approaches

• behaviourist approach: assumptions - 'tabula rosa' born as a blank slate, our behaviour is shaped by our environment

  • classical conditioning - Pavlov, we learn by associating two stimuli together
  • operant conditioning - Skinner, behaviour is shaped by its consequences

  evaluation:

  strength:

  • skinner's research is well-controlled, establishes cause and effect - scientific credibility.
  • real world application: token economy systems in prisons

  weakness:

  • ethics, can be considered unethical to test on animals
• social learning theory: behaviour is learned by observation

  vicarious reinforcement: imitation based on whether someone is rewarded or punished

  1. Attention - extent to which we notice behaviours
  2. Retention - how well is it remembered
  3. motor reproduction - ability to perform
  4. motivation - will to perform it

  1,2 - learning behaviour but 3,4 -performance behaviour

  identification: more likely to imitate those they identify with,

  model: someone who posses similar characteristics

  
  

  Bandura bobo doll: recorded behaviour of young students who watched adults aggressively hit a doll
• social learning theory evaluation:

  strength:

  • real-world application as it explains cultural differences in behaviour regarding social norm - explanation for behaviour

  weakness:

  • demand characteristics as it was in a controlled lab study
  • implies that we have free will to make decisions, contradicts behavioural approach saying we dont have free will on our behaviour
• cognitive approach: internal mental processes, how our thoughts and perceptions affect our behaviour

  • schema: information that is developed through experience

  computer model: information processing approach, comparison of human minds like a computer

  • emergence of cognitive neuroscience: use of PET and fMRI scans to underpin cognitive processes in specific areas of the brain - frontal lobe, broca's area
• cognitive approach evaluation:

  strength:

  • credible scientific basis, controlled method of study making it scientific and reliable
  • practical application, AI and robot production

  weakness:

  • machine reductionism, human mind and computers to be compared as it ignores human emotion and motivation
• biological approach: our behaviour is innate and down to biological structures.

  • synaptic transmission: neurochemicals, excessive dopmaine can lead to schizophrenia and low levels of serotonin can lead to OCD
  • genetic basis: twin studies, concordance rates (extent to which twins share the same characteristics) MZ share 100%, DZ share 50%
  • genotype: genetic make-up, phenotype: physical and behavioural characteristics
• biological approach evaluation:

  strength:

  • real-world application: promoted treatment of clinical depression using antidepressants
  • scientific methods: EEG's and fMRI - reliable

  weakness:

  • deterministic, implying we cannot excuse our behaviour - criminals, legal justice system
• psychodynamic approach: mind is majority made up of unconscious - repressed memories or biological drives

  • id: devil, pleasure principle and wants instant gratification, selfish - present at birth
  • ego: mediates between the two, reality principle, reduce conflict in decision making
  • superego: angel, morality principle, moral standards
• psychodynamic approach; psychosexual stages:

  1. oral (0-1years) - pleasure focus on mouth, lead to oral fixation
  2. anal (1-3years) - pleasure focus on anus, withholding faeces, leads to anal retentive (obsessive) or anal expulsion (messy)
  3. phallic (3-6years) - pleasure focus on genitals,
  4. latency - earlier conflicts are repressed
  5. gentials - sexual desires become conscious, cannot form relationships
• psychodynamic approach evaluation:

  strength:

  • production of psychoanalysis, therapy - real world application

  weakness:

  • psychoanalysis, those with schizophrenia cannnot articulate thoughts properly
  • deterministic, 'slip of the tongue' is down to unconscious forces
• humanistic approach: idea that we have free will to make our own decisions

  • maslow's hierarchy of needs: motivate our behaviour to reach self-actualisation
  • can only reach the top if you pass through each stage

  Rogers: congruence: when self-concept and ideal self match

  • conditions of worth: when parents place limits or boundaries of love on their children
• humanistic approach evaluation:

  strength:

  • holistic, looks at an individual as a whole taking into account their emotions and wishes.
  • free will, we have the ability to make our own choices and base it off what we want to achieve

  weakness:

  • culturally-biased, US would have an individualist tendencies, whereas other countries that wouldnt have this would not adopt the approach
• Wundt and introspection: aim to analyse the nature of human consciousness

  • develop theories about mental processes - language and perception, broken up into basic structures = introspection