topic 5: approaches in psychology part 1 Flashcards
who was Descartes and what were his ideas
- 17th century french philosopher
- “I think, therefore I am”
- Cartesian dualism - the idea that the mind and body are independent of each other
- he said that the ways that they interact produced different behaviours and thoughts
- made one of the first suggestions that the mind could be an object of study
John Locke
philosopher in mid to late 1600s
talked about empiricism
empiricism - a method of study relying on empirical evidence (facts/evidence/research, things you’ve actually experienced)
Charles Darwin
1810 to 1880
evolutionary explanation of people’s behaviour
behaviour changes over successive generations
who is Wilhelm Wundt and what were his ideas
- first psychologist - established the first psychological research lab in Germany, 1879
- used introspection
- he isolated conscious thoughts into the basic structures of thoughts, processes and images via structuralism
- his data recording methods was highly scientific and produced reliable data
introspection
a research method used by Wilhelm Wundt
used to document and describe human nature and consciousness
an examination of your own thoughts and feeling
Introspective knowledge is often held to be more immediate or direct than sensory knowledge
Freud
early 1900s
the psychodynamic approach - the influence of the subconscious mind
dominated psychology with bhevaiourism for the next 50 years
who put forward behaviourism
v briefly outline it
Watson, Skinner, Pavlov
a learning theory
disagreed with the subjective nature of introspection which made establishing general laws and unifying principles of behaviour and cognition difficult
1930s introduced behaviourism to make it more objective
who looked at operant conditioning
skinner
who looked at classical conditioning
pavlov
what are the learning theories
classical conditioning
operant conditioning
social learning theory
Carl Rogers/ Maslow
1950s
humanistic approach - became the third force in psychology
focused on how behaviour differs between individuals
cognitive approach
1960s
psychologists became increasingly interested with the processing abilities of the human brains with the introduction of the computer
Bandura
1960s
social learning theory
combines cognitive approach+behaviourism
biological approach
1980s
now the dominant scientific perspective on psychology
cognitive neuroscience
eve of 21st century
combines the biological and cognitive approaches
what is classical conditioning
it is the association of the 2 stimuli - unconditioned and neutral
UCS –> UCR
NR + UCS –> UCR
pair them repeatedly leads to
CS –> CR
because they have learnt to associate the two stimuli
how did skinner investigate operant conditioning
when the rat pressed the lever in the box they got food
the food acts as positive reinforcement, and the rats do it more
reinforcing a behaviour makes it more likely
the also learnt using negative reinforcement
by pressing the lever when the light came on, they learnt to avoid the electric shock
- we know it works, But is it ethical?
what is operant conditioning
learning through consequences
the consequences reinforce the behaviour
what is positive reinforcement
when something is given to increase the likelihood of repeating that behaviour
what is negative reinforcement
when something is taken away to increase the likelihood of repeating that behaviour
it’s to do with avoidance behaviour
what is positive punishment
when something is given to decrease the likelihood of repeating that behaviour
what is negative punishment
when something is taken away to decrease the likelihood of repeating that behaviour
is punishment or reinforcement more effective
reinforcement because it actually shows what you should do whereas punishment just shows what you shouldn’t do
what are the 5 types of reinforcement schedules
continuous schedule
fixed-ratio schedule
fixed-interval schedule
variable-ratio schedule
variable-interval schedule
what is ratio schedule reinforcement
when the reinforcement occurs after a certain number of responses
what is interval schedule reinforcement
reinforcement occurs after a certain time period passes
when is continuous reinforcement most beneficial
most beneficial when initially learning, can become annoying later on
how does a fixed interval reinforcement schedule affect behaviour
as reinforcement is dependant on fixed time intervals, activity often increases near the deadline making it less useful because it doesn’t change behaviour overall