Andrea Garcia

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Research methods
-Areas and perspectives-
-Social-
Social psychology is the study of how humans behave and interact with each
other, in specific situations.
-Psychologists believe that all behaviour takes place in a social context.
-Social psychologists place an emphasis on the person and work to understand
how other people's actions, thoughts, and feelings affect people's behaviour.
-Psychologists who study this are often interested in roles, conformity,
obedience, group dynamics, altruism, social change, leadership styles,
aggression….
-The research methods used are varied although they are most commonly lab
experiments (e.g., Milgram, Piliavin and Zimbardo)
-One of the debates in social psychology is “if an individual’s behaviour is a
result of their personality or their social context.”
-Social psychologists believe that the situation we are in has more of an effect
on behaviour than our personality. This was demonstrated by Zimbardo. He
demonstrated the effect in the Stanford Prison Experiment.
-However social psychologists often fail to explain why some individuals with
similar social experiences behave differently from each other (why don’t all
family members turn to crime). Social psychologists may be able to explain
general trends or expectations of behaviour but are rarely able to predict
behaviour in the individual.
History of social psychology:
Aristotle believed that a state of political community had a positive effect on an
individual's survival. He also believed that language and laws separated us from
other animals and that these laws included everyone's roles to create a thriving
economy. However, experiments were not used to validate theories until the
late 1800s, and psychologists had written about the influence of society on
behaviour but had no evidence to back it up.

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Strengths:
-It has been an extremely effective strategy for helping us modify people's
behaviour. An example of that would be reducing prison riots b changing the
conditions inside of prisons by understanding how people act in groups or to
people in authority. As a result of is useful for helping to change or understand
behaviour.

-The social approach is also important as it takes away blame from the
individual for some actions and enables us to see behaviour in the light of the
situation in which the behaviour occurs (for example increased crime or
aggression in communities with most poverty and disadvantage). Ethically not
people blaming.

Disadvantages:
-Social psychologists are environmentally deterministic in their approach and
are therefore reductionist. They fail to take account of the genetic or biological
component of behaviour and so fail to explain individual differences like
gender.

-Their deterministic view also fails to take account of free will and assumes
behaviour is determined by situation.

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-Developmental-
It is interested in discovering the psychological processes of human
developmental mostly with an empathy in childhood and teenage years
however adulthood is also studied. Some of the main assumptions of
developmental psychology include clear identifiable systematic changes that
occur from an individual’s behaviour from conception to death, all behaviour in
adulthood is affected by experiences in childhood, changes occur over a
person’s lifestyle as a result of inherited factors or lifetime experiences (which
are both nature and nurture).
Strengths:
-Many studies are longitudinal.
-Can provide useful information about how we can better understand how
children learn and deal with emotional difficulties.

Disadvantages:
-Tendency to generalise findings from extremely limited samples because the
studies take place over a long period of time and are very expensive to run.
-General patterns of development based on nonrepresentative samples or
samples which have an ethnocentric bias which may ignore cultural differences
relation to how children may learn in other parts of the world.

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-Cognitive psychology-
Studies our mental processes such as memory, perception, thinking, and
language.
Main assumptions:
-Internal mental processes such as memory thinking reasoning problem solving,
and language are key features influencing human behaviour.
-The human brain is like a computer it receives, interprets, and responds to
information
-People’s problems often arise often due to faulty or irrational thinking which
can be traced and often remedied using cognitive therapy.

Strengths
-This approach tends to use a scientific approach through the use of lab
experiments which are high in control and therefore researchers are able to
establish cause and effect.
-Useful contributions that have arisen from this approach for example many
modern types of therapy are based on the cognitive approach understanding
cognitive process allows us to help people to improve their cognitive processes
such as memory and language.
-Has become the dominant approach in psychology.
Disadvantages
-Relies on self-report measures and observation as it does not have validity.
-Leads to a reductionist and mechanistic description of experiences and
behaviours because of its reliance to its computer analogy.
-Reductionism is the idea that complex phenomenon can be explained by
simpler things the cognitive approach often takes this narrow focus and ignores
social and emotional factors which may impact on cognition.

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-Individual differences-
Psychology often makes generalisations about people, but the concept of
abnormality is controversial as it is based on factors such as culture, class,
religion, and sexuality.
Main assumptions:
-Individuals differ in their behaviour and personal qualities. This means no one
can be considered an average person.
-Behaviour which deviates from the norm is often labelled as abnormal
-To understand the complexity of human behaviour, its necessary to study the
differences between people.

Strengths
-Can be useful in improving the experience of people with mental health
problems numerous studies which use this approach have led to people being
able to be diagnosed and treated.
-Developments of psychometric tests provide reliable and provide quantitative
data which can easily be analysed enabling similarities and differences in
individuals to be discovered.
-Qualitative and quantitative data
-Does not have reductionism as it looks at factors as a whole
Differences
-Explains individual differences and tends to ignore external factors such as the
situation the person is in.
-Ethical issues as it labels people as different this can have a negative effect on
people
-Few people in case studies therefore can’t generalise the findings in the studies
as people experience different symptoms and therefore the ecological validity is
questioned.

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-Biological-
Focuses on our biological makeup and our behaviour and experiences. The
structure of our nervous system including our brains and the action of
chemicals have a significant impact on behaviour. However how much of our
biology affects us in an important question.
• Some biological psychologists take a reductionist argument to answer
this by the terms and chemicals. This led to a lot of discoveries such as
the effect of dugs to mood and behaviour.
• Other psychologists say that its not possible to explain human behaviour
and experiences just by the brain structure and chemicals. Therefore,
they suggest that there are other psychological variables that need to be
considered such as behaviour alone and around people.

Main assumptions:
-All that is psychological is first biological. Since the mind appears to reside in
the brain, all thoughts, feelings, and behaviours have an identifiable and
measurable biological cause.
-Behaviour also has a genetic basis which is influenced by our DNA genes and
biological molecules.

Strengths
-Use of sophisticated equipment such as MRI scanning which provide a precise
way of measuring brain structures.
-Offers many practical applications as the research in this area allows for
treatment for diseases.
Differences
-Lacks ecological validity as some studies watch people sleep in a lab with
electrodes attached to their scalp which is not how people would typically
sleep. Biological lab experiments allow the researchers to control as many
extraneous variables as possible.
-Very costly and time consuming. This is due to the fact that they need
sophisticated equipment, and they are lengthy procedures. This leads to a small
sample size which could be argued as not representative meaning having to be
careful when generalising the results.

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-Behaviourist perspective-
The behaviourist approach focuses on observable behaviour and how it is
affected by environmental factors such as rewards and punishments. It suggests
that behaviour can be learned through conditioning, either through classical
conditioning or operant conditioning.
Main assumptions:
-Observed the behaviour responses of humans and animals.
-The perspective assumes that all behaviour is environmentally determined
(nurture rather than nature)
-Humans and animals learn to behave as a response to the environment they
are in. This can be by stimulus response association or as a result of
reinforcement.
Strengths:
-Based on a large amount of empirical evidence
-Theories are able to be evaluated in a lab and are replicable which shows
validity.
-There are many experiments to support theories.
Disadvantages:
-Early research has been done on animals not humans which means it may not
always be generalisable to humans. This is due to the fact that human thought,
feelings, and behaviours are thought to be sophisticated than the behaviourist
approaches have suggested in the past.
-May change the overt behaviours of a person by giving them rewards however
it will not change the way they think.
-Reductionist and environmentally deterministic

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-Psychodynamic perspective-
The psychodynamic perspective focuses on the unconscious mind and how it
influences behaviour. It suggests that early childhood experiences shape
personality and behaviour, and that unresolved conflicts from childhood can
lead to psychological problems later in life. The psychodynamic approach also
emphasizes the importance of the therapist-client relationship in resolving these
conflicts.
Main assumptions:
-It’s a balance between instincts and those instincts are nurtured in childhood.
-Explains behaviour from the point of view of our unconscious. This leads to
drive and early childhood experiences. The content of our unconscious can
give us anxiety state which affects the quality of life.
Strengths:
-Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is a treatment which developed by Freud. This
includes free association, dream analysis, regression using hypnosis and
projective personality tests. These try to uncover unconscious thoughts, desires,
or motivations. This has been important in society attitude from covering
problems to talking about them. It was the start of counselling this shows the
usefulness.
-Focuses on a specific individual rather than general laws and provides rich
pictures of personality.
-Case studies method is rich and gives a valid picture of the person.

Disadvantages:
-The case study method is non-scientific and lacks generalisability.
-Not testable nor falsifiable such as the constructs of id, Ego and super ego are
also hypothetical which leads not being able to be proved this lacks validity.