How psychological understanding has developed overtime Flashcards
8 The issue
Psychology is a relatively new discipline, existing only just over 100 years
In psychology how are theories/explanations made and developed
Observations of the world or research evidence lead to a theory, hypothesis generated from the theory and experiment is developed to test this hypothesis.
- if hypothesis rejected, theory is modified
Social approach:
Wha caused psychologists to look at obedience
WW2, more specifically the holocaust.
They thought americans would be less obedient than germans
Social approach:
Milgram’s test for obedience in Americans
Milgram wanted to test this idea that germans were more obedient so he conducted a study were american participants shocked a ‘learner’ if they got a question wrong in 1963
Social approach:
Milgram’s findings and what they caused
Milgram found the americans were highly obedient in delivering the electric shocks.
This study led to the development of the in 1974 agency theory by milgram, stating we have 2 states
Social approach:
describe the agency theory (1974)
In autonomous state we act on our own will, we take responsibility for consequences of our actions, we are in this state when we are on our own or with people we preceive as below us in the social hierachy
We go into agentic state when we are with people we precieve as above us in the social hierachy (agentic shift) we may follow orders of authority because we feel we have no choice
Social approach:
describe social impact theory (1981)
A source influences that targets behaviour
3 factors of source that determine whether target follows or not:
- Strength of source (precieved power/authority of source)
- Immediacy of source (closeness of time and space to target)
- Number of sources
Multiplicative effect = increasing strength, intimacy and number increases social impact
Divisional effect = social impact is reduced if there are more targets than sources
Cognitive approach
Bartlett’s reconstructive theory 1932
first theory in cognitive approach
challenged the view that memory was an act of reproduction and that memories were recalled without altering
developed schema theory - schemas are memory ‘packages’ that are developed as a result of different experiences (everyone’s schema is different)
Cognitive approach
How did Bartlett test his schema theory (1932)
His war on ghosts experiment where he had participants read a Native American folk tale and replicate it after 15 minutes, new version was shown to another participant and samething was done - serial reproduction
Cognitive approach
Multi store model 1968
Describes how memory is transfered from when it’s picked up by the sensory buffer, to the STM and if rehearsed into LTM
Knowledge of duration and capacity of STM was discouvered until 1956 and 1959
However, most of out knowledge on LTM was only found in the 70s (duration)
Baddeley found how both STM and LTM encode in his 1966a study
Biological approach:
How have method in the Biological apprroach changed
1860s - Paul Broca’s research linking brain abnormalities in speech production using post mortem studies
1960 - first ever CAT scan was used to show structured abnormalities in a live brain
1997 - Adrian Rain used PET scans to enable the brain to be observered while in action. Compared brain activity of murderes vs non murderers
Learning approach:
How has our knowedge of classical conditioning changed overtime
Originally discovered by Pavlov in 1897
Tested by Watson and Rayner 1920 on a human (Little Albert experiment) - was effective
Tested by Pavlov 1927 on dogs (creating salivation responses) - was effective
Learning approach
How has our knowledge of operant conditioning changed overtime
In 1948 Skinner developed the Skinner box to test operant conditioning on rats
Food pellets released as reinforcers when rat’s learned to do something, some chambers contained electric floors to punish behaviour.
Operant conditioning didn’t explain why some behaviours where learnt in absense of reinforcement so Social learning theory was developed
Learning theories
How has our knowledge of social learning theory developed overtime
1960s - Developed to explain why some behaviour is learned by observations of others
The ‘role models’ desplaying behaviour are more likely to be imitated if they are same sex and age of observer.
VIcarious reinforcement states observer is more likely to imitate behaviour if model is rewarded for behvaiour
Bandura (1961, 63 and 65) - tested SLT to see if aggressive behaviour is imitated from same sex role model, when the behaviour is filmed and if model is punished/rewarded
