approaches Flashcards
(15 cards)
who was the founding father of psychology
Wundt
6 A01 points for Wundt
- Wundt created the first lab in 1879 in Leipzig, Germany.
- He wrote the first book on psychology in 1873 called ‘principles of physiological psychology’.
- He used controlled and standardised procedures in his lab which separated psychology from philosophy.
- He also came up with introspection, which is asking ptts to look inside and reflect on their own cognitive processes.
- One of these procedures was a ticking metronome, where ppts were given standardised instructions and were asked to introspect on their thoughts, images and sensations which were systematically recorded.
- Introspection paved the way for structuralism which is identifying consciousness by breaking down behaviours into their basic elements of thoughts, images, and sensations.
- This also marked the beginning of scientific psychology breaking away from philosophy.
what is introspection
asking ptts to look inside and reflect on their own cognitive processes.
what is structuralism
identifying consciousness by breaking down behaviours into their basic elements of thoughts, images, and sensations.
example of wundts standardised procedure
ticking metronome, where ppts were given standardised instructions and were asked to introspect on their thoughts, images and sensations which were systematically recorded
strengths of Wundt
Wundt’s methodologies attempted to be scientific, and he used controlled, standardised procedures in a lab environment.
An example of this is a ticking metronome and used ppts to introspect t on their thoughts, feelings, and sensations.
This means all ptts were tested in the same way to check for reliability in Wundt’s findings
This is a strength as Wundt’s experiments had high reliability, so this paved the way for psychology to establish itself as the science it is today.
His contribution to psychology is that his research significantly shaped the future of psychology.
First person to attempt to study human behaviour in a scientific way using controlled and standardised procedures E.g., recording reaction ties in a systematic way to presented stimuli.
Without his contributions psychology may not be the academic subject it is today, highly regarded by university with scientific status.
limitations of Wundt
Some aspects of his work were subjective and lacked scientific rigour of today
He relied on self-report methods of introspection. Where ppts reported on their own mental processes, however this could’ve been affected by individual biases and ppts can also not report of their unconscious thoughts.
This makes it difficult to establish meaningful laws of behaviour in line with the aims of science
So, by today’s standards his methods were naive and wouldn’t meet the standards of scientific enquiry today.
what is meant by the behaviourst approach
a way of explaining behaviour in terms of what’s observable/measurable and in terms of learning.
Classical conditioning- learning by association
two main areas of the behaviourst approach
Classical conditioning-
Operant conditioning-
what is classical conditioning
Founded by Watson (1915) who rejected the vague idea of introspection and focussed on how we are a product of our learning.
Pavlov’s study
UCS – UCR (food produces a response of salivation)
NS + UCS – UCR (food is associated with the bell by occurring before to form a CS to act as a signal)
CS – CR (the bell is associated with food so dog then salivates which is the conditioned response
what is operant conditioning
Skinner (1953) used rats and pigeons in his skinners boxes to suggest we learn through reinforcement/ consequences.
Positive reinforcements- receiving a reward when certain behaviour is performed
Negative reinforcement – when someone avoids something unpleasant
Punishment- an unpleasant consequence of behaviour
Skinner’s research – skinners boxes were used to examine operant conditioning in rats and pigeons. Animal would move around in box, and when they pressed a lever on accident it would be rewarded by a food pellet. Animal would then learn through positive reinforcement so each time it pressed the lever it would be rewarded with food, so this is a new learnt voluntary behaviour which is repeated to receive a reward.
what are the 5 assumptions of the behaviourist approach
Observable and measurable events
Scientific controlled environment (labs)
Blank slate (tabula rasa) - that all behaviour is learnt from the environment and all new behaviour is from either operant or classical conditioning
Value of animal research – small difference between learning of humans and animals
Behaviour S-R response- all behaviour can be reduced to a simple stimulus- response association
what is environmental determinism
That humans have no choice in their behaviour and our behaviour is a product of environmental learning (argue that free will is an illusion).
strengths of the behaviourist approach
Scientific credibility with lots of empirical evidence which all contribute to the recognition of psychology as a science
Experimental methods, which rejected the idea of introspection, were used in animal studies pf Pavlov, showing classical conditioning learning by association and skinner, showing operant conditioning learning by rewards and punishment.
These were highly controlled lab experiments therefore can be replicated easily. The emphasis on the scientific methods led to a increasing valid and reliable understanding of human behaviour.
These methods help psychology gain credibility as a science which attracts funding and research opportunities.
Real world application shows the important contributions the behaviourist approach made to our modern understanding
E.g., many phobias are treated by systematic desensitation which is based on classical conditioning, furthermore addictions such as gambling can be understood through operant conditioning as rewards are used to reinforce the destructive behaviour.
These real-world applications of the behavioural approach improve and shows our understanding and treatment of the behaviour.
limitations of the behaviourist approach
Too reductionist and criticised for its limited views
Does not consider the role of other factors such as cognitive, biological and emotion that all influence behaviour, E.g., biological factors in the role of neurotransmitters, when we have a low level of serotonin this can increase the risk of depression or high levels of dopamine involved in OCD.
Skinner argued that for behaviour to be scientifically investigated it must be measurable and observable, which cognitions are not. However, this still ignores all the other factors which have lost of valid experiment research to support them.
Issues with animal extrapolation, in classical and operant conditioning most research is conducted on animals such as rats, pigeons and dogs
This assumes that the principles of learning identified in animals can be equally applied to humans
However, human brains are much different to animals and can think how to behave, we also have different social norms and moral values that mean we may behave differently to animals
This means the results gained from animals can only be generalised with caution to humans
