Summary Oxford AQA International A-level Psychology notes - A*
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All Paper 3 and Paper 4 notes IAL AQA (9685)
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The following material includes all notes for the Oxford AQA international A-level psychology syllabus for Unit 3 and Unit 4, including of Schizophrenia, Psychology of Sleep, Research methods 2, Applied Psychology, Scientific approaches and Issues and debates - written by an A* Psychology student a...
Favoured way of research in the western world:
- Strong preference for reason and sense perception as well as memory, imagination and language as a
methodology to understand things.
- Through using those skills, they go on to form questions along with a hypothesis from the question
and go to conduct an experimentation to prove that hypothesis.
- This is followed by forming a conclusion from what they found and finding out the results from their
observations.
Goes to show how within the investigation of the behaviourist approach and in western science in general, the
favoured research methods are collected on what has been objectively observed through an experimental
procedure and this data is known as empirical evidence.
Assumptions of the behaviourist approach:
- Only interested in studying visible behaviour that can be directly observed and measured and not
things like mental processes as it can visibly be seen.
- The scientific method should be used to obtain objective empirical evidence from controlled lab
experiments only
- Animals can be used to study learning within the behaviourist approach as we can clearly observe
stimuli and resultant behaviours and don’t need to know what they are thinking.
While they do acknowledge the existence of emotions and the unconscious mind, to behaviourists there is no
focus on that as they can’t be objectively measured hence are irrelevant to their investigations.
The behaviourist approach within psychology refers to the study and theory of behaviours, in which it is stated
that all behaviours are learned through one's interaction with the environment, using the process of
conditioning. Behaviourist assumptions specify further that this approach is only interested in studying
behaviours that are visible and that can be directly observed and measured, in which the scientific method
should be used to obtain objective empirical evidence within the setting of a controlled lab experiment. Within
this approach, not only are humans used, but the assumptions are that animals can be used as well to study
learning as it can be clearly observed and because the objective is not to understand their mental processes.
Although they consider the existence of emotions, and unconscious mind, because they are objectively
immeasurable, behaviourist psychologists consider it to be irrelevant and rather focus on the conditioning of
people's behaviours through their environment.
,Processes involved in classical conditioning theory:
Classical Conditioning:
A basic form of learning in which a neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with another stimulus known as the
unconditioned stimulus. The neutral stimulus becomes associated with the conditioned stimulus and elicits the
same response.
Conditioning:
- Refers to a process of shaping or changing behavior and there are two common behavioural
explanations which are classical and operant conditioning.
- The behavioural explanation is based on the assumption that all behaviour is learnt
According to classical conditioning, learning is due to the association between a Neutral stimulus and an
unconditioned stimulus which is something a person already enjoys or is scared of, resulting in an
unconditioned response of fear.
If enough pairings occur or if a certain experience between the NS and UNS is traumatic enough, then the
neutral becomes the conditioned stimulus provoking a conditioned response.
Describe and evaluate Pavlov’s research;
Aim: To find out if reflexive behaviour can be produced in new situations through learning.
Procedure:
- He used 35 dogs of a variety of breeds, raised in kennels in the lab
- Placed each dog in a sealed room where they couldn’t see or hear anything to prevent the effect of
any extraneous variables towards them.
- Dogs were strapped to a harness to stop it moving about and its mouth was linked to a tube that
collected saliva.
- He did this because he knew dogs salivated when they were given the control of food and it was an
easy reflex to measure.
- In the control condition, Pavlov presented the dog with food through a hatch.
- In the experimental control, Pavlov presented the dog with the NS sound and the dog did not salivate
at this - but then to condition the dog he paired the sound of the fork with the presentation of food 20
times.
- After it was conditioned, Pavlove presented the dog with sound but no meat.
Results:
- Pavlov found that the conditioned dog started to salivate 9 seconds after hearing the sound after
hearing the sound and by 45 seconds produced 11 drops of saliva.
Conclusion:
- Pavlov discovered through this experiment the concept of classical conditioning.
- He found that the neutral stimulus (sound) after repeatedly being paired with the unconditioned
stimulus of the meat turned into a CS producing CR of salivation all by itself.
- He concludes that the brain learns this new unconditioned stimulus and links a reflex to it and hence
he believes it is how we learn behaviours.
INDEPENDENT AND DEPENDENT VARIABLE:
- Repeated measures design - studies the same dogs before and after their conditioning.
- Iv = the ringing of the bell
- DV = number of drugs of saliva after hearing the noise.
, EVALUATION:
A limitation of Pavlov's experiment and research is the fact that he used dogs within the procedure. This is a
limitation because it causes the experiment to have a lack of generalizability to humans and so the results are
not representative of other species populations. This is particularly true with humans due to the fact that
humans have a higher cognitive ability, with a more complicated thought process than dogs, hence the results
of the experiment would differ if done on humans. This goes to reinforce how the experiment can be seen as
problematic due the the fact that the study only increases the behavioural understanding of one species which
are dogs and cannot be concluded to be representative of other species populations.
On the other hand, a strength of the experiment is that it has a high internal validity. Pavlov carefully controlled
the settings of his experiment to ensure his findings were objective and scientifically credible. This is evident
through things like placing the dog in a sealed room where they couldn’t see or hear anything to surely prevent
the effect of extraneous variables towards the findings. Through the extent of control within the experiment, it
therefore suggests the experiment has been able to measure what it's supposed to measure and so has a high
internal validity, making it an evident strength of the experiment.
Describe the processes involved in operant conditioning theory:
Identify/describe different types of reinforcement- positive, negative and punishment:
- Operant conditioning serves to maintain the conditioned response through the process of association
between the conditioned response (voluntary behaviour) between an operant condition (reward /
punishment), resulting in a voluntary change and maintenance in behaviour.
- Involves learning through consequences of one's actions.
DIFFERENT IN CONSEQUENCES:
- Positive reinforcement; receiving a reward when a certain desired behavior is performed like your
teacher praised you for answering a question correctly - increasing the likeliness of the behaviour
being repeated due to it.
- Negative reinforcement; a type of avoidance learning in which unpleasant things are avoided. For
example, escaping from a situation that is causing fear and anxiety feels rewarding due to the
reduction of anxiety, and this anxiety reduction acts as a negative reinforcement meaning anxiety will
be repeatedly avoided.
- Punishment; this is when a behaviour does not get repeated due to the unpleasant consequence of
the behaviour. Like being shouted at for talking in class, therefore decreasing the chance of the
behaviour being repeated as the consequence was repeated.
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