Psychology

Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)

Wundt is known for being the scientific psychology founder. He helped found the school of structualism which focuses on the structure of the mind and the basic elements of conciousness.

He introduced the idea of introspection, which is looking at yourself and others to work out how you/they feel and how their minds work. We do this by presenting them with a stimulus to then discover how their mind works by scientifically recording down their experience to map out how their mind is structured.

Evaluation

The methods of introspection are unreliable and not repeatable so may not be accurate because we can't physically see inside someone elses mind so they could be lying. It relies primarily on non-observable responses so it is still not completely accurate. It's just based on opinion. Introspection is NOT accurate.

Wundt is a reductionist which reduces ideas down into a simple cause and effect whilst ignoring other factors which weakens the argument. If we ignore other factors we weakening it as an argument which is what makes introspection inaccurate.

Introspection doesn't tell us how the mind works.

Is psychology a science? - THOR

A theory lets us test predictions.

Theory Hypotheses Observe Replicate

Qualitative - opinions 'subjective'

Quantitative - facts(numbers, scores, times) 'objective'

Empirism - belief that all knowledge is derived from a sensory experience

Innate- Born with it

Key assumptions

• Behavious is learnt - everything we do, we do as we have learnt it from being born as a blank slate 'tabula rasa'.
• Animals and humans learn in the same way - this means we can test on animals to understand humans.
• The 'mind' is irrelevant - we cannot directly measure data trhough observations of behaviour.

Classical Conditioning

Acquisition phase - the stage where the neutral stimulus with the unconditioned stimulus which gets an unconitioned response changes to a conditioned response.

UCS=UCR  -   NS=No respone  -   UCS+NS=UCR   -   CS=CR

Timing-association only occurs if UC and NS are presented at the same time.

Extinction - CR not permanent. After a few presentations of the CS in the absence of the UCS, it loses the ability for a CR.

Spontaneous recovery-following extinctions, if CS and UCS are paired again the link is made much more quickly.

Stimulus generalisation-once conditioned, animals will respond to other similar stimuli to CS.

Strength of CC - practical applications - help the treatment of phobias.

Limitation of CC - harder to  condition if it is not directly beneficial.

Brief summary of Watson and Rayner

W+R successfully conditioned Little Albert to fear a fluffy white rat. Little Albert was not scared of anything apart from the sound of a metal bar being hit. So W+R hit the bar when the white rat was near the toddler so Albert would assosciate the rat with the sound. After thid the fear was conditioned into him. Not only was Little Albert then afraid of the white rat, he also developed a fear of anything white and fluffy through the conditioning.

Operant conditioning

B.F Skinner believed that our behaviour is shaped according  to the consequences of our actions. If the consequence is good we keep doing it, if the consequence is bad we don't do it again.

Positive reinforcement is geting a reward. Negative reinforcement is removing something unpleasent. Punishment instatly stops the behaviour.

The schedules of reinforcement determin how strong the bond is going to be. Everytime will establish reinforcement, nth times with maintain partial information and randomly will be harder to establish the reinforcement.

A strength is that you can apply OC to real life scenarios and imply the knowledge to treat phobias as it is a scientific approach as we can see the cause and effect. A limitation is that it has low ecological validity but that does mean in the lab we have high control to get strong evidence.

Deterministic - dont have free will so behaviour is determined by external of internal factors acting upon the individual.

Social learning is learning through observation, imitaion and modelling or another person or role model.

It was created by Albert Bandura and it is behaviourist but it takes into account thought processes therefore it is also cognitive.

Identification - people, especially children, are more likely to imitate someone they identify with, role models. This process is called modelling.

Mediational Processes

There are 4 proceses...Attention (observe what), Retention (retain how), Reproduction (can i do it) and Motivation (can i be bothered). These are the processes a person goes through to retain a behaviour.

The identification factos are same gender, same age or older, high status and likability.

Vicarious Learning - Bandura stated that we're also influenced by observing the consequences of another persons behaviour.

Similarities

• All behaviour is learned.
• Related to a stimulus and response bond
• Both reductionist
• Controlled enviroments/experiements - quantatative
• All use forms of reinforcement

Differences

• BA is more deterministic
• SLT needs motivation
• BA passive learning, SLT active learning
• SLT non-human animals are not used
• BA learning = performance, SLT learning is not determined by performance - motivation

Supporting Evidence - Contraditctory Evidence - Other Explanations - Usefulness - Testibility

Behaviourist Approach

S - Operant- Skinner boxes. How by being awarded with food = positive reinforcement. Or negative reinforcement = the sound turned off. Punishment = electric shock.

    -Classical - Little Albert. Behaviour can be learnt by association. Behaviour can be changed through the use of stimuli

C - No contradictory evidence. Classical - based on reflexes so mat not be able to repeat

O - More biological - reductionist as it ignores other factors

U - Application is teaching pets or people and implication is treating phobias

T - Has to be in a controlled enviroment so we have control over the causality

Social Learning Theory

S - Bandura's theory with the Bobo doll of 3 rooms of 24 children watching a different role model. Children with aggressive model took on the aggressive behaviour so shows behaviour is learnt.

C - No contradictory evidence

O - Bobo doll could be a biological approach and the children just have more testosterone in them so act more aggressively than others. Or it could be circumstantial as they may have had a bad morning or something happened to put them in a bad mood.

U - People can undertand why people act the way they do for no reason at they can see that it's just been picked up.

T - Controlled enviroments have to be used but we have more control over the causality.

How we percieve, store, manipulate and interpret information. Perception, Memory, Thinking and Problem Solving.

Schemas are ways we organise and store thoughts and information in our minds about ourselves and the world around us. When we take in information we often link it to information we already know. The positive to having schemasis that it reduces the time we take to process information, however a negative is that it can lead to stereotyping.

Internal Mantal Processes: the operations both conscious and unconscious that occur during thinking.

Theorectial: the theory of a subject or area rather than its practical application.

Computer models: refers to the process of using computer analogies as a representation of human cognition.

Cognitive Neuroscience: the study of higher cognitive functions in humans and its underlying neural bases.

Inference: using known information to come to a logical conclusion from evidence.

Key Assumptions

• Behvaiour can be largely explained in terms of how the mind operates - information processing.
• The mind works in a similar way to a computer - inputting, storage and retrieving data.
• Mediational processes occur between stimulus and response.

Everything psychological is at first biological.

There is a biological cause for every behaviour due to brain damage or infection.

Concordance rate: how we test genetic similarity - a measure of genetic similarity. The higher the genetic similarity, the more likely you will share a behaviour/characteristic e.g. family members

Genotype: genetic make up of a person from DNA

Phenotype: the observable characteristics - behavioural ad physical characteristics.

Key Assumptions

• All behaviour has a genetic cause - genetics/structure of brain/neural+hormonal/evolution.
• If biological cause there is a biological treatment - depression
• Humans and animals have a similar biological make up so we can investigate.

Scientific Method: being in a controlled enviroment means they can replicate studies - causality and validity.

Reductionist: Ignores factors like cultral, emotional, enviromental.

Application: treatment can be used to help mental illnesses, such as depression, to improve people's lives.

Evolutionary Problem: it is unfalsifiable - cannot be disproved as we can't go back in time to prove it.

Danger of genetic explanation: if you carry a gene for criminality - it has deterministic implications of genetic screening.

Endocrine System: -Foundations of the endocrine system are the hormones and glands.  -As the body's chemical messagers, hormones transfer inforamtion and instructions from one set of cells to another.

Smpathetic - speeds up                          Parasympathetic - slows down like a parachute.