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)
What is a weakness of classical conditioning explanations?
Doesn’t take into consideration individual differences in human beings and across species. The relationship between conditioned response and unconditioned stimulus varies from species to species depending upon survival instinct. A dog is easily conditioned to the sight of food rather than a bell and in humans, behaviour is controlled by many factors instead of just reflexes so this conditioning can’t be generalised across species so questions the validity
What is a strength of operant conditioning explanations?
Skinners research relied on experimental method which uses controlled conditions to discover a possible relationship between two or more variables and a cause-effect relation
What is a weakness of operant conditioning explanations?
Skinners study involved animals. Relying on non-humans implies that human behaviour is more complicated to be understood. The concept of free will has been undermined and the role of reinforcement has been overemphasised, undermining non observable human mental processes-a reductionist approach
What is a further evaluation point?
Deterministic, behaviourists ignore other perspectives such as cognitive and biological influences on behaviour
Who created the social learning theory?
Bandura-Bobo doll experiment of children observing aggressive or passive behaviour and then imitating it
What is social learning theory?
Learning through observing others and imitating behaviours that are rewarded. It serves an informative function
What are the components of social learning theory?
Modelling, imitation, identification, vicarious reinforcement and meditational processes
What is modelling?
A form of learning where individuals learn a particular behaviour by observing another individual performing that behaviour. Live models are people like teachers and parents and symbolic models would be characters in the media
What is imitation?
The action of using someone or something as a model and copying their behaviour. Whole patterns of behaviour can be rapidly acquired, compared to conditioning techniques
What are the key determinants of whether a behaviour is imitated?
The characteristics of the model, the observers perceived ability to perform that behaviour, and the observed consequences of the behaviour
What is identification?
The extent to which an individual relates to a model and feels that they are similar to that person. The observer must feel that they are similar enough that they would likely experience the same outcome in that situation. It makes imitation more likely and makes social learning more effective-Andsager 2006 identification in anti-alcohol advertisement
What is research into identification?
Shutts et al 2010, suggests children are more likely to identify and learn from models who are similar to them, particularly same-sex models
What is vicarious reinforcement?
Learning that is not as a result of direct reinforcement of behaviour, but through observing someone else being reinforced for that behaviour (Bobo doll follow up experiment)
What is the role of meditational processes?
Social learning theory differs from other learning approaches as it places special importance on internal meditational processes. Bandura claimed that in order for social learning to take place, the observer must form mental representations of the behaviour displayed by the model and the probable consequences of that behaviour in terms of expectancies and future outcomes. The learned behaviour will be displayed in the future if the expectation is more positive
What are the strengths of social learning theory?
It has useful applications and it takes into consideration a more comprehensive set of factors to explain human behaviour
What are the useful real life applications?
Akers 1998 found the probability of engaging in criminal behaviour increases when one is exposed to models who commit crimes, identify with those models and expect positive consequences
How does it take into consideration a more comprehensive set of factors to explain human behaviour?
As demonstrated in Bandura’s research study, children were more aggressive when they saw aggressive behaviour being rewarded. This highlights the role of cognitive processes such as expectation of consequences so it is less deterministic than conditioning theories
What are the weaknesses of social learning theory?
Studies conducted to support it suffer from demand characteristics and it underestimates the influence of biological factors
How do the studies suffer from demand characteristics?
Bandura’s ideas developed through observation of young children in a lab setting. As a consequence participants may respond to demand characteristics such as they might have picked up the cue that they have to hit the Bobo doll. Therefore they behaved in a way that was expected out of them, which may not be the case in real life. This undermines the validity and mundane realism
How does social learning theory underestimate the influence of biological factors?
One of the consistent findings of Bandura’s study was that boys were more aggressive, which can alternatively be explained by biology and hormones differences as boys have more testosterone which is linked to aggressive behaviour, but Bandura failed to recognise this so social learning theory isn’t a comprehensive explanation of human behaviour as it hasn’t accounted for biological factors
What does cognitive psychology focus on?
How people perceive, store, manipulate and interpret information; studying processes like perception, memory, thinking and problem solving. It is necessary to look at internal mental processes in order to understand behaviour
What does much of cognitive psychology use?
An information processing model, whereby information received through the senses is processed by various systems in the brain, it is like how computers work which is why computing metaphors like encoding, processing and retrieval are used
What does the cognitive approach study?
Information processing (ways in which we extract, store and retrieve information that helps guide out behaviour)
What different kinds of mental processes can contribute to information processing?
Selecting important information (attention), using it so solve problems (thinking), storing it in memory and retrieving it when needed
What does this approach recognise?
These mental processes cannot be studies directly but must be studied indirectly by inferring what goes in as a result of measuring behaviour, enabling cognitive psychologists to develop theories about mental processes that lead to observed behaviour
What is a schema?
A cognitive framework that helps organise and interpret information in the brain. Schemas for specific events are based on expectations of how to behave in different situations
Why are schemas useful to us?
Because they allow us to take shortcuts when interpreting the huge amount of information we have to deal with on a daily basis
What is a problem with schemas?
They cause us to exclude anything that does not conform to out establish ideas about the world, instead focusing on things that confirm our pre existing beliefs and ideas
What is the role of a schema?
To fill in the gaps in absence of full information about a person, event or thing. Schemas tell us what to expect and so we act accordingly which can lead to the development of stereotypes that are difficult to disconfirm, even when faced with new and conflicting information
What type of models are used in cognitive psychology?
Theoretical models and computer models
What are theoretical models?
Models such as the multi store model of memory or the working memory model are simplified representations based on current research evidence, often pictorial and represented by boxes and arrows indicating cause and effect or different stages. They are often incomplete, informal and frequently changed/updated EG working memory model by Baddeley and Hitch 1974 but the episodic buffer was added in 2000 by Baddeley
What are computer models?
Using computer analogies as a representation of human cognition. Led to focus on the way in which sensory information is coded as it passes through the system
What has emerged recently in cognitive psychology?
Cognitive neuroscience. PET scans and FMRI scans help understand how the brain supports different cognitive activities and emotions by showing what parts of the brain become active (Burnett et al 2009 found the medial prefrontal cortex, associated with social emotions, was among several parts of the brain involved when feeling guilt)
What are the strengths of the cognitive approach?
It has applications and it is scientific
How does it have applications?
It can be applied to many areas of psychology. In social psychology research into social cognition has helped psychologists to better understand how we form impressions of other people as well as the errors and biases that influence out interpretation of the causes of their behaviour. Also in psychopathology it explains how much of the dysfunctional behaviour shown can be traced back to faulty thinking processes, leading to successful treatment of illnesses such as depression and OCD using cognitive-based therapy
How is it scientific?
The use of the experimental method provides researchers with a rigorous method for collecting and evaluating evidence in order to reach accurate conclusions of how the mind works, so they are based on more than common sense and introspection, which can be misleading
What are the limitations of the cognitive approach?
Limitations of computer models, ignores emotion/motivation, and studies may lack ecological validity
What are the limitations of computer models?
There is an important difference between the sort of information processing in a computer program and in a human mind. Computers don’t make mistakes or ignore available information, or forget anything that’s been stored, whereas humans do
How does it ignore emotion and motivation?
It tells us how different processes take place but not why. The role of emotion and motivation is ignored, however approaches that focus on motivation generally ignore cognitive processes. The lack of focus on motivational states may be explained by the over-dependence on information processing analogies, as motivation is irrelevant to computers, but not to humans
Why may the studies lack ecological validity?
They generally have little in common with the participants daily lives and experiences. Eg memorising random words lists may not explain how the mind works in everyday situations so the results are harder to generalise to real life. Therefore it may lack ecological validity as it fails to reflect the behaviours that occur in real life settings
What is the biological approach?
Views human beings as biological organisms and so provides biological explanations of all aspects of psychological functioning
What are biological psychologists particularly interested in?
The genetic basis of behaviour, showing how some characteristics can be passed from generation to generation through genes. They also study the important role that chemical changes in the nervous system (neurochemistry) and hormonal changes play
What have these psychologists more recently become interested in?
Darwins theory of evolution which might apply to human behaviour, allowing us to understand the original adaptive significance of behaviours such as mate selection or aggression
What is heredity?
The passing of characteristics from one generation to the next through genes, and is the reason why offspring take after their parents in terms of psychological characteristics
What do genes do?
They carry the instructions for a particular characteristic such as intelligence or temperament, but how this characteristic develops depends partly on the interaction of the gene with other genes, and partly on the influence of the environment
What is the nature-nurture debate?
The extent to which psychological characteristic is determined by genes or the environment
What is a genotype?
The genetic make up of an individual. It’s a collection of inherited genetic material that is passed from generation to generation-the genetic code
What is a phenotype?
The observable characteristics of an individual. Consequences of the interaction of the genotype with the environment
What is the genetic basis of behaviour?
Everyone has a unique combination of genetic instructions so personality, intelligence, abilities etc differ person to person. Heritability is the amount of variability in a trait within a population that can be attributed to genetic differences between individuals. The more a trait is influenced by genetic factors, the greater its heritability eg studies on twins an intelligence which could be 60-80% due to genes
What is the nervous system comprised of?
The central nervous system (brain and spinal chord) and the peripheral nervous system (somatic and autonomic nervous systems)
What does the nervous system do?
Carries messages from one part of the body to another using individual nerve cells called neurones
What do neurones do?
They transmit nerve impulses in the form of electrical signals. Many aspects of behaviour are under neuronal control such as breathing and eating
What is the largest part of the brain?
The cerebrum which makes up about 85% of the total mass of the brain
What is the outer surface of the cerebrum?
The cerebral cortex, which is responsible for many of the higher order functions such as thought and language
What is the cerebrum divided into?
Hemispheres
What is each hemisphere divided into?
Four different parts known as lobes (frontal lobes, parietal lobes, occipital lobes and temporal loves)
What are the frontal lobes for?
Involved with functions such as speech, thought and learning
What are parietal lobes for?
Processing sensory information such as touch, temperature and pain
What are occipital lobes for?
Processing visual information
What are temporal lobes for?
Involved with hearing and memory
What happens when a nerve impulse reaches the end of one neuron?
A chemical called a neurotransmitter is released, it travels from one neurone to the next across a junction called a synapse
What are examples of excitatory neurotransmitters?
Dopamine which is associated with drive and motivation
What is an example of an inhibitory neurotransmitter?
Serotonin which maintains a stable mood (Corckett et al 2008 found that when serotonin levels are low, people tend to show aggression)
What are hormones?
Chemicals that are produced by endocrine glands such as the pituitary gland which together make up the endocrine system
What happens in response to a signal from the brain?
Hormones are secreted directly into the bloodstream by the endocrine glands where they travel to their target cells and exert their influence by stimulating receptors on the surface or inside cells
What does the presence of a hormone cause?
A pysiological reaction in the cell, altering it’s activity (Carré et al 2006, studied a Canadian ice hockey team and found evidence of a surge of testosterone when playing in their home stadium, suggesting this energised them to defend their home territory)
What did Buss 1989 find?
Universal similarities in human mate preferences. Women desired mates with resources and males desired young, physically attractive mates
