APPROACHES: The Biological Approach

Question 1

What is the biological approach?

Answer 1

A perspective that emphasises the importance of physical processes in the body such as genetic inheritance and neural function.

Question 2

what are the assumptions of the biological approach?

Answer 2

• behaviour has a genetic basis
  -many aspects of human behaviour can be explained in terms of localised areas of the brain
  -damage to certain parts of the brain can lead to changes in behaviour or characteristics.

Question 3

What are genes?

Answer 3

section of dna which make up chromosomes and codes the physical and psychological features of an organism .
genes are transmitted from parents to offspring.

Question 4

What are twin studies?

Answer 4

They are used to investigate whether certain psychological characteristics have a genetic basis by comparing concordance rates between pairs of twins.

Question 5

what does concordance rate mean in the twin studies?

Answer 5

the extent to which the twins share the same characteristic.

Question 6

what are monozygotic twins?

Answer 6

identical twins

Question 7

what are dizygotic twins?

Answer 7

non-identical twins

Question 8

How does the twin studies prove that behaviour are from a genetic biological basis? Why?

Answer 8

if monozygotic twins have a higher concordance rate than dizygotic twins for a certain behaviour, then this would suggest a genetic biological basis.

monozygotic twins share 100% of their genes and dizygotic twins share about 50%

Question 9

what is genotype?

Answer 9

the particular set of genes a person posesses.

Question 10

what is a phenotype?

Answer 10

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

Question 11

what is PKU?

Answer 11

phenylketonuria - a rare genetic disorder that can be identified in babies using a heel prick test.if left unchecked, it causes learning difficulties in those who carry the genotype. if detected early, the child can be placed on a restricted diet.

Question 12

what is evolution?

Answer 12

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

Question 13

what are the STRENGTHS of the biological approach?

Answer 13

• makes good use of scientific methods - fMRI,twin studies. The use of experimental method involves a high level of control and allows cause and effect to be infered. It also increases reliability and validity of conclusions drawn.
• as technology advances, biological studies will become more accurate
• there is real life application - the development of psychoactive drugs and things to prevent disorders such as PKU and depression, so sufferers can live normally.
• mental illnesses can be explained in terms of the brain and the body, so removes the blame from the individual, possibly increasing self esteem

Question 14

what are the LIMITATIONS of the biological approach?

Answer 14

• drugs may not work on everyone ( treatment)
• Biological determinism - sees human behaviour as governed by internal genetic causes over which we have no control over
• ignores the effects of the environment. The social learning theory looks at the effects of environement as Banduras study showed that the children learnt aggression through the influence of the video they were watching.This explains how the environment influences the childrens behaviour.
• the scientific methods used by biopsychologists might reduce behaviours to unrealistic actions and therefore lose sight of the possible impact of factors such as cognition and culture on behaviour
• danger of looking for biological cause of all behaviours have led to problems like the search of the ‘criminal gene’