Approaches in Psychology — AQA A-Level Psychology
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Approaches in Psychology explained
An assumption is the founding belief an approach holds about where behaviour comes from.
Read the full explanation
It is not a study and not a therapy, and that is where most of the marks go missing. Behaviourism holds that we are born a blank slate, that behaviour is learned from the environment by association and consequence, and that laws found in rats hold for people. Social learning theory adds that much learning is indirect, from watching models, with thought in between. The cognitive approach holds that internal mental processes are real and can be studied scientifically by inference. The biological approach holds that everything psychological is at first biological. The psychodynamic approach holds that unconscious forces and early childhood shape adult personality. Humanistic psychology holds that people have free will and are actively self-determining.
Learning approaches: i) the behaviourist approach, including classical conditioning and Pavlov’s research, operant conditioning, types of reinforcement and Skinner’s research; ii) social learning theory including imitation, identification, vicarious reinforcement, the role of mediational processes and Bandura’s research.
Behaviourism explains learning through observable interactions. Classical conditioning (Pavlov’s dogs) is learning by association, pairing a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus to create a conditioned response. Operant conditioning (Skinner’s rats) shapes behaviour via consequences: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and punishment. Social learning theory (SLT) extends this to observational learning. Bandura’s Bobo doll study showed children imitating aggressive models. SLT emphasises identification with role models and vicarious reinforcement (observing others rewarded). Crucially, SLT incorporates mediational processes (attention, retention, reproduction, motivation) occurring between stimulus and response.
The cognitive approach: the study of internal mental processes, the role of schema, the use of models to explain and make inferences about mental processes.
The cognitive approach argues that internal mental processes must be studied scientifically. Because processes like memory and perception cannot be observed directly, psychologists make inferences about them based on behaviour. A central concept is the schema: a mental framework of beliefs developed through experience that organises information. Schemas allow rapid cognitive processing, preventing us from being overwhelmed, but can also distort interpretations. Cognitive psychologists use theoretical models, such as the multi-store model of memory, and computer models, which compare the mind to a computer (with input, processing and output stages), to explain and test these unobservable mental processes.
The biological approach: the genetic basis of behaviour: genotype, phenotype and evolution. Influence of biological structures and neurochemistry on behaviour. Cognitive neuroscience.
The biological approach roots behaviour in physical processes. It distinguishes between the genotype (actual genetic makeup) and the phenotype (observable characteristics from the interaction of genes and environment). For example, a genetic vulnerability to depression (genotype) may only manifest as the disorder (phenotype) if triggered by stress. Evolution explains behaviour through natural selection, where adaptive traits enhance survival. Biological structures, such as the amygdala, influence behaviours like aggression. Neurochemistry involves neurotransmitters, like serotonin, regulating mood. Cognitive neuroscience bridges biology and cognitive psychology, using brain scans like fMRI to map mental processes to specific neural structures.
The psychodynamic approach: the role of the unconscious, the structure of personality, that is Id, Ego and Superego, defence mechanisms including repression, denial and displacement, psychosexual stages.
Freud argued that most of the mind is unconscious, a store of repressed conflict that leaks out in dreams. Personality has three parts. The id is present at birth, entirely unconscious, and demands immediate pleasure. The superego forms around age five by identification with the same-sex parent, punishing with guilt. The ego works on the reality principle, managing the war between them using defence mechanisms: repression pushes a distressing memory out of awareness, denial refuses to accept an external reality, and displacement redirects a feeling onto a safer target. Personality develops through the psychosexual stages: oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital. Unresolved conflict leaves a fixation carried into adult behaviour. Freud used Little Hans, a boy with a horse phobia, as evidence for the Oedipus complex in the phallic stage.
Humanistic Psychology: free will, self-actualisation and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, congruence, the role of conditions of worth.
Humanistic psychology asserts that humans possess free will and are active agents in their development. The ultimate goal is self-actualisation, the innate drive to achieve one's full potential. This is mapped in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, where basic physiological and safety needs must be met before progressing to psychological needs and self-actualisation. Carl Rogers argued that personal growth requires congruence, where an individual's self-concept closely aligns with their ideal self. Growth is hindered by conditions of worth, which are the expectations placed on an individual by others to earn positive regard. These conditions create incongruence, preventing self-actualisation and causing psychological distress.
Comparison of approaches.
Comparison is answered on criteria, never by placing two descriptions side by side, and the criteria are worth learning as a set. Nature and nurture: the biological approach is the strongest nature position and behaviourism the strongest nurture, with social learning theory and the psychodynamic approach interactionist. Determinism: biological, environmental, psychic and soft determinism respectively, against humanistic free will. Reductionism: biology reduces behaviour to genes and neurotransmitters and behaviourism to stimulus and response, while humanistic psychology insists on the whole person. Method: behaviourist, biological and cognitive research is nomothetic and experimental, psychodynamic and humanistic work idiographic and case-based. Then applications, drug therapy, token economies, cognitive behavioural therapy, psychoanalysis and counselling.
Your focus
- Describe the founding assumption of each approach as a belief about where behaviour comes from.
- Explain why saying behaviour is learned from the environment is an assumption while the Bobo doll study is not.
- Apply the assumptions to a described behaviour by giving the account two different approaches would offer for it.
Show all 25 objectives
- Describe the mechanisms of classical and operant conditioning using Pavlov's and Skinner's research.
- Explain the concepts of imitation, identification, and vicarious reinforcement within social learning theory.
- Evaluate the role of mediational processes in observational learning using Bandura's research.
- Explain how cognitive psychologists make inferences about internal mental processes from observable behaviour.
- Describe the role of schemas in organising and interpreting information.
- Compare the use of theoretical and computer models in explaining mental processes.
- Differentiate between genotype and phenotype using appropriate psychological examples.
- Explain how evolution and natural selection can account for specific human behaviours.
- Describe the influence of biological structures and neurochemistry on human behaviour.
- Define cognitive neuroscience and explain its role in understanding mental processes.
- Describe the id, ego and superego by their governing principle and the age at which each appears.
- Explain repression, denial and displacement separately, with a different example of each.
- Apply the psychosexual stages to an adult behaviour, naming the stage and the fixation that would explain it.
- Evaluate the approach on explanatory power against unfalsifiable concepts and case evidence such as Little Hans's phobia.
- Outline the core assumptions of humanistic psychology, including the concept of free will.
- Illustrate Maslow's hierarchy of needs and explain the process of self-actualisation.
- Explain the relationship between the self-concept, the ideal self, and congruence.
- Analyse how conditions of worth impact psychological well-being and personal growth.
- Compare two approaches on a stated criterion such as determinism, naming the criterion before either approach.
- Outline where each approach stands on nature and nurture, identifying the interactionist ones as interactionist.
- Explain the difference between nomothetic experimental and idiographic case methods and what each costs in credibility.
- Apply the approaches to therapy by matching drug therapy, token economies, CBT, psychoanalysis and counselling to each.
Approaches in Psychology exam tips
Marking Points
- An assumption expressed as a belief about the origin of behaviour, for example that all behaviour is learned from the environment, rather than as a description of a study.
- Behaviourist: blank slate at birth, learning by classical and operant conditioning, only observable behaviour as data, and animal findings generalised to humans.
- Social learning: behaviour acquired by observation, imitation and vicarious reinforcement, with cognitive mediation between stimulus and response.
- Cognitive: internal mental processes are legitimate subject matter, inferred from behaviour and represented in theoretical or computer models.
- Biological: genes, neurochemistry, hormones and brain structure as the basis of behaviour, so the mind is treated as physical.
- Psychodynamic: the unconscious drives behaviour, personality has a tripartite structure, and early experience is formative.
- Humanistic: free will, the whole person, and subjective experience as the proper subject matter.
- Accurately define classical conditioning as learning through association and operant conditioning as learning through consequences.
- Distinguish between positive reinforcement (adding a pleasant stimulus) and negative reinforcement (removing an unpleasant stimulus) in Skinner's research.
- Explain the four mediational processes in SLT: attention, retention, motor reproduction, and motivation.
- Describe how vicarious reinforcement increases the likelihood of imitation, referencing Bandura's findings on observed rewards.
- Define inference as the process of drawing conclusions about unobservable mental processes based on observed behaviour.
- Explain the role of schemas as mental structures that organise knowledge and guide cognitive processing and behaviour.
- Distinguish between theoretical models (like flowcharts representing memory) and computer models (analogies of human cognition to software).
- Evaluate the cognitive approach by discussing its reliance on controlled laboratory experiments to infer mental processes.
- Define genotype as the genetic constitution of an individual and phenotype as the observable characteristics resulting from the interaction of the genotype with the environment.
- Explain evolution in terms of natural selection, where genetically determined behaviours that enhance survival and reproduction are passed to future generations.
- Identify specific biological structures, such as regions of the brain or the nervous system, and explain their direct influence on behaviour.
- Describe the role of neurochemistry, specifically how neurotransmitters transmit messages across synapses to affect behaviour and mood.
- Outline cognitive neuroscience as the scientific study of the biological structures that underpin cognitive processes, often using neuroimaging techniques.
- The unconscious as the driving force behind behaviour, holding repressed material that surfaces indirectly in dreams or parapraxes.
- Tripartite personality: id on the pleasure principle from birth, ego on the reality principle from about the age of two, superego on the morality principle from about the age of five.
- The ego's task of balancing the demands of id, superego and external reality, which is what defence mechanisms exist to do.
- Repression, denial and displacement defined separately and correctly, each with its own example.
- The five psychosexual stages in order, each with its conflict, and fixation explained as the adult consequence of unresolved conflict.
- Evaluation: explanatory power and the founding of psychoanalysis, against unfalsifiable concepts, an evidence base of single case studies such as Little Hans's childhood phobia, and psychic determinism.
- Explain free will as the ability to make choices that are not determined by biological or external forces, which is central to the humanistic approach.
- Describe Maslow's hierarchy of needs, detailing the progression from deficiency needs to growth needs.
- Define self-actualisation as the innate tendency to achieve one's full potential and become the best one can possibly be.
- Explain congruence as the degree of similarity between a person's self-concept and their ideal self, which is necessary for personal growth.
- Describe conditions of worth as the boundaries or limits placed on parents' love for their children, which can lead to incongruence and low self-esteem.
- A stated basis of comparison, such as determinism or method, introduced before either approach is described.
- Nature and nurture positions assigned accurately, with the interactionist approaches identified as such rather than forced onto one side.
- Determinism contrasted in its specific forms, biological, environmental, psychic and soft, against humanistic free will.
- Reductionism against holism, with the level of explanation each approach works at made explicit.
- Nomothetic, experimental methods contrasted with idiographic case study methods, and the consequence for scientific credibility.
- Views of development: discrete stage theory in the psychodynamic approach against continuous learning in behaviourism.
- Applications matched to approach: drug therapy, systematic desensitisation and token economies, cognitive behavioural therapy, psychoanalysis and client-centred counselling.
Examiner Tips
- 💡If two assumptions are asked for, number them and give each one sentence of belief plus one sentence of what follows from it.
- 💡Start each with 'this approach assumes that', which forces the answer into the right form and stops it drifting into a study.
- 💡In an applied question, name the assumption first and then read the scenario back through it, rather than describing the approach in the abstract.
- 💡When describing Pavlov's research, clearly outline the sequence of before, during, and after conditioning using the correct terminology (NS, UCS, UCR, CS, CR).
- 💡Use Bandura's Bobo doll experiment to illustrate both imitation and the effect of vicarious reinforcement on children's aggressive behaviour.
- 💡Compare the behaviourist approach and SLT by highlighting their different stances on the role of internal mental processes.
- 💡Use the multi-store model of memory as a concrete example when explaining how theoretical models represent internal mental processes.
- 💡Explicitly define the term 'inference' when discussing how cognitive psychologists study unobservable processes like thinking and memory.
- 💡Discuss both the advantages (rapid processing) and disadvantages (perceptual distortions) of schemas to provide a balanced explanation.
- 💡Use twin studies as evidence when evaluating the genetic basis of behaviour, noting that monozygotic twins rarely show 100% concordance, which highlights the role of the environment in shaping the phenotype.
- 💡When discussing neurochemistry, always link a specific neurotransmitter to a specific behaviour or disorder, such as low serotonin levels in depression.
- 💡Prepare to evaluate the biological approach by discussing its scientific methods, such as fMRI scanning, as a strength, and its biological determinism as a limitation.
- 💡Scenario questions almost always plant a defence mechanism, so lift the phrase from the stem, name the mechanism and then explain it.
- 💡Use falsifiability as an argument rather than a label: say what observation could ever show the theory to be wrong.
- 💡Do not spend an answer on the Oedipus complex when the question asks about the structure of personality; each carries its own marks.
- 💡When evaluating the humanistic approach, use its holistic nature as a strength, contrasting it with the reductionism of the biological or behaviourist approaches.
- 💡Link conditions of worth directly to Rogerian therapy, explaining how the therapist provides unconditional positive regard to counteract them.
- 💡Be prepared to discuss the cultural bias of Maslow's hierarchy, noting that concepts like self-actualisation are highly associated with individualist cultures rather than collectivist ones.
- 💡Put a comparison connective in every paragraph, such as 'whereas' or 'by contrast', so the comparison is visible on the page.
- 💡Two approaches compared on three criteria scores better than five approaches each mentioned once.
- 💡Keep description concise and make each comparison explicit by applying the same criterion to both approaches.
Common Mistakes
- Answering with the evidence instead of the belief: Pavlov's dogs support the behaviourist assumption, they are not the assumption.
- Giving one assumption twice in different words when two are asked for, such as 'behaviour is learned' and 'we learn from our environment'.
- Presenting social learning theory as pure behaviourism and dropping the mediational element, which is the thing that separates them.
- Confusing negative reinforcement with punishment; negative reinforcement increases a behaviour by removing something unpleasant, whereas punishment decreases a behaviour.
- Using the terms unconditioned stimulus and conditioned stimulus interchangeably; the unconditioned stimulus naturally produces the response before conditioning occurs.
- Failing to mention mediational processes when evaluating SLT; students must explicitly state how SLT differs from traditional behaviourism by including cognitive factors.
- Stating that cognitive psychologists directly observe mental processes; they actually observe behaviour and make inferences about the underlying processes.
- Describing schemas only negatively (e.g., causing prejudice); schemas must also be explained as useful cognitive shortcuts that process large volumes of information quickly.
- Confusing theoretical models with computer models; theoretical models are abstract representations (like the working memory model), whereas computer models involve programming computers to simulate human cognition.
- Error: Confusing genotype and phenotype. Correction: Clearly state that genotype is an individual's genetic constitution or makeup, whereas phenotype is the observable physical or behavioural expression that can change due to environmental factors.
- Error: Stating that evolution causes individuals to adapt during their lifetime. Correction: Explain that evolution operates across generations through natural selection of advantageous genetic mutations.
- Error: Treating cognitive neuroscience as identical to the biological approach. Correction: Specify that cognitive neuroscience is a distinct, interdisciplinary field combining cognitive psychology and biological neuroscience.
- Describing defence mechanisms as conscious coping strategies; they operate unconsciously, which is precisely why they distort reality.
- Giving denial and repression the same example: denial refuses an external fact, repression buries an internal memory.
- Leaving out that the superego forms at the end of the phallic stage through identification with the same-sex parent, which is the link between the stages and personality.
- Confusing Little Hans's childhood phobia (which Freud interpreted as evidence for the Oedipus complex) with an adult fixation.
- Error: Claiming that self-actualisation is a permanent state once reached. Correction: Explain that self-actualisation is an ongoing process of growth, and individuals can move up and down the hierarchy based on life circumstances.
- Error: Confusing the self-concept with the ideal self. Correction: Clarify that the self-concept is how we currently perceive ourselves, whereas the ideal self is the person we wish to be.
- Error: Stating that conditions of worth are positive motivators. Correction: Emphasise that conditions of worth are negative because they make love conditional, fostering incongruence and hindering self-actualisation.
- Writing two separate descriptions and leaving the comparison for the examiner to infer, which holds the answer in the lowest band.
- Calling the cognitive approach deterministic without the qualifier; it takes a soft determinist position in which thought is influenced but choice remains.
- Labelling the psychodynamic approach as pure nurture, when innate drives and the id are as nature-based as anything in the biological approach.