Approaches

What are the strengths of the Behiourist approach?

• Uses lab studies with controlled variables to clearly define a cause and effect relationship

• Success of Systematic Desenitisation Therapy (60-90%)

• Support from Bandura’s study and Fox and Bailenson study

What is the therapy linked with the Behaviourist Approach?

Systematic Desensitisation Therapy - Progressive stages of exposure to fear inducing stimuli paired with calming techniques to re-establish the association to neutral

What are the weaknesses of the Behaviourist Approach?

• Issues with Bandura’s study

• Uses animals which are less complex than humans

• Research ignores the complexity of the multitude of differetn stimuli in everyday life

• Failure’s of SDT (10-40%)

Describe Bandura’s bobo doll study (1961)

3 groups of 12 girls and and 12 boys, sorted using aggression ratings to limit participant variables. Groups 1 and 2 observed an adult role model acting towards a bobo doll.

• Condition 1 - Agressive action towards the doll.

• Condition 2 - Gentle action towards the bobo doll

• Condition 3 - No model (control)

After 10 minutes the child was given mild aggression arousal (you can’t play with these toys they’re for special kids), and bought back into bobo doll room. 

• Conditon 1 - Aggressive behaviour from children

• Condition 2 & 3 - Little to no aggressive behaviour

Describe Bandura’s bobo doll study (1963)

4 groups of 12 girls and 12 boys, observed different things similar set up to first study. Used aggression ratings/matched ‘pairs’.

• Condition 1 - Aggressive behaviour from model in the same room

• Conditon 2 - Aggressive behaviour of an adult on a film

• Condition 3 - Aggressive behaviour from a cartoon cat

• Condition 4 - No model (control)

Mild aggression arousal. 

• Conditon 1,2 & 3 - All similar levels of aggression displayed by kids

• Condition 4 - Little to no aggressive behaviour.

What is a schema?

A mental framework that is used to organise and link the information in our memory.

What are the strengths of Bandura’s bobo doll study?

• Highly controlled variable lab study (high internal validity) 

• Matched pairs design 

What are the weaknesses of Bandura’s bobo doll study?

• Unnatural enviroment (no interaction between child and adult model)

• Most children had not seen a bobo doll before (Cumberbatch follow up study 5X less aggressive to bobo doll)

• Issues with sampling (all taken from Stanford nursery WEIRD)

What are the strengths of the Social Learning Theory?

• Support from Bandura’s and Fox and Bailenson’s study

• Application into crime prevention (role models and vicarious reinforcement)

• Application into health campaigns (BAME)

What are the weaknesses of Social Learning theory?

• Issues with Bandura’s study

• Ignores the complexities of human emotion and daily interactions

What are the key ideas of the behaviourist approach?

• We learn behaviour from our enviroment and consequences

• Humans are no more complex than animals so we can use animals fro research

• Experiments should be lab scientific controlled lab studies

What are the key ideas of Social Learning Theory?

• We learn behaviour from other people by imitating their behaviour

• We imitate behaviours from a model (some-one we identify with: same-sex, older, attractive, successful)

• There are mental process that happen in order to imitate behaviour

What therapy is linked with the behaviourist approach?

Systematic desensitisation therapy - Using the principles of classical conditioning to pair increasing exposure to a phobia with calming techniques to re associate. (60-90%)

What mental processes are involved in imitation?

• Attention

• Retention

• Motor reproduction

• Motivation

What are the key ideas of the cognitive appraoch?

• Behaviour is controlled by complex internal mental processes

• These mental process can be studied by making inferrences from observed behaviour

• Brain processes can be explained using theoretical and computer models

What is the multistore model of memory?

Describe Pavlov’s research.

• Salivation of a dog was measued with test tubes surgically attatched to dogs cheeks.

• Paired a bell (neutral stimulus) that had no response with dog food (unconditioned stimulus) which caused salivation (unconditioned response).

• After repeated pairings the bell on its own caused same volume of salivation as food (now a conditioned response). The bell was now associated with receiving food and became a conditioned stimulus.

Describe Skinner’s research.

• Rats in a box with two levers. One released food (reinforcement), the other released an electric shock (punishment).

• The lever that released food was pressed more often, and the lever that released the elctric shock was pressed very little. 

• Therefore, actions that have beneficial consequences are more likely to be repeated and actions that have harmful consequences are less likely to be repeated.

What are the different types of consequences according to Skinner’s research?

• Negative Punishment - Taking away a good thing

• Positive Punishment - Adding a bad thing

• Negative Reinforcement - Taking away a bad thing

• Positive Reinforcement - Adding a good thing 

What is the computer model in the cognitivie approach?

Compares the human mind to a computer, input is the sensors, hard drive is memory, RAM is memory retreival, output is behaviour.

What are the strengths of the cognitive approach?

• Success of cognitive behavioural therapy (90% with depression)

• Scientific controlled experiments (high internal validity)

• Application in police interviews

What are the weaknesses of the cognitive approach?

• Over simplifies brain activity (human minds are more complex than computers)

• Failure of CBT (10%)

• Ignored human emotions and free will

• Studies have low external validity

What therapy is linked with the cogntiive approach?

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy - Replacing irrational thoughts with rational thoughts