Detailed essay plans covering all topics in Approaches (AQA A-Level Psychology)
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Approaches
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Psychology A Level Year 1 and AS: The Complete Companion Student Book for AQA
This document covers every possible essay that may come up for The Approaches (AQA A-Level Psychology). They are simplified and easy to learn yet still have lots of detail to ensure you achieve the highest grade possible. There are abbreviations throughout that you should understand as a psychology...
,The origins of psychology / Wundt and introspection
Outline and evaluate Wundt’s role in the emergence of psychology as a science (8)
Para 1 → Outline: Wundt and introspection (AO1)
● Wundt - father of psychology
● His work marked beginning of scientific psychology, distinct from philosophy
● He set up the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany in the 1870s
● Promoted the use of introspection as a way of studying mental processes
● Introspection - 1st experimental attempt to study the mind by breaking
● Introspection - systematic analysis of own conscious experience of a stimulus
● Experience analysed in terms of component parts e.g sensations, emotional reaction…
● Structuralism - isolating the idea of consciousness, the stimuli
● Standardised - the same instructions/stimuli were given to each individual
● His work paved the way for later controlled research and the study of mental processes
e.g by cognitive psychologists
Para 2 → Weakness: Wundt's methods were unreliable (AO3)
● This approach mainly relied on nonobservable responses
● Although p’s could report their conscious experiences, the processes (e.g memory) were
considered to be unobservable
● Wundt's approach failed due to the lack of reliability of his methods
● Introspective results weren’t reliably reproducible by other researchers
● In contrast , early behaviourists (e.g Pavlov) were achieving reliable reproducible results
that could be generalised to all humans
Para 3 → Strengths: introspection is still useful in scientific psychology (AO3)
● Introspection (while not as commonly used) hasn’t been entirely abandoned
● Hunter used introspective methods as a way of making ‘happiness’ measurable
● They gave teens beepers that went off at random times - they had to write down their
thoughts / feeling in that moment
● Most entries showed teens were unhappy not happy but when their energies were
focused on a challenging task, they were more upbeat
● Introspection therefore offers researchers a way of understanding more clearly the
momentary conditions that affect happiness / help improve quality of life
Para 4 → Weakness: introspection isn’t very accurate (AO3)
● Nisbett and Wilson claim we have very little knowledge of the causes of and processes
underlying our behaviour and attitude
● They found this was particularly acute in the study of implicit attitudes e.g stereotypes
● E.g a person may be implicitly racist which influences the way they react to members of
a different ethnic group
● As such attitudes exist outside conscious awareness, self-reports through introspection
would not uncover them
● Challenges the value of introspective reports in exploring the roots of behaviour
,The behaviourist approach
Discuss the contribution of behaviourist psychologists such as Pavlov and Skinner to our
understanding of human behaviour (16)
Para 1 → Outline: intro to the behaviourist approach (AO1)
● Concerned with behaviour that can be observed and measured
● Early behaviourists rejected Wundt’s idea of introspection (to difficult to measure)
● Behaviourists relied on on lab experiments to ensure objectivity / control in research
● Assumption all behaviour is learnt from the environment (born as a blank slate)
Para 2 → Outline: classical conditioning - Pavlov (AO1)
● CC - learning through association
● Researched by Pavlov using dogs as an experimental subject
● A neutral stimulus is consistently paired with an unconditioned stimulus
● It eventually takes on the properties of this stimulus to produce a conditioned response
● Pavlov got dogs to associate the sound of a bell with food
● They salivated at the sound of a bell even when no food was present
Para 3 → Strengths: CC applied to therapy (AO3)
● CC has helped develop understanding of phobias - led to the development of therapy
● Successful treatments reduce anxiety associated with phobias
● Believed phobias are the result of an unpleasant learning experience (CC)
● Associate unpleasant experience with a neutral stimulus, causing a fear response
● May use CC to condition a fear response e.g to try help a phobia of spiders
● Systematic desensitisation tries to eliminate the learned anxious response (CR)
associated to the feared object or situation (CS) and create a new one (relaxation)
● Not all phobias stem from unpleasant experiences / can be remembered - CC not useful
● CC has a role in developing phobias / other processes may be involved in maintenance
Para 4 → Weakness: reductionist / other factors (AO3)
● CC emphasises the importance of learning from the environment
● It excludes genetics / inherited traits as an explanation for human behaviour
● Behaviourist approaches and theories are highly reductionist
● They reduce human behaviour to simply the S-R / focus on low levels of learning
● Reject idea behaviour may be more complex than simply a response to the environment
● CC is deterministic - doesn’t allow for the idea humans have free will
● Emphasis we have no control over behaviour / is solely determined by our environment,
● So we have no control over reactions to classical conditioning, such as phobias
Para 5 → Outline: operant conditioning - Skinner (AO1)
● Skinner is another behaviourist psychologist
● He explored operant conditioning - learning through reinforcement
● If behaviour is followed by a desirable consequence, it's more likely to occur again
● Skinner found 3 different types of consequences affect behaviour
● Positive reinforcement - rewarding behaviour = behaviour is likely to be repeated
● Negative reinforcement - performing an action stops something unpleasant happening
● Punishment (+/-) - an unpleasant consequence = reduces chance behaviour is repeated
● Demonstrated these three consequences using rats / skinner's box / food / shocks
, Para 6 → Strengths: experimental / controlled methods (AO3)
● This approach focuses on the measurement of observable characteristics
● The method of data collection is systematic, reliable and objective, so it plays a role in
establishing psychology as a credible scientific discipline
● A strength of skinner's work is his reliable on the experimental / controlled methods
● Enabled him to investigate and discover causal relationships between variables
● This allowed his results to be clear and precise
● E.g Skinner changed the IV by varying the rats consequence due to its behaviour (DV)
● He could display a clear cause and effect relationship in the consequences of behaviour
● The results could then applied to human to try and understand our behaviour as well
Para 7 → Weakness: over-reliance on animals (AO3)
● Behaviourism was influential, as it introduced animals into psychological research
● Many behaviourists believe animals and humans learn in similar ways
● Conduct experiments on animals - apply results to understand human behaviour
● Animals give experiments more control as researchers don’t have to worry about DCs
● With animals there is no issue of informed consent, privacy and confidentiality
● Many argue using animals (Pavlov's / Skinner's) research is unethical
● Animals aren’t humans - may experience physical / psychological harm
● As this approach mainly relies on animal studies many believe findings can’t be
generalised to human behaviour e.g research on rats only tell us about their behaviour
● Critics argue humans have free will so won’t act the same as animals
● Skinner argues free will is an illusion - behaviour is the product of external influences
Outline Pavlov’s research into classical conditioning and describe how classical conditioning might
explain a child’s fear of school (8)
Use points 1-4 from above
Describe and evaluate the behaviourist approach (16)
Use all points from above (could also use comparison to other approaches)
Alison wants to reduce plastic waste in her school.
She puts stickers showing an ocean full of plastic waste on each plastic bottle.
The price of bottled water increases by 20p / free refills for own bottle
There is bottle return desk, students can get 20p back for any plastic bottle they hand back
Describe and evaluate operant conditioning as a way of explaining people’s behaviour.
Refer to Alison’s approach to reducing plastic waste in your answer (16)
Use points 1 + 5-7 from above + ↓ + AO2
Application (AO2)
● Negative reinforcement - if students don’t buy bottled drinks won’t have to see the pic
● Positive reinforcement - free refill for your own bottle / 20p if return a plastic bottle
● Increases the students chances of bringing in their own bottle / picking up litter
● Punishment - 20p increase / seeing the pic in cost of bottled drink acts to decrease the
● Reduce the chances of students buying the bottled drinks
Weakness: other explanations (AO3)
● Behaviourists accused of ignoring other explanation
● Evidence for the role of genetics in behaviour (biological approach)
● By focusing conditioning we ignore evidence cognition / emotion in shaping behaviour
● Skinner rejected this claim arguing internal states are untestable
● He argued complex behaviour could be better understood by reinforcement history
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