Evaluation points - Summarised/ Timeline Flashcards
Include whether the Eval Point is a Strength, Weakness, or Extra
What are the 3 evaluation points for Wundt’s work?
Strength - His work is scientific
Limitation - Aspects of his work are subjective
Extra - He Contributed significantly to Psychology, influencing future approaches and leading to later research.
What are the 3 evaluation points for Psychology as a science?
Strength - Research in modern psychology can claim to be scientific.
Limitation - Some approaches use subjective data
Extra - Kuhn suggests that psychology doesn’t have a paradigm; a set of principles, assumptions and methods all people agree on.
What are the 5 evaluation points for The Behaviourist Approach?
Strength - It uses well-controlled research
Counterpoint - It may oversimplify learning and ignore important influences, e.g thought.
Strength - Real world application
Limitation - Has environmental determinism, ignores free will.
Extra - It has ethical issues, i.e animal living conditions.
What are the 5 evaluation points for The Social Learning Theory?
Strength - Emphasises importance of cognitive factors, recognises mediation.
Counterpoint - May take too little reference to the influence of biological factors.
Limitation - Relies heavily on evidence from contrived lab studies.
Strength - Real world application, modelling behaviours etc.
Extra - Reciprocal Determinism - Influenced by environment but that we influence it too.
What are the 5 evaluation points in The Cognitive Approach?
Strength - Uses scientific/ objective methods
Counterpoint - Inference leads to abstract/theoretical ideas.
Strength - Application to everyday life; AI, robots, treating depression + eyewitness testimony.
Limitation - Machine Reductionism
Extra - Soft Determinism, suggests an aspect of free will.
What are the 5 evaluation points for The Biological Approach?
Strength - It has real-world application, i.e the use of drugs to treat disorders.
Counterpoint - Antidepressant drugs don’t work for everyone ( Cipriani et al.)
Strength - It uses scientific methods, scanning techniques etc.
Limitation - Biological explanations are determinist.
Extra - Natural selection, Popper states it is unfalsifiable, others suggest it’s supported by fossil records.
What are the 5 evaluation points for The Psychodynamic Approach?
Strength - It is introduced psychotherapy, i.e Freud’s psychoanalysis/ dream analysis
Counterpoint - Psychoanalysis cannot be used for more extreme disorders
Strength - It has explanatory power, influence on western thought/ explaining disorders.
Limitation - It includes untestable concepts, Popper also stated it is unfalsifiable, certain unconscious aspects cannot be tested.
Extra - Psychic Determinism, it ignores free will beyond childhood.
What are the 5 evaluation points for The Humanist Approach?
Strength - It is anti-reductionist, they advocate holism.
Counterpoint - There are just few concepts that can be reduced to single measures.
Strength - This approach is a positive one.
Limitation - The approach could be culturally biased, as ideas are more for individualist cultures, and not for collectivist ones.
Extra - Limited application, some critics suggest Humanism has this, but Roger’s therapy revolutionised counselling + Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has been used to explain motivation, i.e in workplace.
Define Nature Versus Nurture
Nature - The idea that the genetics play more of a role in certain behaviour/ mentalities
Nurture - The idea that the environment and childhood are more of a factor in acquiring behaviours/ disorders.
What is the difference between reductionism and holism?
Reductionism aims to break down psychological processes into small and simple elements.
Holism aims to consider human behaviour as a whole rather dividing it.
What is the difference between determinism and free will?
Determinism - The assumption that human behaviour is merely a result of internal and external forces acting upon us.
Free will - The assumption that humans have complete autonomy to make their own decisions.
What is soft determinism?
This is the idea that despite all of our behaviours being pre-determined, there is still room for an aspect of free will in decision making.
What is hard determinism?
This is the idea that all of behaviour is pre-determined and that there is absolutely no room for an aspect of free-will.
What is environmental determinism? (Behaviourism)
The idea that all behaviour has been conditioned by past experiences, ignoring any aspect of free will. Skinner suggested that free will was an illusion, and any decision is subject to past conditioning determining the outcome.
What is reciprocal determinism? (SLT)
Bandura emphasised this.
It is the idea that we are influenced by our environment, but that we also exert an influence upon it through our chosen behaviours.
Suggests an aspect of free will.
What is Psychic Determinism (PD approach)
Freud suggested that behaviour is determined by unconscious conflicts, and that there is no such thing as an ‘accident.’
Few psychologists accepted this as it ignores free will.
Suggests his views were too extreme as most people do have some control over their behaviour.
What is the order of Approaches, including years?
Wundt 1879
Psychodynamic Approach 1900s-1920s
Behaviourism 1913s — 1950s
Cognitive / Humanism Approach— 1950s
SLT 1960s
Biological Approach 1970s
Cognitive Neuroscience 1980s onwards
