approaches

• Wundt established the first psychological lab in Germany 1879
• Wundt wanted to study conscious experiences of human mind by breaking them down into thoughts, images and sensations

  known as structuralism
• introspection is the process of observing and examining your own conscious thoughts or emotions

  it involves observing and describing inner mental states to gain an insight into how mental processes work
• Introspection method is objective

  participants asked to observe their conscious thoughts (emotion)

  report their feelings, sensation and perceptions

  used controlled stimuli (metronome) to describe experience

  limited the range of responses they could give and trained participants to give the most detailed observations possible
• Wundt placed too much emphasis on structuralism which is unreliable as he used non observable responses, this means participants only reported conscious experiences

  do not account for unconscious factors causing behaviour

  produces subjective data, difficult to reproduce or generalise
• Watson was a behaviourist believed introspection was not accurate as emotions are learned responses not instincts that cannot be proved or disproved

  Wundts studies may have had demand characteristics
• Griffith 1994 used introspection to study cognitive processes of fruit machine gamblers

  asked them to 'think aloud' while playing into microphone on lapel
• Csikzentmilyi and Hunter (2003) used introspection to study happiness in their work in the area of positive psychology
• Watson proposed psychology should only study phenomena that can be observed and measured

  this was when the behaviourist approach was founded and psychology emerged as a science
• scientific methods in psychology are

  objective: not impacted by preconceived ideas

  systematic: experiments are carried out in an orderly way

  replicable: can be repeated by others and yield similar results
• evaluation of psychology as a science

  use objective, empirical experiments with high control

  split into different approaches as some believe human behaviour cannot be scientifically explained (psychodynamic/humanistic)

  cannot observe mind so low accuracy

  theories are always being amended
• behaviourist assumptions

  psychology should focus on observable, quantifiable behaviour

  psychology should have laws that predict how behaviour changes and is controlled (classical/operant conditioning)

  use animal research as they are not more complex than humans

  born a blank slate (tabula rasa) with no genetic influence on behaviour
• classical conditioning is learning through the repeated association of two stimuli to produce a conditioned response
• UCS --> UCR

  UCS + NS --> UCR

  CS --> CR
• Pavlov investigated classical conditioning using dogs

  food --> salivating

  food + bell --> salivating

  bell --> salivating
• unconditioned stimulus is stimulus that leads to automatic response
• unconditioned response is automatic, unlearned reflex
• neutral stimulus initially produces no response

  after being repeated paired with an unconditioned stimulus becomes conditioned to produce a conditioned response
• conditioned response is a learned response to previously neutral stimulus
• Pavlov also found stimulus generalisation, stimulus discrimination, time contiguity and extinction
• stimulus generalisation

  if stimulus has characteristics close to conditioned stimulus then the association would also be made to that new stimulus
• stimulus discrimination

  when characteristics of conditioned stimulus and an object become too different to be generalised
• time contiguity (temporal contiguity)

  if the time lapse between presentations is too great then no association will be made
• extinction

  if conditioned stimulus is presented on its own several times without unconditioned stimulus, conditioning can be unlearned and becomes extinct
• Watson (1913) Little albert

  loud bang --> fear

  loud bang + white rat --> fear

  white rat --> fear

  little albert also generalised the fear to other white stimulus
• skinner developed operant conditioning which is learning through consequences of reinforcement or punishment
• positive reinforcement is where you add something positive to increase the likelihood of the behaviour repeating
• negative reinforcement is the removal of something unpleasant to increase the likelihood of behaviour repeating
• positive punishment is adding something negative to decrease the likelihood of behaviour repeating
• negative punishment is the removal of something good to decrease the likelihood of behaviour repeating
• Skinner put rat into Skinner box where temperature, light and noise were kept constant and pressed different levers

  receive food = positive reinforcement

  shock turned off = negative reinforcement

  heat turned off = negative punishment
• skinner investigated a further 5 types of reinforcement

  1. continuous reinforcement
  2. fixed interval reinforcement
  3. variable interval reinforcement
  4. fixed ratio reinforcement
  5. variable ratio reinforcement
• continuous reinforcement is where every response is reinforced

  response rate is slow but steady

  extinction occurs quickly

  e.g: receiving a high grade for every test
• fixed interval reinforcement is where reinforcement is every 30s

  response rate speeds up between intervals but is still fairly low

  extinction occurs quite quickly

  e.g: being paid weekly
• variable interval reinforcement is given on average every 30s

  response rate is stable over long periods of time

  extinction occurs slowly and gradually

  e.g: self employed people receiving irregular payments
• fixed ratio reinforcement is given until a certain number of responses

  extinction occurs quite quickly
• Variable ratio reinforcement is given on average every 10 responses

  very high response rate and very resistant to extinction

  e.g: gambling
• evaluate learning approach- behaviourism

  uses scientific methods that are observable and standardised

  practical applications in token economy

  environmental determinism

  extrapolation issues with animals

  reductionist

  OC does not account for repeating criminal offenders
• behaviourism is environmentally deterministic as it suggests behaviour is caused by learning/consequences not free will
• token economy is used in hospitals/prisons where good behaviour is rewarded with tokens that can be exchanged for privileges

  it requires little effort from the patient and is suitable for people who lack insight (schizophrenic, anorexic)