Paper 2 Evaluations Flashcards
Evaluate the Behaviourist Approach
Good - Well controlled research (all lab studies)
HOWEVER - Too simplistic - reducing to stimulus response associations could ignore other influences on behaviour
Good - Real world application - conditioning has led to token economies to help in hospitals and prisons
Bad - Environmental Determinism - suggests all behaviour is learned from the environment and removes free will
Evaluate the Social Learning Theory/Approach
Good - Real world application - understanding the observation and imitation of role models has helped to put the watershed in place on TV, so that children are not observing violent behaviour and replicating it themselves.
Good - Scientific methodology - controlled lab studies
Bad - Bandura used controlled observations, but these may have been subject to Demand Characteristics. If children had never seen a Bobo doll, they might have thought you were supposed to play with it by being aggressive, which could mean that they were just trying to please the researcher.
Good - Includes important cognitive factors - it recognises the importance of meditational processes, and that observations are used as a template to replicate behaviour. This is more comprehensive than the Behaviourist approach’s stimulus-response associations
Evaluate the Cognitive Approach
Good - Scientific methodology. Highly controlled, rigorous methods are used so inferences can be made accurately. Lab studies increase control, so it is likely the study of the mind has a scientific basis
HOWEVER
Bad - Some elements may be too theoretical or abstract. Inferences about private processes are untestable
The research uses artificial tasks
This makes it difficult to see how processes would occur in everyday situations
Good - Real world application - has helped neuro-imaging techniques and AI be developed to help our future development and understanding. Has also helped with the treatment for depression
Bad - Machine reductionism - There are similarities between the human mind and a machine, but human emotion and motivation has not been accounted for and they might affect our ability to process information.
Evaluate the Biological Approach
Good - Scientific methods are used - precise, objective methods, such as brain scanning techniques, are used to accurately measure physiological and neural processes without bias. This should ensure objectivity and reliability.
Bad - Biological determinism - it sees humans as having no control over internal genetic influences. Phenotypes are heavily influenced by their environment, and this explains why twins are different despite sharing genotypes. It could also provide criminals with an excuse by blaming their ‘criminal gene’, so could be socially sensitive. Therefore it could be too simplistic
Good - Real World Application - understanding biological processes has helped us provide treatments for serious mental disorders such as depression. Drug therapy is understood and can be used now to give people with depression a better quality of life.
Evaluate the Psychodynamic Approach
Good - introduced the idea of psychotherapy
- Psychoanalysis was the first attempt to treat mental disorders psychologically rather than physically.
- It helps by bringing repressed emotions into the conscious mind to deal with them.
Bad - Unfalsifiable
- Many concepts are untestable
- Karl Popper said it is unfalsifiable as it cannot be scientifically tested to be proven correct or incorrect.
- Concepts are at the unconscious level so cannot be seen
- This could mean the theory is pseudoscientific
Bad - Psychic Determinism
- Suggests all behaviour is determined by unconscious conflicts rooted in childhood.
- Believes all behaviour has a deep meaning and nothing is accidental
- Dismisses the influence of free will
Evaluate the Humanistic Approach
Good - It adopts an optimistic approach by acknowledging free will and by claiming humans are in control of their own development and growth. It is a refreshing alternative to other approaches.
Bad - Culture Bias - The key concepts are suited for an individualist culture, where self growth is important and valued. This could mean it is less important in collectivist cultures where group values are more important. This could mean is is not a universal approach.
Bad - Question of application. On one hand, the humanistic approach has been used to revolutionise therapy and explain motivation in the workplace, but on the other hand, the key concepts are not connected and are unfalsifiable due to them relying on internal processes. This could mean we are unsure of the application and use of the humanistic approach.
Evaluate Wundt and the Emergence of Psychology
Good - Scientific
- Introspections were highly controlled and standardised
Bad - Subjective
- Relied on participants self-reporting their mental thoughts, which means it is subjective to their personal perspective
- Might not have reported everything, or might not have been accurate (social desirability)
Good - Application for Psychology
- He is seen to be the father of psychology as a science
- His basis of introspection is what the early approaches such as Behaviourism were based on
- Increased scientific methods of Behaviourism were due to Wundt’s scientific methods
Evaluate Localisation of Function
Good - Brain Scan Evidence supports localisation of everyday brain functions
- Brain scans show Wernicke’s area is active in listening tasks and Broca’s area is active in reading tasks
In Addition…
- Long Term Memory studies show semantic and episodic memories are in different areas of the prefrontal cortex
- These give scientific, controlled evidence for localisation of the brain
HOWEVER
Bad - Artificial tasks were used for all of these scan studies
- This could mean they lack mundane realism and should not be used to formulate general laws of function of the brain
- Brains might be different in real life situations
Bad - Language may not be localised just to Broca and Wernicke’s areas
- 2% of modern researchers believe language in the brain is completely controlled by Broca and Wernicke’s areas
- Advances in brain imaging techniques shows language function is distributed more holistically than previously thought
- Language Streams have been identified and some include regions of the right hemisphere
- This suggests language may be more holistic than other functions
Good - Case Study support
- Phineas Gage
HOWEVER
Bad - Idiographic - brain damage is unique
Evaluate hemispheric lateralisation and Sperry’s split brain research
Hints:
Trees
Epilepsy
Odd one out
Good - Research support for hemispheric lateralisation
Fink
- Used brain scans to identify active areas when doing a visual task
- When they asked ppts to describe a global image such as a whole forest, the Right Hemisphere was more active
- When asked to process smaller aspects of an image such as an individual tree, the Left Hemisphere was more active
- This suggests HL is also a feature within a connected brain
HOWEVER
Bad - lacks mundane realism as it is an artificial task
Bad - Sperry could lack generalisability
- He did not use a control group with epilepsy
- This could mean differences in processing were from epilepsy, not lack of corpus callosum
- This matters because it may mean his findings lack generalisability to people who do not have epilepsy
Good - Research support from more split brain research
- Further research showed that split brain patients are faster to identify the odd one out, supporting the idea that they have different mental processing
- This matters because it supports Sperry’s ideas of Hemispheric Lateralisation
Evaluate Plasticity
Bad - plasticity may have negative behavioural consequences
- Brains’ adaptation to prolonged drug use has been found to lead to poorer cognitive functioning in later life
- In addition to this, 60-80% of amputees experience ‘Phantom Limb Syndrome’, where they still experience sensations in their missing limbs due to cortical reorganisation in the somatosensory cortex after limb loss
- This suggests not all brain adaptations are beneficial
Good - Plasticity may be a life-long ability
- Although it was previously suggested that plasticity slows down after the age of 21, research has shown that 40 hours of golf training produced changes in the neural representations of movement in 40-60 year old participants
- fMRI scans showed increased motor cortex activity compared to a control group
- This suggests plasticity is life-long
Good - Nurse student support
- med school patients had a brain scan before and after revising for their final exams
- there were increases in grey matter after revising, suggesting plasticity exists and adapted to fit more information
Good - Maguire research support
- positive correlation between time as a taxi driver and grey matter in posterior hippocampus (navigation and spatial knowledge)
- supports plasticity
Bad - Methodological issues
- small sample
- no control/baseline assessment
Evaluate Functional Recovery
Good - Real World Application
- understanding plasticity has contributed to the field of neurorehabilitation
- This understanding encourages new therapies to be tried
- This can also help medical professionals know when interventions need to be made
Good - Research support from stroke patients
- Stem cells were given to 5 stroke patients who experienced a rare type of stroke
- All the participants recovered, compared to the 4% recovery rate that was typical of these stroke patients
- This suggests understanding functional recovery has already had a positive impact on real world medical procedures
Bad - Small Sample Sizes
- Most research into functional recovery has a small sample size due to them being quasi experiments (patients who have brain damage or have had strokes beforehand)
- This matters because most of the time there is no control group, and so it is hard to generalise and use findings scientifically
Evaluate fMRI scans
Good - non-invasive
- doesn’t rely on radiation
- risk free
- easy to use
Good - high spatial resolution
- the details are depicted by the mm so we can see a clear location
Bad - low temporal resolution
- there is a 5 second delay from brain to screen, so the results may not be accurate
Bad - expensive
Bad - inconvenient
- no metal is allowed –> bad for people with replacements/pacemakers
- requires you to lie still –> bad for people with claustrophobia
Evaluate EEGs
Good - Used as a diagnostic tool
- can spot arrhythmic patterns of activity, so are good for diagnosing things like epilepsy
Good - High temporal resolution
- can detect brain activity at a resolution of 1 millisecond
Bad - Invasive
- electrodes on head can mean there are demand characteristics in studies
- uses radiation which could be harmful
Bad - Generalised results
- the data is produced from millions of neurons, so we may be unsure of which neuron is responsible for which action, and where the neurons are
Evaluate ERPs
Good - Specific
- They can clearly identify the neural processes and the areas they take place in
Good - High temporal resolution
- Uses EEG data which can be detected in 1 millisecond
Bad - Invasive
- Uses data from EEGs which uses radiation and skullcaps
Bad - Difficult
- It may take time or be difficult to completely remove extraneous neurons
Evaluate Post-Mortems
Bad - Ethical Issues
- it is difficult to get consent
Bad - Time delay
- there could be years of waiting before a patient dies
Bad - Not useful for the patient
- the findings cannot be used to provide a treatment or help the patient
Bad - Causation is an issue
- the observed areas of damage might not be linked to the problems
Good - Provide a foundation of key processes in the brain
- Broca and Wernicke relied on Post-Mortems
Good - Can look at specific areas
- can clearly see the extent and location of the damage
