Flashcards

Key Terms

Behaviourism - an approach to psychology in which the emphasis was on observable stimuli and responses.

Case study - an in-depth investigation of a single individual often involving collecting qualitative data.

Chromosomes - strands of DNA bearing the genes.

Classical conditioning - a basic form of learning involving an association between two stimuli that are presented together repeatedly; as a result, the response initially elicited by the second stimulus is also elicited by the first stimulus presented on its own.

Clinical psychology - an approach to therapy typically used in the treatment of individuals who are seriously disturbed and suffer from one or more mental disorders.

Cognitive neuroscience - an approach that aims to understand human cognition by combining information from behaviour and the brain.

Computational models - models of human cognition based on computer programs in which the underlying assumptions are spelled out with precision.

Concordance rate - in twin studies, the probability that if one twin has a given characteristic or disorder the other twin also has the same characteristic or disorder.

Conditioned response - the new response (resembling the unconditioned response) produced as a result of classical conditioning.

Conditioned stimulus - a neutral stimulus that is paired with an unconditioned stimulus to produce classical conditioning.

Conditions of worth - setting conditions that need to be satisfied in order to accept someone else fully.

Congruence - a lack of conflict between an individual’s self-concept and his/her experience of life.

Conscious - whatever it is we are attending to and/or thinking about at any moment is in the conscious mind.

Counselling psychology - an approach to therapy typically used in the treatment of individuals who are only moderately disturbed.

Defence mechanisms - strategies used by the ego to defend itself against anxiety.

Denial - failure to accept consciously threatening thoughts and events.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) - double-stranded coils of molecules of genetic material forming chromosomes.

Displacement - one of the defence mechanisms identified by Freud in which impulses are unconsciously moved away from a very threatening object towards a non-threatening one.

Dizygotic twins - fraternal twins derived from two fertilised ova (eggs) and sharing 50% of their genes.

Dysexecutive syndrome - a condition in which damage to the frontal lobes causes widespread impairments to higher-level cognitive processes (e.g. planning; organising).

Eclecticism - the use of a range of different forms of treatment by therapists.

Ecological validity - the applicability (or otherwise) of the findings of laboratory and other research studies to everyday settings.

Ego - the conscious, rational part of the mind, which is guided by the reality principle.

Equipotentiality - the notion within operant conditioning that any response can be conditioned to any stimulus situation.

Evolutionary psychology - an approach to psychology based on the assumption that much human behaviour can be understood with reference to Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Extinction - the elimination of a response in classical conditioning when it is not followed by the unconditioned stimulus.

Fixation - in Freudian terms, spending a long time at a given stage of development because of over- or under-gratification.

Free will - the notion that we are free to make our own decisions.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) - a technique that provides detailed and accurate information concerning the brain areas activated during performance of a task.

Functional specialisation - the assumption that each brain area or region is specialised for a specific function (e.g. colour processing; face processing).

Gametes - sperm cells and egg cells formed by the process of meiosis.

Gene - the unit of hereditary transmission.

Genotype - an individual’s potential in the form of genes provided at the time of conception.

Hierarchy of needs - the notion that humans have several needs ranging from basic physiological needs at the bottom of the hierarchy to self-actualisation at the top.

Id - in Freudian theory, that part of the mind motivated by the pleasure principle and sexual instincts.

Ideal self - the self-concept that is most desired by an individual.

Identification - according to Bandura, this resembles imitation in that it is based on modelling; however, it is more complex because it depends on the model’s characteristics (e.g. perceived similarity to the individual) and the behaviour produced can extend beyond mere imitation.

Identification - according to Freud, children’s imitation of the beliefs and behaviour of the same-sexed parent.

Imitation - this involves someone imitating or copying the actions of a model whose behaviour has been observed.

Intellectualisation - excessive thinking about emotionally threatening events in order to minimise their emotional impact.

Introspection - a careful examination and description of one’s own inner mental thoughts and states.

Learning - a relatively permanent change in behaviour that is not due to maturation.

Libido - sexual desire; a major motivational force located within the id.

Meiosis - the process of forming gametes (sex cells); the chromosomes divide with one chromosome in each pair forming a separate gamete.

Mitosis - this is a form of cell division in which the original nucleus divides into two nuclei with the same number of chromosomes as the original nucleus.

Modelling - a very common form of learning in which the learner observes and then imitates a model’s actions; also known as observational learning.

Monozygotic twins - identical twins derived from a single fertilised ovum (egg) and sharing 100% of their genes.

Neurochemistry - the study of chemical phenomena and processes that influence the nervous system and behaviour.

Neurotransmitters - chemical substances by which a neuron is able to communicate with another neuron.

Oedipus complex - Freud’s explanation of how a boy resolves his love for his mother and feelings of rivalry towards his father by identifying with his father.

Operant conditioning - a basic form of learning in which the individual’s behaviour is influenced by whether it is followed by reward or by punishment.

Peak experiences - states of euphoria in which there is complete acceptance of the world as it is.

Phenomenology - a technique involving the direct reporting of experience.

Phenotype - an individual’s observable characteristics determined by his/her genotype plus environmental experiences.

Phrenology - the notion that each mental faculty is located in a different part of the brain and can be assessed by feeling bumps on the head.

Placebo effect - positive responses to an inactive substance or form of therapy based on the patient’s beliefs that the substance or therapy will be effective, rather than on the actual make-up of the drug or therapy.

Preconscious - this refers to the part of the mind containing ideas and information that can easily be accessed if they are relevant to the present situation.

Preparedness - the notion that we develop fears more easily and rapidly for some objects (e.g. snakes) than for others (e.g. cars) because of our evolutionary past.

Projection - attributing one’s undesirable characteristics to others, as a means of coping with emotionally threatening information and protecting the ego.

Psychoactive drugs - drugs that operate primarily on the nervous system and influence mental and emotional states.

Psychodynamic approach - an approach that regards the origin of mental disorders as psychological rather than physical, and suggests that mental illness arises out of unresolved unconscious conflicts.

Psychophysics - the study of the relationship between the psychological or subjective magnitude of sensations and the physical intensity of the stimuli producing those sensations.

Q-sort method - a test to assess the self-concept and the ideal self; it involves sorting descriptive statements on cards.

Rationalisation - a term introduced by Bartlett to refer to the tendency in story recall to produce errors conforming to the rememberer’s cultural expectations.

Reality principle - the drive on the part of the ego to accommodate to the demands of the environment.

Reduced penetrance - the finding that some individuals with a disease-causing genotype fail to develop the disease.

Regression - in Freudian terms, returning to an earlier stage of development to cope with anxiety.

Repression - a main ego defence mechanism suggested by Freud, where anxiety-causing memories are kept out of conscious memory to protect the individual. This is a type of motivated forgetting, and the repressed memories can sometimes be recalled during psychoanalysis.

Schema - organised knowledge (e.g. about the world) stored in long-term memory.

Self-actualisation - at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it is the need to make the fullest possible use of our abilities and skills.

Self-image - this is how we see ourselves; our self-image can be positive (e.g. good person; friendly person) or negative (e.g. bad person; unfriendly person).

Self-worth - this is our self-esteem and relates to our feelings of self-worth.

Social learning theory - the view that behaviour can be explained in terms of direct and indirect reinforcement through imitation, identification,

and modelling.

Superego - in Freud’s theory, the part of the mind that embodies one’s conscience. It is formed through identification with the same-sex parent.

Thanatos - the death instinct, a major motivational force that causes aggressive and self-destructive behaviour.

Theoretical models - models of human cognition typically expressed in verbal terms; the assumptions contained within such models may be imprecise.

Token economy - a form of therapy based on operant conditioning in which desirable behaviour is rewarded with tokens that can subsequently be exchanged for rewards.

Trial-and-error learning - a type of learning in which the solution is reached by producing fairly random responses rather than by a process of thought.

Unconditional positive regard - accepting someone else fully regardless of his/her behaviour.

Unconditioned response - the previously well-established reaction (e.g. salivation) to a given unconditioned stimulus (e.g. food) in an unconditioned reflex.

Unconditioned stimulus - the stimulus that produces a previously well-established unconditioned response in an unconditioned reflex.

Unconscious - the huge collection of memories and experiences (especially emotionally upsetting ones); these memories are very hard to access.

Vicarious reinforcement - A situation in which the reinforcement or reward obtained by someone else has a reinforcing effect on one’s own behaviour.

Zygote - a fertilised egg cell.

Weblinks

Learning Theory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhqumfpxuzI A video clip of Professor Philip Zimbardo talking about classical conditioning, including some original footage of Pavlov’s work with dogs.

http://www.learner.org/resources/series138.html?pop=yes&pid=1529 Here is a link to the whole learning programme in Zimbardo’s “Discovering Psychology” series with reference to Pavlov, Thorndyke, Watson, and Skinner. (25 minutes long.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUwCgFSb6Nk&feature=related A useful video about Skinner and operant conditioning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGazyH6fQQ4 An example of operant conditioning—pigeons playing ping-pong!

Cognitive Approach

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4HHCgFmkcI A short and excellent illustration of how the schemas we build up help us to make sense of the world much better and more quickly.

http://www.sciencebrainwaves.com/blogs/biology/brain-and-behaviour/what-is-cognitive-neuroscience-and-why-should-anyone-care/ What is cognitive neuroscience, and why should anyone care? (The second paragraph of this blog is a short and simple definition of cognitive neuroscience.)

http://www.learner.org/series/discoveringpsychology/25/e25expand.html Another programme in the “Discovering Psychology” series, this one about cognitive neuroscience.

Biological Approach

https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/biological-foundations-of-psychology-3/genetic-basis-of-psychology-31/genes-influence-behavior-137-12672/ A short and clear introduction to genes and behaviour.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31714853 Are murderers born or made? This is an excellent article looking at research exploring the minds and genetics of murderers.

http://www.learner.org/series/discoveringpsychology/04/e04expand.html The Responsive Brain—The fourth programme in the “Discovering Psychology” series in which Philip Zimbardo talks about brain and behaviour. This is useful as it shows how environment can affect the brain. (25 minutes.)

Psychodynamic Approach

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&feature=related&hl=en-GB&v=_sm5YFnEPBE Freud talking about his career in psychoanalysis.

http://www.freud.org.uk/ The Freud Museum website, which includes links to many Freud-related sites on the internet.

http://www.ahpweb.org/ The Association of Humanistic Psychology website; includes links to videos of Carl Rogers’ counselling sessions.

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415191081/ The approaches discussed in this chapter are covered in greater depth by M. Jarvis (2000) Theoretical approaches in psychology (London: Routledge).

Discussion Points

Throughout AQA Psychology you may have noticed self-assessment questions in orange text in the margins. These are discussion points, designed to help you think about the key issues and research in the text, and to consider how you can apply psychology to real life. Although in many cases there is no correct answer to these questions, we have provided some example discussions that could arise from thinking about some of these points. They should also help you structure your thinking on the topic in question.

1. How do classical and operant conditioning differ?

Classical Conditioning is about learning by association. This association has to be an S-R that is either unconditional or conditioned. For this, there has to be some biological relationship between an unconditional stimulus (UCS) and an unconditional response. When a neutral stimulus is repeatedly presented with the UCS it becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) that then goes on to produce a conditioned response (CR) in the absence of the UCS. This can be clearly seen in the research by Pavlov, and Watson and Rayner. It can also be seen in everyday behaviours, for example, of your pet cat! As soon as you open the food cupboard or make a noise with the packet of treats, your cat may well appear in front of you. It has associated those sounds with food and hence has been classically conditioned.

Operant Conditioning is about learning by consequence. Being either reinforced or punished has an effect on your behaviour. There are different types of reinforcement and punishment (positive and negative). For example, positive reinforcement is adding something nice or pleasurable that increases the probability of repeating the behaviour that obtained the reward. Negative punishment is when something nice is removed to decrease the probability that the behaviour will be repeated.

Overall, classical conditioning is learning by association and can happen in just one pairing. Operant conditioning, on the other hand, is learning by consequence and affects the probability that a behaviour will be repeated or not.

See also Eysenck’s AQA Psychology, pages 169–174.

2. Does the Bandura (1965) study have external validity? In other words, to what extent can we generalise the findings obtained in this study to real life?

External validity refers to the usefulness of research findings outside the research situation itself. The concept asks how applicable these findings are to everyday situations; do they apply outside the laboratory, to other countries, and historical periods? When assessing the relevance of the social learning theory itself we have to start from the point that there are commonalities in human brain structure and processes, regardless of ethnicity and culture. Given this, we might argue that Bandura’s theory applies to individuals universally across the world. However, it is necessary to question the research on which the theory was developed in terms of how it translates to the real world and the implications of these findings in different environments.

The design of Bandura’s investigation has been criticised such that it may be that the findings were purely a function of the contrived laboratory set-up and cannot be generalised. The process of modelling and observation was oversimplified in this study. Critics argue that it is rare that a behaviour is so clearly demonstrated and explicitly rewarded. This means that the effects found in Bandura’s study were more pronounced than one might find in real life. It is also possible that in Bandura’s artificial set-up, children were comfortable to demonstrate aggressive behaviours to an inanimate object but would not extend this to animate objects that they knew would experience harm. It may be that Bandura underestimated children’s ability here.

In the same vein, he has also been criticised for not operationalising his variables properly. He didn’t distinguish between real aggression and play fighting. This means that the findings Bandura reported may be specific to the design of his specific study, therefore caution needs to be exercised when generalising these findings.

See also Eysenck’s AQA Psychology, pages 176–178.

3. How important do you think observational learning is with respect to producing aggressive behaviour?

Social learning theory would say it is very important! A person pays attention to a role model and then retains that information. The behaviour here could easily be something that is aggressive. The person then must feel capable of reproducing that behaviour (and in this example that is aggressive behaviour). If the person has experienced vicarious reinforcement then they will be motivated to copy the behaviour. This is when we witness someone else engaging in a behaviour and observe them getting rewarded for that behaviour so that we are more likely to want to try and imitate it.

So, for example, a little boy sees his dad being aggressive towards someone. The child has paid attention to the behaviour of his dad. The child has then retained that information in his memory. The child then feels he is capable of showing that aggressive behaviour to another child. He also witnessed his father getting rewarded for displaying the aggressive behaviour. As a result of all of this, the child is likely to show the same (or similar) aggressive behaviours towards another child.

In a series of Bobo doll experiments, Bandura showed that children will imitate aggressive behaviour. However, one study in a real-life setting on the Atlantic Ocean island of St. Helena (Charlton) found no evidence for a link between observational learning and aggressive behaviour.

See also Eysenck’s AQA Psychology, page 177.

4. How important do you think observational learning is with respect to producing aggressive behaviour?

Social learning theory would say it is a very important! A person pays attention to a role model and then retains that information. The behaviour here could easily be something that is aggressive. The person then must feel capable of reproducing that behaviour (and in this example that is aggressive behaviour). If the person has experienced vicarious reinforcement then they will be motivated to copy the behaviour. This is when we witness someone else engaging in a behaviour and observe them getting rewarded for that behaviour we are more likely to want to try and imitate it.

So, for example, a little boy sees his dad being aggressive towards someone. The child has paid attention to the behaviour of their dad. The child has then retained that information in his memory. The child then feels he is capable of showing that aggressive behaviour to another child. He also witnessed his father getting rewarded for displaying the aggressive behaviour. As a result of all of this, the child is likely to show the same (or similar) aggressive behaviours towards another child.

In a series of Bobo doll experiments, Bandura showed that children will imitate aggressive behaviour. However, one study in a real like setting on the Atlantic Ocean island of St Helena (Charlton) found no evidence for a link between observational learning and aggressive behaviour.

See also Eysenck’s AQA Psychology, page 177.

4. What are the limitations of using twin studies to investigate the nature–nurture debate?

Identical twins tend to experience very similar environments to one another (and are sometimes treated that way). This means that we cannot dissect what is nature and what is nurture. Their nature is the same and their nurture is very similar. Even when twins are “raised apart” there is no certainty that their environments are truly dissimilar.

Early research did explore twins who were living “apart” but sometimes the criteria for this was a little vague. For example, some studies classed living “apart” as having separate bedrooms or living next door with their auntie. Therefore, their environments were very similar as they may have gone to the same school too! Again, this means it is then very difficult to know what is environmental and what is truly genetic.

Modern research may not need to use twins since genetic mapping and DNA analysis may hold clearer cues as to which genes may be causing a range of behaviours in humans. Contemporary research using these techniques has found that there may be genetic causes for things like depression and schizophrenia, making it unnecessary for psychologists to use twins to research the nature–nurture debate.

See also Eysenck’s AQA Psychology, page 193.

Interactive Excercises

• 5.1 - Theories of Attachment
• 5.2 - The psychodynamic approach to psychopathology