PSY311 2. Theories and Perspectives Flashcards

Question

II. The Behaviorist Viewpoint: John B. Watson

Answer 1

arguing for more objective methodology at the time, introspection was popular - describing mental processes • Habits as building blocks

Answer 2

• Little Albert study (1920)

Answer 3

arguing for more objective methodology at the time, introspection was popular - describing mental processes firmly assigned psychology to the natural sciences trying to push it toward hard science set of goals: prediction and control of behaviour completely rejected introspection - controversial accepted evolutionary model of behaviour animals and humans are the same - humans should be seen as an animal How children turn out is due to nurture alone Believes in tabula rasa viewpoint was quite extreme Habit: association between stimulus and learned response Fear could be elicited by loud noise or taking mother away in infancy Older range develop a wider range of stimuli and responses for fear due to conditioning Little Albert: 11 month old infant - paired Albert touching the rat with loud noise When rat was presented alone, he was conditioned to fear He generalized the stimulus - he was afraid of rabbits They could only test whether it could be conditioned and if it generalized Went into industrial-organizational psych after academia

Answer 4

* Was never able to predict all responses from the stimulus * Data never fully supported all his claims • But his lasting impact: * By 1930s brought behaviorism to the centre of American experimental psychology * Helped make psychology more scientific * Ideas consistent with the American ideal * Bridged the gap between basic and applied psychology

Answer 5

American Ideal: can do anything Applied: Dealing with phobia Applied: Dealing with phobia

Answer 6

RadicalBehaviorism • Operantconditioning– behavior “operates” on the environment to produce an outcome – We repeat actions that produce favorable outcomes – We suppress actions that produce unfavorable outcomes

Answer 7

-rewarding outcomes: reproduce actions we unknowingly teach children how to act through parenting styles aggression develops after reinforcement which can take many forms Radical: maintained emphasis on observable behaviours + different mediators such as emotions and thoughts

Answer 8

Social-Cognitive Theory • Observational learning • BoboDollstudy(1965)

Answer 9

Skinner placed too much emphasis on development from external stimulus and not enough on thoughts and emotions Humans are more complex We’re more affected by what we perceive will happen than the actual consequence observational: learn from other people (models)

Answer 10

Cognitive abilities Physical characteristics Beliefs and attitudes Behaviour Motor responses Verbal responses Social interactions Environment Child Physical surroundings Family and friends Other social influences

Answer 11

-Watson - environmental determinism: child’s behaviour was influenced only by environment Bandura believed that children were not passive in learning: they had to pay attention, encode info and choose to behave aggressively He believed in reciprocity

Answer 12

• Theories are very precise and testable – Many scientific contributions • Contributions to applied and clinical work • Downplays the importance of genetics in development • Low external validity • Ignores the child’s level of cognitive development

Answer 13

Clinical work: behavioural modification techniques Token economy: positive reinforcement techniques in teaching Cons: both genetics and environment important most studies were done in the lab - we need to put them in their natural environment in order to generalize doesn’t talk about child’s reasoning abilities not all children are the same cognitively

Answer 14

``` • 4 stages of cognitive development – invariant sequence • Cognitive schemes • Adaptation – Assimilation – Accommodation ```

Answer 15

-studied in 1920s - created standardized IQ tests Children of the same age gave similar answers Asked children about thought processes invariant: in order to progress, you need to master abilities in previous stage patterns of thoughts used to organize the world information and relationships among them Adaptation: adapting to world Assimilation: when children incorporate new experiences into existing schemas Accommodation: makes changes in existing schema to adapt to new experiences first try to assimilate - less cognitive load accommodation occurs more as people mature

Answer 16

``` Stage Age Key Skills Key Limitations Sensorimotor Bir th-Age 2 Voluntary imitation, inner experimentation, object permanence Deferred imitation Preoperational Age 2- Age 7 ```

Answer 17

Symbolic function, pretend play. egocentrism Conser vation (reversibility and compensation) Concrete- Operational Age 7- Ages 11/12 Logical thinking, seriation, transitivity Hypothetical reasoning Formal- Operational Ages 11/12+ Hypothetico-deductive reasoning, egocentrism (imaginary audience, personal fable)

Answer 18

sensorimotor: dramatic cognitive advancements - most throughout life 6 substages coordinate sensory input and motor responses ability to imitate becomes more complex and fine tuned deferred imitation: reproducing actions at a later time at age 2: when someone leaves they wave inner experimentation: 18 months - figuring things out in head they usually do experimentation Object permanence: realization that things still exist even without seeing, hearing, smelling, or feeling them they can find where the object is hidden Preoperational: playing is crucial for development increase social, emotional, and intelectual developmement egocentricism: they view world from own perspective, don’t have theory of mind 2 mountains task: sit at different ends at the child’s end would put different objects, child assumes that you have same perspective as him/her cognitive perspective taking: lack of empathy and sympathy conservation: failure to realize that if you change way something look, you are not changing the properties of that object need to have concept of reversibility (backwards in head) + compensation (focus on 2 things at once) Concrete: capable of seriation - organizing things in quantifiable dimension e.g. order from longest to shortest Formal: thinking about ideas (abstract concepts + hypothetical situations) egocentrism: imaginary audience (feel like everyone is watching you) + personal fable (feel like everything that happens to them is important and unique, think they are special and immune)

Answer 19

* Much of Piaget’s research was anecdotal or with his own children * Some theories have been proven incorrect – Underestimated children’s reasoning abilities * Stages may not occur in an invariant sequence

Answer 20

• Ignores cultural and social influences on development • But large impact on education and field of social cognition, valuable framework for cognitive development

Answer 21

Ethology – study of human or animal behavior from a biological perspective • Konrad Lorenz Imprinting in geese, natural selection • John Bowlby Adaptive significance of crying • Sensitive period, in humans first 3 years

Answer 22

-Lorenz: studied 2 groups of geese: 1 that he raised, other raised by the mother they thought he was their mother different species are born with biological mechanisms products of evolution that help infants survive Geese that could imprint on their mothers would survive Thus evolution occurred through natural selection Bowlby: crying is a distress signal to get their needs met it helps form an emotional attachment to caregivers critical period: geese 13-16 hours where imprinting occurs, afterward, doesn’t happen sensitive period: humans more adaptable more sensitive at this time to environmental influences abilities and skills can develop outside this period, but it’s more difficult

Answer 23

-• Survival of the fittest? • Humans are social animals • Empathy is present at birth – Sagi & Hoffman (1976) • Mirror neurons

Answer 24

-not congruent with evolutionary standpoint humans as a social species developed a tendency for prosocial behaviour to help us live and work together people who were more social survived to pass their genes Mere-cats: several watch over the den and scream to alert everyone, sacrificing themselves Empathy roots are present at birth only the babies who heard the sound of a real baby crying started to cry themselves, not when they heard fake computer crying and no sound at all mirror neurons: cells that fire when they witness an event and reproduce the same event

Answer 25

• Study of how genotypes and environment contribute to phenotypes • Biological basis for why we differ (variation among species) • Methods of studying heritability: – Selective breeding (animals) – Family studies (humans) • Twin design • Adoption design

Answer 26

-genotypes: genes inherited + phenotype: how genetics are expressed twins may have same genotype, but they don’t turn out exactly the same heritability: how much traits can be attributed to genetics? - how good rats were are maze running - he bred 2 types of rats (bright and dull) - controlled for environmental influence - each generation slowly either better and better or worse and worse - concluded that maze running can be inherited - study has been replicated family studies - twin design: if identical twins raised together are more similar than fraternal twins or when raised aparat - adoption design: if adopted people are more similar to adoptive parents or biological parents

Answer 27

1 Passive genotype/environmental correlation – Parents both pass down genes and also create environments that suit those genes • Important early in life 2 Evocative genotype/environmental correlation – Children’s genes affect their environments • Important throughout life 3 Active genotype/environmental correlation – Children seek out environments that suit their genes • Important as the child matures

Answer 28

=genes can change our environment 1. e.g. introverted parents pass down gene, but also may not have many social gatherings at their house hard to differentiate where trait comes from 2. e.g. introverted children are more withdrawn don’t make friends as easily, thus remain more introverted 3. e.g. seek out chess club, than debate club which perpetuates introversion

Answer 29

``` • Uri Bronfenbrenner (1979) • “Asetofnestedstructures,each inside the next, like... Russian dolls” • Microsystem – immediate setting • Mesosystem – interconnections among microsystems ```

Answer 30

-• Exosystem – environments outside the child’s immediate world • Macrosystem – broad context in which all other systems are embedded • Chronosystem – development occurs over time and its course can be influenced by changes in the child and/or the environment

Answer 31

-most detailed analysis of environment microsystem: e.g. family + classroom mesosystem: e.g. parents more engaged in children’s learning have more success in school exosystem: things that have indirect effect on child’s life e. g. parent’s work-life - parent is in bad mood affecting their parenting macrosystem: e.g. culture, social class chronosystem: events that happen during childhood e. g. divorce that occurs at 3, differently affects them if they were 16 we can conceptualize the influence of factors such as parenting doesn’t take into account how they process experiences or the biological factors

Answer 32

• LevVygotsky • Culture has important influences on development – Elementary mental functions higher mental functions – Tools of intellectual adaptation • Early social interactions shape our characteristics and skills

Answer 33

-Builds on Piaget culture transforms elementary functions that lead to higher mental functions Vygotsky concerned with how others help with development Guided learning: how early social interactions shape skills

Answer 34

* Zone of proximal development (ZPD) • Scaffolding | * Private speech, inner speech – language!

Answer 35

-ZPD: sweet spot between what a child already knows and the things beyond level of comprehension things that child can do with guidance from someone more cognitively mature this is how they learn best Scaffolding: not giving something too easy for the child, but also not too hard it’s beyond them with a little help and motivation, they can learn to do things by themselves Inner Speech: conversations with ourselves speech mediator for learning young children practice private speech - use verbal instructions to guide themselves as we get older, we don’t have to vocalize it private speech can still occur in adulthood

Answer 36

• Fritz Heider (1958) • Continuous, incremental (no stages!) • Human motives: 1 the need to make meaning 2 the need to control • Attributions – internal vs. external causes – We are products of how we interpret social situations

Answer 37

way children process information they learn information processing becomes more complex as we age motives: can’t make meaning and lack of control can lead to mental health issues attributions: we try to explain why behaviours happen attribute to either internal or external cause e.g. kids walking down hallway and get knocked over internal cause - kid was a bully external cause - crowded hallway and it was an accident depending on attribution changes us e.g. kid would be more angry if he made an internal attribution

PSY311 2. Theories and Perspectives Flashcards

(133 cards)