Complete Approaches revision notes for AQA Psychology A-Level, written by a straight A* student. Includes PEEL paragraphs for every topic and diagrams where needed. Well organised and in order.
Includes collated information from class, textbooks and online. Topics include: The origins of Psycholo...
Approaches in Psychology
The origins of Psychology
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-20)
‣ Believed to be the rst person to call himself a psychologist.
‣ Is recognised as the ‘father of Psychology’.
‣ Set up the rst psychology lab in Leipzig, Germany in 1987.
‣ He wrote the rst psychology book in 1974
‣ He believed you could break down behaviours and study each individual aspect of
them scienti cally - this became known as introspection (‘looking into’)
Introspection
‣ Systematic and objective re ecting of an experience of an object
‣ Re ection on sensations, feelings and images
‣ Speci c examples (use of metronome)
‣ Wundt would ask people to focus on an everyday object and look inwards notating
sensations, feelings and images
‣ Breaking thoughts about an object and behaviours down into separate elements that
can be examined and assessed individually
Introspection: The systematic analysis of ones own conscious experience of a stimulus.
Structuralism: Analysing an experience in terms of its component parts (feelings,
sensations, images).
The emergence of Psychology as a science
1. All behaviour is seen as being caused (deterministic).
2. If behaviour is determined, then it should be possible to predict how humans behave
in di erent conditions.
Psychology uses the scienti c method
‣ Well-controlled experiments are conducted to test models.
Lack of objectivity and control
‣ There are issues due to demand characteristics and experimenter bias.
Demand characteristic: When someone thinks they have gured out the aim of the
experiment and changed their behaviour accuracy.
Nomothetic vs Idiographic
Science takes the nomothetic approach, wanting to make generalisations about people to
generate ‘laws’, psychologists are idiographic and argue that people are unique and
generalisations about human behaviour should be avoided.
Nomothetic: Coming up with theories that apply to everyone.
Idiographic: Coming up with a theory that is speci c to a person.
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, Approaches
Qualitative Research
Some psychologists use more subjective and qualitative research methods when was be
supported with di erent methods to verify their objectivity.
PEEL paragraph points - Wundt’s role in the emergence of psychology
Strengths Weaknesses
P: Wundt developed techniques to study P: His methods were subjective.
mental processes which wasn’t previously E: A person’s conscious experience of a
thought possible. stimulus is unique and open to interpretation.
E: He used introspection in controlled studies E: This led to Wundt’s ndings not being reliably
such as asking people to focus on an reproduced
everyday object.
E: This allowed throes to be developed
causing us to understand more about
cognitions
The Behaviourist Approach
The Key Assumptions
‣ Behaviour is learnt from experience.
‣ Only observable behaviour can be measured scienti cally -
internal mental processes are subjective.
‣ Animal research can be extrapolated to humans because
they share the same principles of research.
‣ Everyone is born a black slate (tabula rosa), not genetic in uence.
Classical Conditioning (Association) - Pavlov (1927)
Procedure
‣ He conditioned dogs to salivate when they heard a bell ring.
1. He repeatedly rang the bell every time good was given to the dogs.
2. Over time, they began to associate the sound of the bell with food.
3. Once conditioned, this meant they would begin to salivate if they heard the sound of
the bell even if they weren’t given any food.
Stimulus generalisation: If a stimulus has characteristics close to the conditioned
stimulus, then the association would also be made to that new stimulus.
Stimulus discrimination: When a stimulus is not linked with the conditioned response as it
is too di erent from the original stimulus.
Temporal contiguity: The unconditioned stimulus and neutral stimulus have to be
paired together at or around the same time for the association to be created.
Little Albert - John B. Watson (1919)
‣ Albert was conditioned to be scared of white bunnies.
‣ An association was made so that whenever he saw a white rat, he would
associate it with a loud hammer crack.
‣ Therefore, he became very scared of white bunnies, but also any other white
u y thing that he saw due to stimulus generalisation.
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, Approaches
Operant Conditioning (Learning by consequences) -
Skinner (1953)
Procedure
1. He placed rats into a cage that was designed to
deliver food only when a lever was pressed by the rat.
2. The rats quickly learnt to press the lever and would
continue to do this until they were full.
3. He then used an electric shock under the rats feet
that would run until they pressed the lever.
4. The rats quickly learnt to press the lever that would
lead to the most positive consequence
Positive reinforcement: Receiving a reward when a behaviour is performed - increases the
likelihood the behaviour will be repeated.
Negative reinforcement: When an animal or human produces a behaviour that avoids
something unpleasant - increases the likelihood the behaviour will be repeated to avoid
negative consequence.
Punishment: An unpleasant consequence of behaviour - decreases the likelihood the
behaviour will be repeated.
Schedules of reinforcement: Continuous reinforcement is a useful way to establish the
learning of a particular response, but hard to maintain over a long period - a partial
reinforcement schedule would reinforce regularly.
PEEL paragraph points - Behaviourist Approach
Strengths Weaknesses
P: There is evidence to support the P: The behaviourist approach uses
behaviourist approach. animals within its research.
E: Watson and Rayner classically conditioned E: Classical conditioning studies focus on dogs
Little Albert to fear rats by presenting them (Pavlov) and operant conditioning studies focus
with a loud noise. on rat behaviour (e.g. Skinner).
E: The fact that Little Albert learned to fear E: Animals are physiological di erent to humans.
white u y animals supports Classical Sp ndings generated from animal studies can
Conditioning in learning behaviour. be criticised for extrapolation and the ndings
cannot be generalised to humans.
P: The behaviourist approach uses scienti c P: The behaviourist approach is deterministic -
methods of research. claims that all thought and behaviour is caused
E: In the case of Pavlov and Skinner’s by factors outside our control.
research, speci c conditions and variables E: The approach states we develop behaviours
could be manipulated in order to assess the through stimuli-response associations and
main assumptions of classical conditioning through the learning that takes place as we
and operant conditioning. interact with our environment.
E: This means that the principals of the E: Therefore, it fails to consider the role of free
behavioural approach have been measured in will, it states that we do not have control over
a scienti c and objective way (not in uenced our actions and that the behaviours we develop
by human bias). are governed by external experiences - surely
our actions are partly as a result of our own free
choice?
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