Approaches in Psychology

Who is the father of psychology and developed introspection?

Wundt

Introspection

Literally means “looking inward” and involves the systematic analysis of your own conscious experience of a stimulus. In other words, it involves training participants to report on their own mental processes as they occur. Mental processes Wundt trained his participants to report on included memory, perception and emotion.

Introspection (Wundt)

The focus of introspection, for Wundt, was on training participants how to be objective about analysing our own mental processes. Wundt would then ask participants to:

1. Focus on a stimulus (e.g. an object)

2. They would then be asked to reflect on different mental processes (e.g. sensations and emotions) they experienced as they focused on the stimulus.

3. They would be asked to provide a systematic description of their inner processes they were experiencing.

4. It is then possible to compare different participants’ reports in response to the same stimuli and propose general theories about mental processes.

The emergence of Psychology as a science

Wundt’s work followed an empirical approach to studying the mind and this was highly influential in psychology’s emergence as a science. Empirical methods involve acquiring knowledge through direct experience rather than reasoned argument.

However, Watson was critical of Wundt’s focus on ‘private’ mental processes and argued a true science should focus on behaviours observed to all. Watson and later Skinner developed the behaviourist approach which focused on observable learned behaviour in controlled laboratory experiments. This took the scientific assumption that all behaviour is caused (determinism) and therefore can be predicted (predictably).

However, the rise of the cognitive approach in the 1960s saw the study of mental processes being seen as highly scientific once more. Although mental processes remain ‘private’, cognitive psychologists made inferences about how these processes work using laboratory experiments.

In the 1980s the biological approach to psychology took advantage of advances in technology to investigate observable brain activity using scanning techniques such as fMRI and EEG.

Strength of Wundt’s Introspection

Wundt’s work was highly influential in psychology’s emergence as a distinct science. Many other scientists were inspired by his work to conduct scientific research in the area and develop the field further.

Weakness of Wundt’s Introspection

Other scientists (like Watson) criticise Wundt’s focus on ‘private’ mental processes and argued true science should focus on behaviours observable to all. Therefore, some argue introspection isn’t truly scientific.

Psychodynamic Approach

The psychodynamic approach argues all human behaviour can be explained in terms of the unconscious mind; a part of the mind containing a range of drives, instincts and memories that we are unaware of but which continue to influence our behaviour.

Freud also argued we have a ‘preconscious’ just below the surface of the conscious mind which we may become aware of during dreams or ‘slips of the tongue’ often referred to as ‘Freudian slips’.

The structure of the personality

Freud described the personality as ‘tripartite’, composed on 3 parts.

The id

The primitive, instinctive part of the personality that we are born with that operates on the pleasure principle. The id is entirely selfish and demands instant gratification of its needs and desires.

The ego

Works on the reality principle and is the mediator between the other two parts of the personality. It develops around the age of 2 years and its aim is to reduce the conflict between the id and superego by employing a number of defence mechanisms.

The superego

Operates on the morality principle which develops around the age of 5 based on the moral standards of the same-sex parent. It punishes the ego for wrongdoing through guilt.

Defence Mechanisms

Freud argued the ego has a range of strategies it uses to manage conflict between the id and superego known as ‘defence mechanisms’ because they protect our conscious mind from painful memories and emotions.

Repression

Involves ‘pushing’ a painful memory into the unconscious so it can be kept from conscious awareness.

Denial

Involves refusing to acknowledge some painful aspect of reality.

Displacement

Involves transferring feelings from the true source of distress onto a substitute target.

E.g. from a parent to someone less close.

Psychosexual stages

Freud also claimed that child development occurred in 5 stages but that any unresolved conflicts at each stage will result in the child becoming ‘fixated’ and carrying through certain behaviours or conflicts into adult life.

Learning approaches to explaining behaviour

Behaviourist approach

Social Learning Theory

The Behaviourist Approach (a learning approach)

Argued all human behaviour can be explained in terms of learning through the environment. Behaviourists focus on studying behaviour that can be observed and measured in controlled laboratory conditions.

Stimulus-Response Learning

Behaviourists argue that the same basic form of stimulus-response learning operates in shaping the behaviour of all species. There are two main forms of learning/conditioning investigated by behaviourists.

Classical Conditioning

Learning by association

Operant Conditioning

Learning by reinforcement

Classical Conditioning (inc Pavlov Research)

Classical conditioning was first demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov investigating salivation in dogs.

Pavlov showed that dogs don’t need to learn to salivate in response to food and therefore the stimulus of food (UCS) produces salivation (UCR). However the sound of a bell doesn’t naturally produce salivation and therefore the bell is a neutral stimulus. When Pavlov played the bell at the same times as presenting the dogs with food a number of times, the dogs learned to associate the bell with food. As a result the bell became a conditioned stimulus and the salivation became a conditioned response with the bell producing salivation regardless of whether food was presented or not.

Operant Conditioning (inc Skinner’s Research)

Another form of learning investigated by behaviourists is operant conditioning as demonstrated by B.F Skinner studying rats and pigeons in specially designed cages called ‘Skinner boxes’. Operant conditioning focuses on the consequences of behaviour.

Positive reinforcement

A consequence of operant conditioning. It’s the addition of something positive when a certain behaviour is performed.

For example, in Skinner’s box, every time a rat pressed a lever it was rewarded with a food pellet. From then on, the animal would continue to perform the behaviour. If the food pellets stop, the rat would press the lever a few more times before abandoning it (extinction).

Negative reinforcement

A consequence of operant conditioning. Its the removal of something negative when a certain behaviour is performed.

For example, Skinner’s rats could also be conditioned to perform the same behaviour to avoid a mild but uncomfortable electric current beneath their feet.

What do both types of reinforcement do to the likelihood of a behaviour being repeated?

Increase the likelihood.

Punishment

A consequence of operant conditioning.

Can be positive (addition of something negative) such as telling off a misbehaving child.

Can be negative (removal of something positive) such a ‘grounding’ a misbehaving child.

Humanistic Psychology

Developed by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow that argue all human behaviour can be explained in terms of free will.

This doesn’t mean that people aren’t affected by internal or external influences, but we are active agents who have the ability to consciously choose how to behave and determine our own development.

As a results, Rogers and Maslow reject general scientific models of human behaviour, arguing we are unique and psychology should therefore take a person-centred approach.

Self-actualisation and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Humanistic psychologists regard personal growth as an essential part of what it is to be human and it’s argued that we all have the drive to realise our true potential.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a five-levelled sequence in which basic physiological needs such as hunger and then safety needs must be satisfied before we can achieve love and belonging followed by higher psychological needs such as esteem and then self-actualisation.

Maslow believed the more basic the need, the more powerfully it is felt. Also, not everyone will achieve self-actualisation due to barriers preventing people from realising their potential.

The self, congruence and conditions of worth