Summary Approaches and origins of psychology Alevel AQA notes
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Approaches and Origins of psychology
Origins of psychology
• Has its roots in 17th and early 19th century philosophy and was once known as
experimental philosophy
• Early influences included Descartes and his concept of Cartesian dualism
which simply means that the mind and body are separate entities, the brain
is not the same as the mind
• The work of john Locke and his concept of empiricism (belief that all
knowledge is derived from sensory experience and can be studied using
scientific method) influenced psychology
• Evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin – emergence of psychology
Wilhelm Wundt
• 1873 – publishes first book on psychology ‘principles of physiological
psychology’
• 1879 – opened the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig.
• Considered to be father of psychology
• Approach was to study the structure of the human mind by breaking down
behaviours into their basic elements which became known as structuralism
Introspection
• Participants were asked to reflect on their own cognitive processes and
describe them
• Established psychology as a science by using a scientific method which would
lead to multiple different psychological persepctives
• Relies primarily on non observable responses and although participants can
report conscious experiences they are unable to comment on unconscious
factors relating to their behavior
• Produced data that was subjective so it became difficult to establish general
principles this means that introspective experimental results are not reliably
reproduced by the other researchers
• The early behaviourists such as Pavlov + skinner and thorndike were
achieving reliably reproducible results and discovering explanatory principles
that could easily be generalized to all human beings
• Still used today to gain access to cognitive processes
• E.g. Griffiths used introspection to study the cognitive processes of fruit
machine gamblers
he asked them to think aloud whilst playing a fruit machine into a
microphone on their lapel
• Csikzentmilyi and hunter used it to study happiness in their work in the area
of positive psychology
,Scientific method
1. all behavior is seen as being caused (determined)
2. if behavior is determined then it should be possible to predict how human
beings would behave In different conditions (predictability)
• this technique became known as scientific method
• investigative methods:
objective – scientific evidence
systematic – standardized instructions and operationalized detail
replicable – variables are operationalized
Evaluation of scientific approach
(+) Knowledge acquired using scientific methods are more than just the passive
acceptance of facts
(-) Scientific psychologists create contrived situations that create artificial
behaviours, which lacks ecological validity
(+) Causes of behavior can be established through the use of methods that are
empirical and replicable which can lead to treatments for maladaptive behavior
(-) Much of subject matter of psychology is unobservable, therefore cannot be
measured with any degree of accuracy
(+) Scientific knowledge is self-corrective meaning that it can be refined or
abandoned
(-) Not all psychologists share the view that human behavior can be explored
through scientific methods
Psychology as a science
1. Description – tells us what occurred
2. Explanation – tells us why a behavior or a mental process occurred
3. Prediction – identifies conditions under which a future behavior or mental
process is likely to occur
4. Change – applies psychological knowledge to prevent unwanted behavior
and to bring about desired change
Learning approach – notes
• Classical conditioning
• Operant conditioning
Classical conditioning
• Pavlov research in which he investigated salivation in dogs when they ate
• Noticed they started to salivate when he rung a bell because it was indicating
that it was time for food
, • = Classically conditioned
• Other important features:
➢ Timing = if the interval between NS and UCS is too great then
conditioning didn’t take place.
➢ Extinction = CR doesn’t become permanently established as a
response so after a few times of the CS in the absence of the UCS it
loses its ability to produce the CR.
➢ Spontaneous recovery = if they are paired together again then link is
made much more quickly
➢ Stimulus generalization
Operant conditioning
• Skinners experiment with the rats in the box
• Types of reinforcement: positive and negative
• There is schedules of reinforcement – a partial reinforcement schedule is
more effective in maintaining that response and avoiding extinction
• Punishment – followed by a consequence which undesirable or unpleasant
Evaluation
Classical conditioning
(+) Led to development of treatments for reduction of anxiety associated with
various phobias.
(-) Different species face different challenges so have different capabilities to learn
through the process of classical conditioning
Operant conditioning
(+) skinners reliance on the experimental method which uses controlled conditions
in attempt to discover a possible causal relationship between two or more variable
(-) his experiments involved the study of non human animals rather than humans
which tells us little about human behavior.
Social Learning Theory
• Bandura agreed with the behaviourists that much of behavior is learned from
experience.
• SLT represents a departure from behaviourism with the inclusion of cognitive
factors
• Bandura suggested humans learn through observation and imitation of
others within a social context.
• Bandura accepted that learning occurs directly through classical and operant
conditioning but also indirectly.
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