Psychology - APPROACHES

Question 1

Imitation

Answer 1

Copying behaviour of others

Question 2

Vicarious Reinforcement

Answer 2

occurs through observing someone else being reinforced/rewarded for their behaviour -
a key factor in imitation.

Question 3

Mediational Processes

Answer 3

Cognitive factors that influence learning behaviours and come between stimulus and response.

• there must be attention, retention, motor reproduction, motivation.

Question 4

Cognitive approach

Answer 4

• Focused on how our mental processes affect behaviour
• thinking causes behaviour
• The mind actively processes information from our senses (touch, taste etc.).

Question 5

Internal mental processes

Answer 5

‘Private’ operations of the minds such as perception and attention that mediate between stimulus and response

Question 6

Schema

Answer 6

A mental shortcut of beliefs and expectations developed from experience.
+ mental shortcut -we don’t have to rethink the same ideas- helps us to remember
- a schemas can lead to phobias e.g about exams can cause panic attacks
- can lead to prejudice and racism

Question 7

Inference

Answer 7

The process whereby cognitive psychologists draw conclusions about the way mental processes operate on the basis of observed behaviour

Question 8

Cognitive neuroscience

Answer 8

The scientific study of biological structures that underpin cognitive processes.

Question 9

The use of theoretical and computer models

Answer 9

Cognitive psychology uses conceptual models to explain how the mind works e.g the multi store model and allows psychologists to predict when they do testing and experiments

Question 10

the Computer (informational) process modelThe emergence of cognitive neuroscience

Answer 10

• mind functions like a computer as we both input - process information, have memory and an output - retrieve info
• three stages in processing steps for information

Question 11

The emergence of cognitive neuroscience

Answer 11

• looks at biological processes and neural connections that are involved in mental processes- Explains how mental functions are undertaken within the brain.
• This combined the study of brain damage, neuropsychology, cognitive psychology and computer modelling.
• Pet scans and Mri scans are used to understand how the brain supports the different parts for emotions and functions when asked to perform different tasks.

Question 12

Burrnett et al - cognitive approach evidence

Answer 12

found that when someone feels guilt it is active in serval different pats of the brain e.g prefrontal cortex which is responsible for social emotions.

Question 13

Overall evaluation of the cognitive approach

Strength:

Answer 13

• schemas are widely held to valid in cognitive psychology
• : the cognitive approach has led to useful applications in everyday life e.g cbt treatment for depression
• evidence mri scans - scientific evidence

Weaknesses

• It could be argued that cognitive models over-simplify explanations for complex mental processes.
• The data supporting cognitive theories often come from unrealistic tasks used in laboratory experiments, which puts the ecological validity of theories into question (i.e. whether or not they are truly representative of our normal cognitive patterns).
• Comparing a human mind to a machine or computer is arguably an unsophisticated analogy.

Question 14

Behaviourist Approach

Answer 14

• all behaviour is learnt
• we are born with a blank slate
• genes are not related to behaviour
• we can study human behaviour by looking at animals

Question 15

Classical conditoning

Answer 15

This is a behaviorist theory that says that humans and animals learn new behaviours by the process of association.

There are 3 stages of classical conditioning:
1) before conditioning- A neutral stimulus produces no response e.g a bell ringing

2) during conditioning- the neutral stimulus is paired with the unconditioned stimulus resulting in an unconditioned response, this needs to happen serval times for it to occur
3) after conditioning- the neutral stimulus has become the conditioned stimulus, resulting in the conditioned response e.g whenever we hear the bell even if it isn’t lunchtime we still get hungry, and our stomachs rumble

Question 16

Ivan Pavlov’s dog

Answer 16

Pavlov demonstrated classical conditioning in dogs using the sound of a bell as the neutral stimulus and a bowl of meat powder as the unconditioned stimulus

1) before the experiment the dogs would salivate ( unconditioned response ) in respond to the meat powder but not the bell
2) when a bell was rung the first time with no food there was no response - neutral stimulus
3) during conditioning the bell was rung wherever the meat powder was presented
4) after many trials the dogs would salivate at the sound of the bell alone, the bell had become a conditioned response.

Question 17

Evaluation of Pavlov’s study- strength

Answer 17

Strength: he highly controlled the conditions to make sure that nothing else would make the dogs salivate, even the experiment stayed outside the room to make sure that the dogs would associate him with the food and was purely the bell

Question 18

Operant Conditioning

Answer 18

This states that we learn new behaviours as a result of the consequences of our actions

1) positive reinforcement- when behaviour is followed by a pleasant consequence the frequency of the behaviour is increased.
2) negative reinforcement- when a behaviour leads to something unpleasant stopping, the frequency of the behaviour increases e.g going to the dentist which you hate in order to make sure your teeth don’t rot.
3) punishment- when a behaviour is filleted by a unpleasant consequence the frequency of the behaviour decreases

Behavioural shaping- when you teach something slowly to reinforce a behaviour

Question 19

Skinner

Answer 19

• skinners box,- where an animal ( rat or pigeon ) can be placed.
• There is a lever which delivers food pelts
• The rat learnt while it was exploring that if it pressed the lever it would release food, which makes the rat repeat the response as it gets positive reinforcement.
• if the animal got tired the box would make loud noises or electrocute the bird which would stop if the rat pressed the lever this also increased the amount the lever was pressed this showed negative reinforcement.
• the other experiment was if the rat pressed the lever he got punished by an electric shock which decreased the amount of times he touched the lever

Question 20

Evaluation of Skinner

Answer 20

Strength: his conditions were highly controlled and he made sure there was no other stimuli that would affect the amount of times the lever was pressed

Weakness: we may not be able to generalise these findings to humans, although we might learn the same way our brains are more complex