The social approach assumses that our behaviour is not always the result of our own free will. The situation we are in will have a strong influence on how we behave
An assumption of the social approach is that situational rarther than indidvidual explanations of social bhaviour are often more accurate as conext and culture has a strong influence on how we behave
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Cognitive Approach
The cognitive apporach focuses on how information is recieved from our senses is processed by our brains. This approach assumes that how we process inforomation, including how we percieve, store and retreive information, influences how we behave
It assumes that these mental processes can be studied scientifically, so the exprimental method is favoured by cognitive psychologists in their research
The brain proccesses information, assuming that comparisons can be made between how machines process information and how brains process information
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Developmental Approach
A major assumption of the developmental approach is that children are psychogically different from adults
Some developemental theories assume that children's development occurs in stages, whose sequence is invarient and which are universal. Examples of this include Piaget's theory of moral developemental and Freud's psychosexual stages of personality development
The developmental approach assumes that children can learn through the behavioural principles of operant and classical conditioning and modelling ( Bandura's social learning theory )
Soem developmental theories assume that bad early experiences can have a negative effect on us in later life, and that the root cause of adult psychiatric problems lies in problems with their psychiatric developmental as a child ( Freud's psychodynamic theory)
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Physiological Approach
The physiological approach assumes that behaviour can be largely explained in terms of biology (e.g. Genes/hormones ). What is pschological is first biological
This approach assumes that psychology should study the brain, nervous system and various biological systems in an attempt to explain behaviour
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Individual Approach
The differneces between people, such as personality, abnormality, or intelligence and not just the factors that people sharre in common have a important influence on behaviour
This approach assumes that it is not only the ways we are same as one another but also the ways we differ from others, and are individuals that is important to investigate
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Behavourist Approach
The majority of all behaviour is learned from the enviroment after birth (therefore the nuture side of the nature-nuture debate ) Therefore psychology should investigate the laws and products of learning
Freewill is an illusion as behaviour is determined by the enviroment, so individuals are merely the total of their past experiences
One cannot see into people's minds, and if asked about thoughts etc epoe may lie, not know or be mistaken. Therefore to make psychology am objective science, only behaviour should be studied
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Pschodynamic Approach
Human behaviour how unconscious causes that individuals are aware of- many important influences on behaviour come from a part of the mind over which an individual has no awareness
Childhood experiences are really importnat influences on the development of adult personaluty and psychological disorders. Unresolved childhood conflict repressed into the unconscious mind
An individual experiences constant psychodynamic conflict- different parts of mind are in constant dynamic struggle wich each other ( often unconsciously) and the consequences of this struggle are important in understanding behaviour
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