approaches

• Wundt undertook some of the first ever studies in psychology in his lab
• Wundt emphasised the importance of carrying out studies to try to gain an understanding of how the mind works
• In 1873, Wundt published the first book on psychology
• In 1879, Wundt opened the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig
• Wundt's approach to psychology was structuralism, studying the structure of the human mind by breaking down behaviors into their basic elements
• Wundt concentrated on three areas of mental functioning: thoughts, images, and feelings
• Wundt used introspection to investigate the human mind
• Participants in Wundt's introspection studies were asked to reflect on their own cognitive processes and describe them
• Highly trained assistants were given a stimulus, such as a ticking metronome, and would reflect on the experience, reporting what the stimulus made them think and feel
• Wundt's method of introspection did not remain a fundamental tool of psychological experimentation past the early 1920s
• Freud's ideas in the psychodynamic approach came almost exclusively from his work with patients
• Freud believed that the unconscious mind drives all behavior
• Freud identified three parts of the psyche: Id, Ego, and Superego
• Freud saw childhood development as a series of stages necessary to establish personality and behavior
• Freud's stages of psychosexual development include Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, and Genital stages
• Classical conditioning involves unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, and conditioned response
• Pavlov's original research on classical conditioning involved studying salivation in dogs
• Operant conditioning by Skinner includes positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, and punishment
• Skinner's experiments in operant conditioning were conducted on rats in a Skinner Box
• Environmental determinism assumes individuals have no free will and are at the mercy of their environment, behavior is entirely determined by mechanisms like classical and operant conditioning
• Diathesis stress model suggests individuals may be born with a biological predisposition that makes them more or less vulnerable to certain behaviors
• Social Learning Theory (SLT) proposes that people learn through observation and imitation of others within a social context
• Imitation:

  • Individual observes a behavior from a role model and copies it
  • The imitation is more appropriate as the behavior is often not able to be copied exactly
• Identification:

  • People, especially children, are more likely to imitate the behavior of people they identify with (role models)
  • Role models may not necessarily be physically present in the environment
• Modelling:

  • Individual imitates model's behavior later, only used when referring to behavior that is imitated
• Vicarious reinforcement:

  • Reinforcement observer sees model receiving
  • A reinforcement (reward) makes a behavior more likely to happen again
• Role of mediational processes:

  • SLT focuses on how cognitive factors are involved in learning
  • Thought prior to imitation is called mediational processes
• Humanistic psychology emphasizes free will and subjective experience
• Self-actualization:

  • Every person has an innate tendency for self-actualization to achieve their full potential
• The self and congruence:

  • Uncovering the true "self" is key to happiness and achieving self-actualization
  • Psychological health can be achieved by working towards congruence
• Cognitive approach believes internal mental processes can and should be studied scientifically
• Role of schema:

  • A schema is a mental framework of beliefs about the world to help make sense of it
  • All behavior is a direct result of schemas and scripts
• Computer models:

  • The mind is sometimes viewed as a computer with inputs and outputs
  • Overwhelmed brains do not function well, like a computer
• Theoretical models:

  • Models like the MSM (multi-store model) represent how internal mental processes work
  • Helps psychologists develop ways of intervening as issues and patterns can be clearly identified
• Cognitive Psychology:
• Allows psychologists to develop ways of intervening as issues and patterns can be clearly identified in visual format
• Strengths:

  • Less determinist, founded on soft determinism which empowers individuals to change their thoughts
  • Treatments like CBT give people more control over automatic thoughts and behaviors by working on thoughts and responses to build self-esteem
• Application of cognitive psychology has been found in various contexts, showing that cognition significantly influences behavior

  • E.g. cognitive differences in gambling and depression
• Over-simplified (machine reductionism) - comparing the human mind to a computer is useful but oversimplified as computers lack emotions that affect memory in EWT

  • Does not explain why there are cognitive differences in particular groups of people
• Determinism - focuses on how much free will individuals have

  • Reductionism - considers how many factors are taken into account