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Summary AQA Psychology A-level approaches notes
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AQA Psychology A-level approaches notes
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Approaches- Origins of psychology (Wundt)• Wilhelm Wundt: the first person to call him a psychologist, believed the human min
could be studied scientifically. He was interested in consciousness and tried to apply
experimental methods to the study of internal mental processes (perception). He stud
behaviour in strictly controlled lab conditions.
Introspection
• Introspection: the examination of our own thought processes so we can gain inform
about our own mental and emotional states and so we can ‘observe’ our inner world.
The emergence of psychology as a science
• Introspection: the scientific status and the value of introspection was being questio
• Watson: a behavioural psychologist argued that the data gathered was subjective, s
set of generalisable principles could not be established. He proposed that scientific
psychology should only study 1 phenomena that could be observed and measured.
Introduction to approaches within psychology
• Behaviour: psychologists use different approaches to study how people feel and beh
• Approaches: help us to understand and explain our behaviour. Each approach
emphasises different aspects of human behaviour.
,The basic assumptions of the learning approach
• Behaviour: behavioural psychologists believed that psychology should be the study of behavi
rather than the mind. Behaviour can be directly observed.
• Behavioural model: its scientific as its based on observation and measurement in a lab.
• Behaviourism: formulated in the 20th century.
• Conditioning: behaviour is learnt through conditioning (classical, operant and the social learn
theory)
• Behaviourist psychologists state: psychology should be a science. Theories are supported
evidence obtained through objective and controlled observation and measurement of behaviou
• Psychologists should study observable behaviour, not internal events.
• People have no free will, the environment determines behaviour.
• Our mind is ‘tabula rasa’ when we are born, everything we become is learnt.
• There’s little difference between learning in humans and in animals, findings can be
extrapolated from animals to humans.
Learning approach: the Behaviourist approach: classical
conditioning and Pavlov’s research
• Classical conditioning: involves learning new behaviour through association between two sti
• Ivan Pavlov: formulated classical conditioning. He investigated the response of having food pl
on a dog’s tongue. He noticed that dogs salivate in response to anything associated with the
feeding routine. By ringing a bell before feeding, Pavlov could condition the dogs to salivate in
response to the bell.
, • Unconditioned stimulus (food)--------------------------------------- unconditioned response (saliva)
• Neutral stimulus (bell) --------------------------------------------------no conditioned response (no saliv
• Neutral stimuli (bell) + unconditioned response (food) --------unconditioned response (saliva)
REPEAT LOADS
• Conditioned stimuli (bell) ----------------------------------------------conditioned response (saliva)
• Classical conditioning: we can extrapolate to human behaviour (for example attachment)
• Watson and Rayner (1920): experimented classical conditioning of little Albert.
• Procedure: albert was shown a rat, monkey, dog and showed no fear. He was shown a rat w
a bang, which was repeated loads. He was then shown just the rat and cried.
• Findings: similar characteristics of animals made him cry, which shows fear was generalise
• Evaluation: classical conditioning has evidence that this is how we learn behaviour. Learnin
more than just external behaviour, it involves cognitions/ thinking processes. Lab experimen
variables are all controlled, high scientific value, can establish cause and effect. It has low
ecological validity, we can’t extrapolate to humans as we’re are too complex/ sophisticated.
Learning approach: the behaviourist approach: operant
conditioning, types of reinforcement and skinner’s research
• Operant conditioning: proposed by Skinner, he said to consider behaviours consequences
conducted experiments using animals.
• Reinforcement: anything that has the effect of increasing the likelihood of the behaviour b
repeated.
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