approaches psychology a level aqa

Who was Wundt

Who was Wundt

The father of psychology and published the first book on psychology in 1873 and six years later opened the first psychology lab in Germany

What is structuralism

Studying the structure of the human mind, Wundt broke down behaviour into basic elements

What three things did Wundt concentrate on in structuralism

The three areas of mental functioning which are thoughts, images and feelings

What was the introspection process

Highly trained assistants would be given a stimulus such as a ticking metronome and would reflect on the experience. They would report what the stimulus made them feel and think. This process was standardised.

Validity ao3

Relies on non observable responses which is not scientific as they cannot be measured and the ppt could be lying.
They are also unable to comment on unconscious thoughts.

Subjective ao3

Everyone's thoughts are different which makes the data incomparable and therefore the whole investigation is not objective. This means we can't reproduce the experiment

Applications today - Griffiths

Used introspection in 1994 to study the cognitive processes of fruit machine gamblers. He asked them to think aloud whilst playing a fruit machine. He found that addicts had totally different cognition to non addicts

Alternative approach created - behaviourist

Watson was highly critical of introspection because it produced subjective data, couldn't be generalised and you couldn't observe or measure what you are investigating. This led to the emergence of the behavioural approach

Assumptions of the behavioural approach - we develop or learn behaviour through 2 processes

Classical conditioning through association
Operant conditioning through reward

Pavlov's dog experiment (classical conditioning)

Studied salivation in a lab. Inserted a tube that collects saliva into their jaw. Pavlov presented the dog with the ns of a bell. No response. Food (ucs) produced the cr - the dog learned via the classical conditioning that the bell means food is coming

Skinners research

Experimented on rats in a box. There are three key features in the experiment : positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and punishment

Positive reinforcement in skinners research

In one of skinners experiments, a starved rat was introduced into the box when the lever was pressed by the rat and small pellet of food was dropped into the tray

Negative reinforcement in skinners research

Given an electric shock on the floor of the box so learned to go straight to the lever

Punishment in skinners research

Would have the heat turned off when it pressed the lever

What are the three features of operant conditioning

Positive and negative reinforcement and punishment

Positive reinforcement

Increases behaviour - receiving a reward when a certain behaviour is performed

Negative reinforcement

Increases behaviour

Punishment

Decreases behaviour by being punished for a certain behaviour

Scientific approach +

The beginning of psychology as a science
All three psychologists has objective experiments

Real life application +

Systematic desensitisation has the highest international success rate in the treatment of phobias and uses the principles of classical conditioning

Environmental reductionism -

Over simplified by assuming a simple stimulus response mechanism in the form of conditioning is causing a behaviour

Environmental determinism -

Also assumes you have no free will. Behaviourists assume you are completely at the mercy of your environment - your behaviour is entirely determined by these mechanisms which is disputed by many psychologists

Cannot explain all behaviours -

According to this, a simple event could cause a phobia for life and refutes the dual process model

Other factors must be taken into consideration:
Diathesis stress model

What is the unconscious mind

Drives all behavior and is behind absolutely everything we do. Constantly influences our behaviour, urging us towards pleasure away from displeasure.

Evidence for the unconscious mind

Dreams
Freudian slips
Death drive
Repression

The psyche

Id - instincts
Ego - reality / rational
Superego - morality

What are defence mechanisms

These are responsible for the conflict between the id and superego. There are three types

Denial

Refusing to acknowledge some aspect of reality

Repression

Pushing thoughts out of the conscious mind into the unconscious because you cannot deal with them

Displacement

Transferring feelings from the true source of distressing emotion onto substitute targets

What are the psychosexual stages

Freud saw childhood development as a series of stages necessary to establish your personality and behaviour

What are the five stages of childhood development

Oral
Anal
Phallic
Latency
Genital

What is the oral stage of development

Mother is responsible for weaning. Could lead to dependency or eating disorders

What is the anal stage of development

Parent is responsible for toilet training. Could lead to independence or personality problems

What is the phallic stage of development

Parent is responsible for helping overcome the Electra or Oedipus complex

What is the latency stage of development

Development of the ego and superego and contribute to a period of calm and friendship building

What is the genital stage of development

Interest in the welfare of others

Psychic determinism -

Assumes that the unconscious mind influences and drives all behaviour and therefore do not have free will. Does not take into account conscious thought, cognition, biology or learning

Case studies -

All of Freud theories are based on case studies of troubled individuals and so results cannot be generalised

Little Hans -

Diagnosed a child with an Oedipus complex despite never meeting him which makes this very tenuous

Unscientific -

Does not fulfill any of the scientific criteria : replicable, objective, hypothesis, empirical

Unfalsifiable -

Freuds idea of the defense mechanisms cannot be proven to exist which is a huge issue as they lack scientific validity

Revolutionary +

First psychologist to link the unconscious mind to human behaviour. He gave insight and understanding into ideas of the unconscious mind
Also the first to link childhood relationships with parents to mental health

Psychoanalysis +

Developed the first talking therapy called psychoanalysis

What does SLT involve learning behavior through

Observation and imitation

What is imitation

Motivation to copy a role models behavior but as a simulation

What is identification

When we identify with the role model and seem to possess similar characteristics to the observer

What is modelling

When someone is influential on an individual in some way but only used when referring to imitated behaviour

Vicarious reinforcement

Reinforcement that the observer sees the model is receiving and learning by observing the consequences

What are the four mediational processes

Attention
Retention
Reproduction
Motivation

Attention

Has to be watched and observed and therefore mediate whether the behaviour is imitated

Retention

Is the observer capable of imitating the behavior and remembering

Reproduction

Has someone got the ability to copy behaviour

Motivation

What is the impact of imitation. Links to vicarious reinforcement

Biology -

Makes little reference to the impact of biological factors on social learning
One consistent finding in the bobo experiment was that boys were more experiment than the girls

Acknowledges cognition +

Takes into cognition into account which makes it more holistic
Combine the behavioural, cognition and social approaches

Unscientific -

Mediational processes have to be inferred
Their thoughts process cannot be seen and therefore is unreliable and unscientific

Incomplete explanation -

Not all behaviour can be explained using SLT
Fairness, justice and other abstract notions cannot be imitated

Bandura 1961

Carried out experiments to show support for the idea that aggression could be learned through imitation

Tested young children where half where exposed to an adult model aggressively interacting with a bobo doll and the other half were passive

Children were then taken to a room to condition frustration

Bandura 1963

Divided into three groups and watched a film where an adult acted psychical and verbally aggressive

Phillips +

Applied to adults as he found that homicide rates in the USA almost always increased in the week following a major match suggesting that viewers were imitating behaviour

Ikung san

Evidence from these cultures show that children are never exposed to anger then they will never exhibit aggressive behaviour

What are internal mental processes

These are what are studied in cognitive psychology and are essentially thoughts or thinking processes

Inferences

These are guesses or judgements we make about what is going on inside the mind based on behaviour
Cannot be studied directly

Schema / script

Mental framework of beliefs developed through experience that are at the root of all mental processes

Computer model

Sometimes view the mind as a computer with inputs and outputs
If we are trying to process too much, our brains are overwhelmed and do not function well.

Theoretical models

Use models such as msm to represent how internal mental processes work
Allows psychologists to develop ways of intervening so it helps in application of

Less determinist -

Founded on soft determinism
We are not totally at the mercy of our thoughts but have the power to change them

Application 1

Huge amounts of research support such as Terry

Application 2

Produced CBT which is the most widely used treatment

Machine reductionism

Hugely over simplified
Computers do not have emotions which affects memory
Computer analogy lacks any validity

No explanation why

Does not tell us why