Psychology Key areas and perspectives

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What is the Social area of psychology?
It is concerned with how people interact with one another, it looks at how our thoughts, feelings and behavior can be affected by other people. It researches in a social context.
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What are the 3 key assumptions of Social psychology?
1) Behavior is influenced by the situation as well as individual characteristics. 2) Behavior is influenced by individuals and groups. 3)Research can help us understand social issues.
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Strengths of social area?
It has real life relevance.
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Weaknesses of social area?
1) Issues of generalisability - fails to explain why some people may act differently in the same situation. 2) Can be seen as unethical (Milgram) 3) Social determinism - fails to take into account other factors.
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What has social psychology research been able to do?
1) It has been able to affect changes in behavior. 2) Has taken the blame away from the individuals.
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What is Cognitive psychology?
It studies information processes like perception, attention, language, memory and thinking and how they influence our thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
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Key assumptions of Cognitive Psychology?
1) We behave the way we do because of our attention, our perception and thought process around an event. 2) We understand the mind as a thought processor. Input - Throughout - Output.
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Strengths of Cognitive area?
1) Scientific status - most research conducted is scientific. 2) Without this approach we wouldn't know how we think, make sense of and remember the world around us.
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Weaknesses of Cognitive area?
1) Unfair to say that the mind is like a computer, because a computer does not have emotion. 2) Reductionist
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What has Cognitive research been able to help?
It has been able to find new psychological therapies.
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What is the Developmental Psychology?
Concerned with how people change and develop across their lifespan.
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Key assumptions of Developmental psychology?
It acknowledges that human development is an interaction of both nurture and nature.
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Strengths of Developmental psychology?
1) It has improved our understanding of people at different ages and stages of development. - we know now that children and adults have their own psychological characteristics. 2) Has had positive influences on children, such as creating age ratings
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Weaknesses of Developmental psychology?
1) Lacks scientific features - hard to study scientifically. 2) Ethics issues - hard to research on children.
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What has Developmental psychology researched helped?
Has been able to help those working with children to be able to notice any children not developing properly.
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What is the Biological area of psychology?
It is concerned with the actions of genes, the nervous system and hormones have on our behavior, emotions and cognition's.
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Key assumptions of the Biological area of psychology?
It suggests that we may inherit our behavior - such as malfunctioning MAO-A gene.
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Strengths of biological area?
1) Scientific research methods - most research is done in lab settings. 2) Practical applications - now we understand more there has been drug treatments created.
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Weaknesses of biological area?
1) Lacks ecological validity - not well related to real life because of the lab settings. 2) Reductionist
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Biological research has been able to find out?
It has been able to create drug treatments for mental disorders.
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What is the Individual differences area of Psychology?
It focuses on how we differ from one another to give us greater understanding of human behavior.
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Key assumptions of Individual differences?
1) Differences in personality may be the reason to why some people act different than might be expected. 2) Behavior can be explained by their personality or dispositional factors.
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Strengths of individual differences?
Practical applications - improved how we measures differences and understand disorders.
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Weaknesses of individual differences?
1) Subjective methodology - may be open to bias therefore weak reliability on some research. 2) Ethical issues - may be researching some people who are vulnerable.
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What is the behavioral perspective psychology?
Suggest we are a product of our environment and learning. Nurture rather than nature.
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What are the three types of learning of behavioral perspective?
1) Classical conditioning - learning through association. 2) Operant conditioning - learning from reward to consequence. 3) Observational learning - watching other such as role models and imitating behavior.
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Strength of Behavioral perspective?
1) Scientific research methods - under lad conditions. 2) Practical applications - understanding how children watching aggressive behavior affects them.
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Weaknesses of behavioral perspective?
1) Reductionist. 2) Ethical issues - potentially could give someone power over others by affecting their behavior.
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What has behavioral perspective been able to influence?
It has been able to find ways to reduce affects of a learnt phobia.
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What is the Psychodynamic perspective of psychology
Created by Freud that said our behavior is determined by our unconscious processes and our early childhood experiences.
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What is the structure of out unconscious mind?
1) ID - seeks only pleasure. 2) Ego - Rational part of our mind. 3) Super-ego - Our completely moral side.
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Other Key assumptions of the psychodynamic perspective?
1) our development is affected by our early relationships. 2) We express our unconscious mind through dreams and slips of the tongue.
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Strengths of the psychodynamic perspective?
1) Explanatory power - understanding adult baby syndrome that they got stuck in one of the psychosexual stages. 2) Takes into account nurture and nature.
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Weaknesses of psychodynamic perspective?
1) Poor research methodology - fails to live up to good science. 2) Hard to test
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What has the psychodynamic perspective been able to find?
It has developed some very successful treatment in psychoanalysis.
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Card 2

Front

What are the 3 key assumptions of Social psychology?

Back

1) Behavior is influenced by the situation as well as individual characteristics. 2) Behavior is influenced by individuals and groups. 3)Research can help us understand social issues.

Card 3

Front

Strengths of social area?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

Weaknesses of social area?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

What has social psychology research been able to do?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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