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38 Cards in this Set
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What are the key assumptions of the psychoanalytic approach? |
• Mental processes are occur at both conscious and unconscious levels. • Childhood experiences affect adulthood. • The approach is concerned with how the adult adjusts to life and copes with the difficulties presented by life. People who have problems adjusting may experience anxiety or depression. |
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Psychosexual Stages AO2 |
• Fisher & Greenberg found a correlation between different 'anal' characteristics, but no correlation between the characteristics and toilet training. • The complexes are sexist. • Females 'should' be morally inferior as they don't identify as strongly because there is no castration fear, but this is not supported in crime stats (forensic). •Karen Honey suggested that boys had womb envy. • Children in single-sex households can have morals and appropriate gender identity. • This is different to Erikson's psychosocial stages. |
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Case Studies AO2s (Psychoanalytic) |
• Hans was more afraid of his mother's threats of castration and had seen a horse fall over once. • Dora (18yo with cough and headaches told that she loved the man who made sexual advances on her and was simply using reaction formation) wasn't cured by Freud. • The rat man (who had compulsive behaviours due to an obsession with the idea that torture with rats would be used on his father, which Freud suggested was due to him actually wanting this to happen and feeling guilty about it) had a controlling mother and his sister died when he was 4, which may be a better explanation of his OCD. |
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What was Erikson's theory of psychosocial stages and what were the stages? |
Erikson's theory suggests that development takes place in 8 stages across one's lifetime. Each stage has a crisis that the individual has to overcome, and this leads to the ego having a basic strength. The stages are: • Trust vs Mistrust (0-1); Strength: Hope; Relationships: Mother • Autonomy vs Shame (1-3); Will; Parents • Initiative vs Guilt (3-5); Purpose; Family • Industry vs Inferiority (5-11); Competence; Family & Teachers • Identity vs Identity Crisis (11-18); Fidelity; Peers • Intimacy vs Isolation (18-40); Love; Friends/Lovers • Generativity vs Stagnation (40-65); Care; Spouse & Children • Integrity vs Depair (65+); Wisdom; Spouse, Children, Grandchildren |
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Erikson AO2s (Comparisons with Freud) |
• Freud & Erikson both used the id, ego and superego. • Both saw childhood as important. • Both used conscious, unconscious and preconscious. • Erikson focused on relationships instead of the sex instinct. • He also focused on what would strengthen the ego. • Erikson's view is more positive than Freud's as he suggested that you can go back to previous stages. • It is also less deterministic. • Erikson took a more scientific approach and studied cultures and individuals to provide evidence. |
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What was Bowlby's theory of attachment? (Psychoanalytic) |
Bowlby believed that mental health and behavioural problems could be attributed to early childhood. He believed that the attachment of a child with their primary care giver was qualitatively different to subsequent attachments, and suggested that, during the 2-year critical period, any issues with this attachment would cause consequences such as affectionless pyschopathy, delinquency, reduced intelligence, increased aggression and depression. |
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Strengths of the Psychoanalytic Approach |
• It was the first comprehensive theory of personality development. • Case studies give detailed data. • Explains the importance of childhood experiences. • Explains how people can act irrationally. |
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Weaknesses of the Psychoanalytic Approach |
• Unscientific. • Extremely retrospective; explains but doesn't predict behaviour. • Case studies should not be generalised as Freud's studies were often done on neurotic middle-aged women. • This approach is highly deterministic, which leads to the question of whether people should be held accountable for their actions. |
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Psychoanalytic Topics/Applications |
• Gender explained by the conflicts (very little evidence; compare to Kohlberg). • Crime due to superego (sexist and very little evidence). • Anxiety disorders -- agoraphobia as separation anxiety (again, little evidence). • Depression as perceived loss in childhood (lead to interpersonal theory of depression which lead to therapy and similar to Bowlby's ideas). • Bowlby (social development). • Psychotherapy. |
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What are the key assumptions of the behaviourist approach? |
• Deterministic (all behaviour is due to conditioning). • Empirical (experiments). • Environmental (no biology). • Reductionist. |
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Evaluation of the Key Behaviourist Assumptions |
• Cognitive is less deterministic. • Animals should not be used as they are different to humans. • However, theories based on animals have been successfully used on humans (TEPs and Little Albert). • Humanistic rejects empiricism. • Environmental stance challenged by Money study (gender). |
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Applications of Classical Conditioning (Behaviourist; AO2s) |
• Little Albert • Aversion therapy in alcoholism • Systematic Desensitisation and flooding (anxiety disorders) |
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Behaviourist Topics/Applications |
• Anxiety disorders -- flooding/systematic desensitisation • Crime -- TEPs • Depression -- learned helplessness • Social development -- cupboard love theory |
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What are the key assumptions of the cognitive approach? |
• Information processing approach -- we process info like computers. •Computer analogies -- computers can be used to stimulate human mental abilities. •Artificial intelligence -- Cognitive psychologists create computer programmes to do tasks that require intelligence. • Cognitive neuropsychology. |
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Evaluation of the Key Cognitive Assumptions |
• The information processing approach has been applied to memory through the MSM. • Serial processing would take a great deal of time, so it is more likely that humans parallel-process. Connectionist networks have also been proposed as it provides a better representation of neurons. •Computers aren't human because they don't forget. • They can also transfer information to other computers which we can't do directly. •Computers are objective. • Cognitive neuropsychology -- localisation of function supported in brain scans. |
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Strengths of the Cognitive approach |
• Objective and scientific. • Practical applications (eg CBT). • Explains dyslexia (problem with processing sounds in the phonological loop). |
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Weaknesses of the Cognitive approach |
• Too mechanistic. • Not enough attention on emotions (although they can be studied as a mental process). • Behaviour and internal mental processes are often inter-linked. • Much of the research is experimental and lacks ecological validity. • However, qualitative methods are also being used (eg forgetting diaries). |
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Cognitive vs Behaviourist Comparisons |
• Internal mental processes vs only observable behaviour. • Things between stimulus and response vs passive conditioning. • Reinforcement not needed vs is needed (Tolman, latent learning of rats in flooded maze). • Qualitative and quantitative vs quantitative. • Humans vs animals. • Behaviourist ignores insight learning (Kohler, monkeys getting banana with a stick). • Can be used together in CBT. • Both are empirical. |
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Cognitive Topics/Applications |
• Phobias -- distorted thoughts. • OCD -- memory bias (Carey & Gottesman found concordance rates of 87% in MZ and 47% in DZ for OCD, suggesting a biological explanation). • Depression -- Beck's explanation and therapy. • Gender -- Kohlberg's stages. • Memory. |
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What are the key assumptions of social learning theory? |
• Learning takes place in a social context. • We learn through observation and reinforcement. • Other people act as models. • Mediating cognitive factors influence whether an individual will learn an observed behaviour. |
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Strengths of SLT |
• Scientific. • Less deterministic than behaviourist. • Explains the absence of direct reinforcement and so is useful in explaining media violence and eating disorders. • Can be seen as a bridge between cognitive and behaviourist explanations -- it loses detail but takes internal and external factors into account. |
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Weaknesses of SLT |
• Many experiments lack ecological validity. • Fails to explain individual differences in what behaviours are performed. • Underestimates biological explanations. |
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SLT vs Behaviourist (Comparisons) |
• Spontaneous learning vs reinforcement. • Vicarious (supported by Bandura) vs indirect. • Learning different to performance vs passive learning. • Cognitive factors vs none. • SLT is less deterministic. |
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SLT vs Cognitive (Comparisons) |
• Both include cognitive factors. • Both use experiments with humans. • Observational learning vs not. • Focus on external vs focus on internal. |
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SLT Topics/Applications |
• Gender -- Baby X, gender models. • Crime (see others be rewarded for it). • Adverts (see others rewarded for buying things). |
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What are the key assumptions of the humanistic approach? |
• Idiographic and phenomenological. • Scientific methods as dehumanising. • Free will and 'situated freedom'. • Maslow's self-actualisation and hierarchy of needs (physiological, safety, love, self-estee, and self-actualisation). • Holistic. •Roger's Unconditional Positive Regard allowing for personal growth. • Roger's self-concept and incongruence. • Conscious awareness. |
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Evaluation of the Key Humanistic Assumptions |
• Using qualitative methods makes it difficult to be scientific, and there is little evidence for the theory as the concepts are so vague. • Hierarchy of needs simplifies human behaviour as we don't always need to have satisfied one need to move onto the other. • It also fails to explain why some people (ie people with eating disorders) would ignore basic needs such as food to gain self-esteem). • Maslow's evidence is from a study where he picked people who he believed were self-actualised and interviewed them to find self-actualised characteristics (which he found to be autonomy, sense of humour, creativity, democracy and accepting others). This is not scientific. • Maslow focused on healthy people and ignored mentally unwell people. He also failed to identify what prevents people from self-actualising. • Shostrum (1963, 1977), Personal Orientation Inventory, findings showed high self-actualisers were creative and those who scored low had bad interpersonal relationships. • Hierarchy has been widely applied in business and nursing. •UPR has been applied in education. • Most of us experience UPR and CPR, and a balance of this may be better for us. • CCT can lead to positive personality change, although this depends on the personality of the client. • However, studies into CCT are based on the subjective experiences of the clients rather than an objective measurement. |
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Strength of the Humanistic Approach |
• Presents a positive view of humans and has been applied in therapy, counselling and understanding relationships. |
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Weaknesses of the Humanistic Approach |
• Difficult to test. • Overemphasises self-actualisation and doesn't consider biological drives. • Key concepts are vague. |
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Humanistic Topic |
• Could explain depression -- low on hierarchy or without UPR. |
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What are the key assumptions of the biological approach? |
• All behaviour has a biological basis. • Human behaviour is strongly determined by genes and genetic inheritance. • The central nervous system, particularly the brain, plays an essential role in thought and behaviour. • Chemical processes in the brain are responsible for many different aspects of psychological functioning. • Humans have evolved biologically and so we can use studies of animals close to us on the 'evolutionary tree' to investigate humans. |
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Strengths of the biological approach |
• Highly scientific. • Experiments are replicable. • Animals can be used when human experimentation is unethical. |
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Weaknesses of the biological approach |
• Highly reductionist. • Ethical issues with animal studies. • Underestimates environment. |
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Biological Topics/Applications |
• Schizophrenia -- Dopamine hypothesis, genetics, use of drugs. • Depression -- Serotonin, genetic, use of drugs. • Gender -- chromosomes, Money study, atypical chromosomes. • Phobias -- evolutionary fear of the dark. |
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What does eclectic mean and what are the four types? |
Eclectic means deriving ideas from a broad range of sources. The four types of eclecticism are theoretical, methodological, epistemological, and applied. |
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Strengths of an eclectic approach |
• Accepts that human behaviour is too complex and varied to be explained by one approach. • Multi-disciplinary (eg often includes medicine or sociology). • Allows new ideas to be generated. • Provides a fuller understanding. • Can be useful in therapy. |
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Weaknesses of an eclectic approach |
• May lead to confusion as there are many ideas expressed. • Makes it difficult to judge the value of the individual perspectives. • Difficult to combine theories. • Sometimes impossible to combing (eg humanistic and psychodynamic). |
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Eclectic Topics/Applications |
• Schizophrenia -- concordance of 48% so environment should also be taken into account; diathesis-stress model; community care. • Memory -- methods include case studies and experiments. • Anxiety disorders -- drugs are often used in concordance with therapy. |
