Approaches To Psychology: Origins of Psychology Flashcards
What is psychology
The scientific study of the mind and behaviour
Psychologists look at what people and animals do, why they do and how they feel
What are approaches in psychology
These are the different schools of thought
Each approach has its own explanation for why we do what we do
What are the different approaches of psychology
Behavioural
Cognitive
Biological
Psychodynamic
Humanistic
Who was Wilhelm Wundt
Opened an institute for experimental psychology
Separated psychology from philosophy and focused on studying the mind in a structured and scientific way
Using a structuralist and reductionist approach
Wundt used methods such as introspection to try to uncover what people were thinking and experiencing
What is introspection
Introspection involves analysing your own thoughts and feelings internally
Wundt used introspection to study sensation and perception
Ppts asked to describes their experiences wen presented with a set of stimuli and their reaction times were recorded
It can break down consciousness to 3 main states: Sensations (sights, sounds, tastes), Images (components of thoughts) and Affections (components of emotions)
Problems with introspection
It doesn’t explain how the mind works
Relies on people describing their thoughts and feelings, which usually isn’t objective
Doesn’t provide data that can be used reliably
People are reporting on their experiences, their accounts can’t be confirmed
What is reductionism
The idea that things can be reduced to simple cause and effect processes
Wundt came from a biological background, and so he believed that the underlying structure of human experience could be broken down into smaller, measurable parts
He used introspection to measure these parts
What is objectivity
Objectivity: scientific observations should be recorded without bias and not influenced by any other factors, or any other people
What is control
Control: scientific observations should take place under controlled conditions
What is predictability
Predictability: scientists should be able to use the results and knowledge gained from experiments to predict future behaviour
What is hypothesis testing
Theories generate predictions (hypotheses) which can be tested to either strengthen the support for the theory, or else disprove it
What is replication
Each experiment should be able to be replicated exactly so people can have confidence in the results
What are the features that make something a science
Objectivity
Control
Predictability
Hypothesis testing
Replication
Arguments for psychology as a science
Allport said psychology has the same aims as science - to predict, understand and control
Behaviourist, cognitive and biological approaches to psychology all use scientific procedures to investigate theories.
They are usually controlled and unbiased
Arguments against psychology as a science
There are other approaches in psychology which don’t use objective methods to study behaviour
They use unreliable methods e.g. interview techniques which can be biased and interpreted differently by different researchers
Very hard to get a representative sample of the population for a study, so findings can’t be reliably generalised
Psychological experiments are a,so open to extraneous variables, such as demand characteristics ( when ppts try to guess the aim of the study ), which can be hard to control
