Psychodynamic, Biological and Learning

Psychology AS Unit 2 Psychodynamic, Biological and Learning

Revision booklet June 2014

Name……………………………………………… THE PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACH

The psychodynamic approach explains behaviour as the drives and conflicts of the inner mind. The key terms that you need to be able to define are below; use the textbook to define each term:

Unconscious Id

Preconscious Ego

Conscious Superego

Thanatos Defence mechanism

Eros Fixation

Libido

Neuroses

Psychoanalysis

Defence mechanisms are ways in which the ego tries to defend the id or find satisfaction for the desires of the id in an acceptable way. You need to be able to describe the defence mechanism of REPRESSION and ONE other. Give the definitions of the two defence mechanisms in the box:

REPRESSION:

DEFENCE MECHANISM 2:

Freud’s theory of personality

You need to be able to explain Freud’s theory in detail as you may be asked short questions about specific parts of the theory, you may be asked an essay question on the theory or you may be asked to apply the theory to explain behaviour in a novel situation. The most common mistakes that students make in exams is forgetting to explain the PERSONALITY that is a result of fixation at each stage – this is crucial as it is a theory of personality!

You should explain how children develop through stages and at each stage the focus of pleasure for the id focuses on a different erogenous zone. If a child passes through this stage in a healthy way (i.e. the id is satisfied but not overindulged) the child will not fixate at this stage and will not develop specific personality traits. However if the id is denied satisfaction or is overindulged then the child cannot pass through this stage and is FIXATED at this stage – this creates certain personality traits depending on what stage it is. The phallic stage is slightly more complex, as it is here that the child develops gender appropriate behaviour and you may be asked to explain this stage in more depth if the question is about gender. Complete the table below for the first three stages of development:

STAGE AGE SUB-STAGE SOURCE OF PLEASURE FIXATION PERSONALITY TRAITS

Oral Oral receptive

Oral aggressive

Anal Anal retentive

Anal expulsive

Phallic Boys – Oedipus complex

Girls – Electra complex

You should also be able to explain what happens during the LATENCY stage and the GENITAL stage: Latency:

Genital:

EVALUATING THE THEORY

You cannot evaluate the theory in the same way that you have learned to evaluate a study (using GRAVE). You should aim to explain strengths and weaknesses of the theory as an explanation of human behaviour. This means that you should be talking about how good this theory is as an explanation of why we do what we do and why we have specific personality traits. You should assess the credibility of the theory as well as the validity – how true is the theory likely to be. You should mention how t he theory was developed and tested – this could include discussing the findings of the study on little Hans to support the Oedipus complex. You should also talk about the weaknesses of the theory – most of this will be a discussion of the lack of scientific inquiry to test this theory and the subjective interpretation of Freud himself.

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES

Explain how the theory was a novel way to Not scientific – explain what this means: understand personality:

Method – case study. Explain how a case study is not Evidence from the study of little Hans to support reliable: the theory:

The theory was derived from working with a small Credibility – people do have these personality traits sample of people. Why is this a weakness? and it does make sense: STUDIES FROM THE PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACH

You will need to know TWO studies in depth, the case study of little Hans and the play therapy of Dibs. You should be able to explain the studies and evaluate them. To achieve the AO1 marks for describing the studies you should follow the advice given:

1. What is the aim of the study? Give a DETAILED account of what Freud or Axline was trying to achieve and how it links to the psychodynamic approach in general.

2. What are the themes of the study? What behaviours or key points should you talk about for the analysis of Hans or Dibs?

3. What is the analysis of each theme? How did Freud explain the behaviour of Hans? What conclusions can we draw about the behaviour of Dibs?

To achieve the AO2 marks, you should evaluate the study a similar way to the GRAVE method. You should discuss the method used and whether we can generalize the findings to others, how reliable is this method (can it be repeated and tested?), how can we apply the findings/knowledge to society in general, how valid are the findings – is this true behaviour of the person being studied, how ethical was the study? You should make a minimum of FOUR evaluation points – two strengths and two weaknesses.

Freud’s case study of little Hans

Aim:

Theme 1 Evaluation of theme 1

Theme 2 Evaluation of theme 2

Theme 3 Evaluation of theme 3

Theme 4 Evaluation of theme 4

Strengths

Weaknesses

Axline’s analysis of Dibs through play therapy Aim:

Theme 1 Evaluation of theme 1

Theme 2 Evaluation of theme 2

Theme 3 Evaluation of theme 3

Theme 4 Evaluation of theme 4

Strengths

Weaknesses

METHODS USED BY THE PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACH

You should remember that this exam builds on the previous exam – what you learned about research methods when you studied the social and cognitive approaches should not be forgotten now and some of the knowledge will be tested again in this exam, such as sampling methods, experimental designs, variables, quantitative and qualitative analysis, significance, descriptive statistics, inferential statistics etc.

The psychodynamic approach uses case studies, correlations, longitudinal and cross sectional studies and you will be tested on these methods in this exam. You will need to be able to explain the method and how research could be carried out using this method, and evaluate the method as a tool for measuring human behaviour. In particular, the case study method should be applied to Freud and his work as he had a specific way of carrying out a case study.

CASE STUDY

A case study is an in-depth, detailed analysis of an individual. The researcher uses a variety of methods and looks at all areas of the individual’s life and experience to draw conclusions about their behaviour. The case study, in general, is used as a clinical tool to identify and analyse neuroses. Freud used the case study method to psychoanalyse his patients and offer them therapy to help with their neuroses. We looked at little Hans, Dora, Ratman and Wolfman as a few of Freud’s cases.

Freud used free association, dream analysis and slips of the tongue analysis in his case studies. You should be able to explain what these mean (you may need to read beyond the textbook to understand these methods): Free association

Dream analysis

Slips of the tongue

You also need to be able to evaluate the method:

STRENGTH WEAKNESS

1. 1.

2. 2.

CORRELATIONAL STUDIES

Research can test for a relationship between two variables – this is called a correlation. There is no independent variable or dependent variable – just two variables that are related to each other in some way. For example, there is a relationship between the amount of revision and the grade you achieve in the exam!

In the psychodynamic approach, we can often find out the information we need by collecting SELF-REPORTED DATA (we did this for our questionnaire) – this is where the participant gives the information, usually by filling in a questionnaire about themself.

There are three types of correlation: positive, negative and zero.

POSITIVE CORRELATION: The variables increase together; i.e. if one variable increases then so does the other one. Example – hot weather and sales of ice cream.

NEGATIVE CORRELATION: As one variable increases, the other variable decreases. Example – the amount of revision and the grade in a test.

ZERO CORRELATION – the two variables are not related. Example – the length of your hair and your IQ.

You should be able to define each type of correlation, identify each type of correlation on a graph or plot each type of correlation on a graph.

POSITIVE NEGATIVE You also need to evaluate the method:

STRENGTH WEAKNESS

1. 1.

2. 2.

LONGITUDINAL RESEARCH

This research looks at behaviour in an individual or a group of individuals over time. Children may be assessed or observed at set points in their development (e.g. aged 2, aged 4, aged 6 etc.) and the results of the observation are then compared to look for trends or patterns or developmental change.

You need to evaluate this method:

STRENGTH WEAKNESS

1. 1.

2. 2.

CROSS SECTIONAL RESEARCH

This method may also want to look at trends or patterns or differences in behaviour but does not want to wait for time to elapse so will look at a cross section of the sample. For example, you might study children of different ages and compare their results to each other.

You need to evaluate this method:

STRENGTH WEAKNESS

1. 1.

2. 2.

You may be asked to compare these last two methods in terms of strengths and weaknesses as they are the same method carried out in a different way and a researcher may have to decide which if the two to use – whether to do a cross section of the sample today or start a longitudinal study and continue over several years. Therefore, you should be prepared to explain why each method would be a good choice or the limitations of each method. KEY ISSUE

Remember that we look at a key issue to give you practice at APPLYING the theories and concepts of this approach to real life behaviour or situations. You may be asked to explain the key issue we have specifically looked at or you may be asked about a novel (new) situation to apply the theories to. You should therefore read about the other key issues in the text book and practice applying the theories to them as well.

We looked at whether dreams have any meaning. Also remember that you are being asked to DESCRIBE and EXPLAIN the issue – not just talk about the topic. This question was the most poorly answered in the exam and there is a technique to getting the marks for this question. In the last exam, there was ONE MARK available for identifying the issue – in other words, what is the problem? The other marks were available for describing more detail of the problem. You should aim to answer the AO1 part of the question (Describe the issue) as if you are answering the following questions:

1. WHAT is the problem / debate (the issue)?

Do dreams have any meaning?

2. Why is this a problem? How is this a problem? (Aim to make THREE points).

As you have identified a debate it would make sense to answer your own question here –

REMEMBER THERE SHOUL D BE NO PSYCHOLOGY IN THIS ANSWER!!!

For the AO2 marks you have to EXPLAIN the issue using psychology. You should apply the theory and/or key concepts to the issue. For dream analysis it would make sense to be talking about the unconscious mind, the hidden desires of the id that are in the unconscious mind so we cannot access them, the symbolism of dreams according to Freud and the two elements of the dream – manifest and latent content. This would support your argument that dreams do have meaning. You should then evaluate this by criticising the methods used by Freud that came to these conclusions and offering alternative explanations for our dreams. Do this here: THE PRACTICAL

We carried out a questionnaire using self-reported data to examine the correlation between parenting styles experienced as a child and adult personality type. We particularly looked at harsh parenting styles during the anal stage with behaviour that would indicate an anal retentive personality.

You should be able to describe what we did using the AMRC style of answer. Do this below:

AIM:

METHOD:

What sampling method did we use?

How many participants did we recruit? Who were they? What age? Did we use any exclusion criteria?

How did we design our questionnaire? How was it laid out? How did we test it for validity or reliability?

How did we collect our data? What did the participant have to do?

What ethical issues did we need to consider and how did we go about this?

RESULTS:

What did our initial analysis show – did we have a positive or negative correlation on our scattergraph?

What type of data did we have?

What was the appropriate inferential statistic?

What did we find from this analysis? Did we have a significant result? Your answer should refer to the test statistic and the critical value. You should also mention at what p value we found a significant result (if we did).

CONCLUSION – what conclusions can we draw? You will also need to evaluate your study – you should use the GRAVE style of evaluation to so this:

Generalise – How far can we apply our findings to other people in the target population (ie. Other adults who may have experienced strict parenting)? Is our sample representative of the target population? What limitations are there to generalizing our findings?

Reliability – How easy would it be for someone else to repeat our study and test our findings? Do our findings support other studies / theories?

Application – How useful are the findings of our study? Who might be interested in what we have discovered? Which area of society might benefit from this knowledge?

Validity – How true are our findings? Is this really what the participant thought /felt / experienced?

Ethics – what ethical issues did we need to consider? Did we have full informed consent? Did our participants experience any harm? Did they have the right to withdraw? THE LEARNING APPROACH

This approach explains behaviour as LEARNED – we learn all of our behaviour through interaction with the environment. There are several key terms that you should be able to define:

Stimulus – response

Operant conditioning

Classical conditioning

Social learning

Behaviour can be explained by various theories of learning and you should be able to explain these and the researcher that suggested the theories.

LEARNING THEORY ONE: Classical conditioning

Behaviour is learned through ASSOCIATION – we learn to associate two stimuli together and this produces a learned response. This was suggested by Pavlov who carried out research into the salivation process of dogs and found that the dog learned to associate the food with the sound of the bell. You will need to be able to describe the research by Pavlov and explain how behaviour is learned by association.

Unconditioned stimulus Unconditioned response

Neutral stimulus Unconditioned stimulus Unconditioned response

Conditioned stimulus Conditioned response

You also need to be able to explain the following terms:

EXTINCTION:

SPONTANEOUS RECOVERY:

STIMULUS GENERALISATION: A behaviour can be learned by pairing up a target behaviour with a naturally occurring stimulus – the individual learns to associate the two things together so that eventually the target behaviour causes the same response as the naturally occurring behaviour. In addition to this we may then learn to associate other things with the target behaviour to create a new stimulus – response connection – this is called higher order conditioning and you may be asked to explain this too. You should use the website to read about this in more depth.

LEARNING THEORY TWO – Operant conditioning

Behaviour is learned through CONSEQUENCES - we learn to repeat behaviour that is rewarded and avoid behaviour that has negative consequences. This theory was suggested by SKINNER and you should be able to describe his research with rats – you can do this when you are defining the key terms. You should explain how behaviour is SHAPED – initially this was done with pigeons using successive approximations – the animal guesses which behaviour is being rewarded until it finds out what the target behaviour is and then it repeats this behaviour in order to get the reward. The behaviour is shaped – only more accurate or more specific behaviour is rewarded until the animal is doing exactly what you want it to do before it gets a reward.

Skinner explained an ABC model of learning. Complete the box below:

A Explain what this means Give an example

You need to explain how the behaviour will be repeated if the consequence is a positive one and avoided if it is negative. You should use the following terms to explain this:

POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT:

NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT:

PUNISHMENT: A reinforcer is a consequence or reward that changes our behaviour – whether it is positive or negative. Some reinforcers will have a deeper impact on behaviour modification than others. A reinforcer that is needed for survival or that satisfies one of our basic human needs is called a PRIMARY REINFORCER – examples would be food, water, sex etc. A reinforcer that gives us something that allows us to then go on and get the things we need for survival are called SECONDARY REINFORCERS – an example would be money. Behaviour modification that uses primary reinforcers will be more effective than those that use secondary reinforcers. For example, we are more likely to behave a certain way to get rewarded with sex than we are to get rewarded with money!

LEARNING THEORY THREE: Social learning theory

This theory suggests that we learn by IMITATION - we observe others in society (known as a ‘model’)by imitating their behaviour – called ‘modelling’. We are more likely to imitate behaviour that we see rewarded. This is called vicarious reinforcement.

Bandura believed that we will only engage in social learning if four criteria are met. You should explain the four criteria:

ATTENTION

RETENTION

REPRODUCTION

MOTIVATION

Treatments used by the learning approach

You need to be able to explain ONE treatment that is used by this approach – you could explain aversion therapy or token economy.

Aversion therapy

This therapy follows the principles of classical conditioning – that a behaviour can be changed or stopped by learning to associate an unpleasant experience with that behaviour. For example, to stop you biting your nails, you might paint on a lotion that tastes disgusting. When you bite your nails, you will experience the unpleasant taste and you will learn to associate biting your nails with something unpleasant and you will stop.

You should explain how we can treat alcoholism using this therapy – the unpleasant experience is vomiting which the alcoholic must learn to associate with drinking alcohol. Complete the diagram below to show how this treatment works: Evaluation

You need to be able to discuss how effective this treatment is at changing behaviour. You should explain the research that showed the success rate of aversion therapy when treating young sex offenders or when treating children with learning difficulties who self-harm.

This treatment is effective / successful because :

This treatment is limited because:

Token economy

This treatment is based on the principles of operant conditioning – to change behaviour we will reward the behaviour that we are trying to encourage and ignore or punish the behaviour that is unacceptable or undesirable. For example, a person with schizophrenia will receive rewards for ‘normal’ behaviour such as making the bed and getting dressed. The rewards are secondary reinforcers – tokens - which can be exchanged for items that the patient wants, such as chocolate, trips home etc.

Evaluation

You need to be able to discuss how effective this treatment is at changing behaviour. You should explain the research that showed the success of token economy and the limitations that it has as a way of coping with unwanted behaviour in everyday life.

This treatment is effective / successful because :

This treatment is limited because: You will need to be able to describe and evaluate TWO studies from the learning approach – these are Bandura, Ross & Ross’ study of imitated aggression in children and Watson & Raynor’s study of little Albert to test of a phobia can be learned. For both studies you should know the AMRC for the AO1 describe marks and you should be able to evaluate using the GRAVE technique for the AO2 evaluate marks.

Bandura, Ross & Ross

AIM: To test whether children will imitate aggression seen in adults.

METHOD: What sampling method did they use? How many children took part? How did they allocate them into groups? What did the adults do? How were the children treated? How did they measure aggression in the children? Write your answer here – it should be in enough detail to fully explain the study, but you should remember that it would probably attract between 2 and 4 marks in the exam so you do not want to spend half an hour in it!!

RESULTS: What behaviour did the children show? Was there a gender difference? Was there a difference in the type of aggression shown? For high grade answers, you should quote some of the statistics and figures in your answer.

CONCLUSION: Did the findings support the hypothesis? What conclusion can be drawn? Evaluation

Generalise: How far can we generalise these findings to others? How is the sample limited (remember that this was to test aggression in children so the sample being children is NOT a limitation!)?

Reliability: Could we repeat the experiment? Were the procedures standardised? Were the extraneous variables controlled?

Application: How useful are the findings in society? Who might benefit from this knowledge?

Validity: Are the findings true to life behaviour in children –was the ecological validity high or low? Did the children know they were being tested –was the experimental validity high or low? Was it really studying imitated aggression – was the content validity high or low?

Ethics – was there informed consent from the parents/carers? Did the children have the right to withdraw? Were they protected from harm? Was there any deception? Watson & Raynor

Aim: To find out if a phobia can be taught to a child

METHOD: Who was the sample? What did they do to the child? Explain the principles of classical conditioning in your answer.

RESULTS: What did they find? What behaviours did the child show? Did they successfully teach the child to be afraid?

CONCLUSION: Was the hypothesis supported? What conclusion can be drawn from this study? Evaluation

Generalise: How far can we generalise the findings of Albert to other children? How might he have not been representative of all children?

Reliability: Were the procedures standardised? Could we repeat the study again with an other child to test these findings?

Application: Who might be interested in these results? How useful is this knowledge?

Validity: How true are the findings to real life behaviour of a child – is the ecological validity high or low? Did Albert know he was being tested – is the experimental validity high or low? Was it really fear that was being measured and did the fear last beyond the experiment – is the content validity high or low?

Ethics: Did they have the fully informed consent of the mother? Could the child withdraw? Was Albert protected from harm – short term distress or long term harm? RESEARCH METHODS USED BY THE LEARNING APPROACH

The methods that we studied for this approach are observations and experiments. We covered experiments for the cognitive approach but you will be tested on them again in this exam paper.

Observations

We observe behaviour in other methods of research, such as an experiment (Milgram for example) and case studies (Dibs), but we are using an observation if we are collecting the data by solely observing the behaviour we are measuring – there is no manipulation of variables so there is no independent variable and dependent variable as in an experiment.

There are several different ways of carrying out an observation – we can do so openly – OVERT – or secretly – COVERT. Each of these two ways have advantages and disadvantages and one is more appropriate than the other depending on what is being studied. For example, if you wanted to study racist behaviour you could not do an overt observation as the behaviour would change once the participant knew they were being watched.

You can also carry out an observation an impartial bystander, where you do not get involved with the situation you are studying – this is called NON-PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION. This is the usual method of observation and can be overt or covert. However, for some areas of research, it is more appropriate to get involved with the situation and ‘blend in’ with the people you are studying – this may be because you would need t be trusted by the participants before they would behave normally. For example, if you wanted to study violence in gangs, you are unlikely to see this unless you were accepted by the gang as a member. When you become part of the situation you are studying it is called a PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION because you have become one of the participants that you are watching. There are advantages and disadvantages to both methods – you need to know these. Complete the table:

METHOD ADVANTAGE DISADVANTAGE

Overt

Covert

Participant

Non-participant Laboratory experiments

An experiment is a specific method of research that tests for a cause and effect – the effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable. The key feature of an experiment is CONTROL – the researcher controls the environment so that we can be sure that it is only the independent variable that is causing the effect on the dependent variable. The sample is controlled so we know that it is not participant variables (individual differences between people) that are affecting our results. Other factors – extraneous variables – are controlled and the intervention of the researcher is kept to a minimum to avoid experimenter effects – this is when the participant’s behaviour is different because of the person who is carrying out the study (e.g. pretty woman experimenter). The procedure is usually standardised – everything is kept the same – so that we know the behaviour is only because of the independent variable and not situational variables (e.g. heat of the room). When evaluating experiments you should discuss how the control can increase the reliability and the content validity but can often make the situation artificial, reducing the ecological validity.

You should recap on experimental designs – independent measures, repeated measures and matched pairs and the advantages and disadvantages of each design.

Animal experiments

The learning approach uses animals in its research (e.g. Pavlov, Skinner) and you need to be able to evaluate the use of animals in psychological testing. There are strict rules about using animals for research and you should read the Animals Act (Scientific Procedures) 1986 which can be found on the internet. To summarise you can only use animals in research if you have been granted a license from the Home Office and you have satisfied certain criteria including:

 Suitable provision for the animal, including caging and habitat. Some animals need to be with others to be happy and some should always be caged alone. The environment needs to be as close to the animal’s natural habitat as is possible under laboratory conditions and endangered species cannot be used at all.

 The animal should not suffer any unnecessary pain or distress. Any harm must be justified by the benefits of the research using a cost-benefit analysis – if the study was to find a cure for schizophrenia, then we could probably be justified in causing distress to rats. However, if the study was to test if business men get stressed, we should not be causing severe distress resulting in death to chimpanzees.

 The number of animals must be kept to a minimum and the procedures must be as non-invasive as possible.

 The animal must be disposed of in the most humane way which may be euthanasia if it would be appropriate to return the animal to the wild or to keep it caged in the lab.

 The research must be competent – they must be familiar with the needs of the species and they must be aware of the regulations and be suitable trained to carry out this research with as little contact with the animal as possible.

All research must show that every alternative to animal participants has been explored and that the only way to test this particular hypothesis is by using animals. You also need to evaluate using animals in terms of GENERALISABILITY – how far can we apply the behaviour of animals to humans? Some behaviours are universal but others may be species specific. KEY ISSUE

The key issues that we have looked at are ‘the role of the media in eating disorders’ and ‘the use of advertising to manipulate us to buy products’. You should be able to explain one or both of these issues but you should also be prepared for a new key issue that you would need to apply the learning theories to – for example, explaining how a teacher might use operant conditioning in her classroom management or explaining how we could train animals using classical conditioning. You should practice as many of these types of exam questions as you can.

Describing the issue

Remember this part of your answer should not include psychological theories but should be a description of the ‘issue’ – the problem or the debate. Try to make FOUR clear and separate points that describe what the problem is.

The role of the media in encouraging anorexia:

1. Young girls and boys will follow the behaviour of role models in society – celebrities that they look up to. For young women, this may be fashion models, performers or media presenters; for young men, this may be sportsmen, performers or actors.

2. The media presents these models in a particular way – the women are portrayed as thin, especially those who are fashion models. Often the size of their bodies is extremely unhealthy and impossible to achieve for the majority of young women in society. The men may be portrayed as muscular, suggesting that this is what ‘normal’ men should look like but this is impossible to achieve without an extremely vigorous exercise regime or steroids.

3. Cases of eating disorders in society are increasing – you should quote the statistics here that you researched. If you want maximum marks, you should not quote the figures from the textbook! (No’ A’ grade is given for repeating back to the chief examiner what she wrote in the first place!). You could talk about the rise in eating disorders in young men to make your answer different to thousands of others being marked that day!

4. You should highlight why this is a problem – statistics about the cost of treating the disorder through the NHS and examples of young women who have died of anorexia or young men who have damaged their health or committed crime through the abuse of steroids.

You would then need to be able to explain the issue using psychology – you should be referring to Social Learning Theory (SLT)

1. What is meant by a role model? Who are we more likely to copy according to SLT?

2. What is the process of SLT according to Bandura – explain the process of ARRM, making direct reference to the eating disorder and the models in the media. The influence of advertising on our shopping habits:

1. Advertising is everywhere so we cannot choose not to be influenced by it – this is intrusive, especially when the sole purpose of advertising is to encourage us to spend our money. You should give some examples of how many adverts we see a day – on TV, the internet, bus stops, bill boards, magazines etc.

2. Advertising is not always honest – most adverts suggest or claim that our life would be better if we bought a particular product. You should give examples of an advert that promises improvements to our life.

3. Advertising preys on vulnerable people and their emotions – you should give examples of adverts that are targeting vulnerable people. For example, new mothers, the elderly, children. By playing on our fears or insecurities, for example by advertising life insurance for the over 50’s to cover the funeral costs so that you are not a burden to your family or by advertising powdered baby milk as the best option for a new mother to feed her baby.

4. Encouraging people to spend money on products that they do not need – for example, the anti-ageing creams for women or the next model of an already existing car – at a time when finances are tight could be seen as unethical. In a recession when we are being encouraged to avoid credit and manage our finances, the advertising industry is still trying to get us to spend money we can not afford or we do not have. This could be having a detrimental effect on the economy or encouraging people to get into debt or even crime to buy the things they are being convinced that they need.

You should then be able to explain the issue using psychology – you should be referring to classical conditioning, operant conditioning and social learning theory.

1. How might we learn to associate the product with a good experience? Explain the principles of classical conditioning in your answer.

2. How might we learn that if we buy the product we will be rewarded by good things happening to us? Explain the principles of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement or punishment in your answer.

3. How might we be influenced by role models in adverts? Explain the criteria (ARRM) for social learning in your answer. THE PRACTICAL

We carried out an observation of children playing to examine the difference between boys and girls’ aggression.

You should be able to describe what we did using the AMRC style of answer. Do this below:

AIM:

METHOD:

What sampling method did we use?

How many participants did we recruit? Who were they? What age? Did we use any exclusion criteria?

How did we operationalize the variables? What were the criteria for ‘aggression’? How did we test inter- rater reliability?

What type of observation was it? How did we collect our data?

What ethical issues did we need to consider and how did we go about this?

RESULTS:

What did our initial analysis show – what type of data did we have? What descriptive statistic did we use and what did it show?

What was the appropriate inferential statistic?

CONCLUSION – what conclusions can we draw? You will also need to evaluate your study – you should use the GRAVE style of evaluation to so this:

Generalise – How far can we apply our findings to other people in the target population (ie. Other children playing)? Is our sample representative of the target population? What limitations are there to generalizing our findings?

Reliability – How easy would it be for someone else to repeat our study and test our findings? Do our findings support other studies / theories?

Application – How useful are the findings of our study? Who might be interested in what we have discovered? Which area of society might benefit from this knowledge?

Validity – How true are our findings? Was the behaviour like ‘real life’? Was it really aggression that we measured?

Ethics – what ethical issues did we need to consider? Did we have full informed consent? Did our participants experience any harm? Did they have the right to withdraw? THE BIOLOGICAL APPROACH

This approach suggests that all behaviour can be explained by the brain and body. You should be able to explain how our behaviour is affected by the central nervous system, by our genes, and by hormones.

You should be able explain how a neurotransmitter is transferred through the axon terminal of one neuron, across the synaptic cleft and to the receptors on the dendrite of the receiving neuron. You may be asked to identify parts of a neuron or the transfer of neurotransmitters in a diagram. You may be asked to explain the difference between excitatory synapses and inhibitory synapses.

You should be able to explain how the brain has two hemispheres separated by the corpus callosum and the functions of each hemisphere. You could also be asked about the various lobes of the cerebrum and the organs of the mid brain and how they might influence behaviour.

You should be able to explain how genes are inherited and how they might influence our behaviour. We have 23 pairs of chromosomes which determine our physical characteristics as well as other factors such as our mental health and our personality. You should be able to make an argument for the nature-nurture debate. ‘Nature’ believes that our behaviour is INNATE – this means that we are born this way and it is pre- determined. ‘Nurture’ believes that our behaviour is the consequence of the ENVIRONMENT – this means that we learn how to behave through interaction with the world around us. This debate will become more pronounced when we discuss the explanation for gender.

You should be able to explain the endocrine system – the glands that produce hormones. You should be able to give examples of some hormones and the effect on our behaviour that they create. For example, in the gender debate, you would explain the role of testosterone in males and the role of oestrogen and progesterone in women. You should also know some examples of other hormones such as noradrenaline and cortisol. STUDIES You will need to be able to describe and evaluate TWO studies in detail for this approach. The two studies are Money and Raine et al. For both studies, you should aim to be able to describe (AO1) using AMRC and evaluate (AO2) using GRAVE.

Money – ‘Ablatio Penis: Normal male infant sex-reassigned as a girl’

AIM:

METHOD: Who was the sample and how did Money get involved in this case? This is a case study – how did Money collect his data?

RESULTS: You should describe the behaviour Bruce / Brenda displayed that supported the claim that the gender reassignment was successful and the behaviour that showed that it was not successful:

CONCLUSION: Was Money supported in his claim that gender is a learned behaviour or does this study show that gender is innate (biologically programmed)? Evaluation

Generalise: how far can we generalise these findings to other people who may have gender reassignment operations?

Reliability: as this was a case study we would expect the reliability to be low; it would not be possible to repeat this study to test the findings but you should quote findings from other research into successful gender reassignment (from the textbook) to give support to this study.

Application: How useful is it to know that gender is biological rather than learned? Who might benefit from this knowledge?

Validity: Was the validity high or low? Is the data the true account of David Reimer’s life? Case studies tend to be high in validity because of TRIANGULATION (data comes from several sources and is compared) – explain the different sources in this study and if they add to the truth of David’s story.

Ethics: You should not spend too much time or get carried away with the ethics of this study – keep your answer to one or two points. Gottesmann & Shields – ‘Schizophrenia in twins – 16 years’ consecutive admission to a psychiatric clinic’

AIM: To test if schizophrenia is inherited or has a genetic explanation.

METHOD: Who is in the sample? How many pairs of twins were studied? How many of the twins were diagnosed with schizophrenia? This is a longitudinal study – explain what that means. How was the data collected?

RESULTS: What was the concordance rate of schizophrenia among the twins (quote some figures for top band answers)? What gender differences were seen?

CONCLUSION: What does this tell us about schizophrenia? Does it support the hypothesis that schizophrenia is genetic? What conclusions can be drawn? Evaluation

Generalise: how far can we generalise these findings to other people who may have schizophrenia? Are twins representative of most people?

Reliability: How much were the extraneous variables controlled? Could we repeat this study to test the findings? What other studies have found similar results which would increase the reliability?

Application: How useful is it to know that schizophrenia is inherited rather than learned? Who might benefit from this knowledge?

Validity: Was the validity high or low? Are there any other factors that could be causing schizophrenia? You should discuss participant variables and situational variables in your evaluation.

Ethics: There are no real ethical issues with this study and there are enough evaluation points to achieve a good grade without needing to try and apply generic ethical issues to this study. Methods used by the biological approach

As there are many ways of explaining behaviour from a biological perspective, there are many ways of studying behaviour depending on which explanation you are following. For genetic studies, the best way to study behaviour is by looking at people who share the most genes – twins. Because twins live in the same environment so we cannot separate whether it is genes or family influences that are affecting the behaviour, we can study children who have been adopted. If they share traits with family members who have not brought them up then we can be confident that they inherited those traits.

You should explain what is meant by concordance rates and how we would assume that high concordance rates would mean shared genes.

You should evaluate the use of twin and adoption studies in terms of strengths and weaknesses as a method for studying behaviour:

ADVANTAGE DISADVANTAGE

TWIN STUDIES

ADOPTION STUDIES

In order to look at the brain and the role of the CNS, brain structure or hormones on behaviour we can use brain scans of humans or we can use more invasive methods such as experiments and surgery using animals. Brain scans

You should be able to explain how brain scans work and when they would be useful as a research tool. You should be able to explain the difference between structural scans and functional scans.

STRUCTURAL - MRI FUNCTIONAL - PET

How does it work? How does it work?

What can it show us? What can it show us?

Using animals in experiments

We have already looked at this in the learning approach so you should familiarise yourself with the law regarding animal experiments and the ethical issues that arise.

In the biological approach, using animals can be useful as we may operate on an animal’s brain in a way we cannot ethically do to a human. Also, we can administer drugs and hormones to animals to test the effect on the brain, neurotransmitters and endocrine system. Although there is ethical debate as to whether we should test on animals at all, it is deemed more ethical to carry out these tests on animals such as rats rather than humans. However, this then creates a further debate as to how far we can generalise the findings of experiments on rats to human behaviour. You should evaluate the use of lesion studies in animals – make notes of the strengths and weaknesses:

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES KEY ISSUE

You may be asked about the key issue you have looked at or you may be given a novel situation and asked to apply your knowledge of biological psychology to explain the behaviour in the situation. We have looked at the issue of “Are transgender operations ethical?” As this is a debate you should aim to answer the question in your explanation using psychology. For the AO1 (describe) part of the question you should try to describe the debate in general.

Are transgender operations ethical?”

1. Many people feel that they have been born into the wrong body and may have problems with their sexuality and gender identity. This means that they may seek out surgery to change their sex from male to female or from female to male. As this surgery may change their psychological well-being we need to discuss whether this operation should be allowed to go ahead.

2. Sometimes the surgery is considered because a baby has been born with ambiguous sex – in other words, it is not clear as to whether the child is a boy or a girl. Modern technology can carry out DNA and chromosome analysis to determine if the child is genetically male or female but the child may still develop without a clear sex / gender and surgery may be an option to decide on one sex or another. Would it be ethical to change the sex of this child and when should it be done?

3. Most of these operations are carried out on the NHS so when should tax payer’s money be spent on this surgery? Should people be counseled as to their gender identity rather than being offered surgery? What did the people who felt that they are ‘in the wrong body’ do before transgender operations were available? Is this ‘disorder’ a relatively new thing and more a reflection of our society than a psychological phenomena?

4. You should briefly explain how the surgery is carried out – you can find this information on the internet but search safely!! Is it ethical for surgeons to be offering this operation in the first place – should we be more tolerant of differences in society rather than needing to be defined as ‘male’ or ‘female’? Should we put children through painful and risky surgery to change their body to fit in with the expectations of society?

Explaining the issue using psychology

How can we explain the biological approach to gender using brain lateralization and/or chromosomes?

Use the case of David Reimer to support the argument for or against the ethics of this operation – he did not have the choice and he never felt right as a girl so should this operation have been carried out in the first place?

You could argue that the operation is ethical in a consenting adult and, if the technology is available, then why shouldn’t an adult choose how they want their body and what gender they feel most comfortable with. PRACTICAL

We carried out an experiment to test if males have better spatial skills than females.

You should be able to describe what we did using the AMRC style of answer. Do this below:

AIM:

METHOD:

What sampling method did we use?

How many participants did we recruit? Who were they? What age? Did we use any exclusion criteria?

How did we operationalize the variable of ‘spatial skills’? How did we collect our data?

What design was our experiment?

What controls did we put in place to try and increase the validity of our study?

What ethical issues did we need to consider and how did we go about this?

RESULTS:

What did our initial analysis show – what type of data did we have? What descriptive statistic did we use and what did it show?

What was the appropriate inferential statistic?

CONCLUSION – what conclusions can we draw? You will also need to evaluate your study – you should use the GRAVE style of evaluation to so this:

Generalise – How far can we apply our findings to other people in the target population (ie. Other young adults)? Is our sample representative of the target population? What limitations are there to generalizing our findings?

Reliability – How easy would it be for someone else to repeat our study and test our findings? Do our findings support other studies / theories?

Application – How useful are the findings of our study? Who might be interested in what we have discovered? Which area of society might benefit from this knowledge?

Validity – How true are our findings? Was the behaviour like ‘real life’? Did we control extraneous variables to ensure content validity? Did the participants show demand characteristics?

Ethics – what ethical issues did we need to consider? Did we have full informed consent? Did our participants experience any harm? Did they have the right to withdraw?

GENDER For this exam, the three approaches have a theme that can be used to compare and contrast the approaches – we can examine how the three approaches explain gender development in a different way. This will also give you a good argument for the nature/nurture debate in psychology – is our behaviour innate (inherited or present at birth) or is our behaviour learned or caused by an interaction with the environment. For each approach you should be able to evaluate the explanation of gender. This would mean highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the explanation – this could include an evaluation of the methods used to study gender development by each approach (E.G. Freud’s case studies were not scientific whereas the brain scans of the biological approach are). You should also use research studies that support or criticise a particular approach – e.g. Money’s study of David Reimer criticises the learning approach and supports the biological. You should be able to make a LINE OF ARGUMENT – in other words, give both sides of the story, show where they are similar, show where they are different and come to a conclusion to summarise the debate.

You should complete the table below to show how each approach explains gender development:

The LEARNING approach claims that we learn our behaviour through social learning – we imitate those of the same gender to us; we can also use operant conditioning to explain our developing gender identity – if we behave in a gender appropriate way, our behaviour is rewarded and we will repeat it. If we behave in a way that is inappropriate to our gender we tend to get punished (laughed at by our peers) and we will not repeat it. Explain the process of social learning and how it might be applied to gender – explain the process of positive reinforcement and punishment and apply it to gender:

Evaluate the explantion: The PSYCHODYNAMIC approach explains gender development as successfully passing through the phallic stage. Boys have to resolve the Oedipus complex which will result in them acting like a male. Girls have to resolve the Electra complex which will result in them acting like a female. Explain the phallic stage and how it explains gender development in detail.

Evaluate the explanation: The BIOLOGICAL approach explains gender development through chromosomes and hormones. A developing fertilised egg will contain X and Y chromosomes if it is male and only X chromosomes if it is female. The result will be a male or female baby. The child will then be influenced by hormones – testosterone for males and Oestrogen/progesterone for females – from puberty. Explain how the chromosomes create a male or female and the effect of hormones on behaviour:

Evaluate the explanation: RESEARCH METHODS

Throughout this exam, you will be tested on the various methods used by the three approaches (experiments, animal studies, case studies, correlations, cross sectional, longitudinal, observations, brain scans, twin studies and adoption studies). You should make a table describing each method and highlighting at least TWO strengths and TWO weaknesses of each method as a way of studying human behaviour.

You will also be expected to know research method material from the last exam – sampling methods, research designs, types of data / levels of measurement, hypotheses (one and two tailed), descriptive statistics (mean, median, mode), measures of dispersion (range), significance, inferential statistics (Mann-Whitney, Spearman’s rank, Chi-squared – when to use each one), You should also be able to explain the use of critical tables and how to decide if you have a significant result or not when you have performed an inferential statistic.

You will be expected to know the ethical issues when studying human participants and when using animals in research. You should be able to explain ways of dealing with ethical issues in your own research and be able to evaluate other studies which have not followed ethical guidelines.

You should be able to describe and assess the difference between qualitative and quantitative data including evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of each.

You should be able to interpret findings of research including tables of summary data, bar charts, histograms and scattergraphs.

You should be able to identify variables and understand how to operationalize variables. You should understand what is meant by extraneous variables, participant variables, situational variables, demand characteristics, social desirability bias, beta bias, order effects, experimenter effects… and how these may affect your findings and reduce validity or reliability.

You should also be able to evaluate with regards to generalizability, reliability, validity and credibility.

Now - if you STILL haven’t started your revision yet… be very afraid!!! But don’t say I didn’t warn you 