Perspectives- Behaviourism and Psychodyamic

Question 1

Behaviorist Perspectives

Answer 1

The behaviourist perspective states people are born as ‘blank slates’ (tabula rasa) and human behaviour comes from learning from the environment.

Question 2

Classical Conditioning

Answer 2

Classical Conditioning is the idea that we learn by associating things in the world around us (stimuli) with bodily reactions (responses)

Question 3

Operant Conditioning

Answer 3

Operand conditioning how to encourage (reinforcement) and discourage (punishment) a particular behavior. Both reinforcement and punishment can be positive or negative. Positive means adding something and negative means taking something away.

Question 4

Give an example of postie punishment

Answer 4

adding something to discourage a behaviour. E.g. Making the school day longer when someone has forgotten their homework (i.e. detention).

Question 5

Give an example of negative punishment

Answer 5

Your mum will take your mobile away if you come back late from a party as it is taking something away to discourage behaviour

Question 6

Give an example of positive reinforcement

Answer 6

Your mum wants you to study more so she will give you money if you increase your revision time as it is adding something to encourage behavior.

Question 7

Give an example of negative reinforcement

Answer 7

When you put your seat belt on it takes away the annoying beeping noise. This is negative reinforcement as it is taking away something to encourage the behavior of putting on a seat belt.

Question 8

Social Learning Theory

Answer 8

Social learning theory states that we learn things through OBSERVING and IMITATING behaviour and modelling a person’s behaviour.

Question 9

Strengths of behavior perspectives

Answer 9

It highlights the role of nurture in learning, showing the important influence environment has on our behavior.

It can be extremely useful, having practical applications in a range of different settings including clinical ones ( it suggests ways in which phobias can be unlearned as well as learned)

The focus on studying observable behaviour in controlled lab experiments helps give psychology scientific credibility

Question 10

Weaknesses of the behaviorist perspective

Answer 10

It ignores the influence of nature on behaviour, falling to take account of the way in which genetics and biology can place limits on what individuals can learn.

The lessons behaviorism teaches us can be difficult to apply and open to inappropriate use

By favoring the lab experiment as a research methond, behaviorist research can lack ecological validity and therefore fail to resemble behaviours that people might perform in real life.

Question 11

Unconscious processes

Answer 11

Many important influences on behavior come from a part of the mind we have no direct awareness of, the unconscious.

Question 12

Psychodynamic conflict

Answer 12

Different parts of the mind are in constant dynamic struggles with each other (often unconsciously) and the consequences of this struggle are important in understanding behavior.

Question 13

Emotional Drives

Answer 13

According to Freud, the unconscious mind is motivated by two drives:

Eros (the life instinct) – pleasure, sex drive, excitement

Thanatos (the death instinct) – aggression, cruelty, drive to destruction

Freud believed behavior is motivated by sexual and aggressive drives. This drive creates psychic energy that will build up (like steam engine) and create tension and anxiety if it cannot be resealed in some form.

Question 14

Development

Answer 14

Personality is shaped by relationships, experience and conflict over time, particularly during childhood.

Question 15

The different levels of consciousness (the iceberg analogy)

Answer 15

Freud believed that the mind operates on three levels: the conscious, the precocious and the unconscious. An iceberg analogy is commonly used to distinguish between the ‘levels’ of consciousnesses in the mind:
our conscious mind is what we are currently thinking about
our precociousness mind can be accessed with relative ease by retrieving stored memories
our unconscious mind, however is hidden from our awareness and Freud suggests that it is very hard if not impossible to access it directly.

Question 16

The ways in which unconscious reveals itself

Answer 16

revealed in dreams and ‘slips of tongues’

free association (patients encouraged to lie down comfortably on a couch and speak aloud any thoughts that come into their head).

Projective tests, patients are presented with ambiguous stimuli (for example inkblots in the Rorschach test) and asked to say what they see in them: there comments are seen as reflections of the unconscious conflicts

Question 17

Instinctual drives

Answer 17

Eros (the life instinct) – pleasure, sex drive, excitement
Thanatos (the death instinct) – aggression, cruelty, drive to destruction

Question 18

The tripartite model of personality

Answer 18

According to Freud, our personality is made up of 3 elements:
ID: This is present at birth. It contains our unconscious instincts. It tries to get immediate gratification and avoid pain.
EGO: The ego tries to find a balance the desires of the Id with the rules of the Super Ego. It tries to satisfy the desires in an acceptable way.
SUPEREGO: This consists of the values and morals of the person (their conscience) and develops at around the age of 5. It causes guilt if rules are broken.
EGO ANXIETY: This is when our ego CANNOT resolve the conflict between Id and superego. According to Freud, the inability to resolve these conflicts leads to mental health problems.

Question 19

Pyschodynamic Perspective strengths

Answer 19

It offers an explanation for why people develop mental disorders and, by highlighting the importance of the unconscious mind as an influence on our feelings and behaviour, Freud was the first to stress how abnormal behaviour could be caused by psychological factors.

It suggests ways in which people with mental disorders can be helped (treated) – namely, through Freud’s ‘talking
cure’ in which patients are given insight into the origins of their disorder. Although most modern therapists do not use Freudian principles, Freud’s legacy is apparent in modern forms of counselling.

Freud’s work made the case study method popular in psychology. Case studies provide in - depth detail about
a person or client’s experiences, both current and in the past. The case study method remains popular in the area of
abnormal psychology.

Question 20

Psychodynamic weaknesses

Answer 20

It is unscientific in its analysis of human behaviour. In particular, many of the concepts central to Freud’s theories
can neither be verifi ed (proved correct) nor falsified (provedwrong) – they are not open to a process of scientifi c testing.

The evidence for psychodynamic theory is taken from Freud’s case studies. The main problem here is that case studies are
based on studying one person in detail and the evidence from such studies is highly subjective and can be affected
by researcher bias. This puts the validity of the findings into question and makes generalisations to the wider population
difficult.

Question 21

Repression

Answer 21

The ego blocks painful or disturbing memories from our conscious. Someone who had a traumatic experience as a child might not remember it.

Question 22

Displacement

Answer 22

Directing feelings from an object to another. For example, slamming the door after an argument is a way of directing physical aggression (an unacceptable behaviour) away from a person into an object.

Question 23

Projection

Answer 23

Taking aspects of your personality you don’t like and believing that others have those aspects. For example, a husband might believe their wife doesn’t listen when they actually are the ones who don’t listen.

Question 24

Denial

Answer 24

The refusal to accept a painful event, thought or feeling as if it didn’t exist.