Paper 2 - Section 2 Approaches Flashcards
Who published the first book on psychology?
What did this achieve?
Wilhelm Wundt
Created recognition of psychology as a social science
When was the first psychology lab opened?
Where?
1879
Germany
What did Wundt focus on?
Trying to understand psychological processes of perception and sensation
What are the assumptions of the behaviourist approach?
Behaviourism is primarily concerned with observable behaviour
Psychology is a science
When we are born out mind is a blank slate (we know nothing)
There is little difference between the learning that takes place in humans and in other animals
Behaviour is a result of stimulus and response
All behaviour is learnt from the environment
What is a stimulus?
Anything internal or external that brings about a response
Response
Any reaction in the presence of a stimulus
What is reinforcement?
The process by which a response is strengthened
(Only in terms of OC)
What is an unconditioned stimulus?
The stimulus that cause a reflex response before the conditioning
What is a conditioned response?
The stimulus which, after conditioned, causes a conditioned response.
Why do we have different approaches in psychology?
So we can view things in different ways
What is structuralism?
It is a theory of conscienceless that seeks to analyse the element of mental experiences such as sensations, mental images and feelings and how these combine to form more complex experiments
Which case study is about classical conditioning?
Little Albert
Who did the Little Albert experiment?
Watson and Rayner
When did the little Albert experiment happen?
1920
What was the method of the Little Albert experiment?
The participant was an 11 month old called little Albert
Little Albert showed no fear to white fluffy objects such as a rat or rabbits. A white rat was placed in front of him. When he reached out for it a metal bar war struck loudly behind his head.
This was repeated twice at first, then five more times a week later
What were the results of the little Albert?
When little Albert was shown a rat, he would start to cry. This also extended to other white fluffy objects, such as a white santa clause beard
What were the conclusions of the little Albert case study?
A fear response to white fluffy objects had been conditioned in little Albert, showing that abnormal behaviour can be learned
What were the positive evaluations of the Little Albert case study?
It supports Pavlov’s idea of classical conditioning
What were the negative evaluations of the little Albert case study?
Very unethical (they didn’t re condition him back)
Not everyone creates phobias after a negative situation so learning theory can’t be the full story
It was done in a laboratory so it lacks ecological validity as the situation was artificial
What are the two types of conditioning?
Classical conditioning
Operant confitioning
Which case study is about operant conditioning?
Rats showing operant conditioning
-the rats experiment-
Who did the rats experiment?
Skinner
When was the rats experiment?
1938
What was the method of the rats experiment?
Skinner created a “skinner box” in which he placed one rat at a time
Each Skinner box contained a variety of different stimuli (negative reinforcement). For example a speaker, lights, a floor which gave electrical shocks and a food dispenser which dispensed food when a lever was pressed.
A hungry rat was placed in the Skinner box
The time taken doe the rat to learn that pressing the lever was recorded