PSYB4: Approaches

FOCUSES ON TWO INTERNAL COMPONENTS OF BEHAVIOUR - physiological make-up and genetic inheritance.

1) Physiological processes (biological structures and functions) affect behaviour, mood and cognition. 

2) Genes (inherited) affect behaviour and influences psychological differences in each individual. 

3) Humans have evolved biologically to survive. 

Darwin suggested behavioural continuity (similar traits) between humans and animals. BIOLOGICAL USES ANIMALS IN STUDIES. 

Research is highly scientific (objective and highly controlled) - e.g. lab experiments, observations, brain scans etc. 

Central Nervous System and Autonomic Nervous System control our behaviour. 

CNS: 
-spinal cord sends and recieves messages to and from brain.
-neurons communicate in synapses through chemicals (neurotransmitters)
LINK TO OCD & SSRIS.
-hormones travel through blood stream to cause an effects on someone. 

ANS:
- sympathetic and parasympathetic systems
SYMP INCREASES AROUSAL, PARA LOWERS/RECOVERS (FIGHT vs FLIGHT)
- endocrine system is governed - release of hormones is a long-term effect on behaviour. 

3 GENETIC BASIS:

1. Genetics and heredity
- MZ and DZ twins - reared apart and together to see how similar they are. 
- Adoption studies used - more similar to biological or adopted parents?

2. Genes and chromosomes.  (LINK TO OFFENDING BEHAVIOUR)
- 23 pairs of chromosomes normal - abnormalities in chromosomes affect out behaviour as well.
- Turners XO syndrome - mental functioning affected, physical appearance (webbed neck, short), infertility. 

3. Genotype and Phenotype
- geno - Genetic make-up - 'blueprint' of genes. Everyone has unique genotype.
- pheno - expression of genetic make-up. - physical appearance, behavioural and psychological characteristics. 

Strengths:

- Provides insight into biochemical and gentic influences on mental and emotional disorders - Has face validity. 
- Useful practical applications (drug treatment)
- Scientific - measurable and objective - methods often replicable therefore results reliable.
- Provides strong counter-arguments to the nurture side of N/N debates

Limitations

- Body is complex - bio approach not advanced enough to investigate in detail. 
- Environmental influences play part in behaviour so hard to predict behaviour and explain just based around genetics and processes - REDUCTIONIST.
- Approach suggests mind & brain same but doesn't explain how they interact - INCOMPLETE.
-biological determinism - suggests people born this way therefore can't change. 

Gender Development
- chromosomes **/xy affect GD. 
- physiological - testosterone (hormones) affect behaviour/GD.
- evolution - aggressiveness in males is adaptive behaviour.

Anxiety Disorders
- OCD due to low levels of serotonin - physiological processes affect behaviour.
- Drug treatments (application) found to be effective in treatment - SSRIs for OCD.

Forensic Psychology
- Offending due to genetic transmitssion in twin & adoption studies.
- Neurophysiology of offenders abnormal.

FOCUSES ON TWO THEORIES OF LEARNING: Operant and Classical Conditioning.

1) Believe that an objective and scientific approach must be taken in psychology

2) Only observable behaviour should be studied (not minds, as mental processes impossible to observe, and not required to explain behaviour)

3) Behaviour learnt from environment after birth therefore must investigate laws of learning.

4) Learning involves an association between a stimulus and response through conditioning principles. 

5) Laws of learning universal, applies to both animals and humans in research. 

Stimulus
- object or event in the environment that causes/prompts a response from person or animal. 

Response
- behaviour that results from the stimulus occuring to the person or animal. 

Reinforcement
- something that strengthens, reinforces or makes it more likely for a behaviour to be repeated in the future. 

Positive reinforcement
- behaviour is strengthened as it is followed by a rewarding stimulus. 

Negative reinforcement
- behaviour is strengthened as it is followed by the removal of a painful or aversive stimulus. 

Neg reinforcemet is NOT punishment - punishment is when a behaviour is stopped.

Classical
1. Unconditioned stimulus prompts unconditioned response.
2. Unconditioned stimulus & controlled stimulus prompts unconditioned response
3. Controlled stimulus prompts controlled response.

Classical can be used to explain behaviour (obtaining phobias - classic to create, operant to maintain) and treat behaviour (Systematic Desensitisation)

Operant
- learning through association between response and consequence. 
- positive and negative reinforcement, and punishment. 
- LINK TO TOKEN ECONOMY (OFFENDING BEHAVIOUR)

Strengths
- very scientific - testable/replicable, objective - use lab controlled experiments.
- many practical applications - e.g. systematic desensitisation
- provides strong counter argument to the nature side of N/N debate.

Limitations
- ignores important mental processes - reductionist as it is too simplistic
- environmental determinism - doesn't take free will into account.
- hard to generalise results of animals to humans. 

Anxiety Disorders
- phobias learnt through CC but maintained through OC (negative reinforcement). 
- treatment - systematic desensitisation.

Forensic Psychology
- BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION - token economy - undesirable behaviour can be modfied. 
- Electronic Tagging
- Theories of Offending - positive reinforcement used. 

CONSIDERS SOCIAL AND COGNITIVE PROCESSES IN LEARNING. 

1) Learning occurs through observation of role models - people in our environment. 

2) Learning through observation can take place without any reinforcement - we can learn behaviour, but not imitate it.

3) Reinforcement must take place for imitation of learned behaviour, whether it be direct or indirect reinforcement. 

4) Observational learning involves cognitive processes which occur between STIMULUS and RESPONSE (mediational processes). 

5) Human behaviur learned in social situations, so only study humans and NOT animals. 

BANDURA'S FOUR STAGE PROCESS

Four mediating cognitive factors are necessary in order for the observed behaviour to be performed or imitated. 

1) Attention - observe the behaviour.

2) Retention - remembering the behaviour.

3) Judgement/ability - can we do the behaviour?

4) Motivation/ Observed Consequences - whether the behaviour was reinforced or punished, therefore determines whether we copy the behaviour. 

BANDURA (1965) STUDY: BOBO DOLL.

Investigated vicarious reinforcement - would children carry out a learned aggressive behaviour based on the consequences they saw?

1) Kids watched 5 minute film of adult role model behaving aggressively to a BoBo doll. 
2) Kids then split into three groups - one group saw adult being praised and rewarded, second group saw adult punished, and third group were not shown any further videos.
3) Kids then put in room with BoBo doll individually, and behaviour of children observed.

FOUND: group 1 children acted more aggressively towards doll, group 2 were less aggressive towards doll, group 3 were between both groups. SUGGESTS children did learn vicariously. 

+ controlled, therefore replicable.
+ human learning rather than animals.
- sample not representative
- lacks ecological validity 
- observing adult behaviour - confounding variable as children tend to copy any adult. 

Observer will watch someones behaviour and see whether it is rewarded or punished.

They then think that if they carried out the same behaviour, they will recieve the same consequence as the other person so likely to perform/not perform the behaviour. 

Strengths
+ explains learning must have process of memory - complex copared to biological approach
+ based on lab experiments - objective, replicable, internally valid.
+ less deterministic and reductionist

Limitations
- research lacks ecological validity. 
- biological factors are largely ignored - reductionist

Anxiety Disorders
- Modelling to treat disorders - vicarious association takes place.

Gender Development
- Gender related behaviour is aquired through reinforcement, modelling and imitation. 

Forensic Psychology
- offender behaviour learnt through observation and imitation of peers and family members. 

1) study of internal mental processes is important in understanding behaviour. 

2) Mental processes mediate between stimulus and response.

3) Thoughts influence behaviour.

4) The human mind actively processes information recieved, therefore influences the way in which we behave. 

5) Humans processing is similar to that of a computer (COMPUTER ANALOGY)

6) Internal Mental Processes can be investigated scientifically. 

PRESENTS A MECHANISTIC VIEW OF THE MIND - mind is governed by rules, likened to a computer. 

Information processing is based on:
- receiving information from the senses
- transforming information
- storing information
- retrieving information
- behaviour output based on information.

Computer terminology applied to human cognition - e.g. bottom up and top-down processing, input, output, storage.

Similarities have also been suggested - coding (electrical impulses), use of a central processing unit for manipulating information and storing information (the brain).

LIMITATIONS OF COMPUTER ANALOGY

- presents human cognition as predictable and mechanical - reductionist and deterministic. Also ignores individual differences.

Computer terminology applied to human cognition - e.g. bottom up and top-down processing, input, output, storage.

Similarities have also been suggested - coding (electrical impulses), use of a central processing unit for manipulating information and storing information (the brain).

LIMITATIONS OF COMPUTER ANALOGY

- presents human cognition as predictable and mechanical - reductionist and deterministic. Also ignores individual differences.

Computer terminology applied to human cognition - e.g. bottom up and top-down processing, input, output, storage.

Similarities have also been suggested - coding (electrical impulses), use of a central processing unit for manipulating information and storing information (the brain).

LIMITATIONS OF COMPUTER ANALOGY

- presents human cognition as predictable and mechanical - reductionist and deterministic. Also ignores individual differences.

Strengths
- scientfic and based on controlled research. 
- areas (such as the mind) looked at unlike other approaches avoiding them
- doesn't rely on basic structures so looks more in depth - less reductionist
- practical applications - ideas applied in CBT.

Limitations
- not possible to see the cog processes at work - inferential
- quite vague - doesn't say WHY processes happen as they do
- reductionist - simplifies down
- too much emphasis on brain as computer.

Forensic Psychology
- cognitive concepts used to develop anger management treatment programmes for offenders to change maladaptive thoughts. 
- geographical profiling - mental schema to create the map 

Cognition and Law
- cognitive interview
- bottom-up and top-down processings for FAT and HFT.
- Flashbulb memory

Gender Development
- Gender Schema Theory
- Kohlberg's theory

FOCUSES ON THE UNCONSCIOUS CONFLICT BETWEEN THE DIFFERENT STRUCTURES THAT MAKE UP THE WHOLE PERSONALITY.

1. Behaviour and feelings caused by unconscious processes (psychic determinism)

2. Behavour motivated by two basic instincts (libido) - life and death instinct - constantly in battle between pleasure and selfishness.

3. Psychodynamic confict influences our behaviour.

4. Behaviours and feelings as adults are because of our childhood experiences.

5. Personality is shaped as children experience conflicts at each of the psychosexual stages. 

HOW THE 3 PERSONALITY STRUCTURES INTERACT IS CALLED DYNAMICS OF PERSONALITY.

1. ID
- born with it, and is the pleasure principle.
- driven by life and death instinct - create desires unconsciously 
- avoids negativity rather than seeking pleasure

2. EGO
- reality principle - operating at conscious, preconscious and unconscious levels. 
- guides the behaviours of a person by determining what is possible and practical.
- employs defence mechanisms to cope with unreasonable demands of the ID. 

3. SUPEREGO
- develops at 4-5 yrs, made of two systems: conscience and ideal self.
- makes decision whether to follow ego or id at points in life. 

DEFENCE MECHANISMS PROTECT THE EGO

Repression
- disturbing thoughts not allowed to become conscious - therefore stays within the unconscious so we forget it.

Denial
- reducing anxiety by refusing to see the unpleasant aspects of reality

Displacement
- transferring impulses or feelings to a neutral or innocent target - e.g. scapegoating where social group is wrongly blamed.

PERSONALITY DEVELOPS THROUGHOUT STAGES - if oversatisfied or unsatisfied at stage, then fixation occurs - leads to behaviour patterns and problems in adulthood.

1. ORAL - 0-18mnths - centres around mouth.

2. ANAL - 2-3yrs - child gains pleasure from retention and expulsion of faeces.

3. PHALLIC - 4-6yrs - Oedipus and Electra Complex - superego developed.

4. LATENT - 7-11yrs - Sexual drive directed towards peer friendships or school.

5. GENITAL - 12+yrs - sexual maturation.

1. Phobia of horses at age of 4 years.

2. Freud interpreted child's fear of horses was due to unconscious fear of his father.

3. Horse was symbol for father, and the fear of being bitten was the fear of castration.

ERIK ERIKSON - less emphasis on childhood experience but on EGO DEVELOPMENT.

- proposed a series of psychosocial stages which people go through in their lifetime. All up to 60+yrs.
- Unlike Freud, suggests that stages can be revisited and resolved.
- most important one is stage 6 in their 20's, between intimacy vs isolation.

CARL JUNG- collective unconscious - contained basic psychological truths called universal archetypes - these predispose us in the same way as our ancestors.  

Strengths
- emphasised importance of unconcious factors in determining behaviours. UNLIKE (refer to approach)
- unique insight into human behaviour - gained widespread support.
- major influence in psychology - APPLICATONS - psychotherapy, CBT.
- use of case study method - in depth etc.

Limitations
- Based of unrepresentative sample - all had emotional disorders
- unscientific - cannot be disproved as unfalsifiable - cannot scientifically look into the unconscious.
- Deterministic (psychological)
- reductionist - too much emphasis on unconscious.
- use of case study method - subjective.

Gender Development
- Identification with same-sex parent at end of Oedipus/Electra complex accounts for Gender Identity

Social Development
- Childhood experiences affect our behaviour in adulthood.
- Bowlby - human personality based off early relationships.

Anxiety Disorders- Behaviour results from unconscious repressed traumatic memories, and unresolved childhood conflict.
- treatment of phobia - psychoanalysis, dream analysis.

Forensic Psychology
- defence mechanisms

EMPHASISES CONSCIOUS AWARENESS - FREE WILL.

1. Psych should be concerned with the subjective conscious experience of the individual - PERSON CENTRED APPROACH

2. Everyone is unique - basing it on them and not generalising - HOLISTIC

3. Humans have freedom to choose their own destiny - FREE WILL.

4. Everyone is striving to achieve their potential & self actualise

5. Scientifc methods are inappropriate for study of human behaviour - doesn't tell us about the individual.

- He believed that everyone is  born with self-actualising tendency (CONTRADICTS FREE WILL ASPECT - INNATE DRIVE IS DETERMINISTIC)

- People need unconditional positive regard (people caring for you no matter what behaviour) to develop their self.

Self-concept:
- IDEAL SELF (what you want to be like)
- SELF-IMAGE (perceived self)
- SELF ESTEEM (self worth)

Good psychological health exists when the gap between the ideal self and self image is SMALL.

- supported his theory from clients of his in client-centred therapy - client is encouraged to find their own solutions, as they are responsible for their own destiny. (SUBJECTIVE, CANNOT GENERALISE)
- Therapists provides unconditional positive regard to improve self-esteem.

PERSON-CENTRED APPROACH
- people are good with innate tendency towards growth and self-actualisation (SAME AS ROGERS)
- Everyone possesses range of motives for their behaviour - deficiency (maintain physical/psychological equilibrium) and growth (tendency to self-actualise).
HIERACHY OF NEEDS

Why does the humanistic approach reject the scientific approach?
(Why the humanistic approach doesn't want to generalise a law to everyone)

1. Unable to capture richness of conscious experience - controlled methods are reductionist, rather than holistic which the Humanistic approach wants to be.

2. Person's subjective conscious experience is the primary concern - research is based on humans rather than animals as they tell us little about human thought, reason and language.

3. Scientific approach is dehumanising - too basic, doesn't acknowledge the complexity of human behaviour.

Importance of individual experience
- Humanistic emphasises uniqueness of each individual - experiences are not questioned or challenged, but attempts made to understand their experiences.
- Showing EMPATHY can help to see things from another person's perspective in order to understand.

Importance of promoting personal growth
- Humanistic regards personal growth as essential part of what it means to be human.
- MASLOW - growth occurs when deficiency needs are satifised
- ROGERS - growth occurs with the fully functioning person.

Importance of concepts of free will and holism
- Humanistic believes whole person should be studied - essential to consider them and their behaviours HOLISTICALLY.
- society puts strain on free will - norms and laws.
- ACTIVE AGENTS - everyone is one, they change and decide their own development - they are RESPONSIBLE.

Strengths
- emphasises free will - ignored by other approaches
- subjective conscious experience provides VALID, RICH QUALITATIVE DATA
- optimistic - helps people to grow.
- PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS - CCT.

Limitations
- less impact on mainstream psychology - lack of emperical evidence
- use of qualitative techniques - BIAS, lack of internal and external validity.
- unable to generalise.
- not scientific - subjective.
- ignores anything outside conscious awareness - REDUCTIONIST
- unrealisitc optimism about human nature - assumes everyone is good.

Client centred therapy is the only application.

It's hard to apply theoretically to topics due to its stance in several debates, lack of supporting evidence, and the vagueness of the concepts.

An eclectic approach is to create a combination of different approaches rather than stick to just one approach - 'pick and mix' - more common in applied psychology (e.g. therapy).

Different types of electicism
1. Theoretical electicism - assumptions of approaches combined
2. Methodological eclecticism - adopting best research methods of approaches used.
3. Epistemological eclecticism - combination of different positions in the debates in psychology.
4. Applied eclecticism - combination of practical applications.
5. Selective eclecticism - use of different ideas alone or together in different situations (e.g. explaining depression with biological ideas)

Strengths
- Easy to accomodate fact that each person is unique by combining
- Provides fuller, richer picture - holistic
- interactionist perceptions lead to better understanding
- eclecticism needs to occur to treat somebody - becomes more appropriate.

Limitations
- hard to combine info from each approach - contradicting