IB Psychology SL Study Guide

The Learning Perspective
(Behaviourist Approach)

Origins and History:
• The learning perspective was influenced by the idea of empiricism (knowledge
comes from the environment via the senses because a human being is a “tabula
rasa”—blank slate—at birth) and the physical sciences (which emphasize
scientific and objective methods of investigation).

• Behaviourists such as Pavlov, Watson, Skinner, and Thorndike attempt to explain
all behaviour as a product of learning.

• Watson pioneered the movement in 1913 with his article “Psychology as the
Behaviourist Views It”

• Behaviourism dominated psychology until the 1950s when ethologists (animal
behaviourists) and cognitive psychologists began to criticize its assumptions and
methods.

Basic Assumptions:
1. The majority of all behaviour is learned from the environment after birth and thus:
a. psychology should investigate the laws and products of learning
b. behaviour is determined by the environment
c. Freewill is an illusion as humans are just a collection of past learning
experiences.

2. Only observable behaviour should be studied if psychology is to be an objective
science, since we cannot see into people’s minds, assuming that if one is asked about his
or her thoughts he or she may life, not know, or be mistaken.  Approach still used by
learning theorists.

3. Subjectivity should be eliminated from psychology

4. Stimulus-response associations are the building blocks of all behaviour.

5. Laws of learning are the same for all species and can be seen in any environment.

Key Concepts:
• Classical Conditioning: Learning through association.
1. Pavlov- Classically conditioned a dog to salivate when it heard a bell. Dogs
naturally salivate (unconditioned response) when presented with food
(unconditioned stimulus). Pavlov began to ring a bell (conditioned stimulus)
before presenting the dog with food. As the food naturally elicited saliva, the

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dog came to salivate upon hearing the bell, as he expected food to be
presented next. Thus, the dog was “classically” conditioned.
2. Watson- Watson conditioned his subject, “Little Albert” to fear furry objects
(unconditioned stimulus). Albert was presented with the furry object (a rat—
the unconditioned stimulus) and a gong was banged (conditioned stimulus)
and Albert would cry (unconditioned response). Soon, Albert came to cry
whenever he saw the rat, fearing that the gong would be banged next.

• Operant Conditioning: Learning through reinforcement and punishment
1. Skinner- Skinner hypothesized that anything could be trained to do anything.
He placed rats in “skinner boxes”. The rats were forced to get closer and
closer to the food. Once the bar was pressed, food (reinforcers—anything that
makes you repeat an action) was delivered to the rat. The rats subsequently
learned that in order to get food, they had to press the bar.

Reinforcement: Measures taken to increase the chances that an action will be
repeated.
1. Negative Reinforcement: Encourages negative behavior by removing a
negative stimulus. Example: A mother is negatively reinforced when
she gives her child candy to make it stop screaming.
2. Positive Reinforcement: Encouraging positive behavior with positive
reactions. Example: A kindergartener may earn a sticker for sitting
quietly at his or her desk.

Punishment: Introducing an unpleasant stimulus or withholding a pleasant
stimulus in order to extinguish bad behaviors.

Methods of Investigation:
• EMPIRICAL Laboratory Experiments (because this allows for the strict
adherence to empiricism, though suffers greatly from a lack of ecological validity
(the ability for the results of the experiment to occur naturally)
-Often involving animals because behaviourists believed:
A. the laws of learning were universal
B. there is only a quantitative difference between animals and humans
C. animals are practically and ethically more convenient to test.

Strengths:
• Very scientific process
• Provides very strong arguments for the “nurture” position in the “nurture vs.
nature” debate
• Parsimonious in that it explains a variety of phenomenon using only a few simple
principles (classical and operant conditioning)
• Has produced many practical applications (such as in child rearing and
advertising)

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Weaknesses:
• Ignores innate biases in learning due to evolution
• The use of animals in experiments calls to question the qualitative differences
between humans and other animals
• Demonstrates “artificial” (in that it’s not natural) learning
• Ignores mental processes involved in learning
• Lacks ecological validity

STUDIES
Pavlov- (1890s-1900s)
Originally interested in studying the gastric function of dogs, Pavlov became perplexed
when the dogs would begin salivating upon seeing Pavlov’s assistant approach, but
before they had been presented with food. Pavlov reasoned that the salivation occurred in
anticipation of the food. He soon abandoned his research on the gastric function and
began to study this anticipation. He hypothesized that a dog could become “conditioned”
by pairing an unconditioned response (salivating) with a conditioned stimulus (the
ringing of a bell) after presenting the conditioned stimulus with the unconditioned
stimulus (food). Thus, the dog would begin to associate the bell with food and begin
salivating.

Watson- Watson and Rayner (1920)
1. Can an infant be conditioned to fear an animal that appears simultaneously with a
loud, fear arousing sound?
2. Would such fear transfer to other animals or inanimate objects?
3. How long would such fears persist?
In order to answer these questions, Watson attempted to condition Albert B., a “healthy”
and “solid” infant to fear a rat. Initially, Albert showed no fear in regards to a number of
live animals (rat, rabbit, dog, or a monkey) or to various inanimate objects (cotton,
human masks, burning newspaper), although he was judged to have a fear whenever a
steel bar was struck with a claw hammer. Thus, Albert was conditioned to fear
(conditioned response) a white rat (conditioned stimulus) by striking the steel bar with
the claw hammer (unconditioned stimulus) whenever he touched the rat. Albert came to
associate the fear he felt whenever the loud noise was made with touching the rat.

Skinner- Mid-20th Century
Rats- Skinner hypothesized that if a behaviour was flowed by a reinforcing stimulus, then
there would be an increased probability of that behavior occurring again. In this
experiment, skinner placed a rat in a cage into which a lever would deliver food when
pressed. After accidentally pressing the lever, the rats learned that food would be
administered whenever the lever was pressed. In this case, pressing the lever acts as the
operant (whatever action occurs immediately preceding the reinforcer). The rats
accordingly began pressing the lever in order to receive food. However, when the lever
stopped delivering food and the rats caught on, they ceased to press the lever. The latter
result is called extinction. This led Skinner to conclude that if a behaviour is no longer
followed by a reinforcing stimulus, then there is a decreased probability of the behaviour
occurring again.

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Schedules of Reinforcements:
• Fixed-Ratio: Reinforcement given after a fixed number of responses
• Variable-Ratio: Number of responses required to get food changes each time
• Fixed-Interval: Food given after a certain amount of time elapses
• Variable-Interval: Amount of time required to get food changes each time
• Continuous: The behaviour is reinforced every time that it is performed

Pigeons- Pigeons were placed in a mechanism that automatically delivered food at a
fixed interval regardless of what action the bird performed (fixed-interval reinforcement).
Skinner noted that the pigeons associated the delivery of food with whatever action they
had been performing when the food was delivered (the operant). One bird was
conditioned to turn clockwise about the cage, making two or three turns before being
reinforced. Another developed a “tossing” response. Skinner deemed this superstitious
behaviour or “adventitious reinforcement”, although Staddon and Simmelhag (1971) says
that the behaviour of the pigeons can be classified as two separate responses: the
“terminal” response which occurs in the anticipation of food and the “interim” response
that occurred in the interfood interval and was rarely associated with food which leads
psychologists to believe it to be more of a “classically conditioned” reaction.

Language Acquisition-(Verbal Behaviour—1957)) Skinner argued that language was
acquired through the principle of operant conditioning—trial and error learning, selective
reinforcement, and behavioural shaping.
According to Skinner:
The first step in language acquisition is the acquisition of phonemes (basic units of
sound such as ‘mah’, ‘le’, ‘ge’, ‘eu’, and ‘chhe’) while babbling and as echoic responses
(imitations). Parents respond by REINFORCING familiar phonemes from their own
language by smiling or paying increased attention, thereby making them more likely to be
repeated. Likewise, unfamiliar phonemes are ignored, thereby extinguishing them as
responses. By selective reinforcement, the child therefore produces more and more
suitable phonemes for the language.
The second step in language acquisition is the acquisition of morphemes (basic units of
meaning, ‘mah-mah’, ‘dah-dah’) which arise by trial and error. Since these sound even
MORE like a language that the parents recognize, they will draw even more attention and
reinforcement to the baby and are therefore more likely to be repeated. Those trial and
error combinations NOT recognized (‘ah-bah’, ‘ge-ge’, etc.) are not paid attention to and
are not reinforced, extinguishing them as responses.
The third step in language acquisition is the acquisition of words. Morphemes become
words by behaviour shaping. Parents will want their children to produce more accurate
words for communication and will gradually reinforce morpheme combinations that
sound more and more like proper words. Step by step, correct words will be spoken more
frequently wile “baby” pronunciation will be extinguished.
The final step in language acquisition is the acquisition of phrases and sentences.
Through the processes of trial and error, selective reinforcement and behaviour shaping
words will be shaped into telegraphic two-word utterances, then into phrases, and then
into sentences until the full language has been acquired.

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Seligman- 1960s
Three groups of dogs:
Group I: Could turn off the shocks in Phase I
Group II: Could not turn off the shocks in Phase I
Group III: Received no shocks at all in Phase I
Each group of dogs was then moved to a “shuttle box” task: Phase II. In phase II, the
dogs were placed in an enclosed box divided in half by a chest-high barrier. The shock
would then come on and the dog’s task was to jump over the barrier from whichever side
it was on to the other and the shock would end. After a timed interval, the shock would
come on again and the dog had to jump over the barrier to the other side to once again
turn the shock off. Thus, the dog learns to “shuttle” back and forth between two sides of
the box in order to “turn the shocks off.” The dogs in groups I and III quickly learned this
task. The dogs in group II, however never did. They remained passive until the
experimenter turned the shock off. In essence, they had learned to be helpless.

Bandura- 1950s and 1960s
Bandura believed that people learn through observation and imitation (social learning
theory) and hypothesized that children would imitate aggressive behavior that they
observed. In the “Bobo Doll Studies,” Bandura showed a film of a young woman
“beating-up” the Bobo Doll to a group of kindergarteners. The kindergarteners were then
led to a play room which contained a Bobo Doll. As expected, the children modeled the
behavior they saw on the TV and proceeded to “beat up” Bobo just as the young woman
had done. In a number of subsequent studies, it was found that if the woman was
reprimanded, the children expressed less aggression toward Bobo. However, if the
woman was rewarded or not acknowledged at all, the children showed marked aggression
toward Bobo. This is to say that simply ignoring a behavior is the same as rewarding it in
some aspects.

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Biological Perspective
(Physiological Approach)

• Also known as the physiological, biopsychological, neuropsychological, nativist
(in reference to the “Nature vs. Nurture” debate), and innate approach.
• Integrates and runs parallel to the rest of psychological thought since early Greek
times—the Greek physician Galen suggested that personality and temperament
may be linked to the levels of body fluids such as blood and bile in the body.
• As knowledge of human anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, and medicine
developed, important insights for human behaviour and experience were gained.
• The field continues to progress as the technology to isolate the effects of genes
and scan the living brain develops.

Basic Assumptions:
1. All that is psychological is physiological—that is since the mind appears to
reside in the brain, all thoughts, feelings, and behaviours ultimately have a
physical/biological cause.
2. Human genes have evolved over millions of years to adapt physiology and
behaviour to the environment. Therefore, much behaviour will have a genetic
basis.
3. Psychology should therefore investigate the brain, nervous system, endocrine
system, neurochemistry, and genes.
4. It is also useful to study why human behaviour has evolved in the way it has,
the subject of evolutionary/sociobiological theory.

Key Concepts:
• Localization (of function): a specific part of the brain controls certain things,
such as speech, sight, hearing, etc.

Right Hemisphere Localization

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• Lateralization: The division of the brain into two, distinctive hemispheres which
function completely differently.
A. The left hemisphere of the brain is usually dominant for
language and writing and logical, analytical, and calculating
thought.
1. Controls both the motor and sensory cortexes of the right
side of the body.
B. The right hemisphere is usually dominant for visuospatial
tasks (such as drawing, face recognition, and visuospatial
problems) and synthetic or holistic thought.
1. Controls both the motor and sensory cortexes of the left
side of the body.
• Body Rhythms: Biological processes that show cyclical variation over time.
1. Circadian Rhythms: Humans show physiological changes over a 24-hour
cycle in hormone levels, body temperature, and heart, respiration, and
metabolic rate.
A. The circadian sleep-waking rhythm determines alertness and activity
levels during the day and night.
i. It’s regulated by the endogenous pacemakers (internal body
clock) of the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) and the pineal
gland. The SCN is part of the hypothalamus that regulates
sleep-waking patterns by sending messages to the pineal gland
to release melatonin (thought to stimulate the production of
serotonin in the raphe nucleus during sleep).
ii. It’s thought to be the product of evolution
iii. Humans actually run on a cycle of 25 hours, though there seem
to be individual differences in people.
iv. External re-setter (zeitgeber) of the body clock is light, which
can influence the SCN to synchronize our rhythms to the 24
hour cycle of the day.
v. Slowly adjust to new starting points and can be resisted with a
struggle, although it is remarkably consistent.

Theories of the Function of Sleep:
1. Restoration theory: The function of sleep is to restore bodily energy reserves,
repair the condition of muscles and cells and to allow growth to occur. Sleep
could also allow brain neurotransmitters to replenish and aid psychological
recovery.
2. Memory Consolidation Theory: Sleep facilitates the reinforcement in
memory.
3. Evolutionary Theory: Given its universal nature and the fact that this
unconscious and defenseless state seems a dangerous behaviour to show,
sleep probably has an important evolutionary survival function to:
a. conserve energy when food gathering has been completed or is more
difficult

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b. Avoid damage from nocturnal predators or accidents by remaining
motionless.
Theories of the Function of Dreams:
1. Crick and Mitchison’s Reverse Learning Theory: Dreaming can be regarded
as the random and meaningless by-product of the bombardment of the cortex
with random stimulation from the brain stem during REM sleep, to serve the
biological function of clearing the brain of useless or maladaptive
information.
2. Hobson and McCarley’s Activation Synthesis Theory: Dreams are the
meaningless result of random brain activity. The activation part of the theory
involves the random firing of giant cells in the reticular activating system
(triggered by the presence of acetylcholine) which activates the sensory and
motor areas of the brain during REM sleep. The synthesis part of the theory
involves the attempt of higher parts of the brain to organize and make sense
of the random activity—producing the semi-coherent dreams we experience.
3. Reprogramming Theory: REM sleep is required by the brain to update itself
in the light of new information received during the day and that dreams are
the interpretation of this assimilation.
4. Problem Solving: Dreams are a meaningful way of considering worries or
problems from conscious, everyday life. Dreams may use metaphors and may
provide solutions for problems.
5. Wish Fulfillment: Dreams are the disguised expressions of unconscious
desires and impulses. The recalled manifest content of the dream has been
disguised by the dream censor through methods like symbolism to protect our
conscious self from the anxiety provoking latent meaning of the dream.

Theories of Motivation:
1. Homeostatic Drive Theory: Behaviour is motivated by biological needs.
Homeostasis refers to the process by which an organism maintains a fairly
constant internal body environment. With imbalances in the body’s need for
food and water, however, the animal actively has to do something to restore
balance and so drives are activated to motivate food and water seeking
behaviour. Drives are only reduced when these motivated behaviours are
effective in restoring homeostasis.
2. Brain Physiology:
a. The medial forebrain bundle: “Pleasure area”
b. The hypothalamus: A small area of the brain involved in homeostasis
and the motivation of a vast majority of behaviours
c. The reticular activating system: Controls general arousal and activity
levels
d. The cerebral cortex: The location of the more rational, cognitive
sources of motivation.
3. Genetics, Evolutionary Theory: All behaviour is motivated by evolutionary
survival needs. Behaviours evolve to better adapt an organism to their
environment to promote survival.

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Theories of Hunger:
1. The Mouth: The mouth and throat are only short-term sensory receptors for
hunger and satiety.
2. The Stomach: Stomach contractions are the mechanism involved in
monitoring and triggering the hunger drive.
3. The Duodenum: The duodenum releases cholecystokinin (CCK) in response
to fatty acids in the intestine.
4. The Hypothalamus: The ventromedial nucleus acts as the satiety center to stop
eating once the animal has consumed the required intake. The lateral nucleus
acts as a feeding center to initiate eating behaviour when intake is required.
5. Blood Glucose Levels: When glucose levels drop, they motivate eating
behaviour to restore the loss.

Theories of Motivation:
1. Drive-Reduction Theory: Clark Hull (1943) believed that an organism’s level
of drive was important since drive reduction was the basis of reinforcement,
proposing:
a. Reinforcement is linked to biological needs
b. When needs are thwarted and the animal is deprived, physiological
drives are energized to make the organism seek for ways to fulfill its
needs
c. By trial and error, some responses satisfy the need
d. The responses are thus reinforced and are more likely to occur again.
I.e.: Likelihood of Response= Strength of Habit x Drive x Incentive
His equation was not very successful, as more and more
factors had to be taken into account. Sheffield et al (1951) used
female rats in the goal box of a maze as a sexual reinforcer for the
male rats who had to learn to run it. The researchers found that
the rats would still run the maze even if they were prevented from
ever seeing the females, thus not reducing their drive.

Theories of Emotion:
1. James-Lange Theory: Different emotion-arousing external stimuli will
produce specific physiological responses that in turn directly cause specific
emotional feelings. Thus, the external stimuli of a dangerous object will cause
the physiological response of adrenaline release/increased heart rate which, in
turn, is felt as the emotion of fear. Physiological arousal is necessary and
sufficient for emotions to occur.
2. Cannon-Bard Theory: Conscious feelings of emotion and physiological
changes occur as separate but simultaneous reactions to external emotion-
arousing stimuli. Thus, the external stimuli of a dangerous object will cause
the thalamus to send signals:
a. To the hypothalamus to trigger a general “flight or fight” physiological
response

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b. To the cortex to register the conscious emotion of fear
c. Physiological arousal is therefore neither necessary nor sufficient for
emotions to occur.
3. Schachter and Singer: The “Cognitive Labeling Theory of Emotion”:
Emotion-arousing external stimuli will cause a general physiological arousal
response that will be interpreted by a cognitive appraisal of the stimuli as a
particular emotional feeling. Thus, the external stimuli of a dangerous object
will cause a general “flight or fight” physiological response and a cognitive
evaluation of this arousal in the light of, for example, past experiences
involving this object. Physiological arousal is therefore necessary for most
genuine emotions to occur, but not sufficient by itself.
Schachter and Singer (1962): Told subjects that they were going to test
the effects of a vitamin injection on their vision, but instead injected them
with adrenaline. Subjects were either then:
i. Informed of the real effects (e.g. increased heart/respiration
rate)
ii. Misinformed of the effects (e.g. told false symptoms such as
itching)
iii. Given no information on the effects
iv. The “control” group was injected with a saline placebo
Subjects were then led to a waiting room where another “subject” (really
another researcher) would begin to act:
i. Angrily
ii. Euphorically
It was found that those in groups ii and iii were more likely to follow the
behaviour of the other “subject.” Thus, the following conclusions were
drawn:
i. Those who did not have an accurate explanation for their
physiological arousal (groups ii and iii) used the cues of
the “subject’s” behaviour to identify and label their own
emotion.
ii. Those who already had an accurate explanation (group i)
for the effects did not need other cues so did not follow the
behaviour of the “subject.”
iii. Those who changed their behaviour (groups ii and iii) did
so according to cognitive appraisal of their emotions,
rather than specific physiological arousal, indicating that
only general arousal is required.

Strengths:
The approach is very scientific and ground in the hard science of biology with its
objective materialistic subject matter and experimental methodology.

It provides strong arguments for the “nature” position of the “Nature vs. Nurture” debate.

Physiological practical applications are usually extremely effective

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The physiological approach has contributed to psychologists’ understanding of a very
wide range of phenomena.

Weaknesses:
Reductionism: the biopsychological approach explains thoughts and behaviour in terms
of the action of neurons or biochemicals, ignoring other more suitable levels of
explanation and the interaction of casual factors.

The approach has not adequately explained how mind and body interact—consciousness
and emotion are difficult to study objectively.

Overly simplistic—biopsychological theories often over-simplify the huge complexity or
physical systems and their interaction with environmental factors.

Studies:
Broca: In 1861, an aphasic (relating to a language disorder that impairs speech) patient
named “Tan” (as it was the only word he could say) was placed under the care of Broca.
Determined to unearth the cause of Tan’s aphasia, Broca experimentally tested various
bases for Tan’s speech disorder. Were the speech muscles paralyzed? No, for Tan could
move his lips and tongue when asked to do so. His hearing was normal for he could hear
the ticking of a watch at about the normal distance and could, of course, respond to
questions (though could not verbally answer them). His vision was clear enough to allow
him to tell time by looking at a watch. He understood what was said to him but he could
only communicate with gestures. This general lack in impairment to his intelligence led
Broca to conclude that Tan’s speech apparatus was not paralyzed, but instead, he couldn’t
remember HOW to use the speech apparatus to form the words he wanted to say.
Six months after Tan’s death, Broca came into contact with another patient with
symptoms similar to Tan’s (though less extreme). Through research with this patient,
Broca was able to locate what he believed to be the area of the brain specialized for
speech production and the use of memory to select words. This research helped to
develop the idea of localization of function—different areas of the brain serve to perform
different functions.

Sperry: Sperry and his team were invited by a group of physicians who had been doing
split-brain (severing the corpus collosum) surgery and studying its effects on patients to
join the team and devise behavioural measures that might pick up more subtle effects of
the damage to the brain. Sperry and his teammates realized that the patients were able to
move their eyes, meaning that visual input from any source could be directed anywhere
within the visual system as the patient moved his eyes around. Using this knowledge, it
was decided that some visible stimulus would be presented very briefly (200 milliseconds
—the time it takes for the eye to being to move in response to a stimulus)to the left or
right of a particular fixation point, and then the patient would be asked what, if anything,
they had seen. Sperry was able to conclude that in split-brain patients, visual information
that is presented to one half of the brain simply is not available to the other half;
essentially, the brain acts as two rather than one. If the image of an object is presented in

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the left half of the visual field, the visual information is sent to the right hemisphere. And
when this is done, the patient cannot identify or describe what is shown. If asked, “What
did you see?” the patient would respond, “I didn’t see anything.” In contrast, if the
information is sent to the left hemisphere, the patient can name and describe it without
difficulty. In fact, this is also true of touch: patients can name and describe objects that
were placed in their right hands, but not the name of objects placed in their left hands.
This is because the left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for speech. Interestingly, if
a picture of a spoon was shown to the right hemisphere, patients were able to pick out a
spoon, by touch, from among other objects using the left hand. But when told that they
were correct, they remained adamant that they had never even seen an object. In split-
brain patients, visual and tactile information cannot be relayed to the left hemisphere of
their brains because the channel has been severed by which such information would
normally have been conveyed. The speech apparatus cannot generate a name for what
the right hemisphere sees because it is not told about it. The left hemisphere no longer
knows what the right hemisphere is doing—or seeing, or feeling.
HEART Experiment: Patients were presented with the word “Heart” divided by a
focal point so that “HE” was on the left side and “ART” was on the right. Because the
corpus callosum was severed, the two hemispheres of the brain could not communicate;
patients said that they saw “Art” (which was presented as a stimulus to the right eye,
which in turn means that it was discerned by the left hemisphere of the brain—the side of
the brain that controls speech), but point to “He” (which they didn’t know that they were
seeing because it was presented on the left visual field but discerned by the right
hemisphere).

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The Cognitive Perspective
• Began to revolutionize psychology in the late 1950s and early 1960s to become
the dominant paradigm in the subject by the 1970s. Interest in mental processes
had been gradually resurrected through the work of people like Tolman and Piaget
but it was the arrival of the computer that gave cognitive psychology the
terminology and metaphor it needed to investigate human minds.
a. Alan Turing developed the first computer (his Colossus computer
helped break the German Enigma codes during World War II) and
created an analogy between computers and human minds in which the
brains are the hardware and the minds are the software.
• Cognitive psychology compares the mind to computer, suggesting that we are
“information processors” and that it is possible and desirable to study the internal
mental processes that lie between the stimuli we receive and the responses we
make. Cognition means “knowing” and cognitive processes refer to the ways in
which knowledge is gained, used, and retained. Therefore, cognitive
psychologists have studied perception, attention, memory, thinking, language, and
problem solving.
• Cognitive psychologists believe these internal mental processes can be
investigated scientifically by proposing models of psychological functions and
then conducting research to see, when people are given an input of information,
whether their output of behaviour/verbal report matches what the models would
predict.

Basic Assumptions:
1.The study of internal mental processes is important in understanding behaviour—
cognitive processes actively organize and manipulate the information we receive—
humans do not just passively respond to their environment.
2. Humans, like computers, are information processors—regardless of their hardware,
they both receive, interpret, and respond to information—and these processes can be
modeled and tested scientifically

Key Concepts:
1. Data without theory is meaningless, theory without data is empty.
2. Cognitive processes interact with each other and with non-cognitive processes.
3. Cognition needs to be studied through a variety of scientific methods.
4. Basic research in cognitive psychology may lead to applications, applied research
may lead to basic understanding.

5. Memory:
a. Encoding Types of Memory:
Imagery memory: Some memory representations appear to closely
resemble the raw, unobstructed data containing original material from our
senses, such as the extremely brief iconic (visual) and echoic (auditory) after
images that rapidly fade from our eyes and ears. Yet, even after these have gone,

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we retain the ability to recall fairly vivid visual images of what we have seen and
to hear again tunes we have experienced.
Procedural Memory: (Implicit Memory) the memory for “knowing
how” to do things such as talk, walk, juggle, etc. Although we retain these skills and
abilities, we are often completely unable to consciously introspect upon or describe how
we do them.
Declarative Memory: (Explicit Memory) Concerns all the information
that we can describe or report, and as such has been the focus of the majority of research
on memory, including:
a. Semantic Memory: Concerning memory for
meaning, the storage of abstract, general
facts regardless of when those facts were
acquired (such as “knowing” what a word
means).
b. Episodic: This “knowing when” memory
based upon personal experience and linked to
a particular time and place in our lives. Very
vivid episodic memories have been deemed
“flashbulb” memories.
Duration Types of Memory:
1. Sensory Memory: The sense organs have a limited ability to
store information about the world in a fairly unprocessed way
for less than a second. The visual system possesses iconic
memory for visual stimuli (such as shape, size, color, and
location—but NOT meaning) whereas the hearing system has
echoic memory (for auditory stimuli)
2. Short Term Memory: Information selected by attention from
sensory memory may pass into short-term memory (STM).
Short Term Memory allows one to retain information long
enough to use it (looking up a telephone number and
remembering it long enough to dial it.
a. Lasts between 15 and 30 seconds (Peterson and
Peterson 1959) unless it’s rehearsed.
b. Short term memory has a capacity of about 7 “chunks”
(Miller 1956)
c. Short Term Memory mostly encodes memory
acoustically (in terms of sound) but can also retain
visuospatial images.
3. Long Term Memory: Provides the lasting retention of
information and skills from minutes to an entire lifetime.
a. Appears to have a limitless capacity.
b. Seems to be encoded in terms of meaning but also
retains procedural skills and imagery.
Other Types of Memory:

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1. Reconstructive Memory: Tends to concentrate on qualitative changes
in what is remember, often of more everyday material such as stories,
pictures or witnessed events under more natural conditions.
b. Pioneered by Bartlett (1932) who argued that people do not
passively record memories as exact copies of new
information they receive, but actively try and make sense of
it in terms of what they already know—a process he called
“effort after meaning.” Bartlett proposed that information
may be remembered in a distorted way since memories are
essentially “imaginative reconstructions” of the original
information in the light of each individual’s past
experiences and expectations. Rather than remembering
what actually happened, we remember what we think
should or could have happened, a term he called “schema.”
i. Schema:
-Represents both simple and complex knowledge of all
kinds
- Links together to form larger systems of related schemas
or smaller systems of sub-schemas
- Has slots with fixed values, optional values, and default
values
-Acquires their content through generalized personal
experience or the taught beliefs and stereotypes of a group
or society.
-Operates as active recognition devices—all schemas
constantly try to make sense of new information by making
the best fit with it.
6. Problem Solving: Refers to the cognitive processing that allows a desired goal to
be reached from a current situation where there appears to be no immediately
obvious means of doing so.
2. Gestalt Problem Solving:
a. Takes a holistic approach to problem solving.
b. Problems are solved when a cognitive re-arrangement or
reorganization of the different aspects of the problem
results in a new structural understanding of the relationship
between them.
c. Insight occurs as a sudden revelation or “aha” experience
as pieces of the solution slot into place.
d. Productive thinking involves finding new solutions to
problems while reproductive thinking applies past solutions
and experiences to new problems.
e. Reproductive thinking may inhibit progress in problem
solving because it leads to:
1. Mental set (using previously successful strategies out of
habit to solve new problems when better strategies may
exist)

15

2. Functional Fixedness (failure to see that an object can
have other uses from its normal one)
3. Confirmation Bias (Failure to look for disconfirming
evidence that would eliminate useless strategies)
3. Information-Processing Approach:
i. Takes a reductionist approach to problem solving.
ii. Divides problem solving into a set of stages involving
representing the problem, selecting appropriate strategies
to tackle it and then evaluating the progress achieved.
iii. Algorithmic strategies involve a systematic search
through all possible solutions. This guarantees a solution
but becomes increasingly impractical and time-
consuming the greater the number of possible solutions
iv. Heuristic strategies involve rules of thumb for
approaching and solving problems including:
a. Means-ends analysis—breaking down a
problem into a set of sub-problems by working
backwards from the goal state to the present
state and solving each in turn to reduce the
distance between the two situations. The
analysis proceeds by identifying the goal state,
the obstacles that stand in the way, and the
operators available to overcome the obstacles.
b. The analogy heuristic strategy—Applying past
knowledge to a current problem by identifying a
similar past problem through matching similar
elements in both and adapting strategies that
were successful in dealing with the past problem
for the new one.
7. Decision-Making: Refers to making choices between alternative courses of
action. This involves a comparative assessment of the costs and benefits of the
different courses of action, however the future value of a choice is not always
fixed or known before it is made. Risk taking refers to decision making when the
outcomes of particular choices are not guaranteed and the consequence of
uncertainty means that an assessment of the probability of a positive or negative
outcome has to occur. Given that human thinking about probability is prone to
many errors and biases, there are many important practical implications for risk
taking behaviour.
i. Errors in thinking about probability:
a. The Representativeness (similarity) Heuristic:
i. Refers to estimating the probability of a
particular sample of events based on their
similarity to characteristics we feel are
typical of the whole category population
of those events.

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ii. This may lead to the impression that some
events are more likely than others and that
certain trends can be predicted.
iii. However, if people do not follow the true
principles of Representativeness (if they
ignore information on probability base-
rates or forget that small samples are less
likely to be representative) then the
similarity of the sample to the population
characteristics can lead to false estimates.
iv. Thus, if people believe events are drawn
from a random population, a small sample
of events that “looks” random (HTTHTH)
will be thought of as more probable than
events that appear orderly (HHHTTT)
even if they are equally likely.
Kahneman and Tversky (1972) found people incorrectly judged the birth order B B B G
G G as less likely than G B B G B G because the latter appeared more characteristic of
the general randomness of birth order. They also found people tended to see small and
large samples of births from different sized hospitals as being equally representative.
Kahneman and Tversky (1973) found people would ignore base-rate probability
information on the frequency of different professions if a description of a person’s
characteristics were similar to those thought to be stereotypical of a rarer profession.
b. The Availability Heuristic:
i. Involves estimating the probability
of an event based on how easy it is to
remember past examples of it.
ii. This may lead to familiar and recent
events being more “available” to
memory and thus seen as more
probable.
iii. However, if experience of the
world’s events is not typical or if the
events themselves are random,
familiarity and recency will not be
useful predictors of probability.
iv. Thus, a recent freak accident or
biased reporting of events in the
media can increase estimates of
accident probability.
Tversky and Kahneman (1973) presented people with a list of 39 names consisting of 19
women and 20 men (or vice versa). When the minority group of men or women consisted
of famous names, 80% later estimated that they had occurred more frequently.
Weber et al (1993) found doctors were more likely to make a certain diagnosis if they
had recently made a similar diagnosis.

17

8. Retrieval and Forgetting:
i. Types of Retrieval:
a. Recall- The active searching of our memory with
very few external memory cues
b. Recognition- A sense of familiarity with external
material whether we can name/identify it or not.
The material to be retrieved is matched to its
external likeliness.
c. Re-learning- The ability to re-learn previously
presented material.
d. Reconstruction-Retrieval that has distorted original
information due to our interpretation of it based
upon our past experiences, beliefs, schemas, and
stereotypes.
e. Confabulation- The unintentional manufacture or
invention of material to fill in missing details
during retrieval.
f. Redintergration- Patchy details of an experience
will pop into consciousness regardless of what is
currently thought about and gradually become
more coherent.
ii. Retrieval:
a. Availability: Whether the material is actually there
to be retrieved.
b. Accessibility: The problems involved in retrieving
available information
c. Gray Area: Ambiguity between these two concepts
iii. Repression:
a. A concept from psychodynamic psychology which
focuses heavily upon emotion. Freud proposed that
forgetting is motivated by the desire to avoid
displeasure, so embarrassing or anxiety producing
experiences are repressed, pushed deep into the
unconscious.
b. A protective defense mechanism that involves the
ego actively blocking the conscious recall of
memories which become inaccessible.
iv. Flashbulb Memory:
a. Events that can be remembered in almost
photographic detail—as if they are imprinted upon
their mind, most likely to occur when the event was
not only surprising to the person but also had
consequences for their own life.
9. Perception: The process of interpreting and organizing the environmental
information received by the senses. For visual perception, this involves taking the

18

constantly fluctuating patterns of light, which arrive from all over the
environment, upside down, on to our two-dimensional retinas and achieving:
a. Feature or object detection—Detecting the shape of objects
in their environment
b. Depth Perception—Establishing location in three-
dimensional space
c. Pattern or Object Recognition—recognizing an object in
terms of its shape, size, brightness, color, despite its:
Viewpoint, Distance, or Luminescence.
I. Theories:
a. Bottom-Up Theory: Emphasizes the richness of the
information entering the eye and the way the perception can
occur from using all the information available. Perception
occurs directly from sensation.
b. Gibson’s Theory of Direct Perception: The optical array
contains all the information needed to directly perceive three-
dimensions with little or no information processing needed.
Light reaching the eye contains invariant information about the
depth, location, and even function of objects. “Sensation is
perception.”
c. Top-Down Theory: Stresses the factors in the construction of
reality that go beyond the information received from the
senses. Perception is a very active process, whereby the
individual’s past knowledge, experiences and stereotypes seek
out sensory data to “complete the picture.”
d. Gregory’s Perceptual Inference Theory: We go beyond the
available sensory information in perception; “A perceived
object is a hypothesis, suggested and tested by sensory data.”
e. Perceptual Set Theory: Stresses the idea of perception as an
active process involving selection, inference, and interpretation

Studies
1. Festinger (1957): The experiment was done in three parts:
i. The investigators asked their participants (college students) to
perform a boring and repetitive series of tasks such as putting
spools into a tray then dumping them out and putting them back in
again—over and over—a pointless, dull task intended to induce
stupefying boredom.
ii. Under the assumptions that it was essential that the next
“participant” believe that the task she was about to perform was
“interesting and enjoyable” participants were offered either $20 or
$1 to lie to the woman (the independent variable).
iii. The participants (who lied) were then asked how they themselves
felt about the tasks they had performed earlier in the experiment.

19

Those students who had been paid $20 to lie rated the activity as “dull.” The students
who had been paid $1, however, rated the task as “enjoyable.” Those who received an
abundant amount for lying did not change their attitudes about the task while those who
received little compensation did. According to Festinger’s “Cognitive-Dissonance
Theory”, this is because $1 does not “justify” a lie and thus, the participant felt
“dissonance” and accordingly had to convince himself that he had enjoyed the activity in
order to overcome the internal conflict he was experiencing.

2. Tversky and Kahneman (1981): Participants were divided into two groups and
two forms of a decision problem were presented, one to each group. They both
began with this stem: “Imagine the U.S. is preparing for the outbreak of an
unusual Asian disease which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative
programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume that the exact
scientific estimate of the consequences of the program are as follows:” the two
groups were then presented with two different programs:
a. If program A is adopted, 200 people will be saved.
If program B is adopted, there is a 1/3 probability
that 600 people will be saved and a 2/3 probability
that no people will be saved. Which of the two
programs would you favor?
b. If program C is adopted, 400 people will die. If
program D is adopted, there is a 1/3 probability that
no one will die and a 2/3 probability that 600 people
will die. Which of the two programs do you favor?
In reality, the two decision problems are exactly the same. Programs A and C describe
the same outcome: 200 people will be saved but 400 will die. Programs B and D both
describe the same outcome: a 1/3 chance that no one will die, but a 2/3 chance that all
600 will die. If outcome A is preferred to B by most people then outcome C should be
preferred to D. However, 72% of the participants in the first group favored outcome A
while 78% in group 2 favored option D. This experiment relies heavily upon the concept
of framing. It is theorized that people chose option D because it was phrased in terms of
“lives lost.” This is because this question represents a “risk seeking” behaviour and thus
the possibility of “loss.” Thus, when the question is posed, we choose the risky
alternative where there is a possibility of gain. However, if the question is posed as a
possible “gain”, we are more likely to hold onto the “sure thing” which explains the
preference of program A to program B.

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Dysfunctional Behaviour
The Concept of “Normalcy”:
Models of Deviation Include:
A. Statistical Approach: An individual deviates from what is considered
“normal.” This model, however fails to take into consideration that:
i. Many unusual behaviours, such as genius, are desirable.
ii. Some undesirable behaviours, such as depression, are
statistically normal.
iii. The “norm” depends upon a variety of factors, including age
and culture, and is not universally applicable.
iv. Who decides what constitutes as “deviation” from the norm.
And for that matter, who decides what constitutes as
“normalcy”?  Society
B. Social Deviation: Abnormality can be defined in terms of certain
standards of social behaviour. This model, however, fails to take into
consideration that:
i. Social deviations vary according to prevailing moral
perspectives and can lead to an abuse of individual rights.
C. Deviation from Mental Health: Suggested by Jahoda, this model states
that we can define psychological well being in order to recognize mental
illness. The key features are: self-acceptance, potential for growth and
development, autonomy, accurate perception of reality, environmental
competence, and positive impersonal relations. However, this model finds
critics it that:
i. It is highly influenced by cultural attitudes
ii. It is too idealistic—very few people actually achieve its high
standards.
iii. Its concepts are too difficult to measure and too vague for
diagnosis.
D. Dysfunction and Distress: Behaviour that disrupts the ability to work and
conduct satisfying relationships with people. It is based on the ideal of
functionality. However:
i. in some situations, dysfunctional behaviour may be
functional
ii. Not all mental disorders are accompanied by distress.
E. Integrated Model: Thomas Szasz asserted that mental illness is a myth, a
fictional creation used to control and change people. He believes that
people aren’t “ill,” they just suffer from “problems in living.”
F. Adequacy Model: The impairment of performance of everyday activities
by a person’s behaviour.
G. Personal Discomfort: Feeling distressed and unhappy, although others
may fail to notice.

21

Models of Dysfunctional Behaviour:
Biological Model: Is based on the assumption that if the brain, neuroanatomy, and
related biochemicals are all physical entities and work together to meditate psychological
processes, then treating any mental abnormality must be a biological process.
Psychological illness, therefore, should be treated like any physical illness (being caused
by chemical imbalance, microbes, or physical stress) with surgery or drugs. There is
evidence that genetics play a roll in psychological wellbeing.

The Learning (Behavioural) Model: Concentrates on behaviour and whether or not it is
“adaptive” or “maladaptive.” It assumes that providing the behaviour is presenting no
problems to the individual or to other people that there is no need to regard the behaviour
as a mental disorder. Behaviourists claim that the “symptoms are the disorder” and we
need not concern ourselves with the causes of the behaviour which raises criticism.

The Cognitive Model: Believes that an individual’s thoughts, emotions, and beliefs
influence their reactions to external stimuli. It is thought that if a person’s thoughts
toward something are influenced to change that their behaviour will also change. Like the
behavioural model, this method, does not deal directly with the cause of the problem
directly.

Psychodynamic Model: Pioneered by Freud, it proclaims that psychological “illness”
comes about from repressed emotions and thoughts from experiences in the past, and as a
result of repression, alternative behaviour replaces what is being repressed. The patient is
“cured” when they can admit that which is being repressed.

Classificatory Systems and Diagnosis: Define, classify, and organize psychological
disorders.
DSM-IV: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is the
classification system of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). It consists of five
axes of disorders and thereby suggests to the diagnostician not to focus only on one
clinical disorder but as well as to consider other important aspects.
Axis 1: Clinical Disorders (excluding personality disorders and mental
retardation)
a. Disorders usually first diagnosed in infancy,
childhood, or adolescence
b. Delirium, dementia, and amnestic and other cognitive
disorders
c. Mental disorders due to a general medical condition
(not elsewhere classified)
d. Substance-related disorders
e. Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders
f. Mood disorders
g. Anxiety disorders
h. Somatoform disorders
i. Factitious disorders

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j. Dissociative disorders
k. Sexual and gender identity disorders
l. Eating disorders
m. Sleep disorders
n. Impulse control disorders (not elsewhere classified)
o. Adjustment disorders
p. Other conditions that may be a focus of clinical
attention
Axis 2: Personality Disorders and Mental Retardation
Axis 3: General Medical Conditions (related to mental disorders)
Axis 4: Psychological and Environmental Problems
Axis 5: Global Assessment of Functioning (psychological, social and job-related
functions are evaluated on a continuum between mental health and extreme mental
disorder)
ICD 10: the International Classification of Diseases is the standard diagnostic
classification for all general epidemiological and many health management purposes
published by the World Health Organization (WHO). Chapter V is relevant for mental
and behavioural disorders and consists of 10 main groups:
FO: Organic, including symptomatic and mental disorders
F1: Mental and behavioural disorders due to the use of psychoactive
substances
F2: Schizophrenia, schizotypal and delusional disorders
F3: Mood (affective) disorders
F4: Neurotic, stress-related somatoform disorders
F5: Behavioural syndromes associated with physiological disturbances
and physical factors
F6: Disorders of personality and behaviour in adult persons
F7: Mental retardation
F8: Disorders of psychological development
F9: Behavioural and emotional disorders with onset usually occurring in
childhood and adolescence.
There is also a group of “unspecified mental disorders.”
Description and Etiology of Dysfunctional Behaviours:
Phobias
Description: An irrational, intense, persistent fear of certain situations, activities,
things, or people. Phobias are the most common form of anxiety disorders.
Three categories: Social Phobia (can further be categorized as generalized
social phobia or specific social phobia), specific phobias (fear of single specific panic
trigger such as spiders, snakes, dogs, elevators, etc.), and agoraphobia (a generalized fear
of leaving one’s home for fear of possible panic attack).
Symptoms: An excessive, unreasonable desire to avoid the feared subject
accompanied by panic
Etiology: See “Theories of Emotion”. It is generally accepted that phobias arise
from a combination of external events and internal predispositions. In a famous
experiment, Martin Seligman used classical conditioning to establish phobias of snakes
and flowers. The results of the experiment showed that it took far fewer shocks to create

23

an adverse response to a picture of a snake than to a picture of a flower, leading to the
conclusion that certain objects may have a genetic predisposition to being associated
with fear. Many specific phobias can be traced back to a specific triggering event,
usually a traumatic experience at an early age. Social phobias and agoraphobia have
more complex causes that are not entirely known at this time. It is believed that heredity,
genetics, and brain chemistry combined with life-experiences to play a major role in the
development of anxiety disorders, phobias and panic attacks.

Anxiety
Description: A psychological and physiological state characterized by cognitive,
somatic, emotional, and behavioural components which combine to create an unpleasant
feeling that is typically associated with uneasiness, fear, or worry. It is distinguished from
fear in that it occurs without the presence of an external threat or an identifiable
triggering stimulus. It is the result of threats that are perceived to be uncontrollable or
unavoidable.
Symptoms: (Physical) Heart palpitations, fatigue, nausea, chest pain,
shortness of breath, stomach aches, headaches
(Emotional) Feelings of apprehension or dread, trouble
concentrating, feeling tense or jumpy, anticipating the worst, irritability, restlessness,
watching for signs of danger, feeling as if one’s mind has gone blank, nightmares,
obsessions about sensations, déjà vu, a feeling of being trapped in one’s mind, and being
“scared” of everything.
Etiology:
Psychological Theory: Anxiety is a signal that an unacceptable drive or impulse
is surfacing which arouses the individual (unconsciously) to prevent its expression. The
symptoms of anxiety are “incomplete containment) or “repression” of the unacceptable
drive.
Behaviour Theory: Anxiety (and phobias) is based originally on learned responses
to painful or fearful stimuli. Eventually, the anxious response can occur without the
stimulus.
Cognitive Theory: Anxiety arises as a result of faulty and distorted thinking
patterns that precede expression of anxiety symptoms. For example, patients with panic
disorder might overreact to normal body sensations (such as light headedness or an
increased heart rate) and eventual spiral into a panic attack.
Biological Theory: Many biological abnormalities have been associated with
anxiety disorders, including obscured increase in brain neurotransmitters. The locus
ceruleus, a part of the brain located in the brainstem may be responsible for many anxiety
symptoms. Electrical stimulation of the locus ceruleus produces marked fear and anxiety.
Drugs like yohibine, which increase locus ceruleus activity (such as benzodiazepines,
clonidine, and propranolol), have anti-anxiety effects. Many patients with panic disorder
are extremely sensitive to slight increases in carbon dioxide in the air.

Eating Disorders
Description: To eat or avoid eating to an extent that one’s mental and physical
health are both negatively affected.

24

Types (and symptoms): Anorexia Nervosa: Deliberate and sustained weight
loss driven by a fear of distorted body image accompanied by an abnormally low body
weight, amenorrhea, an intense fear of gaining weight or become fat, a preoccupation
with body weight and shape, low self-esteem, constant self-criticism, the fear of losing
control, and the classification of foods as “good or bad.”
Bulimia Nervosa: A cyclical and recurring pattern of binge eating
followed by guilt, self-recrimination, and over compensatory behaviour such as crash
dieting, over exercising, and purging to compensate for the excessive caloric intake (see
“Anorexia Nervosa” for symptoms).
Binge-Eating Disorder: The consumption of very large amounts of
food in a short period of time.
Etiology:
Environmental: The media is thought to have incredible influence over
accepted societal views of values, norms, and image standards. The media sends the
message that “thin is beautiful”. Interestingly, society’s exposure to media and eating
disorders parallel one another in their growth. It could also help to explain why anorexia
nervosa is a disease found only in western culture.
Biological: Patients with bulimia have been found to have abnormally low
levels of serotonin which is secreted by the intestines and central nervous system during
digestion. Bulimics are also reportedly low in cholecystokinin (a hormone that causes one
to feel full and decrease eating) levels. People with eating disorders traditionally have
high levels of cortisol (a hormone which promotes blood sugar and increases metabolism)
which could be attributed to an imbalance in or around the hypothalamus. A study in
London found anorexics to have a high level of serotonin.
Family Systems: Believes eating disorders to stem from both the
adolescent’s difficulty in separating from over-controlling parents and disturbed patterns
of communication. When parents are critical and unaffectionate, their children are more
prone to becoming self-destructive and self-critical and have difficulty developing the
skills to engage in self-care giving behaviours. Such developmental failures in early
relationships with others, particularly motherly empathy, impairs the development of an
internal sense of self and leads to an over-dependence on the environment. When coping
strategies have not been developed, food and drugs serve as a substitute.
Trauma: Many eating problems begin as survival strategies rather than
vanity or obsession with appearance. Eating disorders and a disconnected relationship
with one’s body is commonly a response to environmental stressors such as abuse,
racism, and poverty.

Schizophrenia:
Description: A psychiatric diagnosis describing a mental disorder characterized
by abnormalities in the perception or expression of reality that may affect all five senses,
but most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre
delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking with significant social or occupational
dysfunction whose onset typically occurs in young adulthood.
Types (and symptoms): Delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech
(formal thought disorder), grossly disorganized behaviour (dressing inappropriately,
crying frequently, etc), catatonic behaviour, affecting flattening (lack or decline in

25

emotional response), alogia (lack or decline in speech), avolition (lack or decline in
motivation) manifested as:
1. Paranoid type (where delusions and hallucinations are present
but thought disorder, disorganized behaviour, and affective
flattening are absent)
2. Disorganized type: Where thought disorder and flat affect are
present together
3. Catatonic type: The subject may be almost immobile or exhibit
agitated purposeless movement.
4. Undifferentiated type: Psychotic symptoms are present but the
criteria for paranoid, disorganized, or catatonic types have not
been met.
5. Residual Type: Where positive symptoms are present at a low
intensity.
Etiology:
Biological: It is suggested that schizophrenia is a disease of “complex
inheritance” with several genes possibly interacting to generate risk for schizophrenia or
the separate components that can co-occur leading to a diagnosis, though these genes
have been classified as “non-specific” and may raise the risk of developing other
psychiatric disorders such as bipolar disorder. Schizophrenia has also been associated
with rare deletions or duplications of tiny DNA sequences (known as copy variants)
disproportionately occurring with genes involved in neuronal signaling and brain
development. There is evidence that prenatal exposure to infections increases the risk for
developing schizophrenia later in life, a suggestion that supports the diathesis stress
model. The diathesis stress model suggests that an individual has a predisposition toward
a disease (such as schizophrenia) and that dysfunctional behaviour occurs as a result of
environmental stressors (that awaken the predisposition). The dopamine hypothesis
suggests that people with schizophrenia suffer from an excess of the neurotransmitter
dopamine. Autopsies on people with schizophrenia reveal them to have unusually high
levels of dopamine (Iversen 1979). Antipsychotic drugs work by binding to the
dopamine receptor sites. Interestingly, it is possible to create the symptoms of
schizophrenia by taking too much of the drug L-dopa (used to treat Parkinson’s).
Social: Living in an urban environment, social disadvantage (poverty), migration
related to social adversity, racial discrimination, family dysfunction, unemployment, poor
housing conditions, abuse, and trauma have all been consistently found to be a risk factor
for schizophrenia, which supports the diathesis stress model.

Approaches to Treatment and Therapy:
Biological Approach: Assumes that psychological disorders are based on physical
causes (usually attributed to abnormalities in the structure or function of the brain). The
most common “therapy” is the use of drugs which alleviate symptoms but ignores the
causation of the symptoms. According to a study done in 1993, Xanax is no more
effective than a placebo pill after 8 weeks. Psychosurgery, a drastic approach used most
commonly with people suffering from epilepsy (although it has been used to treat OCD
and anorexia) seeks to eliminate symptoms by removing the part of the brain associated
with the dysfunction, although only roughly 5/18 patients significantly improve after

26

surgery. Electroconvulsive therapy administers a series of shocks to the brain to induce
seizures in anesthetized patients in order to destroy the parts of the brain believed to be
responsible for causing major depression, mania, catatonia, and schizophrenia.

Behaviourist Approach: Assumes that behaviour is the result of faulty learning and does
not assume that there is an underlying causual factor; behaviour is the problem: learned
behaviour is too varied to make classification meaningful.
Systematic Desensitization: Is based on the idea that a person cannot
make 2 competing reflex responses (anxiety and relaxation) at the same time. Clinician
and individual develop a hierarchy of fears that ranges from mild to intense and the
clinician attempts to recondition the individual so that the stimuli in this hierarchy
become associated with relaxation rather than fear. It is used in a wide variety of fears
(snakes, heights, etc. – Wolpe 1973) and has a success rate of 70%.
Flooding: Exposes the patient to vast amounts of the feared stimulus
assuming that one cannot stay anxious forever and will eventually begin to calm down
and associate this newfound calmness with the previously feared object. Wolpe (1973)
experimented with this technique by locking a girl afraid of cars in a car and driving her
around for hours until she calmed down.
Aversive Conditioning: Induces an adverse response to stimuli which are
associated with undesirable behaviours (antabuse is given to an alcoholic). The
individual realizes that if they stop the behaviour (such as drinking) then the discomfort
will end. However, Forrest 1985 claimed that this method is in effective for if “drinkers”
realize that if they quit taking the antabuse, then they can drink with adverse reactions
and McConnel 1974 cites this method as “controversial” because it involves pain and
discomfort.
Operant Conditioning: Relies heavily on controlling relevant reinforcers
to shape behaviour. One of the most widely used form of operant conditioning in therapy
is the establishment of a “token economy”, especially in institutional settings (Ayllon &
Azrin 1968) where reinforcers are readily controlled and behaviours are easily
monitored.

Cognitive Approach: Focuses on using thoughts to control behaviour and emotions and
involves three main steps: Disconfirmation (proving existing “faulty” thoughts to be
untrue), Reconceptualization (forming new “rational” thoughts and beliefs), and insight.
Rational Emotive Therapy (RET): Pioneered by Albert Ellis, it is aimed at
changing unrealistic assumptions, assuming that people’s thoughts and beliefs often
dictate the reaction an individual has to a given stimulus. In Eliss’s Words: A (the
activating event) does not directly cause C (the consequences that follow), but rather B
(a person’s belief system) interferes after A and influences C.
Beck’s Cognitive Therapy: Assumes that maladaptive thought patterns
cause a distorted view of one's self and lead to problems.

Treatment of Dysfunctional Behaviour:
Phobias: Are most often treated using the behavioural approach, especially systematic
desensitivization.

27

Anxiety: Is treated using both the biological method (with use of tranquilizers such as
Xanax and Valium) and the cognitive approach.
Eating Disorders: Are treated most often with the cognitive approach (which seeks to
improve body image).
Schizophrenia: Is treated almost exclusively in accordance with the biological approach
with the use of antipsychotic drugs such as Aripiprazole (Abilify and Risperidone
(Risperdal), although Cognitive Behaviour Therapy is often used in conjuncture with
drugs to help patients cope with related issues, such as self-esteem and social
functioning.

28

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