ALL STUDIES

• Wilhelm Wundt- origins of psychology

  • Opened first ever lab for psychological enquiry
  • Leipzig, Germany 1879
  • Aim to document and describe human consciousness
  • Came up with introspection, recording own conscious thoughts to then break down and study
• Behaviourist approach- Pavlov


  • Classical condition, learning through association
  • Conditioned dogs to salivate to the sound of a bell
  • When the bell (NS) was paired with food (UCS) which caused dogs to salivate (UCR) the dogs associated their response with the sound
  • The saliva becomes a CR in response to a CS (bell)
• Behaviourist approach- Skinner


  • Suggested learning is an active process where we learning through consequence
  • Operant conditioning
  • Kept a rat in a box with a lever
  • If activated, rat received a reward (food), postively reinforcing behaviour to be repeated
  • Rats could also be conditioned to avoid a negative consequence and therefore repeat a behaviour.
  • Punishment through electric shock, increase/decreases behaviour to avoid punishment (negative reinforcement)
• SLT- Albert Bandura 


  Bobo doll study

  • Children made to watch an adult acting in an aggressive way towards a doll
  • Adults would hit the doll with hammer or shout abuse
  • Children played with doll after, acting more aggressively than the other children who had observed a non-aggressive adult (control)
  • Children observe and imitate behaviours from role models, especially through tv/media (?)
• Cognitive approach- cognitive neuroscience, Broca

  • 1860s Broca identified how damage to Broca's area in the frontal lobe could permanently impair speech production
  • Scientists have just began to study the neurological basis of mental processes due to fMRI and PT scans
• Psychodynamic approach- Freud, Little Hans

  • Little Hans supports Freud's concept of the Oedipus complex
  • 5 year old boy, developed a phobia of horses after seeing one collapse in the street
  • Freud suggested Hans' phobia was a form of displacement, repressing his fear of his father (which was transferred onto horses)
  • Horses were a symbolic representation of Hans' real unconscious fear of castration