Approaches in Psychology Flashcards
Psychology Paper 2
what is a paradigm?
it consists of basic assumptions, ways of thinking and methods of study that are commonly accepted by members of a discipline or group.
what is a paradigm shift?
it is an important change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline (a change from one way of thinking to another).
what is objectivity?
it is not being influenced by personal opinions: being free from bias, based on facts (more scientific).
what is subjectivity?
it is not influenced by facts: based on opinions and could be biased.
who is wilhelm wundt and why is he considered the father of psychology?
he set up the first psychology lab in germany, 1879, he made psychology more of a science and he focused on studying the mind.
what did wundt emphasise?
the importance of using objective and controlled methods of investigating the mind and mentality.
what is wundt’s approach to studying behaviour?
he came up with the idea of structuralism, this is using experimetnal methods to find structures of thoughts.
what is introspection?
it is observing and examining your own conscious thoyghts and emotions (“looking into”).
what are the strengths of wundt’s methods and introspection?
they were systematic and well-controlled, which ensured that any possible extraneous variables were not a factor and his procedures were carefully standardised so that all participants were treated equally, this suggests that his research can be considered as a ‘lead’ to later scientific approaches e.g. the behaviourist approach.
what are the issues of wundt’s methods and introspection?
introspection does not explain how the mind actually works, it simply relies on people’s subjective thoughts, therefore not objective/scientific and it does not provide data that can be used with certain reliability - thoughts and feelings are constantly changing.
what is wundt’s role in the emergence of psychology as a science?
psychology began as a branch of philosophy, until 1879 when wundt opened the first psychology lab and showed that objective methods can be used to investigate the mind; this enabled him to separate psychology from philosophy through the use of structuralism and the scientific methods that he used allowed for data to be gathered objectively with no bias to gain accurate results.
how was wundt’s role in the emergence of psychology as a science effective?
- psychology began as a branch of philosophy, until 1879 when wundt opened the first psychology lab and showed that objective methods can be used to investigate the mind.
- he separated psychology from philosophy through the use of structuralism.
- he encouraged others to look for more effective ways of studying the mind.
he paved the way for other approaches.
what are the key assumptions of the behaviourist approach?
- the belief that all behaviour is learnt.
- only interested in behaviour that can be observed.
- rely on lab experiments and study behaviour under controlled conditions.
- research conducted on animals.
what is classical conditioning?
learning through association.
what did pavlov do in his study?
he investigated the salivary reflex of dogs and showed how they can be conditioned to associate the sound of a bell with food.
what did pavlov find in his study?
he found that when a neutral stimulus (NS) is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), then the NS becomes the conditioned stimulus (CS) with a conditioned response (CR).
before conditioning:
UCS (food) -> UCR (salivation)
NS (bell) -> NR (no response)
during conditioning:
UCS (food+bell) -> UCR (salivation)
after conditioning:
CS (bell) -> CR (salivation)
what did watson do in his study?
he conducted the ‘little albert’ experiment where he explored classical conditioning using a month old boy showing how classical conditioning plays a central role in developing fears in human beings.
what did watson find in his study?
he found that the baby had no reaction to the rat at first, but when the rat was associated with the loud noise, he began to show fear in response to the rat, even without the noise.
before conditioning:
NS (rat) -> NR (no fear)
UCS (loud noise) -> UCR (fear)
during conditioning:
NS+UCS (rat+loud noise) -> UCR (fear)
after conditioning:
CS (rat) -> CR (fear)
what is operant conditioning?
learning through reinforcement.
what are the 3 types of operant conditioning?
positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and punishment.
what is positive reinforcement?
receiving a reward for a behaviour makes it more likely that the behaviour will be repeated.
what is negative reinforcement?
where behaviour leads to the removal of something unpleasant, this increases the likelihood of behaviour being repeated.
what is punishment?
a negative consequence of behaviour, this decreases the chance of behaviour being repeated.
what did skinner do in his study?
he showed how reinforcement works in a controlled environment with rats: he placed rats in a skinner box (each had a variety of different stimuli - speaker, electric floor, food dispenser connected to lever) and he recorded the time that the rats took to press the lever.
what did skinner find in his study?
he found:
- positive reinforcement: rats pressed down on a lever to receive food and learnt to repeat this behaviour to gain more rewards.
- negative reinforcement: rats learnt to press down on the level to avoid unpleasant consequences of an electric shock.
what are the strenghts of the behaviourist approach?
there is research support, pavlov (dogs), skinner (rats), watson (little albert), they each show that behaviour can be learnt therefore supporting the approach.
the use of experimental methods (lab experiment), controlled conditions with basic stimulus, response units etc means other extraneous variables can be removed allowing cause-and-effect which adds scientific credibility, however the use of animal research cannot be generalised due to the complexity of human behaviour.
there is real-world application, application to schools e.g. detentions, reward charts, point systems which makes the approach useful (operant conditioning).
there is application to prisons and psychiatric wards, operant conditioning is the basis of token economy systems by rewarding appropriate behaviour with tokens that can be exchanged for privileges which increases value of behaviourist approach.
what is a weakness of the behaviourist approach?
the approach is only interested in studying behaviour that is observed so mental processes / aspects of the mind (subconscious) is not considered; only interested in the environment of people - how they behave and why.
what are the key assumptions of the social learning theory?
- human behaviour is learnt through experiences.
- focuses on how people learn - observational learning and modelling (imitating a model/ acting as a model).
- involves: identification, imitation, reinforcement.
- mediation processes (cognitive factors) play an important role in observational learning.
- learning can occur indirectly through vicarious reinforcement.
- most research is conducted using lab experiments.
what is imitation?
copying the behaviour of others.
what is identification?
when a learner associates themselves with the model and wishes to be like them.
what is modelling?
when a learner copies the behaviour of a model or the behaviours a role model performs are copied by a learner.
what are mediational processes?
they are internal mental processes that lie between stimulus and response, involved in learning (cognitive factors).
what are the four mediational processes?
attention, retention, reproduction and motivation.
what is attention?
the extent to which a learner notices the model’s behaviour.
what is retention?
how well the behaviour is remembered.
what is reproduction?
the learner’s ability to imitate the model’s behaviour?
what is motivation?
the will to perform the behaviour (rewarded/ punished).
what is vicarious reinforcement?
indirect learning (observing behaviour) leads to imitation if the behaviour is rewarded rather than punished and vicarious reinforcement occurs.
who conducted the bobo doll experiment and when?
bandura et al, 1961
what was bandura et al’s aim of their study?
to find out if social behaviours can be acquired by observation and imitation.
what did bandura et al do in their study?
he recorded the behaviour of 72 young children who watched behaviours of a role model and divided them into 3 groups; group 1 = aggressive role model, group 2 = non-aggressive role model, group 3 = no model and the children were later observed playing with various toys and assessed on their physical and verbal aggression and number of times using a mallet.
what did bandura et al find in their study?
- children who observed the aggressive model displayed both imitative and non-imitative aggression.
- identification occurred, children were more likely to copy behaviour of the same sex models (stronger for boys).
- girls = more physical aggression with male models, more verbal aggression with female models.
- boys = more physical aggression
- boys & girls = verbal aggression
what did bandura et al conclude in their study?
children can learn from the observation of adult models which suggests that learning can occur without reinforcement and that identification encourages imitation.
