1
Q
The Behaviourist Perspective
A
- Key Concepts:
-classical conditioning: (pavlov) dogs associate sound of bell with arrival of food, then salivated at bell only.-operant conditioning:(skinner&bandura) reinforcement, punishment,, vicarious reinforcement
2
Q
The Behaviourist Perspective
A
- Application: Therapy: systematic desensitisation use classical conditioning to overcome phobia (associating fear with relaxation)
3
Q
The Behaviourist Perspective
A
- Links to core studies:
- Bandura et al. where aggressive behaviour learned by observing role models
- Chaney et al. where positive reinforcement increased adherence through the Funhaler
4
Q
The Behaviourist Perspective
A
- Similarities and Differences:
- Similar to cognitive area as excludes emotional influences
- Different from individual differences area ( focuses on experimentation and direct observation )
5
Q
The Behaviourist Perspective
A
- Evaluation:
+ scientific ; e.g.. Bandura et al.controlled variables to show that aggressive models increase aggression.
- reductionist ; complex behaviours are represented as stimulus- response e.g. Funhaler creates pleasure
6
Q
The Psychodynamic Perspective
A
- Key Concepts:
- The unconscious mind. contains unresolved conflicts that we access through dreams ( fulfilment of wishes )
- Importance of early childhood experience. Adult disturbances have roots in early experiences.
7
Q
The Psychodynamic Perspective
A
- Application: Therapy
( psychoanalysis, dream analysis ) Unresolved conflicts in unconscious cause psychological disorders
8
Q
The Psychodynamic Perspective
A
- Links to core studies:
- Freud : Explains little Han’s phobias throughout his unconscious mind and the events of his childhood ( but it was all theoretical, not significant evidence for backing )
- Hancock et al. : Discuss ego development and suggest that language is likely to be beyond conscious control.
9
Q
The Psychodynamic Perspective
A
- Similarties and Differences:
- similar to individual differences area ( case studies ) - differs from all areas as is more of an ideology than a science.
10
Q
The Psychodynamic Perspective
A
- Evaluation:
+ Interactionist : The approach combines nature and nurture, e.g. Little Han’s innate urges and life experiences
- Determinist: People are controlled by their unconscious e.g. Little Han’s unconscious motivations
11
Q
What is the difference between the Behaviourist perspective and the Psychodynamic Perspective?
A
- Behaviorism focuses on observable behavior and how it is learned through environmental conditioning, The Psychodynamic perspective emphasizes the influence of unconscious processes, early childhood experiences, and internal conflicts on behavior
- Behaviorism is scientific and objective, relying on quantitative data. Psychodynamic theory is more subjective, using qualitative data to understand internal, unconscious motives and past experiences.
12
Q
Debates
A
13
Q
Nature v Nurture
A
- Key Concepts:
- Nature : Characteristics are determined by genes that may be present at birth or appear later as you mature
- Nurture : Behaviour is learned through experience and interactions with the environment
14
Q
Nature v Nurture
A
- Application:
Eugenics : aims to improve the quality of humans through selective breeding.. But selective breeding only improves quality if the behaviour, e.g. like IQ is inherited
15
Q
Nature v Nurture
A
- Links to Core Studies:
- Bandura et al. : Are children born to be aggressive ( nature ) or do they learn it ( nurture )
- Milgram : Considered why people obey authority and speculated that we have a genetic tendency to be obedient ( nature )
16
Q
Nature v Nurture
A
- Similarities and Differences :
- Nature and Nurture both similar to determinism ( genetic and environmental influences can control our behaviour and there is very little we can do about it )
- Nurture is similar to ( and nature is different from ) situational explanations ( both explain environmental influences )
17
Q
Nature v Nurture
A
- Evaluation:
+ Interactionist: Makes us consider what makes each of us unique = a mix of our genetic make-up and life experiences.
- Reductionist: Debate suggests the answer is either nature or nurture when it can be a combination of both as well.
18
Q
Free will v Determinism
A
- Key Concepts:
- Determinism: Every event, including human cognition, is directly caused by chains of prior events
- Free will: The idea that we are able to make choices about our behaviour
19
Q
Free will v Determinism
A
- Application:
- Brain scanning: Might be used to identify people for certain jobs or identify criminality ( Raine et al. )
20
Q
Free will v Determinism
A
- Links to Core Studies:
- Milgram: Ppts obedience was determined by situation rather than their spontaneous choice
- Bandura et al. : Children’s aggressiveness determined by the behaviour of the adult model
21
Q
Free will v Determinism
A
- Similarities and Differences:
- free will differs from nature and nurture ( genes/environment ) doesn’t determine behaviour because we can make choices
- Determinism is similar to reductionism ( behaviour is largely controlled by single, simplified factors, e.g. genetics )
22
Q
Free will v Determinism
A
- Evaluation:
+ Scientific: Emphasis on cause and effect, which is useful as it allows us to predict behaviour.- Reductionist: Suggests that our choices are limited by e.g. biology ( i.e. they are determined ), thus discouraging people from exercising their free will.
23
Q
Reductionism v Holism
A
- Key Concepts:
- Reductionism: Complex explanations can be reduced to sum of more fundamental things
- Holism: Living matter is made up of unified wholes that are greater than the simple sum of their parts
24
Q
Reductionism v Holism
A
- Application:
- Medical models: Help reduce complex psychological disorders to simple chemical changes in the brain leading to psychological disorders ( e.g. depression )
25
Reductionism v Holism
- Links to core studies:
- Casey et al. : Explained delay of gratification in terms of brain structures e.g. frontal lobe
- Baron-Cohen et al. : Reduced explanations of autism spectrum disorder to a lack of Theory of Mind
26
Reductionism v Holism
- Similarities and Differences
- Reductionism is similar to determinism ( reduce behaviour to chemical changes which control our behaviour )
- Reductionism differs from situational explanations ( where a more holistic approach is needed because behaviour is harder to quantify )
27
Reductionism v Holism
- Evaluation
+ Scientific: Breaking complex systems down to lower level units may enhance understanding
- Oversimplification: May fail to represent true complexity of behaviour, e.g. emotions
28
Individual v Situational Explanations
- Key Concepts :
- Individual: ensuring aspects of an individual - their disposition of personality
- Situational: anything in the environment, including other people
29
Individual v Situational Explanations
- Application
- IQ Tests: Need to consider people's upbringing ( situation ) as this may determine how well they can answer the questions
30
Individual v Situational Explanations
- Links to core studies
- Bandura et al. : Aggressive Behaviour is due to situational events in the environment
- Sperry : The split-brain participants behaviour was due to an individual influence ( severed corpus callous )
31
Individual v Situational Explanations
- Similarities and Differences :
-Individual factors are often similar to nature explanations ( behaviour explained by biology )
- Situational factors are similar to nurture ( our social and physical environment )
32
Individual v Situational Explanations
- Evaluation
+ Adaptability : Being able to respond to situations makes humans adaptable
- Unresolvable : Both individual and situational factors contribute to development, so the debate can't be resolved
33
Usefulness of psychological research
- Key Concepts:
- Moral Dimension: Who is the research useful for?
- Practical Dimension: What are the benefits?
- Knowledge Dimension: What new insights?
34
Usefulness of psychological research
- Application:
- Therapy: For example, psychoanalysis or cognitive behaviour therapy
35
Usefulness of psychological research
- Links to Core Studies:
- Loftus and Palmer : The research informs court decisions and improves our understanding of eyewitness testimony
- Chaney et al. : Useful in providing a Funhaler device to improve adherence to medication in children
36
Usefulness of psychological research
- Similarities and Differences:
- Similar to behaviourism ( train people with rewards and punishments to behave in such a way to be well and happy )
- Similar to ethics ( researchers balance usefulness against costs, e.g. psychological harm to participants )
37
Usefulness of psychological research
- Evaluation
+ Focuses attention: Rather than thinking too much about technical issues ( e.g. sample sizes ) we can focus more on important questions ( e.g. is research useful? )
- Research doesn't have to be useful: We should do research just for the sake of it because it may turn out to be useful in the future.
38
Ethical Considerations
- Key Concepts
- Morals: The rules of right and wrong to guide our behaviour based on socially agreed principles
- Ethics: A moral framework that is applied to a narrow group of people, e.g. psychologists
39
Ethical Considerations
- Application:
- Research : Psychologists should follow the BPS Ethical Guidelines and try to ensure their results ate used to help people rather than to harm them
40
Ethical Considerations
- Links to core studies
- Milgram : Ppt's experienced a stressful situation that stayed with some of them for the rest of their lives.
- Bocchiaro et al. : Took great care to design an ethical study, considering the moral choices of the participants.
41
Ethical Considerations
- Similarities and Differences:
- Similar to usefulness ( the decision to promote human welfare is an ethical one )
- Differs from determinism ( assumption that rewards/punishments can determine behaviour is unethical )
42
Ethical Considerations
- Evaluation
+ Responsibility: Makes psychologists take personal responsibility for their work and treat participants with respect
- Narrow: Tens to be about a limited set of issues, ignoring the broader context of how research is used.
43
Conducting Socially Sensitive Research
44
Conducting Socially Sensitive Research
- Key Concepts:
- Socially Sensitive Research: considers the extent to which studies can have a negative impact on specific groups of people or society generally
45
Conducting Socially Sensitive Research
- Application:
- False Memory: Research helps clarify the claims surrounding recovered memories of childhood abuse
46
Conducting Socially Sensitive Research
- Links to core studies
- Milgram: Investigated why people are capable of acts of gross inhumanity
- Loftus and Palmer: Has a social impact with regard to unreliability of memory and eyewitness testimony
47
Conducting Socially Sensitive Research
- Similarities and Differences:
- Similar to ethical considerations ( both are about moral decisions )
- Differs from usefulness ( some useful research may lack social sensitivity if it has negative effects on people )
48
Conducting Socially Sensitive Research
- Evaluation:
+ Broader approach: Aims to explore areas that are generally not spoken about, e.g. men have a tendency to ignore health problems
- Ethical issues: May distress ppt's and/or the target social group for no measurable benefit.
49
Psychology as a Science
- Key Concepts:
- Science values systematic observation, identification, description and empirical investigation. This contrasts with approaches that value subjective experience
50
Psychology as a Science
- Application
- Predicting future behaviour: Through the use of objective, verifiable methods that build up coherent theories
51
Psychology as a Science
- Links to Core Studies:
- Bandura et al. : Demonstrated a casual relationship between observations and aggression using the experimental method
- Freud: Did not provide testable hypotheses and so his theory cannot be refuted ( lacks falsifiability( principle that a scientific theory or hypothesis must be testable and capable of being proven false) )
52
Psychology as a Science
- Similarities and Differences
- Similar to determinism ( science aims to discover how behaviour is determined by identified causes )
- Differs from the psychodynamic perspective ( cannot be falsified )
53
Psychology as a Science
- Evaluation
+ Useful: Allows us to develop a body of knowledge that can be tested and developed
- Reductionist: Science reduces behaviour to a small set of variables which may not represent complex interactions
54
Methodological Issues
55
Ethnocentrism
- Ethnocentrism: using our own cultural ( ethnic ) groups' beliefs, attitudes and behaviour to judge others, specifically the West.
56
Ethnocentrism
-Application
- Interpreting psychological research: Consider the potential ethnic biases of researchers
57
Ethnocentrism
- Links to Core Studies:
- Gould: Ethnocentric bias in intelligence tests and the misapplication of the findings to immigration laws
- Sperry: A US/European focus on split-brain reductionism rather than considering the whole brain
58
Ethnocentrism
- Similarities and Differences:
- Similar to socially sensitive research and psychology as a science ( concerned with ensuring research is unbiased )
- Differs from cross-cultural psychology ( where the viewpoint of many cultures is considered. )
59
Ethnocentrism
- Ethnocentrism in psychological research:
- Spotting ethnocentric bias in psychological research is best done by considering how the results would be different if the study was carried out with different groups
60
Validity
- Validity : Authenticity of results, representing something 'real'
- Internal Validity : Whether a researcher is testing what they intended to test?
- External Validity : Whether the results of a study can be generalised beyond the original research setting to other settings (ecological) or to other people (Population)
- Ecological Validity : how well the findings of a study can be generalized to real-world settings
- Population Validity : the extent to which the results of a study can be generalized from the sample population to the larger target population.
61
Validity
- Application:
- Self-report : Closed and leading questions may reduce validity, as can social desirability bias
- Observations : Limited behavioural categories may mean that some events are missed, reducing validity
- Experiments : Extraneous variables mean that changes in a dependent variable may not be due to this independent variable
62
Validity
- Links to Core Studies:
- Loftus and Palmer : Watching film clips of a car accident lacks the emotion of a real accident ( low ecological validity )
- Bocchiaro et al. : Ppt's didn't know researchers were noting their ethical behaviour ( high ecological validity )
63
Validity
- Similarities and Differences
- Similar to ethnocentrism ( research that only represents some people and not all people is low in external validity )
- Differs from reliability ( validity is about the accuracy of a measure whereas reliability concerns its consistency )
64
Validity
- Validity in Psychological Research:
- When replications confirm original results, they show external ( ecological ) validity because the same results are produced in different settings, i.e. are generalisable
65
Reliability
- Reliability : Measures of consistency
- Internal Reliability : Consistency of items within a set of scores or questions on a questionnaire
- External Reliability : Consistency of results when a measure is used on subsequent occasions
66
Reliability
- Application
- Good Science: Depends on relocation to demonstrate validity of any results - if we repeat a study and find same results this suggests results must be 'real' aka valid, rather than just a fluke
67
Reliability
- Links to Core Studies
- Bandura et al. : The dependent variable ( aggressiveness ) measured by making observations of children playing. A second observer checked observations for half of the ppt and inter-rater reliability was reported as high
- Baron-Cohen et al. : The Eyes Task ( a questionnaire ) assessed ability to understand the emotion shown. All items on test must be assessing same thing for high internal reliability
68
Reliability
- Similarities and Differences
- Reliability is similar to validity = if reliability is low this then threatens the validity of the measure
- Reliability differs from validity = reliability is about consistency of a measure, whereas validity is about authenticity - are we measuring what we mean to measure?
69
Reliability
- Reliability in Psychological Research
- Repeating standardised procedure with each ppt is necessary in order to make comparisons between ppt's
70
Sampling Bias
- Sampling Bias : A systematic error where sample doesn't accurately represent population of interest. ( results in the west may not be generalisable to third-world countries )
71
Sampling Bias
- Application
- Getting a good sample : Requires balancing costs against using most representative sampling methods
72
Sampling Bias
- Links to Core Studies:
- Milgram : Sample consisted of American men only.
- Grant et a. : The sample were men and women but all Americans.
73
Sampling Bias
- Similarities and Differences
- Similar to ethnocentrism ( both are biases related to group of people studied )
- Differs from ethnocentrism ( ethnocentrism is about being prejudiced which may lead to a sampling bias )
74
Sampling Bias
- Sampling bias in Psychological Research
- The best psychologists can do is remove as much bias as possible and try to ensure that some groups of people are neither over - nor under - represented in psychological research
a level
flashcards
Decks in class (14)
# Cards
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1. A changing political and economic enviroment 1918-7933
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Business OCR A Level Definitions77
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Perspectives, Debates and Methodological Issues74
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Chapter 3.3 Topic 1 : What makes a criminal?8
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Chapter 3.3 Topic 2: Collection and Processing of forensic evidence (biological)0
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Chapter 3.3 : Topic 3 : Collection of evidence ( cognitive )12
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Chapter 3.3 : Topic 4 Psychology and the Courtroom10
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Topic 2 : Exercise and Mental Health ( biological )13
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Topic 3 Sport : Motivation ( cognitive )21
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Topic 4 : Performing with others ( social )0
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Topic 5: Performing with others (social)26
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Topic 6 : Audience Effects ( social )32
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Issues in Mental Health - Topic 1 - The historical context of mental health2
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Issues in Mental Health - Topic 2 and Gottesman et al. (2010)29
