Approaches (Paper 2) Flashcards
Behaviourism (Learning theory) def
- All animals and humans are conditioned via the same processes (Classical and operant)
- Born a blank slate (tabula rasa)
- Only behaviours which are directly observable and can be scientifically measured (using empirical methods) should be studied
Classical Conditioning Process
Before Conditioning:
- Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS) -> Unconditioned response (UCR)
- Neutral Stimulus (NS) -> No response
- Conditioned stimulus (CS) + Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS) -> Unconditioned Response (UCR)
After conditioning:
- Conditioned stimulus -> Conditioned Response (CR)
Operant Conditioning Types
Positive reinforcement: Rewarded for a desirable behaviour
Negative reinforcement: When a behaviour is made to avoid a negative consequence.
Punishment: When a behaviour is met with a negative consequence to prevent future repetition
Behaviourism Evaluation
Strength: Pavlov Dogs (Classical) and Skinner’s rats (Operant)
Strength: Very scientific approach to research, high internal validity. Means results can be trusted
Limitation: Too deterministic, doesn’t account for spontaneous or unique behaviours
Limitation: Researched on animals not humans
Social Learning Theory def
Behaviour is learned indirectly (vicariously) through the environment and observing others (mediational processes).
Mediational Process
- Attention: Watch a role mode perform a behaviour
- Retention: Remember that behaviour and it’s consequences
- Motivation: Have an incentive to recreate this behaviour
- Motor reproduction: Have the belief you CAN recreate this behaviour
Bobo doll Experiment + Findings
P’s were 4 year old children. 36 boys and 36 girls.
One condition watched an adult act aggressively toward a bobo doll, other (control) condition watched them be non-aggressive.
Children taken into a room with kids of toys, told not allowed to play with them (to create frustration).
Then moved to a room with the Bobo doll.
Findings:
- Agressive condition kids recreates high physical and verbal aggression towards doll
- Kids in control recreated almost no aggression
- Kids were more likely to imitate the role model if they were the same sex
Wundt Overview + Introspection
Overview:
- ‘Founder of psychology’
- First psychologist
- Established first psych lab in Leibzig, Germany in 1879
Instrospection:
- Def: Process of conscious self-reflection
- Process: Monitoring and reporting on the contents of their consciousness while being presented sensory stimuli.
Evaluation of Wundt
Strength: Used highly standardised and scientific techniques
- Used lab experiments
- Therefore extraneous variables didn’t effect the findings
Limitation: Introspection is too subjective
- Self-reporting measures
- Could be affected by social desirability
- One persons 2/10 happiness could be another’s 4/10
Evaluation of SLT
Strengths:
- Supporting research: Bandura’s Bobo doll
- Accounts for cognitive factors that behaviourism (CC and OC) overlook
- Accounts for Cultural variation.
- eg. why english people queue whist other people from other countries don’t
- Because the children imitate the parents within that culture
Limitations:
- Reductionist - Ignores biological factors
- eg. Primary finding in the Bobo doll experiment that boys were most aggressive could be linked to hormonal factors. More testosterone.
- Methodological problems of research - Artificial conditions
- Most were in highly controlled lab conditions
- Lacks ecological validity
- Also problem of Bandura research
Cognitive explanation Overview
The study of internal processes
Assumptions:
- Internal mental processes should be studied scientifically, but they are private so inferences need to be made.
Schemas:
- Mental representations of concepts. Includes our knowledge and expectations about concepts in our world (stereotypes basically).
- Unique to every individual as they are based on experience
- Allow us to use ‘short-cuts’ to expect what will happen in a situation, stopping us from getting overloaded with sensory info.
Theoretical computer models:
They think the mind works like a computer by way of:
Input -> Processing -> Output
eg. Rob sees a woman struggling to reach biscuits in shop (input), he makes the decision to help (process), he helps (output)
Cognitive Approach Evaluation (2 strength + 2 limitation)
Strengths:
- Practical application in treatments - CBT
- The cognitive approach has been able to identify and describe many internal processes (Schemas) which occur in response to given stimuli.
- This can be used in CBT treatment of depression to challenge things such as negative self-schemas m.
- Less deterministic that other approaches
- Allows the individual to ‘think’ (process) how they want to respond to stimuli
Limitations:
- Most research uses highly artificial settings
- eg baddley’s research into coding in STM and LTM.
- Questions validity as we can’t know if this truest represents how we think in everyday life
- Computer analogy is too simplistic
- Doesn’t account for role of emotion
Psychodynamic approach overview
Assumptions:
- Our behaviour and feelings is affected by unconscious motives. Therefore, all behaviour is psychologically determined.
- Our behaviour and feeling as adults are rooted in childhood experiences
Role of the unconscious:
Iceberg analogy:
Conscious: aware to us always
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Preconscious: becomes aware to us through dreams etc
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Unconscious: influences our behaviour. contained repressed memories
Structure of personality:
ID:
- present from birth
- only objective is to seek pleasure, selfishness
- evil one
The Ego:
- develops at 18 months
- rational or ‘brain one’ - stops the ID or Superego from taking over
- develops as a result of knowing you can’t get what you want
Superego:
- develops at 5
- develops through socialisation
- helps personality form a moral god
- good one
Defence mechanisms
Repression: An unpleasant memory/event is pushed into the unconscious as it is too overwhelming to process. Can’t be recalled
Denial: An inability/refusal to accept an unpleasant situation.
Displacement: When a strong (often negative) emotion is expressed into a less-threatening/‘lower’ person or object.
Psychosexual Stages of Development
Oral stage: 0-2 years
- Focus of pleasure is through the mouth (biting, sucking etc)
- If fixation occurs, they can become orally passive (dependant, passive and gullible) or orally aggressive (verbal or physical)
Anal stage: 2-3 years
- Focus of pleasure switches from mouth to anus through the process of holding in and expelling faeces.
- If fixation occurs, can become anally expulsive (as an adult, means you become very generous and demonstrative) or anally retentive (as an adult = very organised, neat, reluctant to spend their money)
Phallic Stage: 3-6 years
- Focus of pleasure moves to genitalia
- if fixation occurs , oedipus complex for boys or Electra for girls
Latent Stage: 6-12
- Conflicts and issues of previous stages are repressed
- No fixations or effects on adulthood
Gential stage: 12+
- Sexual desires become conscious due to puberty
