Approaches In Psychology Flashcards
(15 cards)
Origins of Psychology - Wundt and Introspection (A01+A03)
Wundt and Introspection A01
- in 1879 Wundt opened the first ever lab dedicated to psychological discovery in Germany, Wundt’s research is significant in the history of psychology because it marked the beginning of scientific psychology and separated it from its philosophical roots, he aimed to analyse the nature of human consciousness and this the first systematic attempt to study the mind under controlled conditions, this method became known as introspection
- one of Wundt’s main objectives was to develop theories about mental processes like language and perception, he recorded his experiences of various stimuli they were presented with like objects and sound as well as dividing their observations into categories of sensations, thoughts, and images
- isolating the structure of consciousness is this way is called structuralism, the stimuli that Wundt and his colleagues experienced were always presented in the same order and same instructions to all participants (highly controlled, lab studies)
Wundt and Introspection (A03)
- a strength of Wundt’s research is that his methods were systematic and highly controlled and scientific, all introspections were recorded in highly controlled environments in a lab, ensuring that extraneous variables were not factoring on the findings, all procedures and instructions were standardised so all participants would have received the same information in the same way, this suggests that Wundt’s research can be used as a basis for future psychological research and approaches such as the biological approach, as well as being useful for increasing the validity of studies used in all areas of psychology
- a limitation is that Wundt’s research would be considered unscientific today as he recorded mental processes by relying on participants’ self-reports and because the data is subjective and could’ve been insincere or withheld and it is therefore difficult to establish the meaningful ‘laws of behaviour’ from this data, and general laws are useful to predict behaviour which is one of the laws of science, therefore this suggests that some of Wundt’s early efforts to study the mind would not meet scientific criteria today
Origins of Psychology - Psychology as a Science (A01+A03)
Psychology Emerging as a Science (A01)
- science involves building knowledge built through systematic and objective measures and to discover general laws
- in the early 20th century lots of behaviourists (most known is Watson) questioned the value of introspection because they produced subjective data so it was difficult to establish general laws, Watson and later Skinner argued that a truly scientific psychology should only study phenomenon that is observed objectively and measured, due to this behaviourists focused on behaviours that they could see and use controlled experiments, the approach went on to dominate scientific psychology for 50 years
- during the digital revolution a new generation of psychologists evolved to cognition and compared the mind to a computer and tested their predictions about memory and attention using experiments, the cognitive psychologists also made sure to use scientific and legitimate measures
- more recently the biological approach has advanced scientific psychology and researchers have taken advantage of technology to investigate physiological processes as they happen, fMRI scans are an example of how the biological approach has investigated brain activity as well as genetic testing to research the relationship between genes and behaviour
Psychology Emerging as a Science (A03)
- a strength is that research into modern psychology can claim to be scientific, psychology has the same aims of science - to understand, predict and control behaviour, the learning approaches, cognitive and biological approach all rely on the use scientific methods like lab studies which are highly controlled and unbiased, suggesting that throughout the 20th century and beyond psychology has established itself as a scientific discipline
- a limitation with psychology is that not all approaches use objective measures, the humanistic approach rejects the scientific approach and focuses on individual experiences and subjective experience, the psychodynamic approach uses case studies for research which is not a representative method of the population, finally the subjects of research being human being can be difficult to conclude findings as valid due to things like individual differences and demand characteristics, therefore a scientific approach to study human thoughts and experiences may not always be possible or desirable
Learning Approaches - The Behaviourist Approach (A01)
- behaviour learned from environment
- classical conditioning learning through association
- operant conditioning learning through consequence
Learning Approaches - The Behaviourist Approach (A03)
Learning Approaches - Social Learning Theory (A01)
Learning Approaches - Social Learning Theory (A03)
The Cognitive Approach (A01)
- internal mental processes should and can be studied scientifically and indirectly using models and inferences
- schemas are packages of information and ideas developed through experience that can affect cognitive processes, they act as a mental framework for the interpretation of incoming information received by the cognitive system, helps respond to an object appropriately and prevents you from being overwhelmed by environmental stimuli, babies are born with simple motor schemas for innate behaviours like sucking and grasping and as we get older schemas become more sophisticated, however schema may distort our interpretations of sensory information and can lead to perceptual or memory errors
- psychologists use theoretical and computer models to understand internal mental processes, theoretical models and abstract and computer models are concrete, one theoretical model is the information processing approach which involves information flowing through the cognitive system in stages of input, storage and retrieval, in the computer model this would involve actual programming into a computer to see if the output is similar to the human response, if it is then we can suggest similar processes are going on in the mind, computer models have proved to be useful in the development of thinking machines like AI
- cognitive neuroscience is the study of the influence of brain structures on mental processes, mapping particular areas of the brain to specific cognitive functions (eg. Broca), advances in technology have provided brain scans like fMRIs and PETs to be used to observe and describe the neurological basis of mental processes (eg. Tulving was able to show that the LTM has subcomponents of episodic and semantic), scanning techniques have also been used to establish the neurological basis of mental disorders such as the parahippocampal gyrus being associated with OCD, the focus of cognitive neuroscience has recently used computer generated models to ‘read’ the brain which has lead to the development of mind-mapping techniques (brain finger-printing) which has application in EWT to see if they’re lying
The Cognitive Approach (A03)
- a strength is that the methods used are scientific and objective, cognitive psychologists use highly controlled and thoughtful methods of study so researchers can infer (conclude) cognitive processes at work, lab studies make researchers able to control extraneous variables and increase validity of findings, cognitive neuroscience has enabled biology and cognitive psychology to come together and enhance the scientific basis of study, however research may lack external validity because of artificial stimuli and inferences being relied on rather than observation of behaviours
- real world application in AI and computer intelligence as well as therapy like CBT and cognitive interview for EWT
- limitation is machine reductionist as there are some similarities between humans and computers (input, outputs, storage) however the computer analogy has been criticised as it ignores the influence of human motivation and emotion which influences mental processes such as anxiety having an influence of memory
The Biological Approach (A01)
- all psychology was first biological so in order to understand behaviour we should look to biological structures and body processes from a biological perspective
- neurochemistry refers to chemical activity in the brain and our thoughts and behaviour relying on chemical transmission in the brain using neurotransmitters, an imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain can cause mental illness
- psychological characteristics (eg. intelligence) are inherited the same was as eye colour, twin studies are used to investigate whether psychological traits have a genetic basis which occurs by measuring concordance rates to measure whether twins share the same characteristics, if a characteristic is genetic we would expect monozygotic twins to be concordant whereas dizygotic twins may not, environment is always constant
- genotype is a person’s actual genetic makeup, phenotype is the way genes are expressed through their physical, psychological and behavioural characteristics, twins may have same genotypes but different phenotypes, biological psychologists accept the behaviour depends on the interaction between inherited factors and the environment
- Darwin proposed natural selection on the basis of evolution, genetically determined behaviour that enhances a person’s survival and reproduction will continue to future generations,
The Biological Approach (A03)
- strength real life application, neurochemistry has helped treat clinical depression and OCD with antidepressants
- scientific methods, lab studies, high internal validity and control
- biological determinism, ignores cognition and environment, crime gene?
The Psychodynamic Approach (A01)
- Freud suggested that conscious mind is the tip of the iceberg and that the mind is mostly made up of the unconscious which stores biological drives and instincts that have an influence on behaviour and personality and also contains threatening or disturbing memories that have been repressed or forgotten which can be expressed through dreams or slips of the tongue (parapraxes), between is the preconscious which contains thoughts and memories that are not in our conscious but we can access if desired
- structure of personality has three parts: the id the superego and the ego, id operates on the pleasure principle and is the primitive part of personality, unconscious drives and instincts, only the id is present at birth and throughout life demands gratification, ego works on the reality principle and is the mediator between two other parts, develops around 2 and role is to reduce conflicts between superego and id by using defense mechanisms, superego works on the morality principle and is developed in the phallic stage at age 5, it is our internal sense of right and wrong and represents moral standards of the child’s same sex parent and punishes the ego for wrongdoing (guilt)
- psychosexual stages from birth to teens and each stage has a conflict to overcome otherwise resulting in fixation
1. oral stage, 0-1, pleasure focus is mouth, fixation leads to smoking, nail biting
2. anal stage, 1-3, pleasure in anus, anal retentive and anal expulsive
3. phallic, 3-5, pleasure in genital area, oedipus electra complex, phallic personality
4. latent, earlier conflicts are repressed
5. genital, puberty and sexual desires, relationship difficulty - ego uses defense mechanisms to prevent us from feeling overwhelmed by traumas, used to balance id and superego and often involve some sort of distortion of reality; repression, denial, displacement
The Psychodynamic Approach (A03)
- real world application of psychotherapy, Freud created psychoanalysis which treats mental disorders psychologically rather than physically, techniques to assess the unconscious like dream analysis, brings repressed emotions into conscious to address them, is the basis of talk therapies now like counselling
- untestable, the theory focuses purely on the unconscious which cannot be observed, does not meet scientific criterion of falsification, is not open to empirical testing, his ideas were based on subjective studies of individuals like Little Hans so is ungeneralisable
- sexualises kids
- psychic determinism
The Humanistic Approach (A01)
The Humanistic Approach (A03)
Comparison of Approaches
