Summary AQA A-level psychology approaches to psychology paper 2 notes
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Course
Approaches
Institution
AQA
A document containing all the information necessary for the approaches to psychology section of AQA A-level psychology paper 2. The information is divided into AO1 (knowledge) and AO3 (evaluation), and incudes all the names and dates related to the knowledge and evaluation points. I'd recommend usi...
Approaches to
psychology
Origins of psychology AO1
♡ Wundt opened the first lab dedicated to psychological enquiry, beginning of scientific
psychology separate from philosophical roots
♡ Wundt aimed to study the nature of human consciousness
♡ method was called introspection- recorded experiences with various stimuli, divided
observations into thoughts, images, and sensations
♡ isolating the structure of consciousness is called structuralism
♡ the stimuli Wundt used was always presented in the same order and with the same
instructions to all participants
Origins of psychology AO3
♡ s- established psychology as a science, Wundt developed systematic and well-
controlled methods, extraneous variables were controlled by using a lab and
standardisation was used
♡ w- subjective data, Wundt relied on participants reporting their own thoughts, which is
subjective, may have changed or hidden thoughts, can’t establish meaningful laws of
behaviour
Behaviourist approach AO1
♡ studies behaviour that can be observed and measured
♡ psychologists such as Watson (1913) rejected introspection as it involved vague and
difficult to measure concepts
♡ behaviourists believe all behaviour is learned as babies are born as a blank slate
♡ classical conditioning presented by Pavlov based on research in 1927
♡ dogs were conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell if the sound was repeatedly
presented at the same time as food
♡ they associated the stimulus of a bell ringing with food, and so produce saliva when
they hear the bell
♡ a neutral stimulus can be associated with an unconditioned stimulus which creates an
unconditioned response, leading the conditioned stimulus creating a conditioned
response
♡ operant conditioning was presented by Skinner in 1953
♡ humans learn to behave via consequences
♡ positive reinforcement is receiving a reward for a behaviour
♡ negative reinforcement is having something negative taken away or avoided through a
behaviour
♡ positive punishment is receiving something negative as a consequence of behaviour
♡ negative punishment is having a reward taken away
♡ reinforcement leads to the behaviour being repeated, and punishment causes the
behaviour to stop
♡ evidence from Skinner box
- Every time rats accidentally activate a lever, they are rewarded with a food pellet
- Rats continued to press lever deliberately
- Rats were continually subjected to unpleasant electric current
- This current stopped when they accidentally press lever
- Rats learned to go straight to the lever when put in box
Behaviourist approach AO3
♡ s- scientific research, measurement of observable behaviour in highly controlled lab
settings, breaking behaviour into stimulus response units removes extraneous variables,
clear cause and effect
, ♡ s- applications, operant conditioning basis of token economy systems, classical
conditioning applied to treatment for phobias
♡ w- too environmentally deterministic, reducing behaviour to simple components
ignores influence of thought processes, ignores influence of any free will on behaviour
♡ w- flawed studies, rat box was unethical so cannot be repeated and checked for
reliability, cannot generalise learning process of rats to humans
Social learning theory AO1
♡ SLT says behaviour is learned through the observation and imitation of others
♡ vicarious reinforcement means imitation occurs if we observe behaviour being
rewarded rather than punished
♡ the learner observes the behaviour and the consequences
♡ mental factors mediate the learning process to determine whether a new response is
acquired- mediational processes
♡ attention- the extent to which we notice certain behaviours
♡ retention- how well we remember the behaviour
♡ motor reproduction- the ability of the learner to perform the behaviour
♡ motivation- the will to perform the behaviour, determined by whether it was rewarded
or punished
♡ identification means children are more likely to imitate people they identify with
♡ this person is their role model, and imitating them is modelling
♡ role models have similar characteristics as the observer, and has high status
♡ Bandura and Walters (1963) show 3 groups of children videos of adults behaving
aggressively towards a Bobo doll
- Group 1 sees the adults praised for this behaviour
- Group 2 sees the adult punished
- Group 3 sees no consequence
- When given their own Bobo doll, group 1 was most aggressive and group 2 least
Social learning theory AO3
♡ s- recognises cognitive factors, humans and animals store information about behaviour
of others to make judgements about appropriate actions, more comprehensive by
including mediational processes
♡ s- real world application, useful to explain how social and cultural norms are
transmitted, applied to gender roles
♡ w- contrived lab studies, main purpose of a Bobo doll is to strike it, children did so as it
was expected of them
♡ w- mirror neurons in the brain allow us to empathise with and imitate other people,
biological influences were under-emphasised in SLT
Cognitive approach AO1
♡ says internal mental processes should be studies scientifically
♡ studies processes such as memory and thinking which are private (cannot be directly
observed) by making inferences from behaviour
♡ schemas- packages of ideas and information based on experience
♡ they act as a mental framework for the interpretation of incoming information
♡ babies are born with simple motor schemas for innate behaviours
♡ as we get older schemas become more detailed and complex, allowing us to process
lots of information quickly
♡ schemas may distort our interpretations of sensory information, leading to perceptual
errors
♡ cognitive psychologists use theoretical and computer models to understand internal
mental processes
♡ the information processing approach suggests information flows through the cognitive
system in a sequence of stages
♡ cognitive neuroscience is the study of how brain structures influence mental processes
♡ with the development of new brain scanning techniques, scientists can systematically
observe the neurological basis of mental processes
♡ this has led to developing mind mapping techniques such as brain fingerprinting
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