Approaches: The biological approach

Question 1

What is the biological approach?

Answer 1

Views humans as biological organisms and so provides biological explanations for all aspects of psychological functioning.

Question 2

What are the key assumptions of the biological approach?

Answer 2

Everything psychological is believed to be biological first and so, to understand human behaviour we need to look at genes, neurochemistry and biological structures.

Question 3

What’s a gene?

Answer 3

A part of a chromosome of an organism that carries information in the form of DNA.
Genes pass down physical and mental characteristics from one generation to another thus making them hereditary.

This is why offspring have similar/ identical psychological characteristics.

Question 4

What’s a genotype?

Answer 4

the genetic makeup of an individual – the collection of inherited genetic material that is passed down from generation to generation.

Question 5

What’s a phenotype?

Answer 5

the observable characteristics of an individual – the consequence of the interaction of the genotype with the environment.

Question 6

What’s evolution?

Answer 6

Certain behaviours are very common as they’re processes that previously gave us a survival advantage in our early evolutionary environment e.g., certain phobias and as a result have been passed down through generations.

Question 7

What’s natural selection?

Answer 7

the process by which inherited characteristics that improve an individual’s reproductive are passed on to the next generation and so become more widespread in the population over time.

Question 8

What is the nervous system?

Answer 8

The CNS comprised of the brain and spinal cord.

The PNS comprised of the somatic and autonomic nervous system.

The nervous system carries messages for one part of the body to another using neurons.

Neurons transmit nerve impulses in the form of electrical signals.

Question 9

What does the cerebrum and cerebral cortex do?

Answer 9

responsible for many high order functions such as thought and language.

Question 10

What is the cerebrum split into?

Answer 10

the left and right hemispheres

Question 11

What are the hemispheres divided into?

Answer 11

Frontal lobes
Temporal lobes
Parietal lobes
Occipital lobes

Question 12

What are the frontal lobes involved in?

Answer 12

speech, thought and learning processes

Question 13

What are the temporal lobes involved in?

Answer 13

hearing and memory

Question 14

What are the parietal lobes involved in?

Answer 14

processes sensory info like touch, temp, pain etc

Question 15

What are the occipital lobes involved in?

Answer 15

processes visual info

Question 16

What are hormones?

Answer 16

Chemicals that produced in the endocrine glands, like the pituitary gland.

they all build together to create the endocrine system.

Question 17

How do hormones act in the body?

Answer 17

In response to signals in the brain, hormones are secreted directly into the bloodstream by the endocrine gland.

Hormones travel to their target cells causing them to exert influence by stimulating receptors on the surface or inside cells.

The presence of the hormone causes a physiological reaction in the cell, altering its activity.

Question 18

What is neurochemistry?

Answer 18

the study chemical and neural processes associated with the nervous system.

Question 19

What are the 4 AO3 points for the biological approach?

Answer 19

+Uses the experimental method
+Twin studies
-Twin studies
-Reductionist

Question 20

(+AO3) How is the use of the experimental method a strength of the cognitive approach?

Answer 20

The biological approach uses the scientific method, particularly the experimental method as its main method of investigation.

Experimental studies take place in a highly controlled environment so that other research can fabricate research studies under the same experimental conditions, adding to the validity of the original findings if they can be reproduced.

The use of sophisticated imaging and recording techniques has increased to precision and objectivity of experimental research in this area stop as a result these techniques have contributed to the scientific validity of the biological approach.

Question 21

(+AO3) What are the advantages of twin studies?
(Concordance rates)

Answer 21

Twin studies provide evidence for the biological approach to explaining behaviour through the use of concordance rates.

Concordance rates are a measure of genetic similarity, which show the probability that two people will show the same characteristics/ behaviour.

Higher concordance rates in MZ/monozygotic (identical) twins than DZ/dizygotic (non-identical) twins which suggest increased similarity must be a result of of the increased shared genetics (100% for MZ, 50% for DZ) given that it’s assumed pairs of twins are raised in the same environments.

Question 22

(-AO3) What are the limits of twin studies?

Answer 22

An issue with twin studies is that we never get 100% concordance rates which suggests that genes alone can’t explain a particular behaviour.

Question 23

(-AO3) How could the biological approach be regarded as reductionist?

Answer 23

Criticised for believing that complex behaviour can be broken down into the actions of genes, neurochemicals, and hormones.

For example, many explanations of mental disorders are reductionist because genes or neurochemical imbalances are believed to be the main cause of these disorders.

However, while a reductionist approach lends itself to scientific investigation, we cannot fully understand behaviour without also considering other factors that influence it. These include cognitive, emotional, and cultural factors, all of which significantly influence behaviour.