Psychology-Approaches Flashcards
Who was the first person to call themselves a psychologist?
Wilhelm Wundt
What did he believe?
That all aspects of nature, including the human mind, could be studied scientifically
What did he study?
Only aspects of behaviour that could be strictly controlled under experimental conditions, including reaction time, sensation and perceptions
What was Wundt’s aim?
To study the structure of the human mind, he believed the best way to do this was to break down behaviours such as sensation and perception into their basic elements
How did he do this?
His approach was referred to as structuralism and the technique he used was introspection
What did he realise?
Higher mental processes such as learning, language and emotions couldn’t be studied in these strict controlled experiments, instead they were general trends amongst groups of people he later referred to as cultural psychology
Where does the word ‘introspection’ come from?
The latin meaning ‘looking into’
What is introspection?
The process by which a person gains knowledge about his or her own mental and emotional state
What is introspective ability?
It allows us to observe our inner world, just as perceptual ability allows us to observe and make sense of the outer world
What did Wundt claim about introspection?
With sufficient training, mental processes such as memory and perception could be observed systematically as they occurred using introspection
What is an example of this?
Observers might be shown an object and asked to reflect upon how they were perceiving it. This information could then be used to gain insight into the nature of the mental processes involved in perception, reaction time etc
What happened in Wundt’s studies of perception?
Participants would be presented with carefully controlled stimuli (audio or images) and were then asked to provide a description of the inner processes they were experiencing as they experienced the stimuli, making it possible to compare different participants’ reports in responses to the same stimuli, to establish general theories about perception and other mental processes
What is empiricism?
The belief that all knowledge is derived from sensory experience and is generally characterised by the use of the scientific method in psychology. Empiricism caused psychology to begin to emerge as a distinct entity
What two major assumptions was the new scientific approach to psychology based on?
All behaviour is seen as being caused (determinism) and if behaviour is determined then it should be possible to predict how human beings would behave in different conditions, the technique used to explore these assumptions became known as the scientific method
What does the scientific method refer to?
The use of investigative methods that are objective, systematic and replicable
How is it objective?
Researchers don’t let preconceived ideas or biases influence the collection of their data
How is it systematic?
Observations or experiments are carried out in an orderly way. Measurement and recording of empirical data are carried out accurately and with due consideration for the possible influence of other factors on the results obtained
How is it replicable?
Observations can be repeated by other researchers to determine whether the same results are obtained. If results aren’t replicable then they aren’t reliable and cannot be accepted as being universally true
What is the scientific cycle?
- Objective, systematic and replicable observation. 2. Building, refining or falsifying. 3. Development of a scientific theory. 4. Testing. 1. 2. 3. 4. etc.
What are the disadvantages of Wundt?
His methods were unreliable and introspection is not particularly accurate
Explain the criticism that Wundt’s methods were unreliable.
Wundt’s structuralist approach, mainly from behaviourists, relied primary on non observable responses. Participants could share their inner processes themselves but it wasn’t observable, so his methods lacked reliability and replicability, whereas behaviourists such as Pavlov and Thorndike already were achieving reliable and replicable results with generalisable explanatory principles
Explain the criticism that introspection isn’t particularly accurate.
Nisbett and Wilson 1977, claimed that we have very little knowledge of the causes of, and processes underlying, our behaviour and attitudes….Participants were unaware of factors that influenced their choice of consumer items (The study of implicit attitudes)
What is an advantage, however, or Wundt?
Introspection is still useful in scientific psychology-Csikszentmihalyi and Hunter (2003) used introspective methods to measure happiness (teenagers had random timers that went off, and when they did they had to write down what they were thinking/feeling)
What are the strengths of a scientific approach to psychology? (3)
Relies on objective and systematic observation methods so knowledge gained is more than just the passive acceptance of facts….Rely on belief in determinism so they can establish causes of behaviour through empirical and replicable methods…Scientific theories can be refined or abandoned if they no longer fit in, so it’s self corrective, especially as psychologists always repeat other psychologists studies
What are the limitations of a scientific approach to psychology? (3)
Scientific psychologists create contrived situations that tell us little about how people act in real life due to the focus on objectivity and control…Much of the subject matter is unobservable so cant be measured with any degree of accuracy (inferential-bigger gap between the actual data from research and the explanatory theories)…Not all psychologists share the view that all human behaviour can be researched through scientific method so predictions become impossible if behaviour isn’t subject ti the laws and regularities implied by scientific methods
What is a behaviourist?
People who believe that human behaviour can be explained in terms of conditioning, without the need to consider thoughts or feelings
What is the behaviourist approach?
Rejects the vagueness of introspection and focuses on observable events (the effects of stimuli and conditions for learning to occur ‘learning theory’)
What do behaviourists believe?
Much of human behaviour could be explained in terms of a basic form of learning known as conditioning, involving the formation of learned associations between stimuli in the environment and an organisms responses
What are two types of conditioning?
Classical conditioning and operant conditioning
What is classical conditioning?
All animals are born with reflexes which are made up of a stimulus and its naturally associated response. When other stimuli are consistently associated with this stimulus, and predict its arrival, then eventually they also trigger the same response. The animal has been ‘classically conditioned’
Who came up with this?
Pavlov 1927
What was Pavlov’s study?
He investigated the salivary reflex in dogs when he noticed that the animals not only salivated when food was placed in their mouths, but also reacted to that stimuli coincided with the presentation of food, such as the presence of a food bowl. He attempted to condition a dog to salivate at the sound of a bell
What happened before conditioning?
Unconditioned stimulus (food) creates an unconditioned response (salivation). The Neutral stimulus (bell) creates no response
What happened during conditioning?
Unconditioned stimulus (food) paired with the neutral stimulus (bell) creates an unconditioned response (salivation)
What happened after conditioning?
Conditioned response (bell) creates a conditioned response (salivation) without the presence of food
What are important features of classical conditioning?
Timing (between the NS and the UCS), Extinction (after too many repetitions of the CS without the UCS, the CS loses it’d ability to produce the CR), Spontaneous recovery (After extinction, if the UCS and the CS are paired again, the link between them is made more quickly), and Stimulus generalisation (after conditioning, they will also respond to other stimuli similar to the CS)
What is operant conditioning?
Learning through reinforcement or punishment. Organisms spontaneously produce different behaviours, and these behaviours produce consequences for that organisms, some positive and some negative. The consequence determines the repetition of the behaviour
Who came up with this?
Skinner 1938
What was Skinners study?
He developed a box for rats. The rat moves around and when it accidentally presses the level, a food pellet (reinforcer) falls into the cage. Soon the hungry rat presses the lever to obtain food. If the food stops, the rat presses the lever a few times and then abandons it (extinction)
What is reinforcement?
Something in the environment that strengthens a particular behaviour making it more likely to recur. The two main types are positive and negative reinforcement
What is positive enforcement?
Occurs when behaviour produces a consequence that is satisfying or pleasant for the organism eg food to a hungry animal or praise to a child after doing something well
What is negative reinforcement?
Removal of something aversive or unpleasant to restore the organism to its pre-aversive state eg hitting the ‘off’ button on an alarm clock allows someone to escape the unpleasant sound and restores them to the pre-alarm state
What are other important factors?
Schedules of reinforcement (continuous reinforcement schedule is more effective at establishing a particular response eg the rat and the lever every time food occurs…and a partial reinforcement schedule is better at avoiding extinction eg food occurs every 3rd press of the lever)….. and the other important factor is punishment
What is punishment?
A behaviour is followed by an unpleasant consequence and so reduces the chance of the behaviour repeating (positive punishment is adding something unpleasant eg hitting a child….negative punishment is taking away something pleasant eg taking a phone away)
What is a strength of classical conditioning explanations?
Led to the development of anxiety and phobia treatments (systematic desensitisation eliminates the learned anxious response and adds in another relaxation response to the anxiety causing item through classical conditioning)
