From The Student Room

TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > Psychology > Psychology - Approaches

---

Contents 1 The psychodynamic approach – FREUD 1.1 The effects of early experience on personality development 1.2 Factors that motivate behaviour 1.2.1 Explanations should include 1.3 Strengths 1.4 Weaknesses 2 The evolutionary approach 2.1 Natural selection 2.2 Sexual selection 2.3 Socialbiology/Kin selection 2.3.1 Explanations should include 2.4 Strengths 2.5 Weaknesses 3 The cognitive approach 3.1 Schemas 3.1.1 Explanations should include 3.2 Strengths 3.3 Weaknesses 4 The behavioural approach 4.1 Environmental determinism 4.2 Classical conditioning 4.3 Operant conditioning 4.4 Social learning theory - Bandura 4.4.1 Explanations should include 4.5 Strengths 4.6 Weaknesses 5 Comments

The psychodynamic approach – FREUD

Early experience has a strong influence on behaviour in later life. Our behaviour as adults is greatly influenced by our experiences in early childhood.

The effects of early experience on personality development

• He believed that child development proceeds through psychosexual stages. Each stage has a focus on a particular body part: OAPLG.
• Frustration (when needs are not met) or overindulgence may result in fixation where some of the child’s libido remains permanently locked into one stage and the method of obtaining satisfaction that characterized that stage will dominate their adult personality:

-	Frustration	Over indulgence
Oral	Oral aggressive character – characterised by pessimism, envy and suspicion	Oral receptive character – optimistic, gullible and full of admiration for others
Anal	Anal receptive character – neat, stingy and obstinate	Anal repulsive character – disorganised, reckless and defiant

Factors that motivate behaviour

• He believed that the personality has 3 parts: Id, ego and superego.
• The Id, present at birth demands immediate satisfaction and is ruled by the pleasure principle. The id is the irrational, primitive part of personality.
• The ego, which develops as a child interacts with the world, is the conscious, rational part. The ego must respond to the constraints of reality (governed by the reality principle), which brings inevitable conflicts with the id.
• The superego, which develops during the phallic stage, creates further conflict with the id.
• The ego has ego defence mechanisms to reduce the anxiety created by conflict. They are unconscious and explain the dynamics of many behaviours. RDDRPS

Explanations should include

Psyche

• ID
• Ego
• Superego

Psychosexual stages

• Fixations
• Regression

Defence mechanisms

• RDDRPS

Therapies

• Dream analysis
• Hypnosis
• Free association

Strengths

• Freud’s views have changed the Western view of human nature. It led to recognition of the importance of early childhood experience on later behaviour and the importance of the unconscious mind.
• Freud’s theory recognises that personality has more than one aspect. It allows for the fact that we can be rational and irrational and that we sometimes predict that we will act in one way but actually do something different.
• Psychoanalysis has been helpful in therapy for some abnormal conditions.
• Case studies provide in depth detail about a persons life. It is not reductionist as it embraces the complexity of behaviour, they relate to real life.
• A number of Neo-Freudians have adopted Freud’s explanation incorporating more social rather than sexual influences.

Weaknesses

• The theory lacks empirical support. It is based on a few case studies of abnormality (white Viennese women) and it is not possible to build a theory of normal development based on a few case studies.
• Case studies are unreliable because they contain researcher bias and subjective interpretation. They mostly use the acid test.
• It is very determinist. The psychodynamic approach sees childhood behaviour as dependant on innate forces and adult behaviour as dependant on early childhood experience and its effect on the unconscious mind. This allows little/no room for free will.
• It lacks falsifiability. It is difficult to prove his theory wrong because his arguments can be made to fit any behaviour.
• The main evidence for Freud’s theory consists of correlations between certain childhood experiences and type of adult personality. Correlations cannot prove causes and so these correlations cannot show that adult personality has been caused by childhood experiences.

The evolutionary approach

Natural selection

• Darwin’s theory of natural selection proposed that at any time, the natural environment (predators, members of the same species and the physical environment) exterts selective pressure on an individual.
• This pressure weeds out those who do not ‘fit’ the environment from those who do. ‘Fitness’ is the extent to which individuals characteristics are adapted to the environment so that one particular individual has a better chance of surviving than another. Survival of the fittest.
• Reproduction is a crucial factor because it ensures the continuation of the genes responsible for ‘fit’ behaviour. An individual that survives but does not reproduce does not pass its genes onto the next generation so that selected characteristic does not become perpetuated.
• Behaviour patterns as well as physical characteristics become adapted by evolution in such a way that those that aid survival and reproduction are most likely to survive.
• In order for natural selection to occur a characteristic must be adaptive and generically transmitted.

Sexual selection

• The selection of characteristics that are connected solely with reproductive success. Females are the selectors and males compete to be selected.
• Female selection has therefore evolved as a successful strategy for females as it enhances overall reproductive success. Males need to compete to be selected. The male with the sexiest traits is most likely to be selected which means that these become increasingly exaggerated over our evolutionary time.

Socialbiology/Kin selection

• Socialbiology is a branch of evolutionary theory that explains paradoxical behaviours. It states that behaviours that helps the genes of the individual, rather than the individual itself, survive are selected. If an animal acts to protect its offspring (or other genetic relatives), then its own genes will survive even if they die.
• States that any behaviour that promotes the survival of the kin (genetic relatives) will be selected.

Explanations should include

Natural selection

• Adaptive
• Survival of the fittest
• Genetically transmitted

Sexual selection

• Reproductive success
• Sexy traits

Strengths

• Has drawn attention to how the pressures of natural selection can affect behaviour. It is especially relevant for explaining nonhuman animal behaviour but may be less useful in explaining human behaviour.
• There is no doubt that aspects of our behaviour are determined by genetic factors.
• Has certain practical applications. The acknowledgement of the importance of genetic factors in influencing behaviour has led to some important but controversial applications in the form of genetic engineering.

Weaknesses

• The approach is reductionist. Evolutionary theory holds that all behaviour is a result of natural selection and is embedded in our genes. With respect to human behaviour, this is highly unlikely to be true.
• The approach is determinist as it suggests that our behaviour is affected by factors other than free will.
• It ignores thought processes. Humans are capable of conscious thought and active decision making, yet this approach takes little account of this. It views humans as helpless victims of their evolutionary history.
• There is a lack of evidence to support theories of evolutionary psychology

The cognitive approach

• Concerned with internal mental explanations of behaviour. It views humans as actively thinking about events and considering their meaning.
• Focuses on mental processes, how people take in information, how they mentally represent it and how they store it.
• Assumes that behaviour can be largely explained by how the mind operates
• Assumes that the mind works similar to a computer. Both computers and the brain receive information, store it and retrieve it. Human thinking is assumed to involve the processing of information the way a computer processes the data put into it.

Schemas

• The basic unit of our mental processes. It is a cognitive structure containing knowledge about a thing, including its attributes and the relations among its attributes.

The concept of a schema incorporates a number of critical features of our thought processes:

• A schema does not consist of a single dimension but of a cluster of interrelated concepts
• A schema is derived from an individuals past experience and does not directly represent reality. We can therefore use schemas to explain how people distort information along the lines of their past experience.
• Schemas are socially determined. They are learnt and refined through social exchanges.
• There are many different kinds of schemas, e.g. events.
• Schemas are an obvious outcome of our cognitive processes. We need to categorise and summarise the large amounts of information processed in order to generate future behaviour.

Explanations should include

• Schemas and stereotypes
• Cognitive biases
• Thoughts: positive and negative
• People are like computers: input-store-retrieve
• Attribution theory
• Gender schema theory
• Information processing theory
• Piaget

Strengths

• Takes into account the influence of mental processes on behaviour. It focuses on processes involved in perception and thinking. It has provided very useful for models of memory and attention.
• It has many useful practical applications, e.g. memory, problem solving and in the application of therapies for mental disorders.

Weaknesses

• It is a very mechanistic approach which compares humans to machines. The computer analogy is limited since computers, do not, like humans, get bored, tired or make mistakes. Computers are also far more limited than humans in the actions they can perform. The human brain has far greater abilities than even a sophisticated computer. *Ignores social, motivational and emotional factors.
• The use of laboratory experiments has certain limitations. Much of the behaviour studied is carefully controlled and stripped of the context of ordinary behaviour. This means that the research lacks ecological validity in that the behaviour shown in these situations is not necessarily the behaviour that would occur in everyday situations. This method also tends to fragment the type of behaviour studied.

The behavioural approach

Environmental determinism

• Believes that all behaviours are learned
• Experience and interaction with the environment make us what we are
• We become what we become because interactions with the environment (environmental determinism)

Classical conditioning

• New behaviours may be acquired through association
• E.g. a neutral stimulus (white rat), a loud bang (unconditioned stimulus), crying (unconditioned response). Paired white rat with a loud bang (conditioned stimulus) and made little Albert cry (conditioned response). He now associates everything white and fluffy with this experience.

Operant conditioning

• New behaviours are learnt through reward, punishment or reinforcement
• Behaviour can result in positive consequences (rewards or reinforcement) or negative consequences (punishments)
• Rewards or reinforcements increase the probability that a behaviour will be repeated, punishments decrease the probability
• Reinforcement can be negative or positive

Social learning theory - Bandura

• Learning is mostly through observation
• Individuals observe role models and learn about the consequences of behaviour through indirect or vicarious reinforcement

Explanations should include

SLT – Bandura

• Observational learning - modelling, imitation, identification.
• Vicarious reinforcement

Conditioning

• Classical
• Operant: reward, reinforcement, punishment

Environmental determinism

Strengths

• Behaviourist explanations can be easily tested because they are operationalized. A good theory must be falsifiable and this is true of behaviourist explanations
• Such explanations are well supported by research. E.g. Classical conditioning: Little Albert, SLT: Bobo dolls.
• Behaviourist explanations can account for individual differences in terms of selective reinforcement.
• Shows people to be active in their environment.
• SLT can explain social influences, such as those of parents, peer groups and the media.
• It has many important practical applications. There is a wide variety of uses of the behavioural approach in treatments, e.g. token economy.

Weaknesses

• Behaviourist explanations are reductionist, with the consequence that they may prevent psychologists investigating other explanations for behaviour, e.g. family relationships, experiences or the role of emotions.
• Behavioural explanations are determinist and suggest that people are ‘controlled’ by factors outside of their control, therefore lacking personal responsibility. It portrays humans as passive responders to environmental influences with no free will.
• It underestimates the role of biology and the role of biological factors influencing behaviour.
• Excludes the role of cognitive/mental factors

Comments

• Suitable for: Psychology
• Written by: Sazarina88.
• From this thread.