Paper 2 - Perspectives

Question 1

What are the assumptions of the psychodynamic perspective ?

Answer 1

It focuses on understanding human behaviour, thoughts and emotions by examining unconscious drives and conflicts.
It argues that a persons behaviour and feelings as adults, including psychological problems are rooted from their childhood experiences.

Question 2

Explain what the unconscious mind is

Psychodynamic perspective

Answer 2

Unconscious conflicts shape our behaviour. The content of the unconscioous mind can be adressed through dream analysis, dreams are meaningful - we dream in symbols which can be analysed.

Question 3

Explain what psychosomatic is

Psychodynamic perspective

Answer 3

Physical symptoms are caused by problems of the mind

Question 4

Explain the importance of early childhood experiences

Psychodynamic perspective

Answer 4

Early, unresolved childhood traumatic experiences cause disrubances in adult life. These could be resolved by psychoanalysis. (the talking cure). These guide our instincts.

Question 5

Explain ‘anatomy is destiny’ means

Psychodynamic perspective

Answer 5

Freud claimed that anatomy is destiny - your sex determines your main personality traits.

Question 6

Explain what human instincts are

Psychodynamic perspective

Answer 6

Freud argues that a child is born with an instinct to seek bodily pleasre (libido).
Freud said that there are 2 fighting instincts Eros (the life instinct ) and Thanatos (the death instinct)

Question 7

What are the differences of the psychodynamic area ?

Answer 7

It focuses only on the work of one man - Freud.
It is more of an ideology than a science.
It mainly focuses on emotions.
There is a lack of verifiable and reliable scientific evidence.

Question 8

What are the similarities of the psychodynamic perspective ?

Answer 8

The concept of identification is shared with the behaviourist perspective.

Question 9

What are the strengths of the psychodynamic perspective ?

Answer 9

The case studies use qualitative data which are rich in detail, e.g. Little Hans.
There is a Holist approach using both nature (innate unconscious instincts) and nurture (life experiences).

Question 10

What are the weaknesses of the psychodynamic perspective ?

Answer 10

Ideographic focuses on individual case studies which means generalisationa cannot be made.
Psychic determinism - unconscious conflicts influence behaviour.

Question 11

What are the assumptions of the behaviourist perspective ?

Answer 11

All behaviour is learnt through classical conditioning, opperant conditioning and social learning theory.
We can understand people through rewards abd punishments they receive.
We can change behaviour by changing stimuli and rewards.

Question 12

What is classical conditioning ?

Behaviourist perspective

Answer 12

We learn through association, e.g. Pavlovs experiment with dogs.

Question 13

What is operant conditioning ?

Behaviourist perspective

Answer 13

We learn through consequences.
( positive/ negatove reinforcement and punishment )

Question 14

What is social learning theory ?

Behaviourist perspective

Answer 14

we learn through observations and imitation - children copying behaviour and speech which they observe from role models.

Question 15

What are the applications of the behaviourist perspective ?

Answer 15

• Therapies to treat various mental health disorders. Such as cognitive behavioural therapy to treat disorders from anxiety and depression to schizophrenia and OCD.
• Aversion therapy to reduce bad habits and addictions (classical conditioning to reduce unwanted behaviours)
• Teaching children with operant conditioning, e.g. detentions as negative punishment. It is also used in prisons, e.g. rewarding good behaviour of prisoners with TV, books etc, and punishing bad behaviour by taking away desirable items/privelleges.
• Child psychology in how children learn to behave and talk through social learning theory.

Question 16

What are the strengths of the behaviourist perspective ?

Answer 16

• easier to study as the environment can be easily manipulated to investigate it’s influence on behaviour.
• Often very scientific as experiments are done under controlled lab conditions.
• It has many practical applications,e.g. therapies.

Question 17

What are the weaknesses of the behaviourist perspective ?

Answer 17

• It is deterministic: our behaviour is only determined by the environment we were raised in.
• It is reductionist so may ignore other causes for behaviour- e.g. mental processes.
• It tends to rely on lab experiments so lacks ecological validity
• Studies into classical and operant conditioning are often done with animals not humans due to ethical reasons. Meaning that the results cannot be generalised to humans.
• The results of studies can be used in negative ways to inflict harm.

Question 18

What is positive reinforcement ?

Behaviourist perspective

Answer 18

Something pleasant is added to increase desired behaviour.

Question 19

What is negative reinforcement ?

Behaviourist perspective

Answer 19

Removing something unpleasant to increase desired behaviour.

Question 20

What is positive punishment ?

Behaviourist perspective

Answer 20

An unpleasant response is added to decrease behaviour.

Question 21

What is negative punishment ?

Answer 21

Removing something pleasant to decrease behaviour.

Question 22

What are the similarities of the behaviourist perspective ?

Answer 22

It has highly controlled lab experiments which is similar to the social, biological, developmental and cognitive areas.
It relates to the nurture and situational debates like the social area.
It ignores emotion like the cognitive area.

Question 23

What are the differences of the behaviourist perspective ?

Answer 23

It is nomothetic, however the individual
differences area is ideographic.
It focuses only on observable behaviour, ignoring mental processes (cognitive) and internal physical processes.

Question 24

What are the applications of the psychodynamic perspective ?

Answer 24

Freud applied his ideas to develop treatments for mental disorders - unresolved conflicts cause mental disorders. Dream analysis can be used to make the uncouncious conscious.
Also, phobias can be overcome by psychoanalysis by talking about how the unconcscious mind has caused thoughts, feelings and behaviours. This awareness of the unconscious brain helps overcome phobias.
More examples…
Compulsive hand washing: a psychodynamic approach would look for early childhood trauma associated with obsessive fear of germs.
Dificulty making decisions: An individual might have trouble making decisions due to a deeply embedded fear of making a wrong choice, stemmmming from a strict upbringing.