The cognitive approach to abnormality

We introduced the fourth and final approach to psychology today. The cognitive approach assumes that thoughts (conscious ones, which we are aware of and have some control over - unlike those dealt with by the psychodynamic approach) are the main cause of abnormality. A useful example to know is Beck's Cognitive Triad explanation for depression:

Here is the presentation from the lesson.

On Friday we will have a test on the key assumptions of the four approaches - review your notes using your textbook to add some detail. Complete a glossary for the cognitive approach, and revise for the test.

A list of key terms for the four approaches is here.

An introduction to memory

We have started to look at ways in which psychologists have tried to pin down aspects of memory. We defined STM and LTM (ppt here) and discussed duration (presentation here) and capacity (presentation here).

You carried out a replication of Peterson & Peterson (1959) and we found our class figures were very typical of their figures.

The schedule for the term that I handed out is here. It shows what you need to be doing for homework each week, and also the essay titles that we shall be working our way through this term.

Introduction to the Biological approach

In the second half of our double today we briefly introduced the biological approach. This rests on the assumption that all the psychological phenomena  we experience (emotions, thoughts, memories) there is a physical (physiological) change in the body associated with this, and we should try to understand, and if necessary change this.

Here is the presentation - mainly nice pictures!

Here are the terms to define by next Monday, as well as ensuring that previous assignments listed below are completed:

• Nervous system 
• Central nervous system 
• Peripheral nervous system
• Autonomic nervous system   
• Hormone 
• Gene 
• Pathogen 
• Cerebral cortex
• CAT scan / MRI scan 
• PET scan / fMRI scan 
• Neurone 
• Neurotransmitter 
• Twin study

Introduction to Behavioural psychology

Here is the presentation from this lesson last week - sorry for not posting sooner.

We wrote answers to this question in today's lesson:

"Evaluate Freud's psychodynamic theory of personality."

Homework which was due in today was a short essay evaluating the behavioural approach to abnormality:

"Contrast the behavioural approach with the psychodynamic approach to abnormality."

You should consider these questions while explaining what the differences between the approaches are, and explain which approach is 'better' according to this difference if you can:

• What do they say about the role of the mind (thoughts, memories etc) in the causes of a disorder e.g. depression?
• How do they explain the importance of past experiences?
• What do they have to say about our parents?
• How easy is it to test their ideas / predictions with experiments?
• Can they be accused of over-simplifying a complex issue (being reductionist)?

Psychology book club

Everyone is invited to the first meeting of our Psychology book club

R23, Monday 17th September at 1.30 pm

We will be reading 'As nature made him' by John Colapinto. Copies are limited so will  be shared within pairs. It is out of print but there are a number of used copies on Amazon. The following meeting will be 15th October where we will meet to discuss the book and introduce the next.

Introduction to Freud's psychodynamic theory of personality

Here is the presentation from our first lesson. Your work is to construct your own glossary of terms relating to the psychodynamic approach, as well as completing / refining the holiday work which is on the second page of the subject information sheet.

You can download the subject information sheet for psychology here.