Approaches

Question 1

The cognitive approach emphasises the importance of internal processes

Answer 1

The cognitive approach is concerned with how thinking shapes behaviour. It was developed as a reaction against the behaviourist stimulus response approach. As a result, the cognitive approach has investigated those areas of human behaviour that were neglected such as memory perception and thinking.

Question 2

Computer analogy

Answer 2

Cognitive psychologists think the mind works like a computer stating the mind also has input processes and outputs. This is known as the information processing model.

Question 3

Use of theoretical models

Answer 3

One way cognitive psychologists study internal processes is through the use of theoretical models which are visual/pictorial representations of concepts.

Question 4

Schemas: Bartlett

Answer 4

Bartlett introduced the concept of a schema as a cognitive framework that categorises and interprets information.

Question 5

Schemas: access info quickly

Answer 5

Schemas enable us to process lots of information quickly and this is useful as a mental shortcut that prevents us from being overwhelmed by environmental stimuli.

Question 6

Schemas: can lead to distortion

Answer 6

Schemas can distort our interpretations of sensory information leading to perceptual errors. They can also lead to stereotyping in therefore prejudice.

Question 7

Cognitive neuroscience and practical

Answer 7

Involves the use of brain scanning technology such as PET and MRI scans to show how different parts of the brain become active in different cognitive activities and emotions.

Question 8

The psychodynamic approach

Answer 8

All psychodynamic theories emphasise the importance of unconscious motives and desires and the importance of early childhood experiences in shaping personality.

Question 9

Tripartite theory of personality: ID

Answer 9

Present birth and contains the innate drives operate solely in the unconscious. Ruled by the pleasure principle and is an inborn drive to seek immediate satisfaction. It is the rational primitive part of personality and contains libido.

Question 10

Tripartite theory: ego

Answer 10

Governed by the reality principle, the ego mediates between the impulsive demands of the ID the super ego and the reality of the external world.

Question 11

Tripartite theory: super ego

Answer 11

Develops around age 5 and it determines which behaviours are acceptable and causes feelings of guilt when rules are broken governed by the morality principal. The ego-ideal is what a person strives for.

Question 12

Defence mechanisms

Answer 12

Defence mechanisms are unconscious strategies used by the ego to manage the anxiety caused by the conflict of the ID and super ego.

Question 13

Repression

Answer 13

Unconscious blocking of unacceptable thoughts, impulses and memories.

Question 14

Denial

Answer 14

Refusing to believe reality.

Question 15

Displacement

Answer 15

Transferring feelings of the source to someone else.

Question 16

Use of defence mechanisms

Answer 16

Unconscious processes, conflict and anxiety, personality development and therapeutic insight.

Question 17

Psychosexual stages

Answer 17

Psychodynamic theory states that events in our childhood have a great influence on our adult lives shaping our personality. Events that occur in childhood can remain in the unconscious and caused problems as adults. Freud proposed that all children go through the same five stages of development.

Question 18

Oral

Answer 18

0-1 years focus of pleasure is in the mouth the mother’s breast is the object of desire. If unresolved or will fixation such as smoking, biting nails, sarcasm and critical behaviour can occur.

Question 19

Anal

Answer 19

1-3 yes focus of pleasure in the anus. Child gains pleasure from withholding and expelling faeces. Unresolved equals anal-retentive: perfectionist and obsessive or anal expulsive: thoughtless and messy.

Question 20

Phallic

Answer 20

3-5 yes focus of pleasure is the genital area child experiences the Oedipus complex or Electra complex. Unresolved = phallic personality meaning narcissistic, reckless and possibly homosexual.

Question 21

Latency

Answer 21

6-12 years earlier conflicts are repressed.

Question 22

Genital

Answer 22

12+ sexual desires become conscious alongside the onset of puberty. Unresolved = difficulty forming heterosexual relationships.

Question 23

Oedipus complex

Answer 23

When boys have an unconscious desire for their mother. They have hostility towards their father and worry their father will castrate them (castration anxiety). To resolve the conflict they then identify with their father and internalise his identity. Occurs during the phallic stage.

Question 24

Electra complex

Answer 24

Girls become subconsciously sexually attracted to her father and increasingly hostile towards her mother. They get penis envy as they realise they have not got one and this leads them to want to baby instead. To resolve the conflict, they then identify with their mother and internalise her identity. Occurs in the phallic stage.

Question 25

The humanistic approach

Answer 25

Focused on discovering what it means to be fully human and emphasises the study of the whole person known as holism. It rejects a rigourous scientific approach to psychology because it is seen as the humanising to capture the richness of conscious experience.

Question 26

Assertion of free will

Answer 26

Free will is the idea that humans have a choice in how they behave humanistic psychology assumes that every individual can assert free will.

Question 27

Maslow hierarchy of needs

Answer 27

Maslow suggested that individuals are intrinsically motivated to work up through the hierarchy step-by-step. The needs become more psychological as you move up and the needs are harder to satisfy the higher you go up.

Question 28

Physiological

Answer 28

Breathing food, water, sex sleep homeostasis excretion

Question 29

Safety

Answer 29

Security of body of employment of resources of morality of the family of health of property.

Question 30

Love and belonging

Answer 30

Friendship family sexual intimacy

Question 31

Esteem

Answer 31

Self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others respect by others

Question 32

Self actualisation

Answer 32

Morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem-solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts

Question 33

Self actualisation definition

Answer 33

Self actualisation means that a person becomes the best version of themselves they can be.

Question 34

Roger’s view of self-worth

Answer 34

Roggers argues good relationships with supportive parents in childhood and later with friendships and partners directly impact on psychological well-being.

Question 35

Unconditional positive regard

Answer 35

This means love and acceptance is unconditional. It is not withdrawn if a person does something wrong.

Question 36

Congruence

Answer 36

Congruence describes a state in which a person self and ideal self are consistent. The development of congruence is dependent on unconditional positive regard.

Question 37

Conditions of worth

Answer 37

Means that an individual feels they must behaviour in certain ways to achieve positive regard.

Question 38

Roggers influence on counselling

Answer 38

Rogers believed in a person-centred approach counselling. The role of the therapist in this process is to provide unconditional positive regard to the client by expressing acceptance and empathy. This will help close the gap between the perceived and the ideal self. The gap can be reduced by developing and more healthy view of oneself or has a more achievable and realistic ideal self.

Question 39

The behaviourist approach

Answer 39

Way of explaining behaviour in terms of what is observable and in terms of learning.

Question 40

Behaviour is learnt

Answer 40

Behaviourism sees behaviour as learnt through interactions with the environment not inborn. It develops to conditioning where actions are shaped by rewards punishments or associations.

Question 41

Assumptions

Answer 41

tabula rasa - born with a blank slate behaviour as learned from the environment through classical and operant conditioning. Scientific methodology: behaviourism is concerned with observable and measurable characteristics measured in highly controlled environments to establish cause and effect Animal subjects: there is a little difference between the learning that takes place in humans and other animals so research is carried out on animals as well as humans. Behaviour is as a result of stimulus response: all behaviour no matter how complex can be reduced to a stimulus response association.

Question 42

Classical conditioning

Answer 42

Learning through the association of two repeatedly paired together stimulus. Occurs when an unconditioned stimulus and neutral stimulus are paired. The neutral stimulus eventually produces the same response that was first produced by the unlearned stimulus alone.

Question 43

Pavlov

Answer 43

Pavlov’s study on classical conditioning involves dogs learning to associate a neutral stimulus of a bell with food. After repeated pairing, the dog began to salivate at the sound of the bell alone showing that land association could trigger a natural response.

Question 44

Watson and Rayner

Answer 44

Study showed classical conditioning in humans by teaching a baby to fear a white rat. Initially unafraid Albert was exposed to the rat paired with loud noise and after repeated pairing he began to fear the rat alone demonstrating that fear can be learned through association.

Question 45

Operant conditioning

Answer 45

Learning through reinforcement. A form of learning in which behaviour is shaped and maintained by its consequences. Possible consequences of behaviour include positive reinforcement negative reinforcement or punishment.

Question 46

Skinner

Answer 46

Conducted an experiment in a Skinner box involving placing a rat inside a cage with a lever that could release food. Initially the rat would accidentally press the lever but overtime it learnt that pressing the lever resulted in a food reward. This demonstrated operant conditioning behaviour is shaped by consequences reinforced through rewards. Positive reinforcement: rewarding a behaviour to increase the frequency. Negative reinforcement: removing an unpleasant stimulus to increase the frequency behaviour. Punishment: introducing an unpleasant stimulus to decrease the frequency of a behaviour.

Question 47

Environmental determinism

Answer 47

Argues that humans have no choice in their behaviour and our behaviour is simply the product of environmental learning. They argue free well it’s just an illusion.

Question 48

A bridge between behaviourism and cognitivism

Answer 48

Social learning theory act as a bridge between behaviourism and cognitive ism by showing how both environmental and mental processes influence behaviour. It goes beyond behaviourism by recognising that learning involves internal cognitive factors like attention and memory.

Question 49

Learning through others

Answer 49

Bandura agreed with the behaviourist that much of our behaviour is learned from experience, but he argued that people learn through observation modelling and imitation of others.

Question 50

Role models – identification

Answer 50

Learning occurs to the observation of role models, people are more likely to imitate a role model if they identify with them. Modelling is a process process that occurs during social learning. Modelling can occur when an observer imitates a role model.

Question 51

Vicarious reinforcement

Answer 51

Involves learning through observation of the consequences of actions for other people. When a learner observes someone, they identify with receive reinforcement is motivated to irritate the behaviour as they had reinforced themselves.

Question 52

Mediational processes

Answer 52

We do not automatically observe the behaviour of a model and imitate it. There is some thought prior to imitation and this consideration is called mediational processes.

Question 53

Attention

Answer 53

For behaviour to be imitated it has to grab our attention. Attention is extremely important in whether behaviour has an influence in others imitating it.

Question 54

Retention

Answer 54

Retention: the behaviour may be noticed but it is not always remembered which obviously prevents imitation. It is important therefore that a memory of the behaviour is formed to be performed later by the observer.

Question 55

Motor reproduction.

Answer 55

This is the ability of the observe to perform the behaviour.

Question 56

Motivation

Answer 56

Motivation: the rewards and punishment the following behaviour will be considered by the observer. If the perceived rewards outweigh the perceived costs then the behaviour will be more likely to be imitated by the observer.

Question 57

Bandura’s Bobo doll study

Answer 57

Demonstrated that children could learn aggressive behaviours through observation. In the study children watched an adult either act aggressively or calmly towards a Bobo doll. Those who observed the aggressive behaviour are more likely to imitate it showing that behaviours can be learned through social observation an imitation.

Question 58

The biological approach

Answer 58

The biological approach suggest that everything psychological is at first biological.

Question 59

Genes

Answer 59

Genetic information carried by DNA in chromosomes and are passed on through generations of species.

Question 60

Genotype

Answer 60

The actual genetic constitution of a person repairing of the alleles for a particular trait.

Question 61

Phenotype

Answer 61

The way genes are expressed through observable characteristics shown by the individual. These are due to a combined effect of genes and the environment.

Question 62

Twin concordance studies Gottesman

Answer 62

Investigate the genetic basis of schizophrenia found MZ had 48% concordance whereas DZ had only 17% concordance rate.

Question 63

Twin concordance studies McGuffin

Answer 63

Investigated the genetic basis of depression. With MZ at 46% concordance and DZ at 20% concordance. Since the result are not 100% it shows there must be environmental factors mediating.

Question 64

Evolutionary psychology Fessler

Answer 64

Found women in their first trimester scored higher in the discussed sensitivity the women in the second and third trimester. Women who had this stronger discuss response may have had more successful pregnancies passing on this trait to future generations making it an adaptive mechanism.

Question 65

Serotonin/depression Cockett et al

Answer 65

Found that abnormally low levels of serotonin are linked to aggressive behaviour suggesting a link to impulsive control.

Question 66

Dopamine/schizophrenia Davis

Answer 66

Increases in dopamine in specific brain pathways has been linked to symptoms of schizophrenia.

Question 67

The role of hormones

Answer 67

Hormones are chemicals that are produced by glands which together make up for the endocrine system they cause a physical reaction in the target cell altering its activity.

Question 68

Increased testosterone in hockey players Carre et al

Answer 68

Found that testosterone increased in Canadian ice hockey players when they played at home. This rise was linked to more aggression likely because they felt more territorial. The study suggest testosterone prepares players to defend their home ground.

Question 69

Functional role of the lobes of the brain

Answer 69

Different parts of the brain are responsible for different functions such as the priority lobe being responsible for sensory processing and spatial awareness.