etc
emphasis on complexity of human behaviour
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST
what is the issue with its methodology?
less scientific
overly subjective - does not have applications for all of society
TRAIT
what is involved with this approach?
individual difference with the focus on personality and intelligence
TRAIT
according to this approach what is fixed?
people’s characteristics, traits or capabilities
TRAIT
what is used to measure a person’s traits?
psychometric questionnaires or scales
TRAIT
what makes this approach holistic?
variation in how the traits should be investigated
