Approaches

Front 1

Describe the account of Wundt and Introspection as well as Psychology's early philosophical roots

Back 1

Wundt opened the first ever lab in 1879,Leipzig Germany to document and describe the nature of human consciousness. This method is known as Introspection. Wundt and co-workers recorded their own conscious thoughts with the aim of breaking these down into constituent parts. Isolating the structure of consciousness in this way is structuralism.

All introspection's were recorded under strictly controlled conditions using the same stimulus every time (e.g. a ticking metronome). The same standardized instructions were issued to all participants allowing procedures to be repeated (replicated) every single time. Wundt's work was significant because it marked the separation of the modern scientific psychology from its broader philosophical roots.

Rene Descartes, a french philosopher, suggested the mind and body are independent from each other. This philosophical stance came to be known as Cartesian Dualism.

John Locke proposed empiricism which is the idea that all experience can be obtained through the senses and that all humans inherit neither knowledge nor instincts, forming the basis of the behaviorist approach that the world can be understood by investigating external events that are observed and measured.

Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory is the notion that all human and animal behavior has changed over successive generations, so that the individuals with stronger, more adaptive genes survive and reproduce, and the individuals with weaker genes do not survive and reproduce. The weaker genes are 'weeded out' (survival of the fittest). The assumption that many human behaviors, such as social behavior, have evolved due to their adaptive value is deeply rooted in many areas of psychology, especially the biological approach.

Hint 1

-Wundt's lab

-Controlled methods

-Descartes Locke and Darwin

Front 2

Describe the Emergence of Psychology as a Science

Back 2

Watson's problem with Introspection was that it produced subjective data because it varied greatly from person to person and so it became difficult to establish general principles. Watson was highly critical of introspection's focus on 'private' mental processes and proposed that a truly scientific psychology should restrict itself only to studying phenomena that could be observed and measured. The behaviorist approach was born and with it the emergence of psychology as a science.

Watson and Skinner brought the language, rigor and methods of natural sciences into psychology. The behaviorist focus on the scientific processes involved in learning alongside carefully controlled lab experiments which would dominate the discipline for the next five decades.

Many modern psychologists continue to rely on the experimental method as part of research and practices. Following the cognitive revolution of the 1960's, the study of mental processes is now seen as a legitimate control and highly scientific area within Psychology. Cognitive psychologists can make inferences about how these works on the basis of lab tests.

The biological approach uses experimental data also. Researchers have taken advantage of recent advances in technology to investigate physiological processes as they happen, including activity on the brain through sophisticated scanning techniques such as fMRI and EEG.

Hint 2

-Watson and the early behaviorists

-The scientific approach: Behaviorism, The cognitive revolution, the biological approach, cognitive neuroscience

Front 3

Define Psychology

Back 3

The scientific study of the human mind and it's functions, especially those functions affecting behavior in a given context.

Front 4

Define Science

Back 4

A means of acquiring knowledge through systematic and objective investigation. The aim is to discover general laws.

Front 5

Define Introspection

Back 5

The first systematical experimental attempt to study the mind by breaking up conscious awareness into basic structures of thoughts, images and sensations.

Front 6

What are the assumptions of the Behaviourist Approach?

Back 6

Studies behaviour that can be observed and measured and not mental processes of the mind.

Front 7

Describe Classical Conditioning (Pavlov's Research)

Back 7

Classical Conditioning is learning through association. Pavlov revealed that dogs can be conditioned to salivate to the sound of a bell if the sound was repeatedly presented at the same time of them given food. Gradually, Pavlov's dogs learned to associate the sound of the bell (a stimulus) with the food (another stimulus) and would produce the salivation response every time they heard the sound.

He showed that a neutral stimulus, in this case a bell, can come to elicit a new learned response (conditioned response) through association.

Front 8

Describe Operant Conditioning (Skinner's Research)

Back 8

Skinner suggested that learning is an active process whereby humans and animals operate on their environment. The three consequences of behaviour are:

1. Positive Reinforcement: Receiving a reward when a certain behaviour is performed; for example, praise from a teacher for answering a question correctly in class.

2. Negative Reinforcement: When an animal (or human) avoids something unpleasant. When a student hands in an essay so as not to be told off, the avoidance of something unpleasant is the negative reinforcement. Or a rat may learn through negative reinforcement that pressing a lever leads to avoidance of an electric shock.

3. Punishment: an unpleasant consequence of behaviour, for example being shouted at by the teacher for talking during a lesson. (Finding a way to avoid that would be negative reinforcement).

Front 9

Evaluate the Behaviourist Approach

Back 9

1. The approach was able to bring the language and methods of the natural sciences into psychology by focusing on the measurement of observable behaviour within highly controlled lab settings. By emphasizing the importance of scientific processes such as objectivity and replication, behaviourism has influenced the development of psychology as a scientific discipline, giving it greater credibility and status.

2. The principles of conditioning have been applied to real world behaviours and problems. Operant Conditioning is the basis of token economy systems that have been used successfully in institution such as prisons and psychiatric wards. They work by rewarding appropiate behaviour with token that can be exchanged for privileges. Classical conditioning has been applied to the treatment of phobias. These behaviours are advantageous because they don't have to think about their problem, so it's suitable for people who lack insight.

3. Animals and humans are seen as passive machine like respondents to their environment, with little or no conscious insight into their behaviour. Other approaches, such as the social learning theory and the cognitive approach, emphasises the importance of mental events during learning. These processes which mediate between stimulus and response, suggests that people play a more active role in their own learning. This means that learning theory may apply less to human than to animal behaviour.

Front 10

What are the Assumptions of the Social Learning Theory

Back 10

People learn through observation and imitation of others within a social context. It suggests that learning occurs directly through classical and operant conditioning but also indirectly.

Front 11

What is Vicarious Reinforcement?

Back 11

When an individual observes the behaviour of others. The learner may imitate this behaviour, but usually, imitation only occurs if the behaviour is seen to be rewarded (reinforced) rather than punished. The learner observes a behaviour but most importantly observes the consequences of a behaviour.

Front 12

What are the Mediational Processes?

Back 12

Mental Factors that are affected in learning. They mediate in the learning process to determine whether a new response is acquired. The four mediational processes are:

1. Attention: The extent to which we notice certain behaviours

2. Retention: How well the behaviour is remembered

3. Motor reproduction: The ability of the observer to perform the behaviour

4. Motivation: The will to perform the behaviour, which is often determined by whether the behaviour was rewarded or punished

Front 13

What is Identification?

Back 13

People are more likely to imitate the behaviour of people with whome they identify, called role models. This proces is called modelling. A person becomes a role model is they are seen to possess similar characteristics to the observer and/or have high attractive and have high status.

Front 14

Evaluate the Social Learning Theory

Back 14

1. The Social Learning Theory provides a more comprehensive explanation of human learning by recognising the role of mediational processes

2. Ideas were developed through lab studies where participants respond to demand characteristics. In the Bobo doll study, the children behaved in a way that they expected to. So the research may tell us little about how children actually learn aggression in everyday life.

3. Bandura makes little reference to the impact of biological factors on social learning. The bobo doll experiment showed that boys were more aggressive than girls. This could be due to different levels of testosterone.

This means that the important influence on behaviour is not accounted for in the social learning theory.

Front 15

What are the Assumptions of the Cognitive Approach?

Back 15

Internal Mental Processes can be studied scientifically such as Memory, Perception and Thinking.

Front 16

What are Theoretical and Computer Models?

Back 16

The information processing approach, which suggests that information flows through the cognitive system in a sequence of stages: input, storage and retrieval as in the Multi-store model.