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Biological and Cognitive approach - Coggle Diagram
Biological and Cognitive approach
Cognive Approah
Assumptions
Argues mental processes can and should be studied scientifically.
Mental processes are studied by making inferences about what a person in thinking based on how they act.
Humans are information processesors.
Schemas
Mental framework that helps us to make sense of the world, by providing short cuts to identifying new information that we come across.
Help us fill gaps in absence of information.
Brasford and Johnson
Procedure- One group of participants were asked to read the passage. Another group were given the apprpriate schema (doing laundry) before they read the passage.
Findings- Found those who were given the scheme beforehand recalled twice as much information as those who didn't. Suggest these participants were relating the passage to back to stored information.
Conclusion- This study suggests that is is not just the retrieval process that is effected by schemas, but also the storage,
Criticsims- The notion of schemas is a vague concept, there is not explanation.
Eleanor McGuire
Procedure- 16, healthy, right handed male taxi drivers' MRI scans were compared to non-taxi driver MRI scans.
Findings- Taxi driver hippocampus were significantly larger, the size correlated to the amount of time the taxi driver had been a taxi driver.
Aim- Investigate the function of the hippocampus in spatial memory.
Conclusion- shows that hippocampus can grow.
Highly controlled but does not show cause and effect.
Strengths
Scientific and objective
This approach focuses on experimental evidence, the studies are rigorously controlled
Strengthens the argument that the cognitive approach is based on scientific evidence.
Real life application
Used in psychopathology to explain dysfunctional behaviour in terms of faulty thinking process.
Successful treatment regarding OCD and depression.
Weaknesses
Strict lab conditions question the ecological validity
For example, memory studies consist of artificial memory activated that do not reflect real life.
Lacks the ability to generalise, lacks external validity.
Reductionist
Over emphasised he computer analogy, ignores the role of emotions.
Casts a question on how comprehensive this approach is to understanding human behaviour as it compares our brain to computers, but computers don't make mistakes.
Biological approach
Assumptions
Genes affect behaviour and influence individual psychological differences between people.
Everything that is psychological is first biological, so we must look at biological structures.
Evolution
Natural selection
Characteristics that are not suited to a species' evironment will die out as it struggles to survive.
With time, the species will evolve over generations so that only adaptive characteristics will remain in the offspring.
Genotype
The genetic make up of an indiviual, eg the genes that code for the eye colour.
Phenotype
The physical representation of the genotype, eg blue eyes.
Twin studies
Useful for investigation the heritability of behaviour.
Nature/Nurture
Effects of genes on behaviour by comparing concordance rates of Mz and Dz twins.
Strengths
Scientific
Uses experimental methods fro investigations, these are performed under lab conditions so are objective.
This matters because findings are reliable.
HOWEVER, lacks ecological validity and cannot be generalised to the real world.
Real life application
lead to the development of drugs to treat mental illness
Offers explanation for mental illness in terms of the action of neurotransmitters and this leads to treatment.
Shows the approach has real life application
Weaknesses
Deterministic
Behaviour is caused by genes and the activity of neurotransmitters.
Ignores free will and that humans have control over out behaviour