Psychology - Linear A level Summer Homework task The study of behaviour and mental processes

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1 Psychology: Psychology - Linear A level Summer Homework task The study of behaviour and mental processes The main purpose of this activity is to give you a basic grounding in the differing ways in which psychologists attempt to explore human behaviour and how it could be used to help understand real life events. Obviously, you can t apply psychological ideas until you have read and understood them, so the first exercise is a reading one: 1. Read the information in this document carefully as it will all be relevant to activity 2 of the summer task. 2. Using the PowerPoint presentation attempt activity 2. This is an application task which requires that you use the info you have read about the different perspectives in psychology. All instructions are on the PowerPoint. The diagram and information below attempt to give you a quick introduction to what psychology is and where it has come from. This should be useful throughout the course so please do not file and forget this mini booklet: PHILOSOPHY Empiricism Positivism Psychology asks fundamental questions about the nature of the human condition which have been drawn from a variety of other subjects. These questions manifest themselves in psychology as debates about the best way to understand and investigate human behaviour and thinking patterns BIOLOGY Evolution Physiology PHYSICS Scientific methods and principles Psycho-physics Psychology is an attempt to understand why we behave and think in the ways we do. This is a huge endeavour. (Not convinced that it s a huge endeavour? Well, just try and conceptualise and then explain the many different ways in which you have thought and behaved in your life then add all the people in the world and do the same still think its not a huge endeavour?) It is therefore not surprising that psychologists have attempted to concentrate their investigations on different aspects of behaviour and thinking processes. This has resulted in a number of competing approaches emerging within psychology. Each approach emphasises the role that different physiological and/or psychological processes play in influencing human thinking and behaviour. Basically, there are lots of approaches in psychology because humans are, shall we say, rather complicated creatures! Consequently, Psychology can not give you black and white explanations about all human behaviour and thinking patterns, mainly because it s very hard to isolate and study all aspects of the human condition at one time. The best we can do is offer educated guesses (a.k.a. inferences) and be critical of the explanations we do have. So, prepare to be vexed, perplexed and confused and learn to love it because the rollercoaster ride that is psychology is about to begin..

2 The Behaviourist Approach..behaviourists often accept the existence of feelings and states of mind, but do not deal with them because they are not public and hence statements about them are not subject to confirmation by more than one person.. (Skinner 1987) Behaviourist psychology starts from the point of view that by analysing the behaviours that people display in public (e.g. screaming and running away when you see a spider), it is possible to understand an individual s feelings, sensations and other private events. This is based on the idea that our behaviours are the consequence of internal thought processes. Therefore, what we do is based on how we think. However, how we think is determined by the environment we live in, which has a very strong influence on behaviour to the near exclusion of innate or inherited factors. This basically means that if you want to understand why a person thinks and behaves the way they do, you need to consider how those thoughts and subsequent behaviour develop. For example, if your parents consistently displayed fear of spiders when you were young by screaming, it is likely to frighten you. This will lead to you connecting fear with spiders. Thus, the way we think doesn t explain our behaviour because we learn how to think through interaction with our environment. Therefore it is the way we learn which will offer the best explanation of human behaviour. According to Behaviourists, the key form of learning that determines the way humans think and behave is called Conditioning. (Don t confuse this with the common hair product by the same name!) There are two types of conditioning: Classical learning through direct association (e.g. If you dislike and try to avoid going to the dentist it is probably because you connect the dentist with pain maybe you have had a bad experience or you have heard traumatic stories!) Operant learning through reinforcement -behaviour is strengthened because there is a positive consequence (e.g. if you found that you could wind up a teacher you didn t like by tapping your pen, you would probably continue to do it because it brings you pleasure! Alternatively you may produce your homework on time if a teacher rewarded you with chocolate! If the reward was a single polo then it would not necessarily work!) Do you agree with Skinners claim that thoughts and other private behaviours don t explain our behaviour because they cannot determine what we do? This question is asking you to think about whether we have any control over the way we think and act behaviourists argue that we don t!

3 The Psychodynamic approach It seems that neuroses are only acquired during early childhood even though their symptoms may not make their appearance until much later the child is psychologically father of the man and the events of its first years are of paramount importance for its whole subsequent life. (Freud 1949) Freud, as a practicing medical Doctor specialising in neurology, became fascinated with Hysteria; a disorder in which physical symptoms emerge without physical causes. He deduced that if the cause of these conditions was not physical, then unconscious thoughts, wishes and memories were responsible, not only for Hysteria, but also normal personality. This means that many important influences on behaviour like wanting chocolate in lessons, come from a part of the mind we have no direct awareness of; the Unconscious. The unconscious is motivated by sexual and aggressive drives that we are born with. They basically serve the function of gaining pleasure and the motivation needed to get it, at all costs! Thus these drives create psychic energy that will build up and create tension and anxiety if it cannot be released in some form of shirty manner. Other parts of the mind deal with the reality and appropriateness of acting out our fantasies. For example, you may desire the pleasure of chocolate in lessons, which of course is not permitted. This urge will lead to feelings of anxiety and frustration until you find a way to do it. This means that different parts of the mind are in constant dynamic struggle with each other and the consequences of this struggle are important in understanding behaviour. So, behaviour is determined by the activities of the unconscious mind. However, what enters the unconscious mind is shaped by relationships, experiences and conflict over time, particularly during childhood. Therefore, to understand behaviour it is necessary to gain access to the unconscious! Freud believed that this could be done through the interpretation of dreams and conversation. This is based on the idea that if you allow someone to talk freely, saying whatever comes into their mind, this will reveal the hidden secrets of the unconscious. Do you agree with Freud s claim that behaviour is motivated by thoughts, wishes and memories that we have become unaware of?

4 The Humanistic approach We each fundamentally live in a world of our own creation and have a unique perception of the world (the phenomenal field). Within our phenomenal field, the most significant element is our sense of self, an organised consistent Gestalt, constantly in the process of forming and reforming (Rogers 1959) Humanists argue that individuals are self aware and consequently have free choice over their behaviour. This means that behaviour must be understood in terms of an individual s subjective experience because, ultimately, people are aware of who they are and how they feel and have the capacity to interpret and make sense of their environment. It therefore makes sense that individuals perceive the world and subsequently behave in different ways because their experiences are unique. Furthermore, humans have an in-built drive to reach their potential. Rogers called this the actualising principle, which reflects a desire to be able to grow, develop and enhance our abilities. A fully functioning person is the ideal of growth. Thus people build up a vision of who they are (self concept) and a picture of the person they want to be (ideal self). Therefore, behaviour is influenced by our desire to fulfil our potential (self actualise) because we are always striving to present ourselves as our ideal self. Personality development naturally moves towards healthy growth (a rational ideal self) unless it is blocked by external factors such as other people and the environment. For example, you may feel embarrassed about wearing school uniform in the sixth form for charity or as a dare. These feelings may stop you from participating because you may be afraid of the reactions you believe will come from the people you know. In this sense your ability to feel comfortable is blocked by your perception about how others may act towards you. Therefore, the whole person should be studied in their environmental context, because in order to understand an individual you need to be aware of what is meaningful to them at any one point in time. Only through an understanding of the way they make sense of their world can you understand their behaviour. Do you agree that you are completely responsible for all of your behaviour?

5 The Cognitive approach: people have enormous power to think about their thinking, to use rationality and the scientific method, and to radically control and change their emotional destiny providing they really work at doing so (Ellis 1987) This approach argues that the study of internal mental processes is important in understanding human behaviour because it is cognitive processes that actively organise and manipulate the information we receive humans therefore do not just passively respond to the environment. (Imagine the mind is like a filing cabinet where different information is filed into different compartments once the brain has the information about something, the next time you encounter it, your brain accesses the relevant file and communicates the best way to respond. For example, you may have a file that stores information about teachers and classrooms, so that when you enter a classroom with a teacher in it the knowledge you have can inform your subsequent behaviour -. Relax, it s only ) This suggests that we should view the human mind as an information processor which receives, interprets and responds to stimulus in similar ways to a computer. Furthermore, individuals can influence the way the brain organises and manipulates the information we receive both directly, through choice and indirectly through experience. For example, it is likely that your thoughts and feelings about wearing a blue polo shirt as opposed to a shirt and tie are likely to have been different before and after the uniform change last year. This means that many of you would have changed the way you think and feel in line with your experience of the uniform change. This can only be possible, if you have a degree of control over the way you process information because you have adapted the information about new uniform, to match your experiences. How many times have you changed your mind about how nice one of your friends is based on the things they have done or more likely, said? This kind of shows us that humans have some control over the way we organise the information we receive. Because thought processes are hidden, cognitive psychologists are forced to seek analogies and metaphors when trying to explain a construct within the brain; that is how the brain works compared with the operation of something we already understand. The most commonly accepted analogy is that the brain works like a computer. Human behaviour should therefore be understood by exploring our thinking patterns and experiences because although problem solving and attentional mechanisms determine thought and behaviour, these mechanisms are constrained by the parameters of their innate capacity (potential that you are born with) and our past experiences, which seems to re-programme these problem solving structures and attentional mechanisms. Do you agree that although we have the ability to change the way we think about certain things, there is a limit to what thoughts we can control?

6 The Social approach: Psychology relies for its data on the practices of socialised and culture bound individuals, so that to explore natural or culture free behaviour is by definition impossible, which is a state of affairs that normally goes unacknowledged (Nicolson 1995) The approach starts with the idea that all behaviour occurs in a social context even when there is no-one else around at any given time. The approach acknowledges that we have all been socialised into societies ideas about acceptable behaviour and what is valued in people. Thus wherever we are and whatever we do can be explained with reference to this process. For example, we could explain why people, especially females that have accepted societal values of femininity, write their thoughts down in a diary by arguing that society negatively labels females who express themselves openly as hysterical or bitchy, therefore by keeping these thoughts private, they have expressed themselves without the fear of acquiring a negative label. Therefore, cultural values have determined this behaviour. Furthermore, other people and the society we live in have a major influence on behaviour, thought processes and emotions. Researchers can be said to adopt a social psychological approach when they focus their research on social behaviour and tend to regard other people and social contexts as an important influence upon people. For example, it could be argued that your performance at school is directly related to the labels that teachers have given you. If you believe that a teacher, as an authority figure, considers you to be thick, then you are more likely to accept this label and consequently live up to it by not completing homework or not getting involved in lessons, thinking things like why bother, I m only gonna get it wrong. Therefore, to understand human behaviour, it is important to understand an individual s cultural values and capture how they respond to differing social situations. Do you agree that our behaviour changes dependant on where we are and the people we are with? Can this explain all the behaviours we display?

7 The Biological Approach All that is psychological is first physiological Physiological psychologists argue that there must be a relationship between our psychology and our biology. Regardless of all other factors, all thinking, feeling and behaviour is ultimately dependent on our genetic makeup, brain structure and the way the rest of the nervous system functions. Bio-psychologists are interested in the physical basis of behaviour, how functions of the nervous system and the endocrine system are related to and influence behaviour and mental processes. As the ultimate purpose of a nervous system is to produce and control behaviour, then an understanding of it should help us understand human psychology and behaviour. Bio-psychology raises many questions about the link between our physiology and psychology. For example, are there parts of the brain specifically concerned with particular behaviours and abilities? What role do hormones play in the experience of emotion and how are these linked to brain processes? What is the relationship between brain activity and different states of consciousness? Another fundamentally important biological process is genetic transmission. This refers to genetics and the characteristics that can be passed from parents to offspring, how this takes place and how genetic factors interact with environmental factors. For example, the stress diathesis theory shows us how certain individuals inherit a predisposition to developing mental disorders such as schizophrenia. However, individuals only develop symptoms if they are triggered by stressful life events. Your thoughts, feelings and behaviour are therefore dependent on the genes you inherit and the way your nervous systems (you have a central and peripheral nervous system!) function! You will not feel self conscious about wearing school uniform in the sixth form if you have a low functioning reticular activating system. Do you agree that our behaviour can be reduced to a series of biochemical reactions that we have little control over?