Week 1

Question 1

Willhelm Wundt…

Answer 1

Established the first psychological laboratory and tried to identify the elements of consciousness

Question 2

Structuralism

Answer 2

Believed the task of psychology was to analyse consciousness into its basic elements

Question 3

Functionalism

Answer 3

Believed psychology should investigate the function or purpose of consciousness rather than its structure

Question 4

Psychoanalysis/ Psychodynamic perspective - Sigmund Freud

Answer 4

The ‘unconscious’ contains thoughts, memories, and desires that are well below the surface of conscious awareness but exert a significant influence over behaviour

Question 5

Three premises of the psychodynamic perspective

Answer 5

Conscious and unconscious forces
interact to control our thoughts and
behaviours.
1. Behaviour is an interplay between
thoughts, feelings, and wishes
2. Some mental events are unconscious
3. Mental processes can be in conflict,
resulting in anxiety

Question 6

Behaviourism

Answer 6

•Believed that scientific psychology should study
only observable behaviour
•Behaviour refers to any overt response or activity
• Environmental stimuli - Learning - behaviour
• Stimuli become associated through conditioning
• Classical conditioning (Ivan Pavlov)
• Operant conditioning (B.F. Skinner)

Question 7

Pavlov’s Dog

Answer 7

Classical conditioning

Question 8

Radical Behaviourism

Answer 8

• Championed a return to Watson’s
strict focus on observable
behaviour.
• ‘Organisms tend to repeat
responses that lead to positive
outcomes and tend not to repeat
responses that lead to negative
outcomes

Question 9

Humanism

Answer 9

• Emphasise the unique qualities of
humans, (so a swing away from
animal experimentation) – People
innately good and so will almost
always choose adaptive and selfactualising
behaviours.
Maslow's Hierarchy of needs

Question 10

Cognitive perspective

Answer 10

• Behaviour cannot be understood without
understanding how we acquire, store, & process
information

Question 11

Evolutionary perspective

Answer 11

• Human behaviours
evolved because they
helped our ancestors
survive and reproduce
• So some personality traits like extraversion may
be a result of having certain genes that influence
our behaviour