Origins of Pyschology and Approaches Flashcards
What is psychology?
The scientific study of the human mind and its functions. Functions which effect behaviours.
What is introspection?
Involves breaking up conscious awareness into basic structures of thoughts, images and sensations.
Wundt (1879)
- He invented the first method of studying psychology and referred to the process as introspection
- Wundt used introspection as a controlled method of collecting thoughts and feelings
- People were given stimuli sin controlled conditions and asked to explain the mental processes
- Process was standardised to make it fair and replicable
Hunter et al (2003)
- Hunter studied happiness in teenagers using the outdated method of introspection
- They got participants to recall their thoughts and feeling whenever a buzzer/bell sounded
- It was a method of getting participants to describe their inner mental processes and report on them
- They found that teenagers were generally unhappy, however were more positive when focused on a task
Psychology as a science
- Robert Watson said that introspection was not scientific enough. We cannot see thoughts and feelings. Watson and Skinner believed that in order for something to be scientific it should be visible
- They believed behaviour should be objective and measurable
Behaviourist approach
- Behaviourists rejected introspection as its too vague
- The assumption of behaviourists is that all behaviour is learnt. It should be visible, measurable and objective
- Behaviourists counted the basic form of leaving ‘conditioning ‘- Classical and operant conditioning
What is classical conditioning?
Pavlov described how behaviour is learnt through associations
He believed that we firm associations with unlearned (unconditioned) stimuli, in order to form new behaviours (conditioned responses)
What is operant conditioning?
Skinner said Behaviour is learnt through positive and negative reinforcement
We learn from early ages, which behaviours are rewarded and which are punished
What was Pavlov’s aim?
Pavlov was looking at salvation in dogs in response to being fed
What was Skinner’s aim?
To see if there’s positive and negative reinforcement in a rat
Pavlov’s method
- Pavlov used a bell as his neutral stimulus
- Whenever he gave food to the dog, he also rang a bell
- After repeating this procedure, he tried the bell on its own
Skinner’s method
Positive: placed a hungry rat in the box which contained a lever on the side as the rat moved it would knock the lever, so a food pallets would drop (rat learns to go for the lever)
Negative: placed a rat in a box and unpleasantly shocking it with electricity. As it moved it would knock a lever and turn off the electricity (rat learns to not go for the lever)
Pavlov findings
Pavlov discovered that any object or event which the dogs learnt to associate with food would trigger the same response
Skinner findings
Positive: the ra clearance to go for the lever so they get food
Negative: the rat learns to go for the lever to ensure they didn’t get electric shock
What is positive reinforcement?
Occurs when a desirable event or stimulus is present as a consequence of a behaviour and the behaviour increases
What is negative reinforcement?
Occurs when something already present is removed as a result of a person’s behaviour
What is punishment?
Opposite of reinforcement
Designed to weaken or imitate a response rather than increase it
Evaluation of behaviourists: nature vs nurture debate
- Only acknowledges the role of environment through reinforcement from others, as well as forming environmental associations
- Therefore ignores any possible biological influences such as hormones
- This reduces validity as it ignores biological factors
Evaluation of behaviourists: ethics and use of animals
- Puts animals in unnecessary harm/ pain
- Goes against protecting participants
- Lowers reliability- cannot be replicated
Evaluation of behaviourists: mechanistic approach?
- This approach is machine like
- Ignores other factors that can influence our behaviour e.g biological
- Ignores cognitive approach
- Lowers validity
Evaluation of behaviourists: Application to the real world
- Good because it has application to the real world
- Focuses on reinforcement (everyday settings: school- detention, rewards like stickers)
Social learning theory
- They believe all behaviour is learnt
- Learning is a social process (learn from other people)
- Learn through observation and imitation of other people
Bandura’s aim
To show that there are important mental processes that meditate between stimulus and response
Badura’s experiment: method
- B showed videos to children where an adult behaved aggressively towards the bobo doll
- B recorded the behaviour of the young children
Bandura’s experiment: results
- When children were later observed playing with various toys, they behaved much more aggressively towards the doll and the other toys than those who had observed a non- aggressive adult
What is vicarious reinforcement?
Indirect reinforcement- through observing someone else receive reinforcement
Bandura: 4 meditational processes
1) Attention
2) Retention
3) Motor reproduction
4) Motivation
SLT evaluation: generalise
- Limitation: only used children
- We cannot generalise to other populations
- Cannot apply results to everyone
- Makes research less accurate
SLT evaluation: lab setting
- Limitation: research was in a lab
- Artificial environment
- Lacks external validity to everyday life
- Research is less valid
SLT evaluation: cultural differences
- Strength: explain cultural differences in behaviour
- Can account for how children learn from other individuals around them
- Proved useful understanding in a range of behaviours
- Makes research more reliable
Cognitive approach
- Doesn’t put emphasis on observable behaviour
- In order to understand behaviour, we must study internal mental processes
What are internal mental processes?
Private processes of the mind such as perception, attention and memory.
What is a schema?
Cognitive framework that helps us to organise and interpret information in the brain
Why are schemas useful?
- Help ya to make “short cuts” when interpreting large amounts of information
- Help is fill in gaps when we do not have complete information
Theoretical model
Simplified, pictorial representations of mental processes based on current evidence
Computer models
Referred to using computer analogies in order to explain human processes
Methods of scanning the brain to observe mental processes
- fMRI
- EEG
- PET
Bruner et al
- Brunner Used fMRI scans to try and nap the areas of the brain involved using processing emotions
- They found that when people feel guilty, several brain regions active
Cognitive approach weaknesses
- Artificial tasks Used in lab settings- lacks ecological validity
- Suggests that all human processes are the same as computers- decrease the validity as other things influence behaviour
- Machine reductionism ignores influence of human emotion and motivation- lacks validity
Cognitive approach strengths
- Can he applied to real life (contributed to artificial intelligence)
- Good application to many other areas in psychology (psyhcopathology)
- Conducted in a lab- strengthens internal validity- easily replicated
Biological approach
- Behaviour is innate- born with our behaviour, varies due to variations in genetics
- Believe evolution, genetics, beau rap and hormonal mechanisms and over biological structure, explain behaviour the best
What is concordance rate?
Measures how often two individuals who are closely related have the same disorder
What are concordance rates used for?
To compare the likelihood of someone developing an illness
Biochemistry
Biochemistry is concerned with how the chemicals in our body work. These chemicals include: neurotransmitters and hormones
What is a neurotransmitter?
Chemical messengers
They relay impulses between cells. NT’s cross synapses to pass on info to the next cell
Two types of neurotransmitters
- Dopamine
- Serotonin
What is biological structure?
The arrangement or organisation of parts to form an organ, system or living thing a
Biological structures used in psychology
1) Brain structure
2) Nervous system
3) Endocrine system
Evaluation of biological approach: strengths
- Practical applications, meaning many treatments have been created
- Scientific and uses scientific methods in its research
Psychodynamic approach
- Focuses on dynamos of human behaviour whereby most of them are ‘unconscious’
- Puts emphasis on different states of mind, both conscious and unconscious
- Suggests that childhood experiences play an important role in behaviour
Structure of personality
ID
Ego
Superego
Three different defence mechanisms
Repression
Denial
Displacement
What is repression?
Unconscious blocking of negative/ unacceptable thoughts
What is denial?
Refusal to accept reality, in order to avoid dealing with difficult feelings associated with the situation
What is displacement?
Re direction of thoughts and feelings onto something else. Taking problems out on people they shouldn’t be
Psychosexual stages
Oral stage Anal stage Phellic stage Latency stage Genital stage
Evaluation is psychodynamic approach: psychological factors
- Limitation- puts too much emphasis on psychological factors
- Doesn’t consider biological factors
- Lack internal validity
Evaluation of psychodynamic approach: controlled experiments
- Case studies aren’t controlled experiments
- No empirical evidence (not observable or testable)
- Lacks interval validity
Evaluation of psychodynamic approach: ego defence mechanisms
- Strength- supports existence of ego defence mechanisms
- eg repression
- Has external validity
Evaluation of psychodynamic approach: practical applications
- Strength- has practical applications that help people treat disorders through psychotherapy
- Links to Freud’s study (Little Hans)
- Has external validity
Little Hans study
- Hans (5 yr old) who had a phobia of horses after seeing one collapse
- Freud suggests that Han’s phobia was a form of displacement in which his repressed fear of his father was transferred into horses
- Horses were merely a symbolic representation of Han’s real unconscious fear
Humanistic approach
- Emphasise the role of being fully consciously in control of your own destiny
- They believe that free will is a key feature of behaviour
- Significant personal choice in how we behave
- Humanists deject scientific study and suggests that subjective experience should be studied
Abraham Maslow
- His theory focuses on what ‘goes right’ with humans rather than what can go wrong
- Hierarchy it needs- most basic psychological needs form the bottom and become increasingly complex
Hierarchy of needs. Top to bottom
Self actualisation Esteem Love/ belonging Safety Physiological
Carl Rogers
- Stated the importance of the self concept in psychological health
- Roger suggests that In order to have good personal growth, our self concept needs to be realistic and aligned with our ideal self q
What is self concept and our ideal self?
SC- the way in which a person views themself
IS- a person we would like to be
The closer the two, the better our psychological health and well being will be
Roger suggest we have to important needs:
- Unconditional positive regard from others
- Feeling of self worth
What is congruence?
Occurs when there is similarity between our self concept and our ideal self
What is incongruence?
If the ideal self is very different from the self concept
Evaluation of humanistic approach: application to real world
- Limitation- limited application to real world
- Only contributed a small amount to Rogerian counselling methods
- Reduces overall external validity
Evaluation of humanistic approach: cultural biased
- Limitation- culturally biased
- Emphasised importance of “free will” and independent personal growth which is common within western society
- Less generalisable
Evaluation of humanistic approach: rejects scientific methods
- Limitation- has components which are abstract to test
- Due to lack of scientific testing, this makes the theory less ungeneralisable
- Lowers overall internal validity
