Approaches

• Freud separates the personality into the Ego, Id, and Superego.
• Empiricism is the belief that all knowledge is derived from sensory experience, rather than being innate.
• Empiricism is characterised by the use of the experimental scientific method in psychology.
• Behaviourists believe all behaviour is learned through your environment (through classical and operant conditioning) whereas biological psychology theorises that behaviour is determined by genes, hormones and neurochemistry.
• Behaviourists take the side of nurture while biological psychologists favour nature.
• Both behaviourism and biological psychology are reductionist as they only focus on either environment or biology, rather than taking a more holistic approach and considering psychodynamic explanations, for example.
• Congruence refers to similarity between a person’s ideal self and their own self-image.
• Incongruence refers to the opposite - disparity between the ideal self and their self-image.
• Soft determinism is the concept that there are constraints on behaviour, but within these limitations, we are free to make our own choices.
• Cognitive neuroscience is an area of psychology dedicated to the underlying neural bases of cognitive functions.
• The bell became a conditioned stimulus - producing a conditioned response of salivation, even in the absence of the unconditioned stimulus, the food.
• Self-actualisation is a term used to refer to achievement of one’s true potential, according to Rogers.
• The ringing of a bell was a neutral stimulus (it did not naturally produce salivation in the dogs) while the food was an unconditioned (innate) stimulus which naturally resulted in salivation.
• According to Maslow, self actualisation is the ability to experience periods of extreme euphoria and creativity, and as a result is the final stage of his hierarchy of needs.
• Hard determinism is the view that all behaviour is determined by factors out of our control.
• Through pairing of these stimuli, a conditioned response was formed.
• Freud’s psychosexual stages include the oral, anal, phallic, and latent stages.
• Pavlov paired the ringing of a bell with the arrival of dog food.
• Both behaviourism and biological psychology have informed effective treatment methods, for example Classical conditioning has been applied to systematic desensitisation, and this has been helpful in helping people deal with phobias, while many medications have been developed to treat a whole range of mental illnesses.
• Reinforcement in behaviour refers to things that strengthen and increase the likelihood that a behaviour will be repeated in the future.
• Approaches that are on opposite sides of the free-will/determinism debate include Behaviourist, Humanistic, Social Learning Theory, and Psychodynamic.
• There are three types of determinism: Biological, Environmental, and Psychic.
• Approaches that take the side of nurture in the nature-nurture debate include Behaviourist, Humanistic, Social Learning Theory, and Psychodynamic.
• Free will refers to the ability to act at one’s own discretion, how to choose to behave without being influenced by external forces.
• Determinism is the belief that behaviour is determined by external or internal forces acting upon an individual that is out of their control.
• Vicarious reinforcement refers to learning that is not the result of direct reinforcement, but rather through observing someone else being reinforced for that behaviour.
• Conditions of worth are conditions imposed on an individual’s behaviour and development that are considered necessary to earn positive regard from significant others.
• A schema is a mental framework of beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processing.
• Schemas contain our understanding of an object, a person or an idea.
• Schemas become increasingly complex during development as we gain more information about each object/idea.
• Biological Psychology and Psychodynamic Psychology are approaches on the side of nature in the nature/nurture debate.
• Introspection is a technique devised by Wundt so a person can gain knowledge about their own mental and emotional states as a result of the examination of their conscious thought and feelings.