Lesson 8 - The Biological Approach - The Infleunce Of Biological Structures And Neurochemistry On Behaviour

Question 1

What is the central nervous system?

Answer 1

The brain and the spinal cord, and it controls breathing and heart rate

Question 2

What is the peripheral nervous system?

Answer 2

Sends and receives messages from the CNS to other parts of the body using neurons (electrical nerve signals)

Question 3

What are the lobes of the brain?

Answer 3

• Parietal lobe (information processing)
• Frontal lobe (voluntary movement)
• Temporal lobe (auditory information)
• Occipital lobe (visuospatial processing)

Question 4

What are some positive evaluation points for biological structures?

Answer 4

• One positive of biological structures is that the brain relies on scans like PET and MRI scans and post-mortem studies, so it is one of the most scientific approaches and models
• Brain structures can be scientifically and objectively investigated in order to test how they might affect behaviour

Question 5

What are some negative evaluation points for biological structures?

Answer 5

• Biological model can be criticised because it is good at explaining some behaviours, but not others, e.g phobias are usually learnt
• Another negative evaluation point of biological structures is cause and effect - psychologists cannot be sure that e.g a hypothalamus malfunction causes schizophrenia
• We still do not know 100% about the brain and its functions, so more investigation is needed to help identify which part of the brain is responsible for which area

Question 6

What was Swayze’s research into neural correlates?

Answer 6

• He reviewed 50 studies of schizophrenic patients and analysed their brains using MRI scans
• From these images, he found that schizophrenic patients have structural abnormalities such as a smaller hypothalamus, larger ventricles (full of water) , less grey matter (where info is held) and a decrease in brain weight

Question 7

What is a positive evaluation point of Swayze’s research into neural correlates?

Answer 7

• There is a lot of psychological evidence to prove that schizophrenia is caused by neural correlates changing in the brain during pre-natal womb development

Question 8

What are some negative evaluation points for Swayze’s research into neural correlates?

Answer 8

• Andreason (1982) criticised the neural correlates explanation for schizophrenia because he found that the size of the ventricles in schizophrenic patients is not significantly different to those of non-sufferers
• Cause and effect