AQA A Level Psychology Approaches with questions and answers.

Evaluate conditioning as a theory - Classical :) - Research into classical conditioning has lead to the development of treatment of phobias, systematic desensitisation works by eliminating the learned anxious response (CR) that is associated with the feared object (CS). This process has been proven to work on many different phobias such as arachnophobia :( - It is difficult to say that conditioning works the same for every animal as some animals find it harder to form associations with certain stimuli. Thus Seligman proposed preparedness, this means that animals are prepared to associate aspects that will help their survival such as the smell of meat with food, but are less ready to associate random items such as a bell with a tree. Operant :) - Skinner used a strong experimental method which allowed him to control the conditions in which it was setup in. The 'Skinners Box' in particular is a good example of this in practice where the consequence was manipulated to see the effects on the rats behaviour. All of this allowed him to draw a strong cause and effect relationship. :( - Critics have pointed out that he has relied strongly on the fact he can extrapolate his findings from rats onto humans. We are very different to rats and specifically we have free will, it can be argued that we do not have our behaviour determined by positive and negative reinforcement Evaluate SLT - :) - There are many real world applications that research into SLT has bought for example Akers suggested that the probability of someone engaging in criminal activity increases when they are exposed to models that do this around them. This is an application that can benefit society as we now know to keep children away from parents with criminal records or general antisocial behaviour. :) - There has been research done which supports identification. Greater identification results in a learner learning more as it is easier for them to visualise them self in the place of the model. Fox found evidence for this using computer generated virtual humans engaging in exercise and had participants watch these CGI humans, some of which looked similar to participants and some didn't. The participants were then observed for the next 24 hours and found that the participants who's models looked similar tended to do exercise them self.