BIOLOGICAL APPROACH Flashcards
Lombroso (1876)
Criminals could be identified based on their
facial features.
Sheldon (1940)
Body shape is connected with personality
(mesomorph, ectomorph, endomorph)
The biological approach combines psychology and biology to…
Provide explanations for the human behavior.
Biological psychology tries to explain how we…
Think, feel and behave in terms of physical factors within the body.
Basic assumptions:
Everything psychological is at first biological:
* How biological structures and processes within the body impacts on behavior.
* Much of human behavior has a physiological cause which may be genetically or environmentally altered.
More Basic Assumptions:
Genes affect behaviour and influence individual psychological differences
between people.
* Study of the brain, nervous system and other biological systems, e.g.
hormones, chemicals acting on the brain
* The mind lives in the brain (in contrast to the cognitive approach sees mental processes of the mind as being separate from the physical brain).
Emotions, Behavior and cognition are controlled by…
Biological systems and processes (evolution,
genes, nervous system, hormones).
Emotions, behavior, and cognition can be investigated by…
Manipulation and measuring biological
responses, such as eye movements, brain activity and pulse rate.
The case of Phineas Gage (1848):
An example of the effects of the brain on personality:
-US railway worker, industrial accident blew a hole through his brain.
-Behavior changed drastically after incident.
-Result of brain loss or result of shock?
-Brain can function even with some damaged parts.
The case of Oliver Sacks (1985):
The man who mistook his wife for a hat:
* He also appeared to have decided that the examination was over and started to look around for his hat. He reached out his hand and took hold of his wife’s head, tried to lift it off, to put it on.
He had apparently mistaken his wife for a hat! His wife looked as if she was used to such things.
- Prosopagnosia: a perceptual deficit acquired
or congenital central nervous system that
prevents individuals who are affected to properly recognize people’s faces.
Strengths of the Biological approach:
Very Scientific
* Highly application to other areas: Biology + Cog = Evolutionary Psy.
- Helped develop comparative psychology.
- Strong counter argument to the nurture side of the debate.
- Many empirical studies to support theories.
Weaknesses of the Biological Approach:
Experiments – Low Ecological Validity
* Too deterministic – little room for free-will
* Doesn’t recognize cognitive processes
* Reductionist
* Bio psychological theories often over-simplify the huge complexity
of physical systems and their interaction with the environment.
Strengths continued…
It is a scientific approach: we can find cause and effect relationships of
both physiology and behaviour.
- Scientific approach lends credence to study of psychology – establishes psychology as a respectable science.
- Impact of biology on behaviour can lead to treatment and intervention
to those suffering. - Understanding how an abnormal brain works can shed light on normal
brain functioning. - Measurements can be objective.
Weaknesses continued…
Deterministic: we are determined by our physiological, genetic or
evolutionary make-up. Thus stating that there is no free will.
- Reductionist: stating that all human behaviour can be explained through biological processes and we are therefore not unique as individuals.
- Dehumanising to present humans as ‘biological machines’.
- Ignores the role of the environment
- Research may focus on rare conditions that have little impact on the
everyday lives of most people. - Small or restricted samples make findings difficult to generalise
- Laboratory experiments lack ecological validity.
EEG
electroencephalogram
-the recording of electrical activity along scalp produced by the firing of neurons within brain over a short period of time (20-40mins) as recorder from multiple electrodes placed on scalp.
