Approaches Flashcards
1
Q
Which approaches does the Learning approach include?
A
- Social learning approach
Learning approach:
- Behavioural approach:
Classical / Operant conditioning
2
Q
What are 3 assumptions of the behavioural approach?
A
- Focuses on behaviour that can be observed and measured.
- All behaviour is learnt through experiences.
- We can study animal behaviour and use the same principles for humans.
3
Q
How is classical conditioning learnt and what is it?
A
Through association.
Where we learn to associate a reflex response to a neutral stimulus.
4
Q
Explain Pavlov’s research on classical conditioning.
A
Aim: see if dogs could be conditioned to salivate to the sound of a bell ringing.
Method: He rang a bell whilst presenting the dog with food. He repeated this several times.
Results: They learnt to associate the sound of the bell with the food and started salivating to just the sound of the bell.
5
Q
How is operant conditioning learnt and what is it?
A
Through reinforcement.
If we are reinforced for behaviour it makes it more likely that we’ll repeat that behaviour.
6
Q
Explain the 2 types of reinforcement.
A
- Negative: taking something bad away.
- Positive: getting a reward for behaving in a certain way.
7
Q
Define punishment.
A
Not a form of reinforcement.
Receiving a negative consequence as a result of behaviour and makes it less likely that you’ll repeat it.
8
Q
Explain Skinner’s research on operant conditioning.
A
He produced the “Skinner box”.
He observed the rat’s behaviour whilst in this box;
- In some of his experiment if the rat pushed the lever he was given a food pellet, this was providing the rat with positive reinforcement.
- In others, if the rat pushed the lever it stopped the electric current from the grid, providing negative reinforcement.
9
Q
What are 2 strengths of the behaviourist approach?
A
- Scientific, as observable behaviour.
- Practical application. e.g. in schools
10
Q
Explain 3 weaknesses of the behaviourist approach.
A
- Ethical issues, use of animals.
- Problems when trying to generalise findings from animals to humans.
- Deterministic.
11
Q
What are 2 assumptions of SLT?
A
- Agrees with the behavioural approach; all behaviour is learnt through experiences.
- Learning takes place through observation and imitation.
12
Q
Explain what’s the Social Learning Theory.
A
It suggests that behaviour is learnt through observing a role model’s behaviour and imitating it.
They’re + likely to imitate it if the role model is being rewarded for it (vicarious reinforcement).
Also if they identify with the role model. (modelling)
13
Q
What is the role of meditational processes?
A
These internal mental processes determine whether a response is learnt.
14
Q
What are the 4 meditational processes in SLT?
A
- Attention: extent to which a person pays attention to what they’re observing.
- Retention: How well the behaviour is remembered.
- Reproduction: Behaviour has to be realistic so the person can physically be able to repeat it.
- Motivation: if there was vicarious reinforcement, they’re more likely to imitate it.
15
Q
Explain Albert Bandura’s research (1961) on imitation.
A
Aim: see if children (3-5) would observe and imitate aggressive behaviour.
Method: 2 groups of children. One saw an aggressive role model with a bobo doll. The other saw a non-aggressive role model. Children were then made to wait outside a room full of toys including a bobo doll, before allowed in.
Results: (One) were more aggressive themselves and others weren’t aggressive towards the bobo doll.
16
Q
Explain 3 strengths of the Social Learning approach.
A
- It has practical application, criminal behaviour understanding.
- There’s evidence to support (Sprafkin, 1975), 6 years old watched an episode of Lassie. Helping puppies or not.
- It’s less deterministic.
17
Q
What are 2 weaknesses of the Social Learning approach?
A
- Lab experiments, demand characteristics.
- It’s reductionist.
18
Q
What are the 3 overall assumptions of the psychodynamic approach.
A
- Place an emphasis on the unconscious mind.
- Focus on that most behaviour stems from early childhood experience.
- 1 of most influential psychologists in this area is Sigmund Freud (Austria, 1856).
19
Q
How does Freud describe the role of the unconscious?
A
He compares the human mind to being like an iceberg, most of the iceberg being under water, he says most of the human mind is unconscious.
20
Q
Describe the iceberg analogy.
A
Conscious: things we are aware of.
Pre-conscious: things we are aware of but have no control about.
Unconscious mind: part of our mind we cannot access. This is where all our deep desires and traumatic memories have been repressed to.
21
Q
What is our personality made of?
A
Id, Ego and Superego.
22
Q
Define the Id.
A
(0-18months) this is the demanding, selfish part of our personality, we’re born with this part, it’s the pleasure principle.
23
Q
Define the Ego.
A
(18months - 3 years) this is the part that manages the conflict between the id and the superego, it’s the reality principle.
24
Q
Define the Superego.
A
(3 - 6 years) moral part of personality, part that tells us what is right and wrong, this is the morality principle.
25
What happens if the Id is more in control?
It can lead to psychotic behaviour. e.g. murder, rape
26
What happens if the superego is in more control?
It can lead to neurotic behaviour. e.g. OCD, anxiety
27
What are defence mechanisms?
These are what the ego uses unconsciously to try and protect us from distress and anxiety, the overuse of these can be maladaptive and lead to abnormalities.
28
Define the defence mechanism of Repression.
First defence mechanism discovered by Freud. Unconscious mechanism employed by the ego to keep disturbing or threatening thoughts from becoming conscious.
29
Define the defence mechanism of Denial.
Anna Freud (1936) proposed denial involves blocking external events from awareness because it's too much to handle, the person just refuses to experience it.
30
Define the defence mechanism of Displacement.
It involves getting feelings, frustrations, and impulses on people or objects that are less threatening.
31
What does Freud say about the psychosexual stages?
There are 5 stages of child development: oral, anal, phallic, genital and latency.
There's a different conflict at each stage that they must resolve, if we're frustrated or over-indulged within any of these stages we become fixated in that stage and that can affect our adult behaviour.
32
Describe the oral stage and explain if fixated, how it affects adult behaviour.
(0-1 years) Focus of pleasure is on the mouth.
| Chain smoking, biting nails...
33
Describe the anal stage and explain if fixated, how it affects adult behaviour.
(1-3 years) Focus of pleasure is in the anus.
| Anal retentive - perfectionist Anal expulsive - messy
34
Describe the phallic stage and explain if fixated, how it affects adult behaviour.
(3-5 years) Focus of pleasure is on genital area. Boys go through the Oedipus complex and girls through the Electra complex.
Possible homosexuality.
35
Describe the latency stage and explain if fixated, how it affects adult behaviour.
(6-11 years) Repress earlier conflicts.
| No effect on adult behaviour.
36
Describe the genital stage and explain if fixated, how it affects adult behaviour.
(12 years) Sexual desires become conscious with the onset of puberty.
Difficulty with relationships.
37
What is a strength of the psychodynamic approach?
It has practical application, it has led to effective therapy for abnormality of psychoanalysis. This involves dream analysis, which is all about uncovering repressed traumas from the unconscious mind and working with the therapist to resolve this issue. This then cure their anxiety.
38
What are 4 weaknesses of the psychodynamic approach?
- Unscientific and unfalsifiable.
- It's deterministic.
- It places too much emphasis on the past.
- It's out of date.
39
Explain the 4 overall assumptions of the humanistic approach. (person-centred approach)
1. Every individual is unique.
2. Everyone has free will.
3. People should be viewed holistically.
4. The scientific method is not appropriate to measure.
40
What is free will?
It's that we decide and choose our our course of action.
41
Explain what is self actualisation.
It's when an individual achieves it's full potential. When someone achieves it there is the ultimate feeling of well-being + satisfaction, not everyone achieves it.
42
Describe Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
He believed that a person could achieve self-actualisation through a series of stages.
- Self-actualisation ← self-esteem ← belonging an love needs ← safety ← biological needs.
43
What did Carl Rogers said about the focus on the self?
He identified 2: perceived-self (you feel) and ideal-self (you wish to be).
44
What is congruence?
When the perceived self and ideal self become the same or vey similar, they become more consistent. The greater the gap between them the greater the incongruence.
45
How can a person achieve congruence?
They need to close the gap between the perceived and ideal self, to do that they need to have a positive view of themselves or have a more realistic and achievable ideal self. This person needs to be given unconditional positive regard.
46
What is unconditional positive regard?
Where an individual is loved by another without any expectations in return. Love is given without conditions.
47
What is conditional positive regard?
Where the individual feels the need to meet some requirements in order to be loved.
48
Explain the influence on counselling psychology.
It helps overcoming incongruence.
49
What are 2 strengths of the humanistic approach?
- It's not reductionist.
| - It has practical application.
50
What are 3 weaknesses of the humanistic approach?
- Its ideas are vague and difficult to test.
- It's contradicted bi the biological approach.
- It's not relevant to all cultures.
51
Explain Wundt's role in the development of psychology.
Known as the "father of psychology", he was the first to call himself psychologist. First to open psychology lab in Germany and was interested in scientifically studying every aspect of the human mind.
52
What is introspection?
Examination of your own thought processes, it involves being objective, using standardised procedures and conducted in controlled environment.
Involves breaking down thoughts about an object into separate elements.
53
What are some critiques of introspection?
- The reports may be distorted.
| - There will always be a delay between the conscious experience and reporting the experience, we may forget parts of it.
54
Explain 3 strengths of the emergence of psychology as a science.
- Some aspects of Wundt's methods would be classed as scientific today.
- We can establish a cause and effect relationship.
- Psychological research is likely to be reliable.
55
What are 2 weaknesses of the emergence of psychology as a science?
- Lacks ecological validity, unrealistic behaviour.
| - Most topics within psychology are unobservable.
56
Explain the 4 assumptions of the Cognitive Approach.
1. It was developed in the 1950s + it focusses on internal mental processes of the human mind.
2. Thoughts influence behaviour.
3. Human mind is very similar in operation to a computer: inputs, processing and outputs.
4. They believe these processes can be studied scientifically.
57
Define internal mental processes.
Private operations of the mind such as perception and attention. They can only be studied indirectly, cognitive psychologists do this by looking at the behaviour and making inferences about the internal process that caused it.
58
What does the cognitive approach study?
Information processing.
| i.e. the way we extract, store and retrieve information that helps to guide our behaviour.
59
What are inferences?
It's when we go beyond the immediate evidence, to make assumptions about mental processes, it suggests that we have a limited capacity for processing that type of information.
60
How do cognitive psychologists study internal mental processes?
Through Theoretical models.
61
Define Theoretical Models.
They make inferences by looking at behaviour and examining the thought processes that happen in the mind, these are usually in distinct steps.
62
Give 1 example of an internal mental process.
Processes for memory: theoretical model to explain it is the Multi-Store Model.
63
What other thing does the cognitive approach uses to make inferences apart from the Theoretical Models?
Computer Models.
64
What are computer models?
It's where the mind is compared, suggesting that there similarities in the way that the person processes information to the way a computer does.
65
What are the stages of memory?
Encoding → Storage → Retrieval
66
Define what is a schema.
Building block of knowledge about something that is built up through our own experiences, as we get older our schema increases as we've had more experiences so our knowledge is grater.
67
Give 2 reasons why schemas are useful.
1. They help us predict what will happen in the world based on our experiences.
2. They help us to prevent being overwhelmed by environmental stimuli
68
Give 2 reasons why a schema is not useful.
1. They can lead to stereotypes and prejudice.
| 2. They can lead to inaccurate eyewitness testimony.
69
What is the emergence of cognitive neuroscience?
Scientific study of the influence of brain structure on mental processes. It's mapping brain areas to specific cognitive functions.
70
How can cognitive neuroscience be studied?
By looking at people who have damaged their brain in some way (accident or disease) and seeing how it affects their cognitive abilities.
E.g. Clive Wearing
71
Which tests can be done by patients to study cognitive neuroscience?
PET (Position emission tomography) scans and fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scans, whilst getting them to undertake cognitive tasks.
72
Explain 2 strengths of the cognitive approach.
- It has real life application; it places a great emphasis thoughts influencing behaviour. It explains depression saying it's due to problems with thoughts, this has led to cognitive treatment for depression (REBT).
- It's scientific; they mainly use lab experiments so they've high internal validity.
73
Give an evidence to support the cognitive approach.
Clinical evidence from case studies.
Clave Wearing had the Herpes Simplex Virus which damaged his Hippocampus; he suffered a condition called anterograde amnesia meaning he had difficulty transferring information from his STM to LTM and could only remember events from the last 30s. This provides evidence to support CA as when a part of his brain was damaged it affected his behaviour.
74
What are 2 weaknesses of the cognitive approach?
- It lack ecological validity, it's not realistic. Most studies use lab experiments.
- It's reductionist. It reduces something complex (human processes to its most simplistic components): our internal mental processes are the same as computers.
75
Which are the 3 overall assumptions of the biological approach?
1. It suggests that all human behaviour can be explained by biological structures and processes in the body.
2. Suggest that understanding brain structure helps us explain our thoughts and behaviour.
3. All thoughts, feelings and behaviour have a physical basis.
76
Define gens.
They carry information that code for physical and psychological features, they're inherited from parents to children.
77
What is the genotype?
This refers to the genes that an individual possesses. It's written in the DNA.
78
What is the phenotype?
Observable traits/characteristics shown by the individual. These are due to the combined effects of genes and the environment.
79
Explain what are twin studies.
They offer an opportunity to investigate the relative contributions of genetic and environmental influences.
80
What are MZ twins? And how much genetics do they share?
Monozygotic twins (identical), they come from one fertilised egg. 100%
81
What are DZ twins? And how much genetics do they share?
Dizygotic twins (non-identical), they come from two fertilised eggs. 50%
82
How much genetics do MZ and DZ twins share (for depression)?
MZ - 87%
| DZ - 47%
83
Define Adoption Studies.
They allow psychologists to see whether behaviour is due to 'nature' or 'nurture' as we can observe if the twins behaviour is more like their biological parents or their adoptive parents.
84
What is epigenetic variation?
Difference caused by different environment, ways of living of twins.
85
Explain the theory called natural selection.
If an animal has a characteristic that helps it survive it's more likely to live and reproduce, meaning that the characteristic will get passed onto the next generation through genes.
86
Who proposed the theory of Natural selection?
Charles Darwin
87
What is sexual selection?
It's when you have a trait that makes you more attractive as a mate that will increase your chances of passing your genes onto the next generation.
88
What is evolution?
It can explain how physical characteristics and behaviour can be passed on through generations.
89
According to the evolutionary approach, why do babies form attachments?
- Protecting the baby.
- Giving the baby food and water.
- Giving them shelter and cleanliness.
90
Define biological structures.
An arrangement of parts to form an organ system or living thing.
91
Give 2 examples of the biological structures.
- The brain
| - The nervous system
92
What is the nervous system?
Network of cells in the human body and is our main internal communication system.
93
Which are the 2 sub-systems of the nervous system?
Central nervous system (CNS)
| Peripheral nervous system (PNS)
94
Name 2 peripheral nerves.
- Cranial nerve
| - Spinal nerve
95
Name 2 central nervous.
- Brain
| - Spinal
96
Explain what is the CNS made of.
Brain and spinal cord.
97
What is the CNS's function?
It controls behaviour and regulates the body's physiological processes. i.e. breathing, digestion, heartbeat.
98
What is the brain?
Centre of all consciousness and deals with higher order skills such as problem solving.
99
Define spinal cord.
Collection of nerve cells that are attached to the brain and run the length if the spinal column. It deals with some reflex responses without the brain.
100
What is the PNS?
It transmits of neurons to and from the CNS.
101
Which are the 2 subdivisions of the PNS?
1. Autonomic nervous system - inconscious involuntary
| 2. Somatic nervous system - conscious voluntary
102
Define the ANS.
Transmits and receives messages from the organs. It's made of the sympathetic (bodily arousal) and parasympathetic (bodily calm) of the NS.
103
Define the SNS.
Transmits and receives messages from the senses and controls muscle movement.
104
What do genes do?
They code for proteins that influence neurochemistry.
105
Define synaptic transmission.
Signals cross between neurons at the SYNAPSE. It refers to how the NS transmits information across a 'synaptic cleft' from one neuron to another, it's accomplished by the neurotransmitters.
106
Describe the process of synaptic transmission.
| learn diagram
1. Electrical impulse triggers vesicles to move to the pre-synaptic cell membrane.
2. Vesicles fuse with the membrane and release neurotransmitter into the synaptic cleft.
3. Neurotransmitter diffuses across the synapse and binds to receptors on the post-synaptic cell membrane.
4. Once enough receptors have neurotransmitters bound to them, the signal is transmitted.
107
What is a synaptic cleft?
The physical gap between nerve cells.
108
What are neurotransmitters?
Chemicals that diffuse across the synapse to the next neuron, they carry signals across the synaptic cleft to the receptor site. They can be excitatory or inhibitory in their action.
109
How can neurotransmitters affect behaviour?
In many ways. e.g. Having too low level of neurotransmitter serotonin is linked to higher levels of aggression.
110
Define summation.
Process that determines whether or not an action will be generated by the combined effects of excitatory and inhibitory signals,
111
What are 3 strengths of the biological approach?
- It has real life application; it argues depression is caused by chemical imbalance in brain, low serotonin.
- It's scientific, uses lab experiments.
- Evidence to support the influence of biological structures on behaviour. Case study: Phineas Gage.
112
Explain 2 weaknesses of the biological approach.
- It's deterministic.
| - It's reductionist.
