Approaches

• Origins of Psychology

  • Early influences - Rene Descartes
  • Concept of cartesian dualism - mind and brain are independent from each other
  • Argued the mind could be an object of study in its own right
  • Also reinforced science as a "study of measurable quantities"
  • Not based on beliefs, based on clear measurements
  • John Locke
  • Empiricism - all experience and knowledge can be obtained through the senses
• The learning approach

  
• The behaviourist approach

  Main assumptions

  • Only behaviour that can be observed and measured objectively should be studied
  • Basic processes of learning occur in all species
  • All behaviour is learnt through the environment
• Operant conditioning


  • B.F. Skinner
  • Learning through the consequences of our behaviour
  • Positive reinforcement - presenting individual with a reward for displaying a behaviour (strengthening behaviour)
  • Negative reinforcement - avoiding something unpleasant (strengthens behaviour as you avoid consequences)
  • Punishment - unpleasant consequence of a behaviour (decreasing likelihood of a certain behaviour)
• Operant conditioning

  Supporting research

  • Skinner
  • Experiment on rats
  • Rat presses lever, receives food pellet - increases behaviour
  • Rat pressed lever, receives electric shock - decreases behaviour
  • Rat pressed lever, avoids electric shock - increases behaviour

  Evaluation

  • Real-life application - parents and children, schools, workplaces
  • Unethical
  • Generalisation to humans is poor
  • Control over extraneous variables
• Classical conditioning

  • Pavlov
  • One of the simplest forms of learning
  • Repeatedly pair 2 stimuli together to produce a new learned response (learning through association)
  • Neutral stimulus - stimulus that produces no response pre-conditioning (bell)
  • Unconditioned stimulus - stimulus that naturally elicits a response (food)
  • Unconditioned response - response will occur naturally with the unconditioned stimulus (salivation)
  • Conditioned stimulus - previously neutral stimulus, after conditioning, produced conditioned response (salivation)
  • Pavlov had conditioned the bell to elicit salivation
• Classical conditioning

  Real-life application


  • Fire alarms - associated with leaving a building
  • Christmas adverts - associated with happiness
• Behaviourist approach

  Evaluation

  • Much of the research was carried out on animals
  • Pavlov used evidence from dogs to demonstrate classical conditioning
  • Animals and humans have different biological makeup and humans arguably have a much more complicated thought process
  • Unable to apply the approaches' conclusions about learning behaviour
  • Shows poor generalisability
• Social learning theory

  • Learn through observing and imitating role models (modelling)
  • Vicarious reinforcement (opposite to direct reinforcement)
• Vicarious reinforcement

  • A learner sees a model rewarded for their actions
  • They copy their actions to get the same reward
  • Vicarious punishment is the opposite
• Direct reinforcement

  If the individual is rewarded for a certain behaviour, they are more likely to repeat it
• Identification

  Observer wishes to be like a role model, or sees themselves as similar
• Factors increasing modelling

  • Same gender
  • Similar age
  • Powerful or high status
  • Friendly or likeable
• Factors increasing modelling

  Cognitive elements

  • Bandura
  • 4 mediational processes
  • Attention - noticing a certain behaviour
  • Retention - how well it's remembered
  • Reproduction - ability to perform it
  • Motivation - whether it was rewarded or punished
  • ARRM
• The cognitive approach

  • Humans do not passively respond to their environment
  • Our minds actively organise and manipulate information we receive in important ways
  • Our behaviour is determined by the way we process information taken in from our environment
• Assumption 1

  • Mental processes lie between stimulus and response - studied scientifically
  • Study of mental processes - information received from senses and how we process it affects behaviour
  • Should be studied using lab experiments: perception, attention, memory, language, thinking
  • Psychologists study them indirectly, making inferences about what is going on in someone's mind based on their behaviour
• Inference

  • Drawing conclusions from evidence and using reasoning to assume how something works
  • e.g. in memory experiments, people can recall about 7 words from a list, so we infer that our STM is about 7 items
• 5 mental processes

  • Perception - taking in and making sense of information from our surroundings
  • Attention - focusing on particular sources of information rather than others, maintaining the focus over time
  • Memory - retaining and recalling information
  • Language - mental symbols to represent information in the mind, helping communication
  • Thinking - manipulating information to reason, solve problems, make decisions and judgements
• Assumption 2

  Humans use schemas to process information from the environment
• Schemas

  • Mental structures that represent an aspect of the world, such as an object or event
  • Babies are born with simple schemas but as we grow they become more sophisticated
  • Unique to an individual, develop from experience
  • Tells us how to behave in certain situations
  • Mental processes work together to process the world around us
  • We pay attention and search our memory to see if it matches an existing schema, then name it using our language
  • Schemas can influence key mental processes
  • More likely to remember information that fits with schemas
  • May cause us to develop stereotypes
• Assumption 3

  • Theoretical models can be used to explain unobservable cognitive processes and behaviours
  • Models adopt a series of stages and explain a mental process
  • Usually a flow diagram
  • Theoretical models are good because certain stages can be tested individually through making inferences
  • Inferences are not always correct but models can be altered if evidence doesn't fit
• Information processing model

  • Input - Rob sees an old lady struggling to reach biscuits on the top shelf (input from the senses)
  • Processing - he interprets that information as her needing help (making sense of information)
  • Output - he asks the lady if she wants to get him the biscuits (behaviour is shown)
• Assumption 4

  • Humans process information in a similar way to computers
  • Compares how we take information in from our senses, store it or change it, then behave a certain way
  • Studied by using a computer to construct programs that mimic how the processes are working
• The computer analogy

  • Hardware would be the brain
  • Software would be the internal mental processes
• Cognitive neuroscience

  • Involves non-invasive brain scans - fMRI, EEG, PET
  • Comparing "normal" brains to those who have brain damage
  • Do a task during the scan to see which part of the brain is active
  • Enables inferences to be made
• Practical uses of cognitive neuroscience

  • Locate different types of memory (treatment for memory problems)
  • Study mental processing of patients with depression or OCD
  • Study the effects of normal aging on the brain
  • Use computer simulations to test hypotheses about mental processes
  • Eye-tracking/motion-tracking to study visual word processing
• The biological approach

  Main assumptions

  • Mind lives in the brain, so all thoughts and feelings have a physical basis (different to cognitive approach which sees them as separate)
  • Everything psychological is firstly biological, so we need to look at genes, biological structures and neurochemistry
• Twin studies

  
• Assumption 1

  • Genetic basis of behaviour
  • To investigate whether genes affect behaviour, psychologists often study twins
  • Identical twins share 100% of genes, non-identical share 50%
  • If we compare them, it gives an indication of how much behaviour may be genetic
  • Concordance rates - the extent to which both twins share the same characteristic
  • A limitation is the environment they are brought up in - different/same household
• Assumption 2

  • The influence of genes on behaviour
  • Genotype - genetic makeup of an individual. Unique to you apart from identical twins
  • Phenotype - genotype is mixed with environmental influences. How behaviours and traits become expressed
• PKU

  • Genotype -> PKU gene
  • Phenotype -> genotype + environment
  • PKU + diet -> brain damage / no brain damage
• Assumption 3

  • Behaviour is influenced by neurochemistry
  • Varying levels of chemicals are thought to contribute to behaviour
• Hormones

  • Testosterone - too much leads to risk-taking or aggression
  • Adrenaline - prepares us for stress by triggering fight-or-flight
  • High dopamine - schizophrenia
  • Low serotonin - OCD
• Assumption 4

  • Evolution and behaviour
  • Charles Darwin theory of natural selection (19th Century)
  • Any genetically determined behaviour that enhances survival is carried to next generations
• The biological approach

  Evaluation

  • Limitation - relies on twin studies
  • A shared environment means they're also brought up the exact same way so behaviour may not differentiate
  • Strength - precise scientific methods
  • Control of variables - high internal validity, increasing reliability
  • Strength - practical applications
  • Led to drug treatments allowing QOL for many people to improve, showing external validity
• The psychodynamic approach

  • Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) - one of the most controversial psychological theorists, first to study workings of the unconscious mind
  • "Unconscious" mind influences a large part of behaviour
  • Events in childhood have a great influence on adult life
  • Events in childhood can remain in the unconscious and cause problems as adults
  • Stresses importance of relationships, especially in family
• Assumption 1

  • Role of the unconscious mind
  • Conscious mind - aware of this part (tip of the iceberg)
  • Most of our mind is unconscious - instincts that affect behaviour and personality. Also contains disturbing memories that have been repressed
  • Under the surface of the conscious is the preconscious, ideas we become aware of during dreams, Freudian slips
• Assumption 2

  • Structure of personality
  • ID - operates on the pleasure principle, behaves based on getting what it wants (e.g. babies crying for food)
  • Ego - mediator of ID and superego, middle ground used to reduce conflict by using defence mechanisms
  • Superego - operates on the morality principle, what is right and wrong (e.g. shouldn't have that slice of cake)
• Assumption 3

  • Psychosexual stages
  • Children go through 5 stages of development
  • Each stage is a different conflict the child must solve to move onto the next successfully
  • If they receive too much/too little pleasure at a stage, they become fixated - fail to pass successfully
  • Experience is repressed into the unconscious and affects adult personality
  • Severe fixation can lead to a psychological disorder
• Psychosexual stages

  Oral

  • Birth - 1 year
  • Mouth
  • Aggressive - chewing
  • Passive - smoking and eating

  Anal

  • 1-3 years
  • Bowel and bladder elimination
  • Retentive - organisation
  • Expulsive - disorganisation

  Phallic

  • 3-6 years
  • Genitals
  • Male - pride in sexual prowess and contempt for women
  • Female - overly flirtatious

  Latency

  • 6 - puberty
  • Dormant sexual feelings
  • Don't tend to fixate, but if they do, sexually unfulfilled

  Genital

  • Puberty onwards
  • Maturation of sexual instincts
  • Frigidity, impotence, unsatisfactory relationships