The biological approach Flashcards
Summary
Aims to explain human behaviour + experience in terms of physical bodily processes
1st assumption
Behaviour can be explained in terms of different areas of the brain
Cerebral cortex
Houses ‘higher cognitive functions’
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What is the cerebral cortex divided into?
4 lobes with specialised jobs
What is found under the cortex?
Subcortial structures
2nd assumption- aka?
nativist approach
Nativist approach?
Human behavior cab be explained or understood at a genetic level
How can behaviours be inherited from parents?
They are determined by either 1 or many genes.
Explain how genes contribute to certain behaviour
They contribute to a predisposition to behave in a certain way, and are combine with a person’s interactions with their environment and life experiences.
4th assumption?
Psychological problems can be treated in the same way as physical disorders
What does the medical model of mental illness assume?
That all mental disorders have a physical cause and can be described in terms of clusters of symptoms + the identification of symptoms can lead to the diagnosis of the illness
What happens following the diagnosis of a mental illness?
Appropriate physical treatment can be given
3rd assumption?
Human behaviour can be explained in terms of chemicals in the body; hormones and neurotransmitters
Hormones?
Biochemical structures produced in the body and have an effect on target organ(s), produced in very large quantities and can dissapear very quickly
Describe the effects of hormones in comparison to other bodily functions
Slow but very powerful
Neurotransmitters
Biochemicals in the body that have an effect on human behaviour
What do neurons in the NS do?
Communicate with each other to coordinate the activity of the body’s systems
What does the activitiy of the body’s systems depend on?
Neurons communicating quickly with each other
Dendrites
Found on ends of neurons to allow communication via synapses
Synapses
Where signals are relayed by the release of a neurotransmitter
Neurotransmitters
Released from pre-synaptic vesicle in one neuron, stimulates/inhibits receptors in the next neuron
