Approaches Key Words

Question 1

What is Psychology?

Answer 1

The scientific study of the mind, behaviour and experience.

Question 2

What is Science in the context of psychology?

Answer 2

A means of acquiring knowledge through systematic and objective investigation. The aim is to discover general laws.

Question 3

What is Introspection?

Answer 3

The first systematic experimental attempt to study the mind by breaking up conscious awareness into basic structures of thoughts, images and sensations.

Question 4

What is the Behaviourist approach?

Answer 4

A way of explaining behaviour in terms of what is observable and in terms of learning.

Question 5

What is Classical conditioning?

Answer 5

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

Question 6

What is Operant conditioning?

Answer 6

A form of learning in which behaviour is shaped and maintained by its consequences.

Question 7

What is Positive reinforcement?

Answer 7

Receiving a reward when a certain behaviour is performed (increases the likelihood of behaviour repeating).

Question 8

What is Negative reinforcement?

Answer 8

When you avoid something unpleasant and the outcome is a positive experience.

Question 9

What is Social learning theory?

Answer 9

A way of explaining behaviour that includes both direct and indirect reinforcement - combining learning theory with the role of cognitive processes.

Question 10

What is Imitation?

Answer 10

Copying the behaviour of others.

Question 11

What is Identification?

Answer 11

A desire to be associated with a particular person or group often because they possess desirable characteristics.

Question 12

What is Modelling?

Answer 12

Imitating the behaviour of a role model.

Question 13

What is Vicarious reinforcement?

Answer 13

Reinforcement which is not directly experienced but occurs through observing someone else being reinforced.

Question 14

What are Mediational processes?

Answer 14

Cognitive factors that influence learning and come between stimulus and response: Attention, Retention, Reproduction, Motivation.

Question 15

What is the Cognitive approach?

Answer 15

How our mental processes (thoughts, perceptions and attention) affect behaviour.

Question 16

What are Internal mental processes?

Answer 16

‘Private’ operations of the mind such as perception and attention that mediate between stimulus and response.

Question 17

What is inference in cognitive psychology?

Answer 17

The process whereby cognitive psychologists draw conclusions about the way mental processes operate on the basis of observations.

Question 18

What is a schema?

Answer 18

A mental framework of beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processing (developed from experience).

Question 19

What is cognitive neuroscience?

Answer 19

The scientific study of those biological structures that underpin cognitive processes.

Question 20

What does the biological approach emphasize?

Answer 20

The importance of physical processes in the body such as genes and neural function.

Question 21

What are genes?

Answer 21

They make up chromosomes and consist of DNA which codes the physical features.

Question 22

What is a genotype?

Answer 22

The particular set of genes that a person possesses.

Question 23

What is a phenotype?

Answer 23

The characteristics of an individual determined by both genes and the environment.

Question 24

What is evolution?

Answer 24

The changes in inherited characteristics in a biological population over successive generations.

Question 25

What is natural selection?

Answer 25

The process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring.

Question 26

What is sexual selection?

Answer 26

Natural selection arising through preference by one sex for certain characteristics in individuals of the other sex.

Question 27

What is the psychodynamic approach?

Answer 27

A perspective that describes the different forces most of which are unconscious that operate on the mind and direct human behaviour and experience.

Question 28

What is the unconscious?

Answer 28

The part of the mind that we are unaware of but which directs much of our behaviour.

Question 29

What is the Id?

Answer 29

Entirely unconscious, the Id is made up of selfish aggressive instincts that demand instant gratification.

Question 30

What is the Ego?

Answer 30

The 'reality check' that balances the conflicting demands of the Id and the Superego.

Question 31

What is the Superego?

Answer 31

The moralistic part of our personality which represents the ideal self.

Question 32

What are defence mechanisms?

Answer 32

Unconscious strategies that the Ego uses to manage the conflict between the Id and the Superego.

Question 33

What is repression?

Answer 33

Forcing a distressing memory out of the conscious mind.

Question 34

What is denial?

Answer 34

Refusing to acknowledge some aspect of reality.

Question 35

What is displacement?

Answer 35

Transferring feelings from true source of distressing emotion onto a substitute target.

Question 36

What are psychosexual stages?

Answer 36

5 developmental stages that all children pass through. At each stage there is a different conflict, the outcome of which affects future development.

Question 37

What is the humanistic approach?

Answer 37

An approach to understanding behaviour that emphasises capacity for self-determination.

Question 38

What is free will?

Answer 38

The notion that humans can make choices and their behaviour is not determined by internal or external factors.

Question 39

What is self-actualisation?

Answer 39

The desire to grow psychologically and fulfil one's potential - becoming what you are capable of.

Question 40

What is the hierarchy of needs?

Answer 40

A 5 levelled hierarchy in which basic psychological needs must be satisfied before higher needs can be achieved.

Question 41

What does self refer to in psychology?

Answer 41

The ideas and values that characterise 'I' and 'me', including perception and valuing of 'what I am' and 'what I can do'.

Question 42

What is congruence in Rogerian therapy?

Answer 42

The aim of Rogerian therapy when the self-concept and the ideal self are seen to broadly accord/match.

Question 43

What are conditions of worth?

Answer 43

When a parent places limits on their love of their children.

Question 44

What is determinism?

Answer 44

The view that an individual's choices are controlled by internal or external factors.

Question 45

What is soft determinism?

Answer 45

Behaviours may be predicted but there is also room for personal choice.

Question 46

What is hard determinism?

Answer 46

All behaviour is caused by something so free will is an illusion.

Question 47

What is holism?

Answer 47

It only makes sense to study an indivisible system (as a whole) rather than its individual parts.

Question 48

What is reductionism?

Answer 48

The belief that human behaviour is best understood by studying smaller parts.

Question 49

What is idiographic approach?

Answer 49

Focuses more on the individual's case as a means for understanding behaviour rather than aiming to create general laws.

Question 50

What is nomothetic approach?

Answer 50

Aims to study human behaviour through the development of general principles and universal laws.