Transcript for:
Overview of AQA A Level Psychology

hello lovelies in this video tim goes over the whole of aqa a level psychology this is a long video there is a lot of information in there now as you know you don't need everything for every exam and then the last paper has options so look at the description for the timestamps and use them jump between things so you don't have to do the whole thing if it is not what you need for that particular exam and then to help you remember everything to help you get you prepared and ready for the exam there is loads of stuff over on my website including a massive long course with loads of questions to help you remember facts and figures to get you ready for your exam so get a pen and a pencil ready guys pause the video write down what you need rewind if you need to um play it on slow speed play it on file speed um and good luck [Music] [Music] [Music] there are several types of conformity internalization is changing your beliefs or your behavior to fit a wider social group because you've internalized those beliefs all those behavioral norms and think genuinely that they are your own compliance is aligning your behavior to fit the wider social group despite your own private doubts out of a desire to fit in or out of a fear of being rejected out of that social group and thirdly identification is changing your behavior to fit a set of social norms these are usually associated with a specific role or a specific position within society there are also two main explanations for this conformity isi or informational social influence is conforming and changing your behavior based on information gained from or about the wider social group nsi or normative social influence is conforming or changing your behavior based on apparent and obvious social norms and expected behavior from the wider social group the research done by sheriff in 1935 looks into conformity and informational social influence this was a laboratory experiment using a repeated measures design where the same thing is done over and over again participants in this experiment were told that a single spot of light in an otherwise completely dark room would move in fact this was an optical illusion called the autokinetic effect the light appeared to move but actually remained completely stationary participants were asked to estimate spot of light and moved they were first tested individually then in groups and then individually again when they were tested individually participants arrived at their own answers called personal norms but when they were tested as a group the participants converged towards the mean they all conformed and then when they were tested individually again for a third and final time the participants generally stuck to these group norms that had developed participants had therefore been influenced by the information that they'd gained from others around them informational social influence had therefore been present they'd taken the information and used it to form their own views this study was done under controlled laboratory conditions and therefore there was good control of the variables it was possible to establish a cause-and-effect relationship but this was an artificial situation there was little relevance to the real world it therefore had limited ecological validity it was not really valid in a real world setting there was also an obvious ethical issue participants were deceived right from the very start of the experiment ash in 1951 looked into nsi normative social influence this was a laboratory experiment again but using a different design independent groups participants were asked to state which of three lines matched a standard line they were placed in groups of eight but they were not told that the other seven people in the group were actually confederates confederates are people who pretend to be participants but are actually working for the researcher all the actual real participants gave their answer either last or next to last the confederates who mostly went before them gave deliberately wrong answers in the control group with no confederates participants only got it wrong about one percent of the time this was a trivial task with no real difficulty but in the groups with confederates participants gave a wrong answer 32 percent of the time almost a third they were influenced by the confederates giving the wrong answer and they conformed to these wrong answers going before them participants were influenced by the developing social norm this was normative social influence at work again this was a laboratory experiment there was good control of the variables and therefore a cause and effect relationship could be established however this was a trivial task with very little ecological validity and again participants were deceived by not being told that the other seven people in their small group were actually confederates there are a number of situational factors which influence conformity by situational factor we mean a factor that varies with the situation it's different in different environments but it doesn't vary from person to person the first of these factors was group size ash found that larger groups are more influential and this makes people more likely to conform but that only happens up to a certain point after this point group site has no effect a second situational factor was social support having others there who are supportive and are also prepared to dissent from the wider group this makes it much more likely that any one individual will also not conform and thirdly and finally task difficulty when the task is harder people are much less likely to dissent they feel less confident in their answers and they look to others in the group for guidance there were also dispositional factors which influenced conformity a dispositional factor is a factor which varies from individual person to individual person but it remains the same in different environments one of these was gender gender may be a factor in conformity but research so far has not provided any strong conclusion either way the traditional view which has since been discredited is that women were more likely to conform a second dispositional factor is experience and expertise individuals with more experience or expertise in a given area are much less likely to conform to a group when doing a task in that area they feel more confident in their own ability or knowledge and they're therefore much less likely to conform and they're much more likely to dissent from the wider group a social role is a position within society some of these are roles we choose to take on and they're voluntary such as being a teacher a waiter or a volunteer for a charity all of those are roles that we choose but some roles are given to us without our consent they're forced on us such as being a sister a son a teenager or even a prisoner each of these roles carries a given set of expected behaviors social norms to which people are expected by a wider society to conform these norms obviously vary with different cultures and different time periods and not everyone is always going to follow every social norm sometimes they will not conform to their social role one thing that's notable is that one person can hold several of these social roles at one time it's possible to be a son a brother a father and a teacher all at once the spe or stamford prison experiment was a landmark piece of research done in the early 1970s by a group of researchers led by zimbardo it was done to investigate conformity to social roles a mock prison was set up and a set of volunteers were randomly assigned one of two roles they either became guards or they became prisoners conditions especially for the prisoners were very strict the guards had a lot of power over the prisoners the experience was made authentic to the prisoners with a mock arrest a strip search and forced transport to the prison both prisoners and guards conformed to their social roles they exhibited extreme behavior like rioting violence and aggression zimbardo concluded that the participants were conforming to their expected social roles they were exhibiting the expected behavior of prisoners and guards the experiment was effectively on the laboratory conditions and therefore a cause-and-effect relationship could theoretically be established obviously however there were very severe ethical issues with this experiment both guards and prisoners suffered severe mental and physical health problems and the sbe was called off and abandoned a few days early as we've already seen there were severe ethical issues with the spe and this meant that it was never precisely repeated or replicated the danger to participants both mentally and physically was too great however other researchers have investigated how social roles affect our behaviour orlando in 1973 set up a mock psychiatric ward inside a real hospital hospital staff volunteered to become patients within this psychiatric ward within a short amount of time a couple of days they began to behave like real patients in a real psychiatric ward despite knowing that they were not real patients and not in a real world they became despondent depressed and felt that they had lost their sense of identity orlando concluded that they were conforming to the expected behavior of prisoners in this type of institution the study was also useful in helping to explain the behavior of real patients in real worlds and also helping therefore to improve their treatment and conditions following the genocide of the holocaust in world war ii psychologists have been trying through the 20th century to explain how so many people could have obeyed and complied with the genocide of the nazi regime one of these investigations was filmed in 2006 for bbc television and in many ways it was similar to the spe as with the sbe three decades earlier volunteers were randomly assigned a status they were either prisoners or they were guards but critically they were told that one prisoner would become a guard after three days however unlike in the spe neither the prisoners or the guards conformed to the expected behavior of their social roles the prisoners very quickly formed a strong and united group especially after the point where one of them was promoted the guards never formed this strong or united group they felt very uncomfortable with the power imbalance the conclusion that was drawn was that social roles are flexible and not everyone will always conform unlike with the sbe there was some good ethical oversight of this experiment there was an independent ethics committee to ensure that participants did not suffer mentally or physically because of this and like the sbe however the experiment did have to be abandoned early for ethical reasons in 1963 a landmark series of experiments regarding obedience was done by stanley milgram a psychological researcher obedience can usually be defined as acting in response to a direct order in this experiment participants were volunteers responding to a flyer they were told that they would be randomly assigned the role of either learner or teacher in fact they've been deceived they were always the teacher these participants were instructed to deliver an electric shock to the learner every time the learner got a question wrong this learner however was actually a confederate there was somebody working with the researcher and with full knowledge of how the experiment worked the shocks were also fake although the participants didn't know this the labeled buttons on the machine ranged from 15 volts which is a very slight shock to 450 volts marked danger severe shock another confederate known as the experimenter and wearing a grey lamp code would instruct the participant to continue if they hesitated or resisted the participants genuinely thought therefore that they were delivering large harmful and painful electric shocks to innocent people incredibly all of the participants in this research did deliver the shocks up to at least 300 volts and most went all the way up to 450. 300 volts was the point where the fake learner would bang on the wall in rage and pain milgram concluded that people will obey orders when they seem to be legitimate orders even if it goes against their normal patterns of behavior on thinking or even against their conscience obviously in this experiment there were massive ethical issues participants showed stress and tension and far even had nervous breakdowns participants were also deceived multiple times over the experiment they were falsely told that their role was random that the learner was real and that the shocks were real none of these were true the study also had limited ecological validity delivering a series of painful and potentially lethal electric shocks to an innocent victim is a relatively unlikely scenario outside of a laboratory the study also had limited internal validity it's entirely possible and indeed probable that some participants suspected or realized that the shocks were not real milgram identified several situational factors which had an influence on how likely people were to obey first of these was proximity when milgram changed the experiment so the participant and learner were in the same room obedience dropped sharply when the participant could clearly see the effect of their actions they were less likely to obey second was allies when an ally was present who refused to deliver the shock participants were much less likely to obey they too refused a third situational factor was the proximity of authority when milgram removed the experimenter and therefore the source of authority from the experience obedience went down and sharply people were less likely to obey when there was no immediate source of authority in the experiment and finally location the experiment had initially been done at the grand and prestigious yale university milgram theorised that this location had raised obedience rates when the experiment was repeated at a dank dark inner city office block obedience fell following this research milgram put forward agency theory as an explanation for obedience this theory holds that people obey orders because they are in an agentic state an agentic state is when someone feels they are acting on behalf of a higher responsibility which has issued the orders and will take responsibility for the actions they therefore feel that they are an agent of this authority and not an autonomous and independent individual most people begin any task or experienced in an independent state behaving autonomously but they move to an agentic state when they are given orders this process is known as a genetic shift milgram identified three binding factors variables that kept an individual in this agentic state the first was a reluctance to disrupt the experiment the second was the pressure of a grand and trusted surrounding like at yale university and the third was pressure from the authority figure there is some experimental evidence to support agency theory but there are also numerous other explanations of why people obey most people are taught from a young age that certain groups have legitimate forms of authority they have a right to issue orders to us and then issuing orders is correct examples include the police our parents teachers and even the government people are much more likely to obey orders from a source of authority that they regard as legitimate and there are several ways that people decide if any given authority figure is legitimate the first of these is legal process groups like the police and the government have legal backing to their authority it falls within a defined social norm that most people accept a second way is through knowledge or experience groups like doctors and teachers gain their legitimacy from their knowledge and experience most people trust the advice of and obey the orders of medical professionals because of their advanced knowledge lastly there are social norms groups like scientists and senior business executives derive their authority from social norms how they dress how they speak how they act milgram noticed in his research that people are much more likely to obey the experimenter when that experimenter is wearing a lab coat another explanation for obedience is the authoritarian personality following the end of world war ii there was a large amount of research done to try and establish why so many people had obeyed the wishes of the nazi regime one theory was that some people have an authoritarian personality they will obey the orders of their superiors and issue orders to their inferiors adono who led a group of researchers in 1950 used a series of paired statements to place participants on an f scale a measurement of their authoritarian personalities f stood for fascism and much of this research was aimed at understanding and preventing fascism this theory held that some people usually due to overly strict parenting have been unable to challenge their parents or any authority which had led to feelings of constraint and restriction they therefore directed aggression resulting from that towards people they regarded as being inferior or lesser while they unquestioningly obeyed those they thought of as being superior there was some research evidence to back this theory but the study done in 1950 was mired in bias of her personal political and methodological nature everyone is vulnerable to the influence of wider society and social groups at least some of the time and in some situations psychologists have identified the factors which tend to make us more resistant to social influence and make us more likely to act independently or autonomously the first of these is social support having someone present with you in the group who agrees with you and is prepared to support you when you descend from that group makes it much more likely that you will descend from the wider norms and consensus of that wider social society the second is aspects of personality research done by rotter in 1966 found that people who have an internal locus of control are more likely to be able to resist social influence people with an internal locus of control believe that they alone are in control of their life people with an external locus of control believe that their life is down to look at external factors in 1969 a researcher called moscovici investigated how a minority could influence a much larger majority 192 women who were the participants were asked to name the colours of 36 slides all of these slides were actually blue in the control group participants only got this wrong a quarter of a percent of the time effectively not but in actual groups a minority of two confederates people working with the researcher gave a deliberately wrong answer they called some or all of the slides green when this happened many of the participants also said the slides were green they had been influenced by the minority this experiment was under controlled laboratory conditions but it had little ecological validity the colour coding of slides is an unlikely task in the real world this was also a trivial task as shown by the control group and there were no consequences participants had nothing to lose by changing their answer or getting the answer wrong there was also an ethical issue participants were deceived into thinking their entire group of six was made up of participants there were actually two confederates present moscovici put forward a conversion theory which said that members of the majority are converted to the minority view and this was his explanation for minority influence mars kovichi along with many other researchers identified several factors which change how likely a minority is to influence a majority the first of these was consistency when a minority is consistent and unchanging it becomes more likely that members of the majority will be swayed or persuaded the second is flexibility when a minority is flexible and willing to compromise or alter their approach it becomes much more likely that they will change the mind of at least some of the majority in 1981 social impact theory was put forward this also outlined three factors which changed the extent of minority influence the first is strength a stronger more vocal and more powerful minority is much more likely to influence the majority the second is numbers a numerically larger minority is much more influential than a numerically smaller minority and the third is immediacy if a minority is close to a majority in terms of physical distance or personal relationships and the influence of that minority increases social impact theory says that once these three factors reach a certain threshold the majority would begin to sway to the minority when people in a group agree with the minority then the minority starts to exert influence as this happens more and more members of the majority will start to agree with the minority and convert towards their viewpoint this is called the snowball effect and eventually the minority becomes the majority and the old majority becomes the new minority they switch places at this point the minority has successfully exerted influence to such an extent that it has become dominant there are two key examples of this which are useful for exams the first is civil rights in the u.s the idea of racial equality was a minority view until about the 1960s the actions of a vocal strong minority gradually changed this view until racial equality became a widely accepted majority a second example is the rights of lgbt people in the uk for most people before the 1970s the very idea of homosexuality was repulsive and repugnant to them this was a very majority view that was gradually changed by the actions of an immediate numerate vocal minority [Music] so [Music] it is generally thought that there are three basic types of memory sensory register short-term memory or stm and long-term memory or ltm the sensory register stores the information taken in by our various senses it can only store an extremely small and limited amount of information for a very small amount of time therefore if we don't pay deliberate attention to the information then it fades extremely quickly we have no memory of it the short-term memory or stm stores information for a short amount of time usually this is done acoustically that is stored as sound it has limited capacity and limited duration but it both its capacity and duration are larger than the sensory register finally we have long-term memory or ltm the long-term memory stores information for a long period of time theoretically at least it's got an infinite capacity and infinite duration it can store any amount of information for any length of time and generally we divide it into three separate parts the first part is called episodic memory this stores information about specific events or episodes the second is semantic memory semantic memory stars learning knowledge and meaning essentially semantic memory stores facts and thirdly and finally we have procedural memory this stores our abilities and our knowledge of how to do things like for example riding a bike or driving a car each of these three parts are very different and still very different types of information but collectively they make up our long-term memory as you may expect a huge number of studies on human memory and memory capacity have been done but for the purposes of as a-level psychology there are three main ones you need to know about sperling in 1960 peterson and peterson in 1959 and barrick atal in 1975 we'll begin with the spurling experiment this was an investigation done under laboratory conditions it involves a group of participants being shown a grid of letters for an extremely short time indeed less than a second after this they were asked to recall all or part of the grid this research tested and then provided some evidence for the sensory register however being done under laboratory conditions meant that while there was extremely good control of variables there was a limited amount of ecological validity secondly we have the peterson and peterson experiment done in 1959. this involved showing participants nonsense trigrams a nonsense trigram is a random triplet of letters like lhr and ndt and pxw for example after this the participants were asked to recall as many as possible after a short pause during this short pause an interference task was done that's a task designed to interfere with memory this experiment tested short term memory duration and capacity but like the sperling experiment it lacked ecological validity finally we have the experiment done by barrack and a group of researchers in 1975. this investigation tested long-term memory it did this by asking participants to recall and then match the photographs the names of their ex-classmates participants who had recently been at school did much better than those who were at school 48 years ago this showed evidence of very long-term memories usually called vltms unlike the previous two experiments this one had a very high degree of ecological validity but as it wasn't a laboratory experiment it's not possible to control all variables one of the very first proper pieces of research ever done in psychology it was done by jacobs all the way back in the late victorian era in 1887. this investigated the ability of participants to recall strings of numbers and letters in doing so jacobs found that the average capacity of short-term memory was between five and nine individual digits or letters obviously with any study done such a long time ago there is going to be issues the massive issue for the jacobs experiment all the way back in 1887 was that there was very limited ecological validity slightly more modern is the experiment done by miller in 1956 miller also investigated the capacity of short-term memory and this was done by asking participants to recall again the strings of letters and numbers this research suggested that most people have a short term memory capacity of seven units of information plus or minus two this seven plus or minus two is often known as miller's magic number miller also put forward the theory of chunking this is the idea that we can improve our short-term memory capacity by chunking information together into manageable lumps for example a string of numbers like 1 9 7 8 2 0 1 7 is much harder to recall than 1978 2017 that's because in the latter case we've chunked the numbers together to make them easier to remember coding can be defined as the way in which our memory store information more specifically it's the way in which various parts of our memory store information a good example of this is our short term memory when we try to store information in our short term memory we quite often repeat it to ourselves this information is therefore stored acoustically in contrast information that we store in our long-term memory is more often semantic we store it by the meaning of the information rather than the information itself but it can be stored acoustically or visually that is the sounds are images a key piece of research into this area was done by badly in 1966 this used four different groups of words the first group were acoustically similar that is that they sounded similar the second group were acoustically dissimilar they all sounded completely differently the third was semantically similar they all had similar meanings and the fourth and final group were semantically dissimilar they all had completely different meanings participants in the experiment were then asked to recall the words after differing periods of time those participants who were asked to recall the words after a very long time struggled to remember semantically similar words they'd been stored semantically in long-term memory those asked after a short time frame struggled to remember acoustically similar words they have been stored acoustically in short-term memory and in both cases it was difficult for the participants to differentiate between them this study was ethical there were no ethical issues it was eminently repeatable it could be scaled up to many participants there was reasonable control of variables but unfortunately like many psychological experiments there was very little ecological validity the very first coherent model of memory was the multi-store model this was developed all the way back in 1968 by atkinson and schifrin and it was developed as a way of explaining how the different parts of memory fit together the multi-star model essentially outlines a process which information passes through to be stored in our memory firstly our senses taking information about the environment around us this is then stored in the sensory register if this information is noticed our attention is paid to it then it moves on to short-term memory if no attention is paid then the trace fades away a process called spontaneous decay and we forget that bit of information that our senses have picked up if the information that's been stored in short-term memory is repeated or rehearsed then again it moves forward and on to long-term memory if it's not repeated or rehearsed then it's forgotten obviously it is possible to forget things from our long-term memory but it's more difficult than forgetting things from a sensory register or from short-term memory this multi-star model is coherent and it easily explains how memory works unfortunately however it is generally thought to be overly simplistic when we try and evaluate the multi-star model there are a large number of factors that we need to take into account most importantly there is some research evidence for the model these studies have indicated a primacy effect and a recency effect the primacy effect causes information that's taken in first to be easier to remember than information taken in after it this would indicate that earlier information is rehearsed more before it's sent to long-term memory and that makes it much easier to remember after a period of time has passed the recency effect works in the other direction this causes information which which is taken in last to be easier to remember than information taken in before it this would indicate that later information gets rid of or displaces earlier information from the short-term memory there is also some medical evidence for the multi-star model individuals who suffer from korsakoff syndrome show an unaffected short-term memory but a highly impaired or damaged long-term memory this would suggest that short-term memory and long-term memory are separate stars of information which act independently of each other as we've said however to many people this model is overly simplistic it at least implies that there is only one long-term and one short-term store of information and research done more recently suggests that this may not be true finally this model doesn't apply all the time in real life situations we're able to form long-term and even very long-term memories like faces or experiences without constantly having to rehearse them a second and rather more complex model of memory is called the working memory model this was developed by badly and hitch in 1974 as a more accurate and realistic explanation of short-term memory this model states that the central executive otherwise known as our attention controls three slave systems each of these three slave systems handles a different type of information the visuo spatial sketch pack deals with visual information as the name indeed suggests the episodic buffer deals with events and experiences and the phonological loop deals with acoustic information and it contains a phonological store when this information is repeated to rehearse it effectively locking it in place so we can recall it easily later like the multi-star model that we looked at earlier there is some experimental evidence to back up this working memory model research using interference tasks has shown that we can do two tasks together if they use different parts of our short-term memory which would at least suggest that the different bits of short-term memory are to an extent separate there is also medical evidence alt-b semi-anecdotal for this model a good example of this is patient kf kf suffered brain damage but they were still able to recall visual information but not verbal information which would further indicate that the two are separate that said however some people have suggested that this model is still too simplistic and limited it only explains short-term memory and this concept of the central executive or attention is extremely vague and undeveloped like all models it has its advantages and disadvantages a key part of memory is obviously forgetting experiments that have been done in the past on human memory make an assumption they assume that if you can't retrieve a specific memory then it's simply gone forgetting is therefore an availability problem the information is there but can be retrieved in long-term memory however it could also be more complicated it could be because the information is confused known as an interference problem such as two very similar pieces of information being mixed up interference therefore is one explanation of why we forget things and there are two basic types retroactive interference and proactive interference retroactive interference is when more recent information causes us to forget all or part of earlier information that we've taken in proactive interference is when older information causes us to forget all or part of more recent information interference theory is supported by some experimental evidence but on the other hand it only explains why forgetting happens it doesn't explain why interference itself happens so it just shifts the explanation one step further down there is an alternative theory as is usually the case in psychology which in this case is called q dependent forgetting this suggests that our ability to remember information depends on us receiving the right cues or triggers if we don't then we won't be able to recall the information we're after and we have effectively forgotten one particularly key experiment done into forgetting was done in 1971 by tolving and sokka the purpose of this experiment was to compare the theories of interference and cue dependent learning each participant in the experiment was given a variable number of lists of words each list contained 24 words some participants were only given a single list some were given a few and some were given five or six participants were then asked to recall as many as possible that's total free recall or given cues to help them try and remember free cued recall in general the participants who received cues to help them were all able to recall a higher number of words than participants who didn't receive any cues participants who did total free recall as you may expect could generally remember only a small number of words this at least suggests that some interference had occurred and the list of words had interfered with each other that could be neither direction with more recent lists interfering with the ones before or the first list interfering with the ones after the results of this experiment also suggested that cues do indeed help people remember so this experiment provided some evidence for both theories and was therefore fairly inconclusive if rather interesting this experiment was done in a lab under laboratory conditions there was excellent control of variables and it's therefore very unlikely that some unknown extraneous variable was impacting on the results however as is always the case with laboratory experiments there was very limited ecological validity the task wasn't particularly relevant to the real world and it's not something that most people would have to do in a regular basis so it's therefore limited in its ecological validity and can't be generalized out to everybody everywhere why psychologists are so keen to study memory is eyewitness testimony eyewitness testimony or ewt is extremely important for the legal system in many countries for both civil and criminal cases unfortunately however the testimony of eyewitnesses can very easily become distorted or inaccurate witnesses can be misled or misrepresented in 1974 two psychologists called loftus and palmer investigated how much leading questions have an impact on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony a leading question is one which is biased from the very start usually because it makes an assumption a really good example of this is how much do you think it will rain this week this assumes tacitly that it will rain this week in this particular study participants witnessed a car crash after it they were then asked leading questions about how severe they thought that accident was when the questions involved more extreme language like using smashed rather than contacted the participants recalled the crash as being far worse and far more violent than it actually was in reality the result of all this was that eyewitness testimony can indeed be easily manipulated by the way in which questions were posed and the nature of the questions themselves there are as you may expect a huge number of factors that can influence the accuracy and reliability of eyewitness testimony this may seem like a small and obscure part of psychology but it can have genuinely life-changing impacts for people involved in the legal system the list is huge and there are literally hundreds of things that have at least been theoried to affect eyewitness testimony but there are three main ones that it's useful to know the first is post event information this is information given after the event even just as an informal discussion this post event information can affect recall witnesses in trials for example will have how accurately they recall things altered by the recollections and the opinions of others around them the second is age some research done by valentine and coxson in 1997 showed that age of a witness is also a factor in the accuracy of eyewitness testimony both the very young and the very old were less able to recall events accurately this would suggest that their eyewitness testimony may not be as valuable as those of adults thirdly we have anxiety some research done by loftus in 1979 demonstrated that anxiety nervousness and emotional arousal are factors which influence the reliability and validity of eyewitness testimony slightly anxious and emotionally aroused witnesses actually had very good levels of accurate recall but as this anxiety and arousal rose to severe amounts they became less accurate a key way in which witnesses can be held to be more accurate and reliable is the cognitive interview technique usually known as the cit this was developed by geiselmann who led a group of researchers back in 1984 to try and draw the best possible reliable and accurate eyewitness testimony from any given witness this process follows a very set series of steps first the interviewer does everything they possibly can to make the witness feel relaxed and comfortable they therefore tailor their language to suit the witness for example using more slang within the presence of the young second the witness mentally recreates as accurately as possible the environment they witness the events in both internally that's their mood and feelings but also externally things like smells sounds and the sights around them third the witness recalls absolutely everything they can about the events no matter how trivial the details may seem to be they still try to recall them fourth the witness tries to recall the events from the many different perspectives like bystanders or the witnesses the victim the criminal for example fifth the witness then tries to recall events in various different orders trying to run events in their mind back to front for example sixth and perhaps most importantly the interviewer deliberately avoids making any judgmental or biased comments they act in a completely neutral capacity and they refrain completely from any biased or misleading questions [Music] [Music] [Music] as with many key terms in psychology attachment is a surprisingly difficult word to define there are actually many different types of attachment but for the purposes of a.s and a level psychology we focus on the attachment that forms between children or babies and their primary caregiver most often but not always that will be the mother we can therefore define attachment as a strong emotional bond that forms between an infant and their primary caregiver as we've said this primary caregiver can often be taken to be the mother of the infant but this is not always the case especially in the modern world and a primary caregiver can be a father grandparent nanny older sibling or even just another adult caregiver infant interactions have several common features the first is sensitive responsiveness the caregiver responds to signals given from the infant the second is imitation the infant copies and mimics the actions of the caregiver as the caregiver makes a noise or facial expression the infant will often mimic it the third is interactional synchrony the infant's reactions are in time to the speech of the caregiver the fourth is reciprocity often known as turn-taking that is that there is a back-and-forth interaction between the infant and the caregiver and the fifth is mother ease the caregiver adopts a slow sing-song way of speaking to the infant something which incidentally many of us do with our pets in 1964 two psychologists called schaefer and emerson carried out landmark research into attachment through this several stages of attachment were identified and named this research is considered excellent and extremely reliable but it didn't take into account cross-cultural differences all of the infants studied were from glasgow they were therefore all isolated to one culture in total four stages were identified the first stage is the pre-attachment or a social phase which for most infants lasts from birth through to about three months old during this phase the infant learns to separate humans from inanimate objects and other animals but has no obvious displayed feelings about who provides for its basic physical needs like food for example the second phase is the indiscriminate sometimes known as the diffuse phase which usually lasts from about six weeks old to about seven months during this phase the infant is able to distinguish between different people to an extent the infant can also display recognition signals to certain people it sees on a regular basis but there's still no displayed feelings about who provides care and the infant is effectively indiscriminate the third is the discriminant or single attachment phase which for most infants lasts from seven months to 11 months old in this phase the infant becomes able to form a single strong attachment with a single specific person usually the mother the baby is likely to also be very hesitant around all very scared of strangers and the infant will usually show recognition signals when this single caregiver is present the fourth and final phase is known as the multiple attachment phase which is from usually about nine months onwards during this phase the infant can form several concurrent attachments at the same time with several different individuals these varying attachments may have different strengths and they have different purposes but the number of possible attachments at least in theory is infinite a psychologist called lorenz was a pioneer in the field of attachment psychology but like many experiments done in this area this particular piece of research controversially used animals the use of animals in all science but especially in psychology was and remains today a topic of high feeling and intense debate on the one hand it can provide useful insights which can't be gained from human studies the issue however is that on the other hand it raises severe ethical issues animals can never give informed consent and they may well be harmed physically or mentally by the process in 1935 lorenz studied geese and he found that newly born geese or goslings formed an attachment to the very first moving thing they saw upon hatching and they then followed it around apparently endlessly lorenz called this process imprinting lorenz used two separate groups of goslings one group was born entirely normally and naturally but the other group was incubated without the presence of an adult goose lorenz noticed that the incubated goslings still followed adult geese around he concluded therefore the imprinting happened very swiftly after birth roughly between 6 and 12 hours lorenz concluded that after this tiny period had elapsed imprinting couldn't happen while this research is very interesting it is also of slightly limited use it's extremely unlikely that any kind of imprinting like this could take place in humans unlike geese our development takes a much longer time and it tends to be based more around the quality and quantity of care we receive rather than just latching on to the first moving thing another key study done into attachment was done by harlow in 1959 as we'll see this animal study also has extremely severe ethical issues often this 1959 study is called the contact comfort study the aim was to try and find out if infant monkeys preferred a source of nourishment or a source of physical comfort in a series of laboratory experiments a group of rhesus monkeys were raised in isolation they had no contact whatsoever with other rhesus monkeys but they did have two surrogate mothers one was made of a hard wire mesh but it contained a food source the other was made of a soft and comforting cloth but did not contain a food sauce the infant monkeys spent the vast majority of their time with the soft cloth surrogate usually they only went near the hard wire surrogate in order to obtain food unfortunately as the monkey infants grew into adult monkeys they showed increasing signs of severe psychological disturbance any female infant monkeys became violent parents themselves often this is known as a cycle of privation something which we'll look at slightly later on this study seemed to show that infant monkeys at least prefer a comforting attachment figure over one that meets their basic physical needs like food obviously there are huge ethical issues with this study infant monkeys were essentially subjected to sustained and deliberate psychological harm it was a laboratory study done under laboratory conditions and there was excellent control over the many variables present because of this however there is very limited ecological validity and it can be said for sure that rhesus monkeys would behave in the same way in the wild the monkeys weren't in their natural environment the presence of psychologists and equipment is likely to have had some influence on their behavior so this experiment can't even be generalized out to all rhesus monkeys never mind being generalized out to humans normally laboratory experiments would be repeatable but the extreme ethical issues present in this study mean that it hasn't been repeated and in all likelihood never will be there are many possible ways that the phenomenon of attachment can be explained but one of the most popular is through learning theory quite often learning theory is often known as behaviorism according to learning theory attachments form through the process known as conditioning conditioning can occur in two ways classical conditioning and operant conditioning classical conditioning is the gradual process of making connections between two different things in our immediate environment like fire being hot water being wet home being safe and food being hopefully delicious as infants at least we all have very simple and straightforward basic physical desires food water care sleep for example gradually we learn that food drink parents and beds fulfill these basic physical desires classical conditioning allows us to gradually make connections between our needs and our environment and we gradually form attachments to the caregiver in our likelihood the caregiver provides for these needs hence we make this attachment operant conditioning is a very similar process but it operates in reverse we feel hungry when we don't have enough food without water we feel thirsty without sleep we feel tired for example we still make connections when our caregivers are present they relieve these discomforts the caregivers gradually become associated with the removal of discomfort and hence we form an attachment to an extent at least learning theory is a little controversial it does have some support from some scientific studies but many people argue that it's reductionist in nature it tries to reduce the very complex way in which human infants form attachments down to simplistic processes it's also worth noting that the great deal of the evidence which backs up learning theory comes from the animal studies we've already seen unfortunately these always have ethical issues and they can't usually be generalized to humans john bolby was an important and major figure in attachment psychology indeed sometimes bolby is described without evident irony as the father of attachment psychology he developed the monotropic theory of attachment as the first coherent explanation of how attachments form in 1951 bolby put forward the idea that a very sophisticated type of imprinting like lorenz's geese does occur in humans we have an evolutionary need to form an attachment to our primary caregiver if infants don't form this attachment it becomes extremely unlikely that they'd survive for any significant length of time as a result therefore natural selection and evolution prefers infants who do form attachments over those that don't the idea of monotropy is that we form a single attachment as very young infants this is obviously usually but not always our biological mother bulby's basic idea was that this very first single attachment gives us a template or model which we then roll out and use for all our future attachments a slightly older infants children or adults therefore if this very first important attachment is disrupted or abnormal we then form abnormal or disrupted attachments throughout our adult lives too there is a fair bit of evidence for bulby's ideas that said however there is some experimental evidence against it like the experiment done in 1964 by scheffer and emerson one thing worth noting and one illustrative point about the impact of psychology is that bolby developed his theory during the 1950s he was explained poorly by the media but very widely publicized it's been theorized that this contributed to a rapid increase in stay-at-home mothers during a socially conservative and very traditionalist era there are three main basic types of attachment they are secure insecure avoidant and insecure resistant secure attachments are a strong and usually permanent bond between an infant and that infant's primary caregiver happily the vast majority of attachments are of this type if the caregiver is removed for any reason then the infant becomes distressed and unhappy but is very easily calmed down when the caregiver comes back insecure avoidant attachments are a far weaker type of attachment in these types the infant is usually not particularly distressed or dismayed by the removal of the caregiver often they can be easily comforted by a complete stranger insecure resistance attachments are much more complex and multifaceted around the caregiver the child is usually uneasy stressed or just apathetic but they do become even more distressed if they're separated from that caregiver in this case however comfort cannot be given by strangers and the infant will then indeed often resist comfort when the caregiver comes back bolby's theories would suggest that insecure avoidant and insecure resistance attachments will carry on and continue to impact on all the various future attachments and relationships that this infant may form as they grow through childhood and into being an adult which may well cause them very significant difficulties in later life several experiments that were all carried out in the late 1970s and early 1980s have been classified under the general heading of strange situation research ainsworth working in 1978 developed the idea of the strange situation this is when an infant is placed in a situation which is new to them and usually their primary caregiver is removed as well the theory is that the nature and strength of this infant caregiver attachment can be accurately judged from how the infant reacts to this new strange situation to the removal of their caregiver and finally how they react to the return of this caregiver working with a group of researchers in 1978 ainsworth found that roughly 70 percent or a little over two-thirds of infants were securely attached to their caregiver these group of infants were content with the presence of their caregiver and very happy upon their return about 15 of the infants were insecure avoidant they ignored their mother and were completely indifferent or apathetic to the mother leaving them and then returning the final 15 percent were insecure resistant they were uneasy while their mother was present but they were upset when she left and they couldn't be comforted by strangers very similar studies to this have been carried out in a range of cultures all over the world this allows psychologists to judge if there are cultural norms in attachment a meta-analysis was done in 1988 by van issendone and cronenberg a meta-analysis is a study of many studies and this one came to the conclusion that there are indeed cross-cultural similarities in how children are raised and how infants form attachment that is that there seem to be some trends present all across the world that said however some subsequent research done later on has shown that there may be some cultural differences in how attachments form usually it's thought that these are a result of cultural norms in very specific areas like ideals of personal independence in germany and cultural norms of very strong family and religious ties in most arab nations it is generally thought that there are two main ways in which attachment can be broken or disrupted separation and deprivation separation is commonly enough when a child is away from their primary caregiver for a relatively short period of time like a few hours maybe a day or two deprivation on the other hand is when something wanted or needed is removed on a permanent basis bulby studied and focused on maternal deprivation which is when an infant is deprived of maternal care for a long period of time during infancy one landmark study was carried out by bolby in 1944 and is generally called the 44 juvenile thieves they study but to the backgrounds and specifically the infancy and childhood of 44 young delinquent criminals balbi found that there was indeed a link between childhood maternal deprivation and criminality slightly later on robertson and robertson in 1968 also carried out a naturalistic observation of a single child named john who was separated from his mother for a total of nine days this study concluded that this very short separation may have actually had a permanent damaging effect on john's relationship with his mother when they were reunited after nine days john was extremely reluctant to be affectionate and pushed his mother away maternal deprivation therefore as put forward by bolby has some evidence to back it up in subsequent years however it's been argued this is very reductionist bulby didn't consider all the factors like poverty social deprivation or genetics an institution in the context of attachment psychology is any organization which takes care of children and infants in place of a normal family setting normally we're talking about an orphanage fortunately in britain today this is a very rare type of organization through history however it was a sad and tragic reality for many children especially in urban areas working in 2007 ruta claimed that bolby had a very confused idea about deprivation rudder put forward definitions for deprivation and privation rutter suggested that deprivation is when a former attachment is broken but privation is when an attachment never forms at all sadly however the difference between the two is academic in reality it's very hard to tell between them and they have very very similar consequences in 1981 rutter examined several case studies of privation in each of these case studies a secure attachment had never been formed by the child one case study was the very sad one of genie this was first outlined by curtis in 1977 and research actually continues to this day genie had been treated through her childhood with unimaginable cruelty by her parents she never formed any kind of secure attachment and never had any kind of normal childhood genie was discovered by a complete accident when she was 13. when she was discovered she had almost no normal social skills whatsoever but gradually with competent care she gained a very basic level of function but she was never able to form any kind of normal relationships with anybody else today she remains in the care of the state in the early 1990s the extremely brutal authoritarian communist regime in romania fell this allowed the world and the world's media to see the country's many overcrowded orphanages containing thousands of children all of whom needed a home many of these children were adopted by british families and this gave psychologists an opportunity to study the effects of the orphanage on attachment one landmark study was done by rutter and a group of researchers in 2007 this was a longitudinal study done over several decades the children were assessed and examined at roughly six months old and then again at four years old six years old and finally at 11 years old it was found that the effects of privation can be reversed if the child is adopted at a young enough age it was identified that this age seems to be roughly six months old unfortunately however if the child is much older than this then it seems the long-term effects of probation can never be fully reversed this study essentially examined about 50 case studies over a great many years it has huge levels of ecological validity on the other hand however it is only a very small case study with a very small sample size a very similar study was done by hodges and tizzard in 1989 and this came to very similar conclusions but it also had a very small sample size as we've seen a great many studies have been done on children in orphanages and also on them as adults in later life these studies have suggested that there are five main possible consequences of children forming disrupted attachments at a young age the first is affectionless psychopathy the child will show little or no empathy and have almost no regard for how their actions impact upon others the second is anaclitic depression generally the child will show slow and impaired social development this is usually combined with recurrent insomnia and inability to sleep properly and often a lack of appetite the third is deprivation dwarfism generally the child will be physically underdeveloped as a result of sustained emotional deprivation fourth and slightly controversially delinquency generally children who've had disruptive attachments at a young age tend to end up carrying out a series of minor crimes on a regular basis as they grow older and fifth reduced intelligence generally the child's intellectual capacity will develop at a slower rate than normal as we've seen bulby developed the idea that our attachments as adults are guided by a template or model that we form as infants if our infant attachments are disrupted or in some way abnormal then it's likely our adult ones will be too bulby called this theory the internal working model our infant attachments form a model or template for how we will interact with our peers as adults if our infant attachments are secure happy and healthy then it's likely we'll go on to form normal healthy happy attachments as adults on the other hand however if we suffer insecure avoidant or insecure resistance attachments as infants then these will form our model for our adult attachments which will also be resistant or avoidant a landmark piece of research into this area was done by hazan and shaver in 1987. they used a series of questions and questionnaires in local newspapers to examine how the relationships of 620 people with their parents influenced their later expectations of adult romantic relationships indeed they found a correlation between insecure avoidant and insecure resistant childhood attachments and abnormal or disrupted expectations of adult relationships some studies have rather sadly suggested that children who experience disruptive or abnormal attachments will go on to have difficulties in formal forming normal relationships with their own children if this is the case it would provide an explanation for a whole range of social problems like recurrent deprivation rising crime rates and ingrained poverty unemployment working in 1984 clinton and a group of researchers compared the parenting of two groups of fifty women the first group of fifty women had experienced institutional care as children themselves the second group of fifty women had experienced a perfectly normal family life as children it was found that the first group that's the ones who had experienced institutional care as children were far more likely to encounter difficulties or problems as parents themselves the second group usually experience perfectly normal parenting attachments this would suggest that there is indeed a cycle of privation working in 1993 parker and forrest identified four symptoms experienced by individuals who tended to experience probation as children the first is an inability to give or receive affection the second is constant or recurring dishonesty the third is poor or disrupted social relationships and the fourth is delinquency or involvement in criminal behavior however on a more positive final note freud and dan working in 1951 found that the majority of child refugees arriving in britain during the second world war went on to experience completely normal cognitive development and relationships as adults in the following decades so it's not always all negative [Music] [Music] do [Music] like most important terms in psychology abnormality is a very difficult one to define every culture time period and society has a unique set of standard norms and he departs departure from these could easily be seen as abnormal unfortunately however deviation from these norms can easily be used to justify hatred prejudice oppression and cruelty political dissidents in authoritarian regimes have often been classed as psychologically abnormal to justify their repression and imprisonment the abnormality of homosexuality was used as an excuse to justify cruelty prejudice and hatred for hundreds and thousands of years social norms and rules also change over time the accepted role of women in society has evolved and changed very quickly over time periods many abnormal behaviors such as women having a career are seen as completely normal healthy and acceptable today one way of defining abnormality is as a deviation from statistical norms like having a very low iq or showing statistically infrequent behaviors like for example tourette's however this statistical description of abnormality doesn't take into account any desirability of behavior having a very iq say above 140 is abnormal but it's not a negative quality this definition also makes no distinct distinction between rare and harmless behavior and rare and dangerous behavior having an iq 20 or 30 points above average is rare but completely harmless but showing aggressive behavior outside the norm is rare but very dangerous a different way of defining abnormality is as a failure to function adequately this definition gives us various criteria for diagnosing abnormal behavior in general there are five the first is dysfunctional behavior this is behavior which goes against prevailing social norms and rules the second is observer discomfort this is behavior which causes others around us to be uncomfortable or embarrassed on our behalf the third is unpredictable behavior this is behavior which seems to be not under full control and can't be predicted accurately the fourth is irrational behavior this is behavior which has no logical basis or explanation behind it and the fifth is personal distress this is when the behavior of an individual is excessively informed by a variable emotional state controversially in 1958 a psychologist called jahoda outlined six conditions which were at least linked with an ideal state of mental health the first was positive self-attitude that is regarding yourself in a positive way the second is self-actualization which is realizing your potential and feeling fulfilled in your work and life the third is resistance to stress that is not becoming easily stressed by situations experiences or expectations the fourth is personal autonomy that's making decisions yourself about your own life and your own choices the fifth is accurate perception that's having a realistic and accurate view of reality around you and finally the sixth is adaptation being able to adapt to changes in your immediate environment in reality of course is extremely difficult if not impossible for any single individual to meet all six of these they're also a subjective list of what constitutes ideal mental health and opinions vary wildly as is obviously the case with physical illness the symptoms of mental illness are many and extremely varied however the uk department of health provides a very basic guide to symptoms of mental illness for a condition to be classified as an official mental illness by the nhs there should be at least one of the following present on a non-temporary basis the first is impairment of intellectual functions the individual experiences impaired mental functions like a lack of memory an inability to comprehend or reduce intelligence the second is alterations to mood the individual experiences swift rapid extreme changes in mood which may lead to delusions about the world around them and delusions about their past experiences or future expectations the third is delusional beliefs the individual experiences delusional or illogical beliefs like extreme jealousy or thoughts of persecution which have no evidence behind them whatsoever and no basis in fact the fourth is disordered thinking the individual is unable to communicate effectively with others and is also unable to accurately perceive events around them depression is classified by the dsm as a mood disorder the dsm is the american psychiatric association's diagnostic and statistical manual of mental health disorders given the length and complexity of the name it is normally abbreviated to simply dsm and this dsm is taken as a standard throughout much of the developed world a mood disorder like depression involves strong emotions usually a mood disorder usually causes an impact on thinking perceptions and behavior there are essentially two major types of depression major depression and manic depression major depression is usually described as being a unipolar having one pole it's a single episode of depression which can come on suddenly and unexpectedly and can be caused by internal factors like neurological or biological issues or external factors like for example grief on the other hand manic depression in contrast is bipolar an individual alternates between two extremes of mood this alternation between moods usually occurs in cycles the mania phase demonstrates very fast speech hyper or overactivity and agitation on the other hand the depression phase is characterized by the traditional common symptoms of depression depression is a very complex and varied issue sadly it affects and will affect a great and increasing number of people there are many symptoms but generally they can be grouped into three main types physical or behavioral symptoms cognitive symptoms and effective or emotional symptoms there are four physical and behavioral symptoms firstly insomnia and sleep disturbances secondly changes in appetite either eating much more than normal or much less than normal thirdly physical pain like headaches joint pain and muscle aches and fourth a generalized lack of physical activity and energy there are three main cognitive symptoms a persistent negative self-regard always thinking badly of oneself secondly suicidal or self-harm-related thoughts and thirdly much slower thought processes than normal and there are three effective or emotional symptoms firstly and perhaps most obviously feelings of extreme sadness and despair which continue for a long period of time secondly variations of mood mood swings and thirdly anedonia no longer enjoying activities and hobbies that were once pleasurable a phobia is an extreme and irrational fear therefore it's a type of anxiety disorder the dsm distinguishes between several types of phobias firstly specific phobias a specific phobia is a fear of a specific object experience or setting and it can be divided further into five subtypes firstly animal phobias like a fear of snakes or spiders secondly environmental phobias like a fear of snow or thunder thirdly blood injection injury phobias like a fear of blood or needles fourthly situational phobias like a fear of heights and fifth other which is everything else the second broad group of phobias is agoraphobia this is a fear of open spaces crowds not being a home or even just a fear of social interaction agoraphobia is complex and quite often it's rooted in a deeper fear of not being able to escape or get away from the situation unfortunately agoraphobia can develop as a direct result of other phobias to take an extreme example a fear of grass may lead to an individual being afraid at all times to leave their house thirdly we have social anxiety disorder commonly called sad this is sometimes known as social phobia and it's basically a fear of being in a social situation or drawing attention to oneself like depression phobias are much more complex than people think the dsm if several types of phobias as we've seen but they all have quite similar clinical characteristics firstly we have cognitive symptoms usually these are irrational beliefs without evidence about the presence or extent of danger posed by any object or situation the individual will also be completely overwhelmed by their fear and dread and they are unable to function normally when the phobia overcomes them the second are behavioral symptoms the individual will be unable to behave in ways which conform to prevailing social norms quite often they'll behave in quite odd or unusual or extreme ways which are specifically if unconsciously designed to avoid an object or situation quite often the individual will be restless easily scared or overly nervous thirdly we have physical symptoms the individual will often show increased adrenaline quantities and a higher than normal heart rate when in the presence of the stimulus sometimes in extreme cases they may even display aggression and heightened muscle tension fourthly we have emotional symptoms the individual will experience strong emotional feelings of dread and panic the dsm also gives a list of diagnostic criteria for phobias an individual usually must show a majority of the following to be formally diagnosed firstly there is a significant and prolonged fear which lasts more than six months and is therefore not temporary secondly the individual shows an anxiety response to the stimulus thirdly this fear dread or anxiety response is out of all proportion to the actual danger being terrified of snakes when you're in the presence of a deadly cobra is not irrational being afraid of snakes when one comes on the tv is irrational fourthly the individual changes their normal behavior to avoid the stimulus by driving for example a long way out of their way fifth the level of fear experienced is disruptive to the everyday life of the individual ocd stands for obsessive compulsive disorder previously this condition has been little understood but it appears to be becoming more common roughly two percent of the population are affected by it in some way and therefore psychologists are pouring more and more time into studying and explaining it in the hope of finding some sort of cure people suffering from ocd suffer obsessions about a particular object or process and then compulsions to carry out a specific action the obsessions are cognitive they affect thinking patterns the compulsions on the other hand are behavioral and affect our actions obsessions can be defined as constant recurring persistent intrusive thoughts about a particular thing quite often they take the form of constantly worrying about something all the time for these thoughts to be classified as obsessions according to the dsm they must be unwanted impossible to ignore and not caused by anything else like medical treatment or substance abuse compulsions are a physical or less commonly mental repetitive action like repeatedly checking that the oven is off or that the door is locked for example for these actions to be classified formally as compulsions according to the dsm they must be repetitive they must reduce anxiety and again they must not be caused by anything exterior like medical treatment or substance abuse there are four main types of ocd compulsion behaviors the first is checking like checking that something is locked again and again and again or checking many many times a day that you have your wallet or phone or keys for example the second is contamination like a constant persistent need to repeatedly clean something which perhaps we all gain through the kobit 19 pandemic third is hoarding like keeping useless objects for no reasonable or explainable reason and finally the fourth is oddliness like getting books into precise alphabetical order for no reasonable purpose unfortunately but increasingly depression has a huge impact on the everyday lives of a great many people the cognitive approach to psychology focuses on thoughts and thought processes in an effort to manage or treat the problem fairly early on back in 1962 ellis put forward the abc model this is the idea that an activating event a leads to a belief b which then leads to a consequence c this would suggest that depression can be managed or treated either by avoiding the activating event a or by preventing the subsequent belief b from being irrational a year later beck put forward the negative triad this suggests that negative thoughts about ourselves the future and the wider world around us all combined together to lead to clinical depression this cognitive approach which focuses on thought processes can provide useful ways to treat depression like as we'll see cognitive behavioral therapy there has also been some experimental evidence that negative thinking and depressive thoughts can be avoided leading to depressive symptoms being reduced or even avoided entirely that said however on the other hand it has been suggested that faulty cognition or faulty thinking may simply be a byproduct and a result of other issues like chemical imbalances in the brain or genetic issues one major ethical issue with this cognitive approach is that to some extent inevitably it places blame for the issue on the patient in a worst case scenario this can simply make their depression much worse cbt stands for cognitive behavior or behavioral therapy this is a type of therapy which aims to identify and then change faulty thinking and faulty cognitions many different types of cbt exist and they're all slightly different but generally there's a set overarching process the first part is identification the therapist and the patient work together to try and identify and isolate faulty thought processes and faulty cognitions this is then followed by realization the therapist tries gradually to guide and help the patient realize that these cognitions are false and not based in reality or evidence thirdly goals the patient and the therapist set goals together to gradually work towards which gives the patient a sense of movement and progress which can help in itself falsely present the therapist tries to keep the patient in the present moment at that time the ideal is that this prevents them worrying about the future or dwelling on negative events in the past finally recording the patient at least tries to keep a detailed personal diary the idea being that this allows them to see progress and try to control their thought patterns cbt does have many advantages it empowers patients it seems at least to be generally effective and it can be relatively cheap on the downside however cbt is completely developed dependent on the skill of the therapist in the short term it can be quite expensive it's very time intensive and sadly like any treatment it doesn't always get the desired results the behaviorist approach to psychology argues that irrational fears are actually learned through conditioning if they can be learned it logically follows that they can be unlearned or forgotten in classical conditioning a natural fear response to a present danger in our environment can become linked with a particular but harmless stimulus the process works like this firstly a certain harmless stimulus like a small spider a loud noise or a crowd of people begins as an unconditioned stimulus often known as a ucs this causes a natural response called an unconditioned response or ucr when this unconditioned stimulus is presented with another stimulus which is actually dangerous like a huge dangerous spider the two become intrinsically linked if this is repeated over time the harmless stimulus alone can produce the fear response which is known as the conditioned response or cr operand conditioning works in a very similar way but in the opposite direction it reinforces the consequences of actions it doesn't cause phobias but it's responsible for maintaining them this explanation of how phobias occur does have some experimental evidence it was found that there was a link between traffic accidents a genuine danger and a fear of cars and irrational phobia cars themselves are not scary that said however some phobias are present even when the fear has never actually been encountered this suggests that there must at some level be another explanation like evolutionary biology or simple genetics there are two main ways of treating phobias using the behavioral approach systematic desensitization and flooding they're actually very similar and in many ways systematic desensitization is just a more refined version of flooding which is very much a blunt instrument systematic desensitization uses gradual relaxation techniques to gradually reduce fear over time the patient begins by implementing some relaxation techniques like meditation then the fear stimulus is gradually introduced first to that imaginary level and then actually physically in person as the patient suffers no negative consequences from the stimulus over time they gradually learn to maintain this relaxed composure when the stimulus is introduced given time and repeated exposure the patient continues to remain calm when presented with the stimulus in a natural environment at this point the phobia has been cured or at least reduced flooding works in a very similar way but it's much more sudden and brutal the patient is quickly and unexpectedly overwhelmed with large amounts of the stimulus like many snakes or spiders are being placed atop a skyscraper when they have a fear of heights they maintain this position or this proximity to the fair stimulus until nothing negative has occurred and in theory the anxiety will abate obviously flooding has huge ethical issues it can actually make phobias much worse and it's rarely used today on the other hand systematic desensitization has seen some success but it does require huge amounts of time and therefore expense and a high and continued level of attendance and commitment from the patient which can't always be guaranteed the biological approach to ocd assumes that psychological disorders are always caused by physical problems within the structure of the body itself this biological approach therefore outlines three different types of factors which may cause ocd the first are genetic factors this idea suggests that genetic defects or abnormalities in dna could lead to malfunctions within the brain structure and function which could then lead to ocd there is actually some experimental evidence for this but studies have only found a correlation never a causal relationship this would suggest that some other factors must be involved and indeed it's possible that one factor could cause the genetic issue and the ocd at the same time the second are biochemical factors this would suggest that abnormalities within body chemistry may cause obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors more specifically it's thought that a chemical called serotonin which acts as a neurotransmitter may be at the root of the issue but this has never been conclusively proven thirdly we have neurological factors this would suggest that physical deformities in the brain structure might cause ocd there's also been some experimental evidence for this but damage to the brain itself has not been found on 100 of patients suffering ocd so that's only a correlation and once again there must be some other explanations this biological approach to obsessive compulsive disorder inevitably leads to the conclusion that ocd can be treated with biological therapy essentially biological therapy is usually a euphemism for drug treatment quite often this involves selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors as that is rather a mouthful they're usually shot to ssris which prevent the real take of serotonin and hence influence brain function there's some experimental evidence that this can indeed work scientific research has shown that ssris are much better than a placebo at reducing obsessional thoughts and compulsive behaviors a placebo is something which looks and feels like normal medicine but it's actually just sugar for example and has no actual effect some other antidepressants which don't interact with serotonin seem to have little or no impact on ocd symptoms which further backs up this idea on the downside however ssris can and usually are extremely expensive they have to be taken over prolonged periods of time this causes significant expense to either the patient or the state a lot of people quite understandably have issues with taking mind-altering medication which impacts their mental state there is unfortunately even in the 21st century a stigma attached to medical drugs and antidepressants finally no drugs and no medicine are without side effects the side effects of medication which affects mental processes can be severe indeed and therefore many patients are understandably reluctant to take them [Music] foreign [Music] psychology is a subject and discipline which draws huge amounts of pure public curiosity and interest unfortunately however the general public usually knows quite a small amount beyond myths cliches and bland generalities to make this worse there is also often confusion between psychology and psychiatry to be clear and draw a dividing line psychology is the scientific study of the mind and human behavior psychiatry on the other hand is the diagnosis and then treatment of disease and illnesses of the mind there has also been a very long-running debate in psychology about if it's actually a science or not today at least however most psychologists think that it is it involves evidence-based research the scientific method and fact-based reporting that said and one reason for the confusion is that psychology is a relatively new and young science chemistry biology and physics which are often thought of as being the hard sciences have roots that are at least thousands of years old going all the way back to the ancient greeks psychology really begins in the 19th century like most scientists however psychology has several schools of thought sets of general principles known as approaches there are actually a huge number of these but for a level psychology we will look in some detail at the behavioral approach the psychodynamic approach the cognitive approach the biological approach and the humanistic approach no single one of these many approaches ever has all the answers rather they are all slightly different ways and slightly different methods of approaching psychology and approaching research wilhelm wundt lived from 1832 to 1920 and was a major figure in the very early years of psychology during this period wundt opened a institute for experimental psychology in 1879 and gradually began to separate psychology as a science from philosophy as an arts or humanities study in these very early days once used introspection as a method to study the mind and behavior introspection is a method which encourages the individual or the patient to internally analyze their own feelings thoughts and emotions introspection can be useful but it's a simplistic and blunt tool it can provide any unbiased or numerical data but all the way back in 1879 there wasn't a better method or more reliable technology like we have today for one to obtain numerical hard data these experiments were the first even partially scientific approach in the field of psychology and they provide an anchor or starting point from which other research was and has been done as with many scientists of the time once believed in reductionism reductionism is a somewhat controversial theory today and it is that everything can be reduced to simple cause and effects relationships it was a popular idea through the 19th century but has tailed off in the modern era a key question that we have to look at is psychology a science there's still a lot of debate and some controversy today about the nature of psychology some people put it in the same group as hard sciences biobiology chemistry physics and mathematics others however place it with the slightly softer sciences of political science international relations and economics there are however several common features and principles that mark something out as being scientific in nature the first of these is objectivity scientific subjects look at things objectively and without bias opinion or preconceptions the second is control scientific experiments and research takes place under very carefully controlled conditions to eliminate variables the third is predictability the data that we gain from scientific experimentation can generally and usually be used to predict future behavior and events as an example previous experiments have shown that halley's comet comes around roughly once every 80 years and this can be used to predict when it will turn up again with some accuracy the fourth is hypothesis testing theories and existing knowledge in a scientific subject should generate predictions known as hypotheses which can then be tested experimentally and fifth and finally replication any experiments done for a scientific subject should be capable of being precisely replicated so some confidence can be had in the results psychology as a discipline does have many of these features to an extent it has some of all of them because of this most people do consider it to be a science but there are some complications psychology unlike for example chemistry often involves a huge amount of outside extraneous variables it also involves some unreliable methods usually because we're looking at the mind and the brain which we can't directly examine behaviorism and with it the behavioral approach to psychology is sometimes known by another name learning theory and it began in the usa in the very early 20th century john watson was a pioneering researcher in behaviorism and he felt that the early work that had been done by wilhelm wundt was both flawed in method and unscientific in outlook therefore john watson developed three basic theoretical assumptions about behaviorism firstly that nearly all human behavior is learnt what's the thought that we all have a few basic inbuilt abilities usually reflexes that have come from our evolutionary process but all of our other behavior outside this is learned gradually over time some evidence has shown us however that we may have many more reflexes and evolutionary triggers and drives than was initially thought so this might not actually be true secondly watson theorized that animals and humans learn in basically similar ways watson thought that the principles by which we learn behavior are similar to the ways animals learn and thirdly watson believed the mind isn't actually relevant he thought that since we can't see the mind itself we can only learn about it and how the mind works through directly measurable behaviors in essence what we think is irrelevant but what we do is important these three basic assumptions about behavior can then be used to develop research methods for the behavioral approach to psychology the first principle was that nearly all behavior is learned it therefore logically follows that understanding the mechanism and principles of learning becomes the major research goal for behavioral psychology that is what we're trying to understand the second assumption was that animals and humans learn in basically the same ways so therefore our understanding of behavior in humans can be advanced by performing research grizzly though it sometimes is on animals this has many practical advantages usually cost is fairly cheap ease animals are easy to come by and the fact animals always behave somewhat naturally as they're not sentient to an extent but it also generates many ethical issues usually around informed consent and the potential harm to the participant animals in any study animal research therefore has to be carefully weighed up and the usual guide that's taken is that there has to be a reasonable scientific reason for doing the research the third assumption was that the mind is not relevant therefore we only need to measure observable and quantifiable behavior that actually happens such as how long it takes for an action like pressing a button or pulling a lever to be carried out or how many times that button or lever is pressed up pulled it therefore naturally follows that a great deal of the research used in behavioral psychology is done in a lab this has advantages but as we'll see it also has problems as well when looking at behavioral psychology it's extremely important to understand how classical conditioning works and there's no better example to look at than that of pavlov pavlov is a famous if extremely controversial name in behavioral psychology pavlov carried out a series of notable but ethically very dodgy experiments using dogs in russia in the very early 1900s to be more specific pavlov studied how dogs salivated when they were presented with food he then linked the food with another stimulus to see if he could make dogs salivate when presented with something completely unrelated to food in order to do this every time the dogs were fed pavlov rang a bell eventually the dogs associated the bell with the food after some time and some repetition the dogs began to salivate at the sound of the bell without the food present this was an example of classical conditioning and there are three main steps firstly before conditioning takes place a certain stimulus like like food for example is an unconditioned stimulus usually shortened to ucs this causes a completely natural evolutionary reflex known as the unconditioned response or ucr during the conditioning this unconditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented with another stimulus which causes the same unconditioned response or ucr when this is done many times conditioning has occurred and after conditioning the other stimulus presented by itself has become a conditioned stimulus or cs which will cause a conditioned response or cr in this case the conditioned stimulus became the bell and the conditioned response became salivating classical conditioning is fairly straightforward but it does rely on several principles these principles underline underpin the process and allow us to understand it in more detail the first is generalization stimuli which is similar but not precisely and exactly the same to the initial condition stimulus like a slightly louder bell or a bell with a slightly different pitch for example will still produce the conditioned response secondly discrimination when stimuli is similar to the initial conditioned stimulus do not produce a conditioned response this conditioned response can be achieved by withholding the first unconditioned stimulus thirdly extinction when the conditioned response isn't generated as a result of the conditioned stimulus this is usually because the conditioned stimulus has been repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus the bell without the food fourth spontaneous recovery when a conditioned response which was extinct is produced in response to the conditioned stimulus this happens because the conditioned stimulus like the bell for example is presented after a gap in time when it has not been used and finally higher order conditioning this is when the new conditioned stimulus can produce the conditioned response because it's linked with the initial condition stimulus another are different bell for example in pavlov's example operant conditioning is very similar to classical conditioning but with one major difference operant conditioning relies on the consequences of actions in essence it works in the other way round generally operant conditioning can be broken down into two main processes the first is positive reinforcement positive reinforcement is when we gain something pleasurable from our actions to take an example a very well-behaved child may receive a suite which can encourage very good behavior in the future reinforcing that positive behavior the second is negative reinforcement this is when we're punished or there are negative consequences for negative behaviors to use a similar example a badly behaved child may have a toy removed this discourages negative behavior in the future at least in theory skinner in 1938 carried out a series of experiments on rats to demonstrate and investigate operant conditioning unfortunately however they used a series of very painful electrical shocks even by the lack standards of the late 1930s these experiments were brutal and unethical when we come to evaluate the behavioral approach to psychology there are a wide range of factors we need to consider on the plus side there is a large body of scientific evidence to show the existence and function of both classical and operant conditioning as we've seen however a huge amount of this research has used animal studies of extremely dubious ethics another issue with these is that they can't be generalized to humans as you may expect animal studies today in an area of much more stringent ethical requirements are rarer there are strict ethical guidelines in place about the treatment and care of participant animals in studies many people both inside and outside psychology consider behaviorism and the behavioral approach to be a reductionist view it seeks to reduce the complex concepts and events of the mind to simple cause and effect relationships and understandably not everybody is comfortable with that it's also worth noting that some of the studies that have used human participants have also been deeply unethical and flawed one particular study is of note here it was done in 1920 and involved a one-year-old baby called little albert using extremely loud and startling noises little albert was deliberately given a fair response towards innocuous white fluffy objects this was effectively cruelty towards the baby and is an extreme case of very dubious ethics in psychological experiments there is absolutely no way that this experiment could or would be repeated today unfortunately cruelty towards both animals and human participants has been a long-running theme in the behavioral approach to psychology social learning theory is an advancement on and a slightly more refined theory about behaviorism it uses many of the same principles but it applies them to a much more wide examination of human social behavior this followed much later on in the 20th century and a lot of the research was done by a psychologist called bandura in the 1960s bandura theorized and claimed that behavior is learned throughout the reinforcement of vicarious reinforcement reinforcement as we've seen is when we are rewarded for certain types of behavior for example hard work resulting eventually in a higher wage or good behavior in children leading to receiving a suite good behavior in dogs leading to receiving a treat and so on however vicarious reinforcement is when we observe the behavior of others around us if for example we see somebody else benefiting from aggressive behavior we're much more likely to replicate the behavior ourselves because we are seeking the same benefits bandura suggested however that certain conditions must be met for learning to happen in this way through vicarious reinforcement the first is attention we must pay attention to the behavior of others to perceive it and then learn from it the second is retention we must remember the behavior of others for it to influence our own behavior the third is reproduction if we remember the behavior of others it becomes much more likely we will reproduce it ourselves seeking the same benefits and fourthly motivation the likelihood of us replicating the behavior of others around us depends on if we see the other person being rewarded in some way for that behavior the cognitive approach to psychology focuses on how we perceive the world and events around us how we then process that information and the outcomes in terms of behavior and emotions that this leads to cognitive psychology therefore attempts to explain and then predict human behavior based on our memory our senses our perception of the world around us the language we use and our attention it's worth noting right at the outset as we look at the cognitive approach that a lot of people consider it to be reductionist it draws a lot of parallels between the mental processes of humans and those of a computer with inputs processes and outcomes to this end the cognitive approach even develops computer models and theoretical models as aids to understanding how and why humans behave in the ways that we all do therefore the cognitive approach to psychology actually uses three main types of experiment the first of these is laboratory research the vast majority of all the research done for the cognitive approach to psychology is done in a lab this means that extraneous outside variables are easily eliminated so they don't affect the research but it also means there's very limited ecological validity and we can't always or even often generalize the results from laboratory research out to a natural human population slightly less common are field experiments field experiments take place in a natural situation in the field like a school or an office they have more ecological validity than laboratory experiments and they're there far more generalizable but there's also a lot more variables which can be hard to control thirdly and least commonly we have natural experiments which do sometimes happen for the cognitive approach these involve observing naturally occurring events without influencing or directing them in any way they have huge levels of ecological validity and they can be generalized but they also have many variables which can't be controlled at all cognitive psychology was mostly a post-world war ii development that came about through the 1950s and early 1960s this was also the age where computing came on leaps and bounds it developed swiftly and computers became more common in government and business psychologists began to see some links and some parallels between how computers work and how we behave and indeed some of those parallels went into designing computers so that's not perhaps unexpected because of this cognitive psychology has three essential underlying principles firstly our mental systems have a limited capacity the amount of information we can process and handle at any single one time is limited this gives us a limited mental capacity in a very similar way to how computers have limited operating memory if you've got too many tabs open at any one time things freeze and it's very similar for us secondly a control mechanism oversees all mental processes for computers this is a processor chip for humans this is the brain and conscious mind thirdly there's a two-way flow of information a computer takes in information through the keyboard and mouse we take information through our senses computer outputs information through a printer or monitor we output information as behavior and emotions as we've seen cognitive psychology looks at the brain almost as a computer and it's even developed the computer model as one explanation of how we process information and then use it to generate behavior and emotions as we've already seen a computer takes in information through a keyboard or a mouse our brain takes in information through our sense organs eyes ears nose for example a computer would pass on information that's been put into it through wires the equivalent for our brains is neurons these signals are then processed by a central coordinator for computers this is a computer processing chip a cpu on the motherboard but for us it's the brain this processor then goes on to generate some sort of outcome for a computer this can be a noise or sound or displayed information or a printout for humans its emotions feelings actions or behaviors this seems logical enough there are however differences between how computers operate and how humans operate this seems very obvious to us today we're not computers but back in the 1950s and 60s when computers were in their infancy it wasn't so clear we have emotions and levels of motivation computers don't they're always motivated but they do encounter software and hardware glitches and issues which can cause problems in the same way that our level of motivation or emotions can cause problems for us in theory at least humans have an infinite memory capacity but it's not always reliable and we incorrectly remember things computers have a hard cap on their memory it's not infinite but it is always reliable a computer can bring back a 2 000 word document without any trouble something most of us would certainly struggle to do we have free will to decide our actions computers don't have this but developments in artificial intelligence and technology is bringing the idea of computers with free will terrifyingly closer and closer a very important idea in cognitive psychology is a schema a schema can be defined as everything you know about an object event or concept for example for most of us our existing schema of the car is that it has four wheels some doors an engine and a few seats schemers help us organize and process the world around us they also adapt and change as we're presented with new and different information as we learn and grow if new information about something is consistent with or agrees with our existing schema then it's added to that schema which becomes more and more detailed however if new information is inconsistent with or disagrees with our existing schema then we have to make an accommodation we have to change our existing schema to handle and deal with this new information for example a child may have a schema that all cats are black because every cat they've ever seen has been black when they're presented with a ginger cat they must make an accommodation and change their schema to deal with this new information they will then think cats can be black or ginger in essence there are three basic different types of schema the first of these are role schemers these contain information about people in certain roles and what to expect people like the police doctors teachers or parents the second are event schemers these contain information about certain events like a birthday party placing an order in a cafe or restaurant or speaking to your friends and they contain all the information you need to go through that event thirdly and perhaps most controversially self-schemers these contain information about ourselves our skills and personality for example one key development in the cognitive approach was cognitive neuroscience in the 1970s medical technology and therefore our understanding of the structure and function of the brain advanced very quickly there was a whole flurry of new techniques and tests that were developed and the discipline of cognitive neuroscience was born this discipline combined cognitive psychology with medical neuroscience with a goal to try and explain and predict behavior and also to treat some psychological and psychiatric conditions like depression aggression and schizophrenia at a very basic level cognitive neuroscience seeks to map brain function that is to work out which bits of the brain handle different bits of our emotions and behavior several techniques have been developed to help us do this and this is by no means a completely exhaustive list the first is lesion studies these examine the brains and the behavior of patients with a physical brain damage to try and determine which bits of the brain are responsible for certain functions if the brain of somebody for example has a small amount of structural damage and they can no longer process long-term memories that suggests that particular bit of the brain is linked to long-term memory the second is electrophysiology this uses electrical and magnetic fields to examine brain function thirdly we have neuro imaging this uses complex imaging like pet scans to gradually build up an accurate structural map of the brain as we evaluate this cognitive approach to psychology there are a number of factors both positive and the negative that we need to take into account the cognitive approach considers mental processes and brain functions these are often overlooked by other approaches to psychology which is useful it also approaches psychology as pure hard science and seeks to link actual physical brain function with our displayed behavior this has been very useful in developing therapies and biological medicines which have indeed helped large numbers of patients especially with depression as we've seen however the computer model based nature of this cognitive approach is always going to be reductionist it ignores individual differences between each of us and tries to reduce the entire human experience and the entirety of human behavior to simplistic cause and effect computer relationships many people are not comfortable with this and like to build in the idea of free will a large amount indeed the vast majority of the research done for cognitive psychology has been done in a lab this does minimize variables but it also limits ecological validity and we can't ever be sure that any kind of results and data that we've got in a lab can be generalized to the real world and the behavior of humans in that real world finally many people consider that the cognitive approach is far too computer-based and dependent it ignores free will and it treats us all as computers and mere processes of information something that again a lot of people are not ethically comfortable with the biological approach to psychology makes three main assumptions firstly that human behavior can be explained and then can be predicted by looking at biological factors lab biochemistry evolution genetics body structure and body function secondly if we can explain behavior through biological factors then mental illness or socially undesirable behavior like aggression can be eliminated or cured using biological techniques like surgery or medicine the third assumption is that as dna and a huge amount of structure and function is universal between organisms animal studies can be used to inform us of human body structure our body chemistry and function genetics forms a key part of the biological approach to psychology this isn't a level biology and you don't need to know precise and in-depth details of how genetics works but a very basic understanding is useful the vast majority of us have 23 pairs of 2 and therefore 46 chromosomes which are inherited in random combinations from our parents 23 from our mother 23 from our father each of these chromosomes is made up of dna which is formed into many individual genes the vast majority of these genes have no influence on our appearance traits or behaviors but some of the other ones cause us to have displayed characteristics there are two words which is important to understand here as they'll be used a lot as we look at the biological approach our genotype is our genetic makeup our actual precise dna our phenotype is our displayed characteristics which result from that dna the theory of evolution by natural selection was first put forward in a coherent way by charles darwin in the 19th century it was fairly controversial then as some people didn't like it and that does remain the case in parts of the world today but the theory of evolution is accepted by science as a proven explanation for the development and advancement of organisms and life on earth natural selection is the mechanism by which evolution occurs and operates in essence individuals with characteristics and behavior that is best adapted to their environment are most likely to survive the individuals that are most likely to survive are therefore the ones who are most likely to breed in procreating they pass on their genetic information their children has these characteristics too and they themselves are therefore more likely to survive and therefore breed therefore gradually and over a huge span of time preferable characteristics to the environment become common among a species it has evolved and as a species it's better suited to that environment and more likely to survive genetics can also provide some explanation for some psychological conditions some diseases like huntington's are caused entirely by random genetic mutation biological psychologists also suggest that our genetics explain much of our behavior even including things like aggression or addiction both twins and adoption are extremely useful phenomena for biological psychology identical twins share 100 of their genes this makes them extremely useful if quite unusual twin studies like the one done by gottesman in 1991 look at how often the same condition or the same displayed behavior occurs in both members of a pair of twins twin studies have high levels of ecological validity but they usually only produce correlational results and can't prove a causative link one good example of this is a study done in 1991 by gotesman that found that if one twin developed schizophrenia then there was a 48 chance the other one would have it too compared to only 17 in non-identical twins this suggests at least a genetic influence on the disease but it also suggests there must be other factors involved too it suggests a correlation but not a cause adoption studies are also very useful for biological psychologists if one adopted child in an environment displays similar characteristics or behavior to other children within the home who aren't adopted then this suggests the behavior or characteristic isn't genetic and its root cause in some way is environmental an adoption study that was done by heston in 1966 found that schizophrenia probably was genetic and not dependent on the surrounding environment unfortunately both twin studies and adoption studies usually involve the use of children in psychological research this can be very difficult ethically they don't always fully understand the process or the research and they're therefore unable to give informed consent they may also suffer harm or distress in the process even today despite massive advances in technology science has only a very limited and partial understanding of the structure and function of the brain it mostly remains a mystery unlike a liver or kidney or gallbladder the brain can't be directly examined without causing extreme harm it's delicate complex and inaccessible before the advances in modern technology the only really reliable way to examine how brain structure impacts on behavior was to look at the available cases of brain damaged patients and then look at their behavior to try and draw a link one notable study was that of phineas cage in 1848 which has become quite famous phineas suffered extreme brain damage in an industrial accident in fact a steel pole was driven through his eye and out through the back of his head understandably this changed his personality and his emotions effectively he went from a pleasant sunny man to being grumpy and insufferable modern technology however has developed five basic ways that we can examine the brain in more detail without risking sustained harm to it the first are pet scans pet scans show which parts of the brain are active when different tasks are carried out but they could only show averages over a period usually of half an hour rather than a real time readout which would be far more useful the second are cat scans these show damaged parts of the brain like tumors or blood clots the third are mri scans these provide detailed structural information about the brain the fourth are functional mri scans who also provide detailed structural and functional information about the brain and finally there's squid magnetometry often known as squid scans these provide very accurate real-time images of their activity within the brain but they're delicate and very easily distorted by magnetic fields making them difficult time consuming and expensive to carry out when we evaluate the biological approach to psychology there are a great many factors we must consider firstly and perhaps most importantly this biological approach has been invaluable in investigating and even developing possible cures for several conditions the first is aggression research done all the way back in 1948 by bad and mount castle did find a link between brain damage in cats and subsequent aggression the second is memory some case studies have been done which have used brain damage patients and looked at memory these have shown links between structural damage to the brain and subsequent memory loss thirdly schizophrenia relatively recent research in the 1990s has shown some links between structural damage to the prefrontal cortex of the brain and the onset of schizophrenia neurochemistry may also provide explanations of behavior some investigations have shown links between certain specific neurotransmitters and subsequent behaviors like the link between dopamine and schizophrenia it's also been theorized that neurochemistry could provide explanations for how certain substances like cocaine influence our emotions and our mental state which could eventually be used to provide a cure for the addiction that said however the biological approach has been criticized for ignoring individual circumstances and differences like their surrounding environment our family our socioeconomic situation and our upbringing a lot of people also feel that biological explanations for behaviors like aggression and aggression being caused by structural brain issues is a main theory of the biological approach resolves that individual of responsibility for their actions in essence many people feel that the biological approach gives people an excuse finally a lot of the evidence and the background research done for the biological approach is unfortunately based on animal studies as we've already seen these involve lots of ethical issues and the results of them can't usually be generalized to humans the psychodynamic approach to psychology was first developed by sigmund freud freud remains the most famous psychological researcher and practitioner and is perhaps the figure most associated with psychology by the general public psycho denotes the mind dynamic denotes change or activity so the psychodynamic approach can be summed up as looking at change within the mind freud developed three fundamental principles on which the psychodynamic approach is based the first is that human behavior has causes which are buried beneath our conscious mind and that we are usually unaware of the second is that from the point of our birth we all have basic physical needs and motivations like food and warmth and physical comfort the third is that childhood experiences have a huge influence on our later psyche and therefore a huge influence on our later behavior moving on from these freud developed three basic levels of consciousness the first is our conscious this is what we are actively aware of and what we're thinking about at any given time through our internal monologue the second is our pre-conscious this is our memories and experiences that we can recall whenever we want or need to but they're not usually on the surface and the third is our unconscious this is mostly made up of memories preferences and fears which we can't directly access but we still have a great influence on our behavior freud also theorized that there are three parts or components to our personality the id the ego and the superego the id is the basic evolutionary animal part of our personality it has basic evolutionary needs and drives like for warmth or food it is part of our subconscious mind and is always there it's present from our birth the ego is both conscious and unconscious it's rational and it's there to balance our id and our superego as a regulatory mechanism to balance our behavior and emotions like the ego the superego is also in both the conscious and unconscious mind it's our morals and principles and causes feelings of guilt freud suggested that it includes patterns of behavior that we pick up and learn from our parents freud theorized that our behaviors and feelings could be explained by looking at how these different parts of our personality interacted with each other in particular freud suggested that conflict could arise between the id ego and superego and that this was the cause of most psychological issues like depression or anxiety as we've seen freud suggested that conflict and strife between the id the ego and the superego could cause issues and lead to problems like anxiety he therefore also suggested that we all have three unconscious defense mechanisms to try and prevent this happening and that these are repression denial and displacement repression is when the ego stops unwanted thoughts or memories from being conscious ones it stops them being dragged back into our conscious mind we bury them beneath the surface so they don't trouble us freud suggested that this may be why we don't always remember traumatic events and experiences denial is when we ignore or block an unwanted or traumatic event or reality an example of this would be somebody who's an alcoholic simply denying and refusing to believe they have a problem this may help us deal with immediate trauma but it comes at a cost that cost is that we ignore a problem or issue which may then escalate and become gradually worse displacement is when a negative feeling or a negative emotion is misdirected onto another individual or object a good example of this is that an individual who's been made angry through a traffic jam may take out that anger on another driver even though that driver is clearly not responsible and didn't cause the jam they've misdirected that anger and therefore displacement has occurred through research mostly done in the 19th century freud proposed that all children go through five basic stages of development the first of these is the oral stage which goes from birth to about 18 months infants at this stage according to freud display sucking behavior the second is the anal stage which runs from 18 months to about three and a half years freud put forward the idea that children in this stage have a tendency to retain feces and show a fascination with it the third of freud stages is the phallic stage which runs from about three and a half to six years children in this age group often display a fixation on their genitals and sometimes even display the electra or oedipus complex the fourth is the latent stage which runs from about six years old through to puberty in the teenage years freud theorized that during this quite long age range the child would display repressed and unaware sexual urges and the fifth is the genital phase which runs from puberty all the way through to adulthood freud's theory was that during this age range the child would display awakened and overt sexual urges freud's theory was that each of these stages somehow involved the child trying to obtain a kind of pleasure through the use of various parts of the body how much pleasure the individual infant or child is able to gain is influenced by their parents their role models and other factors in their surrounding environment if a child gets too much or too little pleasure at any single stage of this development process then freud's theory was that they become stuck or fixated at that particular level and that this would go on to cause psychological problems in their later life freud's theories were the very first to try and focus on the root causes of mental illness prior work had always tried to find some sort of physical cause or in the case of some they'd wandered off into the realm of metaphysics like trying to find evil spirits or possession freud was also the first psychological professional to try and link psychological illness with biological needs there was some case study evidence but it was very limited for this psychodynamic approach one good example of this is the study of little hands by freud in 1909 the biggest advantage of this research and approach however is that it led to therapy to those who needed it one of the major advances that freud made was to turn psychology from a discipline of pure research into one of treatment useful to the general public and wider society that said however there are problems freud's claims and theories are based on case studies and interpretation they're all subjective and easily open to opinions or bias because they all relate to the mind they can't be proved wrong through scientific research psychoanalysis and the therapy which follows from it is extremely time consuming and expensive it requires the use of a dedicated highly trained therapist most controversially freud's methods included the linking of children parents and sex this idea remains controversial and it's little understood by the general public despite freud being a very well-known figure the final approach that we're going to look at is the humanistic approach to psychology humanistic psychology is a relatively recent discipline mostly developed in the more socially liberal times of the 60s 70s and 80s it focuses on the needs of the individual and views that person holistically as a whole person humanistic psychology believes people are inherently good and that we all have the ability to achieve our full potential as a person as we've seen other approaches focus on biological problems or cognitive processes or even our childhoods but humanistic psychology focuses entirely on the emotions and feelings of the individual person or patient it therefore generates a cause and effect relationship between an individual's self-image and their feelings and emotions and therefore their behavior many other approaches are deterministic they assume that our feelings and our emotions and therefore our resulting behaviors are caused by things outside of our control like genetics or our unconscious mind in contrast the humanistic approach assumes free will that we're all in control of our feelings and emotions through our self-regard and our self-image humanistic psychology therefore also believes that we are all motivated to be the best possible versions of ourselves through using our free will some of our needs are universal we all need food water and shelter but some are specific to us like our relationship needs our hobby goals and our career goals maslow was a researcher who was a forerunner to humanistic psychology and in 1943 maslow developed a hierarchy of needs this hierarchy of needs places our various physical needs as an individual in context and in order together with our emotional needs bringing them together the first and lowest tier is our basic survival needs this lowest tier contains all the basic physical needs like food water sleep shelter and sex that's needed to continue the species and their own survival the second tier is safety this is our need to feel physically safe and free from immediate physical danger today in an era when few of us are ever in genuine physical danger this is often the need to feel economically safe we have enough money the third level is love and belonging this is our need to feel loved and also our need to feel like we belong and we're part of a group tribe or family some sort of wider societal group that we can fit in the fourth tier is esteem this is our need for positive self-regard and also positive regard from others often this is termed our need to be loved fifth finally and right at the top we have self-actualization once all of our other needs are met maslow theorized we could all achieve self-actualization and fulfill our highest possible potential as a person a lot of people have criticized this hierarchy of needs as being an idealized and westernized concept but it does actually make some sense to take an example very few of us would be interested in the esteem and regard of others if we're currently being mauled by a tiger our need for immediate physical safety is much more important to us than our need for esteem in essence therefore maslow claimed we can only achieve our potential once all of our other lower needs on this hierarchy have been met self-actualization happens when a person has achieved and secured all of their previous and more basic lower level needs in the hierarchy maslow suggested that self-actualized people have certain characteristics which can be spotted the first is a strong and very developed sense of self-awareness they understand and are aware of the effect they have on others around them be it a positive or negative effect the second is a fully accepting view of themselves they have an accurate view of themselves and others with all the flaws and traits that entails the third is an ability to handle the unknown people who have achieved self-actualization have the ability to handle and deal with the unknown and uncertainty without it causing distress or anxiety and the fourth is creativity maslow suggested that self-actualized people will be creative in some way there is some albeit very limited evidence in support of this idea like a study done by aronoff in 1967. in reality however most of us experience periods of happiness and euphoria and some periods of deep depression it may be that self-actualization is a temporary status which needs to be maintained rogers was another key figure in humanistic psychology like maslow rogers believed in the idea of self-actualization but thought that the root to it was less straightforward and strict roger suggested we all gradually move towards self-actualization by eliminating blockages on the path this is done through our actions and improvements to self-regard that said should our self-image and self-regard get lower then we build our own blockages and barriers which we then have to remove rogers therefore suggested that there's often a gap between our self-concept which is how we view ourselves and how we would like to our ideal self where we would like to be rogers therefore further suggested that our self-concept is based on if we receive unconditional positive regard from others or if there are conditions to that positive regard unconditional positive regard is when we always receive affection and love from those around us regardless of our behavior which we can then translate internally into a positive self-concept and self-image of ourselves in contrast conditions of worth are when we only receive that love and affection under certain specific circumstances or when we do certain things and display certain behaviors if this happens we may focus on keeping others happy rather than ourselves which dense our self-regard and self-image rogers developed a type of therapy which was based off these ideas more specifically it tried to eliminate this gap between how we think of ourselves and our ideal self-image how we ideally want to be this therapy remains in use today it's often known as client or person-centered therapy the therapist focuses entirely on the client the client or patient directs the conversation and the therapist doesn't even try to keep them on one subject and lets them meander and ramble rather the therapist acts reflexively almost like a sounding bold or mirror to try and make the client aware of their own thought patterns emotions and experiences this is often done by rephrasing and then repeating what the client has said for example in response to the statement i feel my parents don't respect me by the patient the therapist may reply with it sounds like you are frustrated because your parents do not give you freedoms and responsibility most critically the therapist always displays unconditional positive regard whatever the client says they always respond in a positive manner when we evaluate the humanistic approach there are many things we need to take into account although it's worth noting at the outset that a lot of people like it this type of person-centered or client-centered therapy does seem to an extent to work but it requires an extremely skilled therapist which can make it extremely time intensive and therefore very expensive generally though as we've seen the humanistic approach to psychology is positive it focuses on our feelings our potential and our individual needs and desires unlike other types of psychology especially the cognitive or biological approach this humanistic approach isn't deterministic it takes into account free will and believes strongly that we are all in control of our own feelings and our own emotions it's also holistic it takes all of an individual person into account it doesn't just focus on their genetics or their biological makeup that said unfortunately in doing this it can ignore some underlying and very serious problems like genetic disorders and previously experienced trauma unfortunately it can also lack objectivity it focuses on feelings therefore it's subjective rather than objective and it's difficult to approach it with a scientific mindset finally this approach doesn't create any generalized laws of cause and effect this can limit how much it can actually be practically useful especially when a whole society or a large number of people is considered it's very individualistic in its nature which is both a positive and negative [Music] [Music] as its name may suggest biopsychology is a hybrid area of science and research biopsychology examines biological processes and functions to try and explain human thought processes and human behavior therefore some of the content in this video is shared and also present on both as and a-level biology that said the vast majority is specific to psychology a major part of biopsychology indeed perhaps the largest part is looking at the human nervous system the nervous system coordinates our senses actions and behavior the goal being to allow us to respond and adapt to our environment and changes to that environment the formal name given for our senses is receptors receptors like our eyes and ears detect changes in our immediate environment actions our responses are carried out by effectors these come in two basic types these can be physical actions normally muscle responses to move or they can be chemical actions things like hormones and neurotransmitters therefore the nervous system works with the endocrine system this endocrine system is the network of organs and glands which produce transport and store hormones and chemical neurotransmitters in general we can break the nervous system down into two main component parts the first is the central nervous system usually shortened to cns and the second is the peripheral nervous system the central nervous system itself is made up of two main components the first is the brain the brain coordinates thoughts the whole nervous system and behavior and it also controls the process of homeostasis that's the process of keeping internal body conditions constant the second part is the spinal cord the spinal cord is the main pathway or motorway for electrical nervous signals to travel throughout the body and specifically to the brain the second major part of the nervous system is the peripheral nervous system the peripheral nervous system connects the central nervous system to the rest of the body it's also made up of two main components which can be further subdivided the first part is the somatic nervous system this controls our awake and conscious behavior and actions things we choose to do like running jumping walking physical actions which aren't a reflex response the second part is the autonomic nervous system which controls our subconscious or unconscious behavior that's behavior which we're not in control of and this autonomic nervous system can further itself be subdivided into two main parts the first is the sympathetic nervous system this gets our bodies ready for movement or action generally therefore it's often known as the fight or flight system the second part of the autonomic nervous system is the parasympathetic nervous system which calms our bodies down from action or combat therefore it's often known as the rest or digest system the basic unit at a cellular level of the nervous system is the neuron or nerve cell these are specialized cells they have a unique shape and unique structure which makes them specially adapted to carry information efficiently and quickly these neuron cells are very long and very thin the tiny gap between two neurons is known as the synapse generally speaking information passes from neuron to neuron electrically or chemically specifically information passes along neurons or within them electrically but it passes through the synapse chemically at one end of the neuron are dendrites these are small elongated parts of the cell almost like tentacles which pick up information from other nearby neurons these signals usually electrically pass along the main body of the neuron which is given the name axon eventually these signals then end up at the far end of the neuron which is known as the synaptic knob this synaptic knob turns these electrical signals into chemical signals so that they can pass across the synapse these chemical signals that move across the synapse and neurotransmitters and they pass from neuron to neuron along the chain by crossing that tiny gap there are also several different types of neuron as we'll see and each one is specialized they have different but very specific roles within the overall nervous system generally we can divide neurons up into three main types the first are sensory neurons these sensory neurons carry information which is taken in by the senses things like eyes and ears the second are relay neurons these relay neurons transmit electrical nerve impulses from the sensory neurons to the central nervous system and then back from the central nervous system to motor neurons for an action to occur the third are motor neurons these motor neurons transmit signals to effectors usually muscles but sometimes the endocrine system these effectors will then carry out some sort of action or response which is based off the initial information first taken in by the senses and passed along sensory neurons obviously some actions and some stimuli provoke an immediate and completely unconscious uncontrolled reaction without us ever having to think about it we call these reflex actions in general these reflex actions are pre-programmed into us by evolution and the evolutionary process the goal being to increase our chances of survival some examples include pulling your hand away from a hot surface as soon as you touch it and the production of adrenaline as a fight or flight response reflex responses have a general process this general process is known as the reflex arc and is as follows first there is a stimulus some sort of change in the environment which is picked up by a receptor some sort of sense organ like the skin or our eyes this information is passed to a sensory neuron from here it moves to relay neurons until it reaches the central nervous system the central nervous system will coordinate a response and pass that response down relay neurons again until it reaches an effector by way of motor neurons this will then lead to a response a synapse as we've seen is a join or tiny gap between two neurons or indeed between a neuron and a cell information can therefore be transferred from the cell to the neuron from the neuron to the cell or between two neurons in any of these cases it's going across a synapse obviously this joint or synapse is extremely small the general name for it is the synaptic cleft and it's no more than a fraction of a millimeter wide we really are dealing with very small distances when an electrical impulse travels to one end of a neuron known as a synaptic knob it releases neurotransmitters into this synaptic cleft these travel and disperse through the gap and reach the neuron on the other side where they're picked up by dendrites these neurotransmitters can cause several things to happen once they reach an effector they may cause for example a muscle to contract or alternatively for very specific hormones to be released into the bloodstream for transport one interesting and notable thing about synapses is they're unidirectional information only travels across them in a single direction like a gate once neurotransmitters have been used and after they've been transferred across they are broken down by enzymes the products of this breakdown enzymes are then reabsorbed into the neuron so they can be used again neurotransmitters are specific chemical compounds that travel through or across a synapse to cause or sometimes prevent a specific action from happening in general there are two basic types of neurotransmitter the first are excitatory neurotransmitters these cause an electrical impulse and therefore a resulting action to happen in the recipient neuron the second and opposite type are inhibitory neurotransmitters these prevent an electrical impulse and therefore an action from happening in the recipient neuron in various units available psychology we've seen neurotransmitters crop up they're extremely important and there are five main and specific ones that you need to know about the first is acetylcholine this is an excitatory neurotransmitter which is actually involved in a whole wide range of different actions things like sleeping movement and learning generally it's thought that having too much acetylcholine in your system may well cause depression too little however may well be one of the main causes of dementia the second is dopamine dopamine is a neurotransmitter which is involved with movement and the tension generally it's thought that having too much dopamine may cause schizophrenia or at least be one of the causes too little has been linked with depression the third is gaba or gaba this is an inhibitory neurotransmitter which has been linked with anxiety disorders and the symptoms of anxiety things like panic attacks the fourth is serotonin serotonin is a neurotransmitter which is very closely involved with our mood emotions and feelings too little of this has also been linked with depression the fifth and final one is noradrenaline now adrenaline is a neurotransmitter which is broadly similar to adrenaline as its name suggests it's been linked with basic evolutionary pre-programmed fight or flight responses it's also thought that having too much neuroadrenaline may be one of the causes of depression the endocrine system is composed of two main components they are glands and hormones hormones are chemical messengers they're transported around the body within the blood network or bloodstream to cause very specific responses the vast majority of hormones with very few exceptions are proteins glands on the other hand are organs usually small ones when they're stimulated they secrete hormones these glands can be stimulated by electrical impulses from the nervous system alternatively they can also be stimulated by changes in concentrations of other hormones every piece of the endocrine system is interconnected each specific hormone attaches and then binds to very specific receptors in the body they therefore trigger very specific bodily responses generally speaking this phenomenon makes the endocrine system far slower than the overall nervous system electrical signals are almost instant they move at very high speed hormones on the other hand must travel within the blood network to reach their destination which takes a much longer time hormones also take time to be broken down usually by enzymes therefore the effects of hormones last much longer the receptor cells for hormones can also be widespread throughout the body this means that hormones themselves can have an effect in different parts of the body at once glands are both numerous and widespread and there's a large range of them all over the body that produce different hormones however there are four main ones that you need to know about the first is the hypothalamus this produces hormones that control other glands within the body the second is the pituitary gland quite often the pituitary gland is known as the master gland it releases hormones which help to control many of the other glands within the endocrine system in many ways it's the control network the third is the pineal gland the pineal gland produces melatonin which is involved in our pattern of sleeping and waking the fourth are the ovaries and testes depending on gender these produce sex hormones estrogen and testosterone which aid in the development of secondary sexual characteristics things like a deeper voice and facial hair for men things like changes to body shape for women the fifth is the pancreas the pancreas releases glucagon and insulin which regulate our blood sugar levels the sixth is the thymus gland this releases hormones which regulate our immune system and help to fight off infection the seventh is the thyroid gland the thyroid gland produces a whole range of hormones which regulate our metabolic rate and growth and help to regulate our digestive system finally eighth there is the adrenal gland the adrenal gland produces a range of hormones like adrenaline these influence our reactions our mood our emotions and our behavior we've already mentioned the hypothalamus several times within this video hypothalamus is a small gland located roughly in the center of the brain it actually has a huge wide range of functions especially given its diminutive size some examples include regulating diet appetite and our internal body temperature this hypothalamus is also part of the system that regulates our fight or flight response this is a whole series of physical changes to the body that happen when we feel threatened these changes either cause us to get ready to fight this danger or alternatively to run away from it these changes happen because hormones are being released by the hypothalamus they are therefore spreading throughout the body to bind to very specific receptors the two most important hormones for this process are adrenaline and noradrenaline these two hormones together cause a whole series of body changes to happen firstly heart rate and blood pressure both go up the idea being to get blood and with it oxygen to muscles where it's going to be needed much faster secondly our rate of digestion increases to try and gain nutrients from the butter from the food and process blood around the body faster thirdly our muscles tense up as a means of preparation for incoming physical activity be that fighting or running fourth sweating happens this is so the body can regulate temperature fifth our breathing speeds up to increase our rate of oxygen intake to give the blood more oxygen to transport to muscles and finally our pupils dilate to increase our light intake and therefore how accurate our vision is for a whole range of reasons our knowledge of the brain and how it operates is limited that said is generally thought that different and very specific areas of the brain are responsible for different and specific areas of bodily function this is usually more formally known as a localization of function and there are a few areas of the brain you need to know about firstly the motor cortex the motor cortex controls voluntary muscle movement muscle movement that we're in control of the second is the themato somatosensory cortex the somatosensory cortex processes and handles information about temperature body position body orientation and pain essentially where we are and what's happening to us the third is the visual cortex the visual cortex controls and then processes information about the world around us received from the eye effectively the visual cortex coordinates our eyesight the fourth is wernicke's area wernicke's area is responsible for language and our processing of words and linguistic information the fifth is the auditory cortex the auditory cortex controls and processes information we receive from our ears and finally brocker's area this area of the brain handles speech and language production as we've already mentioned our knowledge of the precise inner workings and the precise structure of our brain is limited that said it's generally agreed that our brains are divided up into two broad halves despite the brain not being spherical these are given the name hemispheres and they're known as the left and right hemispheres these terms are allocated based on the perspective of the individual therefore your left brain hemisphere is on your left and your right brain hemisphere is on your right not the perspective of somebody looking at you these two hemispheres or halves of the brain are joined by a bridge the bridge is the corpus callosum and it's a thin piece of very fine brain tissue which links the blood and neuron network between the two halves and allows information nutrients blood and oxygen to pass between the two some areas of the brain like broca's area and wernicke's area are found only in the left hemisphere therefore this half of the brain handles things like language auditory information logic analysis and problem solving some other parts of the brain are found only in the right hemisphere which handles things like emotions and facial recognition some research has been done to back this idea up the idea as a whole is normally known as hemispheric lateralization of function in particular a landmark experiment was done by sperry in 1968 which examined the functionality of brains in patients after these two halves have been severed which was and to an extent remains a common treatment for epilepsy this research all the way back in the 60s confirmed many existing suspicions around brain hemispheres it also confirmed that different areas of the brain carry out specific actions control specific parts of the body and process specific types of information a very important concept when we look at the brain is the idea of plasticity plasticity is the concept that our brains are not set and immovable they change and develop even once we're fully farmed adults this may sound fairly obvious but it's actually a relatively recent idea that developed from the late 90s onwards prior to the late 90s it was usually thought that the brain was set and complete once we finished growing and from that point it didn't really change at all the general process is thought to work like this firstly information travels through the brain by going from neuron to neuron as it does this it creates a pathway secondly new information therefore creates new pathways thirdly the more these pathways are used the more efficient they become the connections between the neurons become stronger and more efficient themselves fourth if the pathways aren't used especially for an extensive period of time they gradually decay and become weaker and less efficient it's generally thought that this is a constant process one which is always happening to our brains we all practice some skills and neglect others we all take on new information and forget older information it's also thought but it's never been proved that this process is focused around the somatosensory cortex and motor cortex these are the areas which handle movement and the information from our senses which would explain why we find a lot of skills much easier with practice brain damage is always very serious and it usually occurs because of serious structural physical electrical or even biochemical damage to actual brain tissue there are any number of root causes for this things like strokes cancers or even just straightforward physical head injuries usually in the overwhelming majority of cases brain damage results in at least some loss of brain function this would mean that the patient loses some of the skills processing ability or knowledge they had before the damage occurs and this can take any number of forms or symptoms by being unable to process language remember words or being unable to remove certain limbs however it's thought that plasticity may allow these patients to gradually recover some or perhaps even all of the lost functions to be able to remember things again or move their limbs again this happens because new neural pathways have been formed generally the main way this is done is through constraint induced movement therapy usually known as cimt generally speaking this involves restraining the limbs which are healthy to force the brain into operating the limbs it cannot normally use after the brain damage both case studies and experimental evidence has suggested this type of therapy can work can also be used for patients who have suffered loss of language or even loss of analytical thinking the main downside however is that cimt can be extremely frustrating for the patient it needs to be intensive and this makes it both expensive and time-consuming the brain is obviously a very sensitive and delicate organ it's not normally possible therefore to observe it directly the act of cracking open the head to look at the brain would cause enormous brain damage and avoidable harm to the patient therefore it has to be observed indirectly unless there's an autopsy where a brain is being examined after death this is usually done by measuring electrical activity magnetic images or other secondary data while the patient is alive and there are three main ways of doing this the first is mri scans mri stands for magnetic resonance imaging and this provides very detailed structural and functional information through a 3d scan this can also allow for brain activity itself to be mapped and matched to function this is done through a functional mri scan usually known as fmri mri scans can therefore be very useful for diagnosing issues with the brain or comparing the brain of a patient to that of a control group the second are eeg scans electroencephalograms these show the overall electrical activity of the whole brain they don't show areas of activity of individual neurons or specific parts of the brain quite often these electroencephalic are used in sleep studies they can also be a very useful diagnostic tool to help individuals with things like anorexia anxiety or even schizophrenia thirdly we have erp scans erp scans show changes in electrical activity after a stimulus is presented to the patient often this is known as an event-related potential hen crp these are particularly useful in showing how the brain responds to specific information or stimuli which can also make them very useful as a diagnostic tool biological rhythms are very important to our survival and there are three main types of biological rhythm which are classified based on how long they take to cycle the first are circadian rhythms these cycles occur once every 24 hours things like our sleep wake cycle which we all go through each day the second are in fradian rhythms these occur more seldom than once per day like the menstrual cycle which happens every twenty eight the third are ultradian rhythms these are cycles which occur more than once every 24 hours like the deep light sleep cycle through the night that can occur every 10 or 15 minutes far more than once every 24 hours there are as you may expect many factors which set and then regulate these biological rhythms endogenous pacemakers are those factors which set these cycles net internal to the body things like our genetics our hypothalamus and our internal need for things like sleep food and sex exogenous pacemakers are those factors which set these cycles and are external like light levels pollen levels or humidity obviously these two different types of factors interact and work together this allows us to react to changes in stimuli and changes in the environment around us while retaining health cycles for example we all need sleep and we all feel tired when it's dark but our body is able to gradually react to changes in light levels as the seasons cycle throughout the year the two different types of factors endogenous and exogenous come together [Music] when we look at research methods in psychology one of the things we must look at first if this is the scientific process what is science science is the process of establishing verified proven testable fact it's objective and is not influenced by opinion bias or belief therefore science is empirical it's based on evidence and data to prove things rather than subjective opinions and preconceptions science therefore has developed a process trying to test and establish factual events the first part of this process is to ask a question about an object or event does this happen why does this happen when is this going to happen again for example the second step is to suggest some or all of an answer to that question this is a theory about that event or object thirdly make a prediction usually this is known as a hypothesis it's a specific and testable statement which can then be proven or disproven through experimentation finally carry out the experiment to test it the experiment tests that hypothesis it finds it true or false therefore science relies entirely on testing a hypothesis if something can't be reliably tested it has no basis in science obviously this sometimes causes conflict things like ghosts crystal healing astrology and even most religion relies on faith rather than evidence society as a whole and all of us gradually learn about scientific advancement bit by bit some theories and developments which were new and cutting edge 20 or 25 years ago are taught to gcse students today this process happens because science constantly moves forward it advances and it works within society scientific research is published usually this is done in specialist scientific and academic journals things like nature but sometimes in more general publicly accessible press just general newspapers tv or magazines like for example new scientist all scientific research has to go through what's called peer review before it gets published this is the process where other specialists in that field examine the integrity and reliability of the research in essence they do their best usually in a friendly way to pick it apart completely peer review keeps science honest it helps to eliminate bias and he tries to make sure that research can't be bought or influenced by governments corporations or specific pressure groups he tries to keep science neutral in pursuit of fact after peer review has happened other scientists will try and replicate the same experiment they carry out exactly the same piece of research done in the same way to see if they then obtain the same or at least very similar results if they do that means that the initial experiment was replicable which is a fantastic thing but if they don't it usually means something somewhere is wrong with the method science usually uses paradigms a paradigm is a wide and very general set of basic principles generalized methods and overall techniques which are used within a scientific discipline as an example chemistry uses a paradigm based on periodic tables the repeated accurate measurement and experimentation of events and a set of known units like dm cubed and moles taken together they form the paradigm for modern chemistry there's a wide and ongoing debate in psychology as to if it uses a paradigm or not most people today and most psychologists would agree that each of the many approaches we've seen like the biological or psychodynamic approach represents a paradigm of its own psychology therefore unusually for a science actually has many different paradigms all science in some way has an impact on wider society around it everybody likes to imagine that science is remote and completely neutral but in fact scientific developments influence the economy politics and our society this is equally true indeed perhaps more true of psychology this is even more the case as society has better understood the impact of psychological problems and mental health to take an example an individual suffering from mental health issues may need time off work in the same way an individual with a broken leg would this is going to have an impact on their finances their employers finances and the wider economy psychology can help to mitigate and even resolve these issues psychology has also been used to explain the behavior of shoppers for example understand the reasons for traffic jams in cities and motorways predict voting behaviors and even to develop educational techniques there are several basic different types of research method each one of them has advantages and the disadvantages and each one has a different level of control reliability and validity the first one that we'll look at are laboratory experiments probably historically at least the most common type of experiment done in psychology laboratory experiments are those which take place in a laboratory where all the variables are eliminated apart from one independent variable that's the one being changed and one dependent variable which is the one being measured there are several advantages control it's possible to eliminate all the other extraneous variables and have a huge amount of control over the experiment it becomes very unlikely that some sort of extraneous variable will intrude and ruin the results there's also a very high level of replication this high level of control means that it's fairly easy to replicate the same experiment at a later date finally this higher level of control means that it's sometimes although not always possible to establish cause and effect relationships something that can't be done in other types of experiment however laboratory experiments do have some disadvantages the first is ecological validity a laboratory is an entirely artificial setting removed from the real world it's never completely possible to say that participants will act exactly as they would naturally unfortunately you sometimes also get displayed demand characteristics this is where participants do what they think is expected rather than acting naturally finally we have an ethical issue laboratory experiments sadly often involve the use of some deception this can cause issues around participants being able to give fully informed consent to the process it's also possible that some harm can come to participants secondly we have field experiments field experiments are those which take place outside of the laboratory and in the real world behaviors are measured by researchers fairly naturally and in a natural setting but a key variable in that setting is changed there are some advantages to this it's still possible but extremely difficult to establish full cause and effect relationships between two variables the second advantage is validity field experiments are inherently better for ecological validity they're actually carried out in the real world and they're therefore much more generalizable to that real world unlike a laboratory experiment participants are in a natural setting rather than being in a strictly controlled artificial lab they're therefore much less likely to show demand characteristics because while the researchers are there the environment around them is much less artificial there are however some disadvantages there's significantly less control of the variables in a field experiment and it's much more likely that some sort of outside extraneous variable will turn up and ruin the data there is sometimes also an ethical issue observation in the field must take privacy into account people may feel that they haven't given informed consent if they're observed in a natural setting without their knowledge or permission thirdly we have natural experiment these are experiments which look to establish the relationship between two variables but without actually changing anything instead completely naturally occurring events are merely observed there are some massive advantages to this ethically it's much easier participants are acting naturally and in a completely natural real-world environment it's therefore possible to measure variables which would be tricky to do ethically otherwise like poverty or drug addiction it's not ethically possible to induce either of those but they can be observed in a natural environment demand characteristics are also less of an issue the events and the behaviors linked to them are completely natural it's not possible for participants to show demand characteristics especially if they're not aware of the researchers and finally the biggest advantage is ecological validity the events and the behaviors occur completely naturally and entirely in a real world setting natural experiments therefore have enormous amounts of ecological validity and can generally be generalized out there are some one of these is ethical in a natural experiment researchers quite often have to be disguised or at least hidden this means deception is involved and informed consent cannot be fully given at least before the experiment a second disadvantage is that causal relationships are impossible to establish a best and natural experiment can suggest at a correlation but a causal relationship can never conclusively be proven finally we have quasi experiments quasi experiments occur when random allocation can't be used usually because all of the participants in the study have certain shared characteristics like they're all the same gender or ethnicity or they all suffer from the same psychological condition there are some advantages to this however these experiments can usually be done in a laboratory so there is a decent control of variables they also have some level of ecological validity this type of experiment usually is slightly more realistic than a straightforward laboratory study and therefore it should have a slightly higher level of ecological validity there is however a disadvantage all of the participants share a certain characteristics it's not possible to allocate them randomly and therefore a causal relationship can never be proven there is some debate about whether this fifth one is a research method at all but it's one that we need to look at nevertheless and it's naturalistic observation a naturalistic observation involves making observations about individual participants be they human or animal just going about their everyday business completely naturally and normally without the researcher getting involved in any way it's possible to see from that how some people think that this isn't proper research there are however some big advantages there are huge amounts of ecological validity to this the behavior of the participants is completely natural even to the point of the researchers presence being completely unknown therefore the level of ecological validity is extremely high and the results can usually be generalized out it's also very useful as a theoretical study these naturalistic observations are very easy and cheap to do this makes them a very useful way of doing initial testing of a theory or hypothesis before a more complex experiment is designed as you may expect however there are also some big disadvantages the main one being control there's no real control over any variables and any number of extraneous unknown outside variables could turn up and easily influence or even ruin the results there is also an ethical issue if the participants never know they're being observed then it's impossible for them to give any kind of informed consent to the whole process on the other hand there may be observer bias if the presence of the researchers is known or at least suspected then individual participants may alter their behavior often this process is known as observer bias there is also correlational research which is similar to several previous types but has its own category correlational research is when psychologists examine two variables to try and find a relationship between them that said however neither of these two variables is altered in any way by the researchers they're merely looked at to take an example psychologists may look to see if the rate of depression in a general population rises and falls in tandem with the seasons neither of these variables is altered in any way but both of them are measured to try and find a relationship between them one of the major advantages to these is ethics it's possible to study variables which would have massive ethical issues in other settings like alcoholism without ever interacting with or influencing the participants it's not ethically possible to cause somebody to be an alcoholic but someone who is one already can be observed ethically it's also useful to carry out a process of elimination if no correlation is found between two variables then it's definitely possible to concretely rule out any possibility or chance of there being a causal link between them there are some disadvantages however only a correlation can ever be found hence it being called correlational research this means we can say two things are linked in some way but neither one of them is a direct or sole cause of the other this limits the usefulness of correlational research it's also worth noting that this type of research relies completely on the mathematical skill often and integrity of the researcher if statistics or conclusions drawn from those statistics are manipulated then false correlations can easily be found it's also worth noting that correlations can be completely caused by coincidence we also need to consider questionnaires there are a number of ways of doing these these can be done in a written format over the internet over the telephone or even old style face to face they involve participants responding to set pre-written questions often in a numerical way for example on a scale of one to five there's one main advantage to this and that's practicality questionnaires can be used to very quickly and fairly easily and cheaply generate enormous amounts of information as technology and the internet has increased and developed this information can also be analyzed and sorted very quickly there are many disadvantages however to questionnaires leading questions are a problem a leading question is one that suggests its own answer unclear questions can also cause issues a great deal depends on the way in which participants are selected and also the way in which questions are written it's very easy to bias the results of questionnaires by how you write them and how you select the people to answer them questionnaires are are their core a self-reporting technique any research which relies entirely on the honesty and directness of participants is always going to have an inbuilt level of unreliability finally there is a possible ethical issue participant confidentiality has to be respected the participants must be and remain anonymous this can cause issues for data analysis and also issues further down the line with publication interviews are related to questionnaires but not quite the same a questionnaire has a fixed and predetermined set of questions whereas interviews are more conversational they break down into two basic types the first is a structured interview which will have a fairly similar set of questions for different participants but there will be variations of tone accent pronunciation or just straightforward question order variations to give an example the question how do you feel about your parents can be asked in very different ways from and how do you feel about your parents to and how do you feel about your parents unstructured interviews as the name suggests are much less linear they don't have a set list of questions and they're just conversational there are a great many advantages to interviews interviews can gather enormous amounts of data from a relatively small and therefore cheap and easy number of participants in a short space of time they can also be extremely useful as pilot studies pilot studies are done to try and gain initial information before a longer less practical and more expensive wider piece of research is done however interviews share a lot of the disadvantages and problems of questionnaires they're effectively a complex method of self-reporting dishonesty and bias can easily creep in from that and as with questionnaires there is an ethical issue participant confidentiality must be respected finally the raw data from interviews will require a huge amount of analysis before it can be usable or provide any useful conclusions this is time consuming and can be extremely expensive a case study is when an individual or unusual case of a specific illness or condition or behavior is looked at in enormous amounts of detail there are some advantages to this a huge amount of data can be extracted in a fairly short and very inexpensive time window they're also very useful for looking at these individual and unique cases they might otherwise contravene trends if unique cases contravene long-running trends they may be ignored but case studies are a way of looking at them in more detail they do of course have several disadvantages by their very nature case studies are unusual or often unique any conclusions which are gained from them can never be generalized out to a whole population there's also sometimes an ethical issue it can be very difficult or sometimes completely impossible to gain the fully informed consent of the individual involved they may be very ill physically or mentally they may be thousands of miles away in another country or they may have deceased years decades or even centuries ago finally there is a causation issue case studies are so small with such a tiny participant caseload that cause and effect relationships can never be established even basic correlational relationships are very unlikely from a case study so they do have very limited wider use research aims are extremely important the aim of a piece of research should always be stated beforehand this is done to eliminate bias so you can't change the aims of research after you've done it research aims give the purpose of a study or a piece of research but they're very generalized rather than specific they're too general to test because of this a hypothesis is tested this is a clear and testable statement which makes a prediction that can then be tested using an experiment and there are several different types of hypothesis that we need to consider the first is the null hypothesis this is what is assumed to be true during the study any information that is then found through the research will either prove this to be true or refute it often this null hypothesis will state that there is no relationship between two variables hence it being called a null hypothesis therefore quite often the null hypothesis is one that nobody actually thinks is true but it's stated as a default position should the experiment be a failure or the results and data turn out to be inconclusive the alternative hypothesis in a rather strange naming quirk is the one that is used should the null hypothesis be rejected it's therefore very often the one that the researcher is actually looking to prove some people therefore consider the alternative hypothesis despite its name to be the actual hypothesis that the research has been designed around the third type of hypothesis is a directional one a directional hypothesis is one that predicts a link between two variables in a very specific direction a good example of this is this students who read a wide range of textbooks will achieve higher grades than those who use only one textbook this is a directional hypothesis which predicts a link but also the direction of that link in this case upwards in contrast the number of textbooks read by a student has an influence on the eventual grades of that students is not directional it predicts a link but it doesn't predict the direction of that link directional hypotheses are often used when some earlier research suggests a link and direction between the two variables and this current research is being done to confirm it a variable is a very important concept in any science and psychology is no different we can define the term variable as being any quantity with a changeable value in a scientific experiment there are two basic types of variable the independent variable usually shown to ivy and the dependent variable usually shortened to dv in an ideal scientific world there would be no other variables present and we could establish a completely perfect causal link between the independent variable or iv and the dependent variable or dv in practice of course in any science including psychology extraneous outside variables get in the way the independent variable is the one which is being changed by the researcher as an example if we were looking at how a level psychology pass rates are influenced by the time of year the exams are held then the independent variable would be the time of the year it's the thing that we're changing the dependent variable is the one which is measured influenced and affected by the independent variable in the example above the dependent variable would be the a-level psychology pass rates in the case of both ivs and dvs in fact in the case of any variables we must always explain how we are going to measure them this is known as operationalization for example a level psychology pass rates would be measured by comparing the number of students who achieved a grade c a minimum pass with the number who entered the exams in the first place to give a percentage outcome an experimental design is how the actual experiment will be carried out the actual method used and therefore how will the relationship between the independent variable iv and dependent variable dv actually be tested there are several different types that we need to look at the first is independent groups independent groups is when you have different participants in completely separate groups each of these groups has a variable changed given example one group of participants may complete a basic memory task slowly and methodically while the other group is under some sort of time pressure the variable being changed is time pressure applied to participants but that variable is being changed in different ways for the different independent groups there's one big advantage to this you don't get order effects nobody gets better at the task through practice a process often known as learning effect and nobody gets worse through fatigue often known as fatigue effect this would probably happen if the same group were carrying out the same task multiple times you would expect either fatigue effect or learning effect to show up eventually there are however some disadvantages this method requires double the number of participants which can be time consuming impractical and expensive it's also worth noting that random differences between participants in the two groups usually by just random chance can actually have a large impact on the overall results and therefore the overall conclusions that you can draw from the experiment the second type of experimental design is known as repeated measures repeated measures is when the very same group of participants undertakes the same task or process multiple times each time a variable is changed for example the same group of participants tries to recall a string of random numbers once with a time constraint and then again afterwards with no time constraint there are some advantages to this method the same group of participants is used several times so therefore any individual differences between the participants will be evened out and therefore have little or no effect on the overall results the number of participants needed is also halved this makes it easier quicker and usually cheaper there are however some disadvantages the first of these is a simple practical one having the same group carry out the same task multiple times can be both time-consuming and extremely expensive but a bigger disadvantage are older effects participants may now get better as a task the more times they do it known as learning effect or they may get tired and therefore worse at a task known as fatigue effect both of these can influence the result thirdly we have the matched pairs design in this research design there are separate groups but these groups are matched on important characteristics like gender age or psychological problem often this is done completely randomly participants are paired into twos by their characteristics by gender by age by their psychological profile each individual is then randomly assigned to one of two groups this seems like a bit of a process but there are some advantages to it this method does eliminate an extraneous variable specifically it eliminates the one on which participants have been paired if you've paired participants based on their gender for example it eliminates that as a variable as that will now be evenly distributed between the two groups you also get rid of older effects as with having separate groups older effects don't occur as the task or event or process is not happening multiple times rather you have matched pairs carrying it out individually the big disadvantage is numbers this method often requires a large number of participants which can be very difficult to find another advantage is a lot comes down to how you analyze them and match them into pairs how that's done can influence bias the main goal of any research method or research design is to control variables whenever we carry out any kind of research in any science including psychology it's always critical to eliminate extraneous outside variables this makes the research much more reliable and also much more repeatable to do this as many things as possible should be kept constant and there are four main ways that this is done firstly we have counter balancing if the same task is being done many times the order of the task is mixed up this minimizes order effects people are less likely to get tired and therefore worse and less likely to learn how to do it and therefore get better the second is random allocation if there are participants being assigned to different groups this is done randomly usually using a random number generator thirdly we have standard instructions often in research participants are given instructions in some way they could be written down or they could be verbally expressed by a researcher this is always done in exactly the same way by the same person and using the same language each time fourthly we have randomization if participants are being presented with materials like some sort of written text then the order in which these are presented is randomized some of them will be given them right at the start of the experiment some of them will be given those written materials as late on as possible which minimizes the effect the presentation of those materials can have on the overall result a key concept in any kind of scientific research is reliability reliability is how consistent and how dependable an experiment and therefore a set of results and data is ideally if an experiment is repeated at a later date using exactly the same methodology and materials then the same results should be obtained there are three basic types of reliability the first is known as internal reliability this is different bits of the same experiment or the same test giving similar results in theory two groups of completely random participants doing the same action under the same instructions should give similar results and data each time secondly we have external reliability this is when the same experiment is run at different times but it should give the same results ideally at least the same experiment run months or years apart should give a broadly similar result in reality of course over time social standards and norms change which means external reliability cannot always be guaranteed finally we have inter observer reliability this is when the same experiment gives similar results when done by different researchers in theory at least since the methodology used is the same in each case then the results should be too the results aren't the same that suggests that in some way the researchers were interfering with the results probably without meaning to another important concept in research is validity validity can be defined as how well any experiment measures what it says it does another way of thinking about this for psychology is how well a piece of research lives up to investigating what it's already said its research aims are there are four basic types of validity the first is face validity this is how well the research appears to measure what it says it does to the actual participants in that research as we've already seen it's relatively common for deception to be used in psychological research this means that face validity isn't always as high as we would like it to be the second type of validity is known as concurrent validity this is how well the research compares to similar measures for example two ways of measuring memory should produce a similar outcome when used on the same participant the third is ecological validity something we've already seen this is how well this test or experiment reflects real world conditions and therefore how generalizable it is to people in the real world as we've already seen most laboratory experiments do have issues with ecological validity whereas things like naturalistic observation have a much higher level of it finally we have temporal validity this is how well any piece of research can be considered to be consistent through different time periods as norms change through different time periods not all experiments have high levels of temporal validity for any piece of research both validity and reliability are never perfect they can both be improved and there's two major ways of doing this they are standardizing research and operationalizing variables standardizing research is the gradual process of developing a set widely published and widely known set of methods and principles on which research is based this should at least in theory mean that subsequent later research in the same field is carried out in roughly the same way this makes future research more reliable because it's using the same methods as previous research perhaps with a few tweaks to bring it up to date operationalizing variables is the process of clearly defining all the variables involved in any piece of research usually this means giving them very clear definitions what do we mean for example by aggression or aggressive behavior what do we mean by stress and how do we define them ideally for any or each of these variables we'd want to try and place them on some sort of numerical scale but that isn't always possible operationalizing variables has two main advantages it gives numerical data as an outcome which allows more complex and in-depth analysis to be performed it also improves both the validity and the reliability of the research an observation is a key idea to understand for psychological research an observation is when a research participant is observed carrying out a task experiencing event or otherwise just going about their daily life this can either be participant observation or non-participant observation participant observation is when the researcher in the study actively participates in what's going on usually this is done to allow the researcher to establish a relationship or build up trust and he is more ethical but it also becomes more likely that the observer bias or demand characteristics will occur on the other hand non-participant observation is when the researcher is remote from the participants in some way either not physically present or behind the screen or obscured in some other way this removes any rapport or relationship but in theory it also removes some bias it makes it much more likely that demand characteristics will occur observations can also be either covert or overt in an overt investigation the participants in the research are completely and fully aware of the presence and purpose of the researcher obviously this removes a lot of ethical issues but it can introduce demand characteristics where the participants behave in ways they think they should rather than behaving naturally on the other hand in a covert investigation the participants are unaware of the researcher this introduces issues ethically of informed consent but it also reduces the chances of observer bias or demand characteristics often controlled and overt observations take place in the laboratory this allows for very strict control of variables but it means there's little ecological validity in any type of observation there are a number of design decisions that need to be made each one of these will have an impact on the method and therefore have an impact on the results firstly how will the data actually be recorded written notes give far more detail but they're much harder to analyze afterwards and therefore much harder to develop conclusions from quantitative data or numbers is much easier to analyze but it gives far less detail and nuance secondly how will behavior be categorized definitions are absolutely crucial to recording behavior correctly for example if we're carrying out research to look for impulsive behavior how do we define impulsive behavior categorization or a definition which is too strict can end up missing out on important or interesting behaviors one which on the other hand is too loose may include far too much normal behavior that we're just not interested in thirdly how will behavior be rated if behavior is being recorded on a sliding numerical scale how is that scale built and decided for example if we were looking for aggressive behavior this could be rated on a sliding numerical scale from 1 least aggressive to 5 extremely aggressive but who decides the scale and how is behavior then rated fourthly how will behavior be examined how often and for how long will behavior be looked at and observed there's two basic ways of doing this this can be done via event sampling this is when only specific events are looked at this can also be done through time interval sampling when behavior is measured for set intervals like five minutes within every hour fifthly how do you make sure all the observers are recording things in the same way strict guidance should be given to observers and researchers to ensure they're all observing the same thing and recording behavior accurately and consistently when any kind of questionnaire or interview is designed there's also a very wide range of factors and questions that have to be considered the first of these is data is the objective to gain qualitative written notes are quantitative numbers open questions like what type of food you like will generally give detailed written notes closed questions like do you like pizza will usually give us quantitative numerical data the answers to open questions are much more detailed but they're also harder to analyze and therefore harder to draw any conclusions from on the other hand the answers to closed questions will give us numerical data which is far less detailed but much easier to analyze secondly we have the issue of ambiguous questions generally it's always best to avoid these for example the question do you feel stressed often is ambiguous what do we mean by often however do you feel stressed more than twice per day is much less ambiguous and much more specific thirdly double questions questions should be straightforward and simple and double-barrelled questions should be avoided a good example of this is this do you often feel stressed and does this have an impact on your relationship with your children this is ambiguous and double-barreled fourthly we have the issue of leading questions a leading question is one which suggests its own answer that answer being built into the question like do you agree that modern working life contributes to stress that's a leading question leading questions should always be avoided they introduce an element of bias fifth we have the issue of complexity questions which use large amounts of specific or specialist terminology or jargon should always be avoided they may bias the results by confusing the participants any type of psychological research requires participants but not just anybody grabbed off the street will do participants must be selected carefully to avoid bias the section of the whole population that's actually under examination is known as the target group this can be wide ranging like males over 50 in full-time work are quite specific like children under 14 with only one surviving parent the vast majority of the time not everybody in the target group can be included this would be thousands or millions of people males over 15 full-time work probably encompasses a couple of million people even our more specific example of children under 14 with only one surviving parent is probably at least hundreds of thousands therefore we choose a representative sample a smaller one that accurately reflects the wider target population if we choose a sample which is unrepresentative then it's inherently biased this firstly makes the research much less reliable but it also means that it can't be generalized out to the wider target group there are five main ways of selecting a sample random sampling opportunity sampling volunteer sampling systematic sampling and stratified sampling random sampling is when every member of the wider target group has a precisely even chance of being included in the research this can be done by hand like throwing a load of names in a hat and then drawing them out randomly usually however these days it's done by random number generation through a computer there are some advantages to this at its core it's fair every possible participant from the wider target group has a precisely equal chance of being included in the study this means that it's likely although by no means certain that the sample will be fairly representative and a roughly fair reflection of the wider target group there are however some disadvantages if the target group is extremely wide like men over 40 then this particular method involves way too many people to be at all possible you can't put 12 million names in a hat it also doesn't mean you will always get a representative sample if there's a really tiny subgroup like bald men over 40 call jeff who have three children a green car and are a mechanic then it's possible that this tiny subgroup will be completely unrepresented a second way of selecting participants is through opportunity sampling this is when the sample is made up of individuals able available and willing to be involved quite often psychologists work in universities which means this opportunity group can be a group of students the main advantage to this is students are fairly widely available especially in universities so this is a fairly quick cheap easy way of obtaining some sort of sample because they're often students this method is especially useful for educational psychologists who may well have a target group of people in education anyway however if we get a load of students it's unlikely they're going to be representative of the wider population or in all probability any wider target group at all they're all going to be fairly young for example generally this usually means that any results we find through opportunity sampling can't be generalized out to a wider population unless that wider population is students at that specific university thirdly we have volunteer sampling volunteer sampling is when participants volunteer to be part of a study usually by responding to an advert which has been placed in some sort of media a newspaper a notice board are these days most often on social media if this advert is paid for prominent and well designed it's entirely possible to encourage a very large number of volunteers if you have a large number of volunteers you can get a large sample size this means that the research is much more valid and reliable it can also be generalized out more however there are some problems by the mere fact that all of the participants in the study will have volunteered they'll all share certain characteristics they are all the type of people who are likely to volunteer for a study it's therefore very unlikely that they'll be representative of a wider target population a fourth way of selecting participants is through systematic sampling this is where every nth name like every fifth or third name is taken from a list of the whole population or the whole target group the whole list is usually known as a sampling frame to take an example one method of systematic sampling will be taking every 75th name from the electoral role the electoral role in this example is the sampling frame and the 75th name is the nth name this is obviously a fairly simple straightforward and even fairly cheap way of generating a roughly random sample as long as the sampling frame itself is random then the sample itself will be two telephone book the electoral roll and a lot of other publicly available information is usually arranged in alphabetical order by surname so if you pick every fifth or tenth or fiftieth name you'll get something which is effectively random that said there are however some problems tiny subgroups with only a very small number of people in them might be missed entirely for example only roughly 1.8 percent of the uk population identifies as buddhist so if you pick every 100th name from the telephone book it's entirely likely you will miss that subgroup completely the biggest issue however is with the sampling frame if the sampling frame itself isn't truly random then the sample becomes unlikely to be representative one issue is for example by using the telephone book everybody in it hasn't opted to bx directory a fifth way of choosing participants is through stratified sampling this is when the subgroups in a wider target population like gender ethnicity or even sexuality are included in the sample in a mathematically appropriate way to take an example in the uk there's a roughly even gender split so fifty percent of a participant group would be male and fifty percent would be female another example would be religion roughly two percent of the uk population identifies as being seek so roughly two percent or one in fifty of the sample should be two the big advantage to this method is it does produce a very representative sample and it works especially well when you have a huge sample size the big problem however is that it can be very time consuming if you've got a huge participant sample group it can require the expensive expertise of a professional mathematician to work out all the numbers unfortunately this method also relies on having precise and accurate data about the general population which is not always available censuses for example are only done once every 10 years in any experiment there are a large number of ways that both the participants and the researchers can act which might then go on to influence or bias the results they can't always be avoided but they should at least be known about the first of these is the hawthorne effect people generally try harder at tasks they're interested in they try less hard at tasks which don't match their interests this can lead to bias results if the participants are more interested in a subject or a task than the general public one issue with having people volunteer for psychological research is that they're more interested than the general public in psychology which can lead to biased results a second problem as we've already seen is demand characteristics in the presence of researchers and especially so in a laboratory setting participants may well behave as they think they should rather than behaving naturally this can inevitably bias the results and it's one major issue with laboratory research a third issue is social desirability bias everybody naturally wants to behave in a way which is acceptable socially we all want to put forward the best possible version of ourselves especially to strangers in things like questionnaires and interviews this can very easily lead on to dishonesty which can then bias results fourthly we have researcher bias the expectations of the researcher or interviewer can cause bias this can happen in several ways like choosing what behavior to record and how you record it in interviews and questionnaires especially researchers may ask leading questions or alter their tone in a way which is designed to provide answers that fit their existing expectations finally we have the investigator effect this is when the researcher unwittingly and unconsciously influences his participants through their actions or their presence this can even be tiny and subtle things like the way they're dressed are they for example wearing a lamp coat because that may influence behavior or even their tone of voice ethical issues are key to understanding psychology as a profession as a science and as a wider research discipline psychology tries to hold itself to extremely high ethical standards any science does but that's easy in chemistry or physics when you're dealing with inanimate objects in psychology it all becomes rather more tricky before any research at all can be carried out any ethical issues which might or will crop up must be addressed avoided or explained there are many different types of ethical issues a psychologist may encounter the first of these is the issue of informed consent participants should always be able to give fully informed consent to an experiment or piece of research this should include a full knowledge of the aims and the method of the research before it begins any time before or during participants always have the right to withdraw and back out from the experiment one issue however is that infants and children under 16 cannot legally give informed consent instead it has to be given by their parents or guardians as we've seen in a naturalistic observation where people are being observed going about their everyday life informed consent cannot be got without biasing the experiment up front however this can be worked around permission to use the information gained can be obtained afterwards it doesn't get rid of the problem but it does mitigate it as we've seen in many experiments deception must sadly sometimes be used in psychological research problem is if deception is used at any point informed consent cannot be given by the participants they cannot have full knowledge of what is happening it is allowed in the most ethical guidelines for participants to withhold information about the method or aims of research if there's a reasonable scientific reason for doing so often researchers will ask independent external people like a local solicitor if they would object to the study once they've got this in writing they may have absolved themselves of some responsibility a third issue is protection from harm no scientific research in any discipline let alone psychology should deliberately or through negligence accidentally cause harm to participants there have been a great many instances of psychological research causing either physical or mental harm like that done by milgram in 1963 and most obviously the stanford prison experiment as a general rule participants in any piece of research or study should be at no greater risk of harm than they would be through their everyday life a fourth issue is confidentiality research in psychology sometimes involves collecting some personal data about emotions feelings behaviors family situation etc this data must legally be kept confidential it can't be revealed in a personal way in reports if there's a reason why precise information which links data to a participant has to be published then they must be warned before so and they have the right to withdraw their data a fifth ethical issue is debriefing general guidelines say that after psychological research has been conducted and finished participants should be returned to the state they were in both emotionally and physically before it occurred this is especially critical if deception has been used in the research at some point some research can cause psychological issues for participants like stress or anxiety they should be offered therapy and help if this has been the case to try and bring them back to that state from before the research a sixth problem as we've seen is animal rights some types of research especially into attachment and relationships can often involve animals but every nature animals cannot give informed consent sometimes they've been harmed through research sometimes in cruel ways and many people understandably have issues with this we can however gain some important information from animal studies especially into attachment a general rule is that they should only ever go ahead if there's a sound scientific reason for them doing so outside of just curiosity the data and information we get from observations can be extremely difficult to analyze effectively sometimes it's numerical but often it's open to bias and it completely depends on the skill and dedication of the observer when any type of observation is done there must be an adequate leveling of sampling to ensure the data is representative for example having two researchers try to carefully observe 100 people is not going to give an adequate level of sampling so the data won't be representative at all any language used should be done carefully definitions should be precise to avoid research bias and context must also be included for example describing the behavior as a of a boxer in a ring as aggressive might not be correct as in this setting that behavior is acceptable and expected if the same behavior happened in a bus station that would be an entirely different matter many of these issues also occur with interviews with interviews much of the data is likely to be qualitative and written notes as a result of open questions used once again context is very important here things like body language the speed of the response and other important details about the participant that their facial expression should be included as part of the notes it's also especially important in this setting to avoid any kind of researcher bias actual language used by the participant should be recorded not an interpretation by the researcher which might be biased the researcher in this setting should also include any notes on how their appearance or tone could have influenced the responses they were given people tend to respond differently for example to people wearing suits or lab coats many of the same points also apply to questionnaires there are many variables like the font the use of specific language even the method of distribution and format we should all have an influence on the data and how it's analyzed people will respond very differently to a nice neat questionnaire on headed paper than they would to a handwritten one on a4 for example in all of the above the selection of data is important it's normal in any science to disregard anomalous results which are obviously an error but this should always be done independently and not to improve the results to fit a pre-existing theory qualitative data is data which isn't numerical things like textual observations speech and written notes it's obviously very difficult to analyze this in a completely objective way a lot depends on the method we use and the bias of the researcher doing it the upside however is that qualitative data provides us with large amounts of detail one way of analyzing this type of data is known as thematic analysis this looks to identify themes that run through all the information and data like a lot of participants mentioning their parents or loads of participants having issues with their children some theories and conclusions can be drawn from these themes which may at least give the basis for a hypothesis but they cannot prove or disprove one another way of analyzing qualitative data is through content analysis this involves placing all the words used into categories like hesitant response or dishonest response then performing a numerical analysis on any resulting trends and figures this at least gives a very clear summary on which further numerical analysis like means and standard deviation can be done it's relatively easy from this to replicate provided the same categories are used in future experiments that said however as with all textual analysis there can be bias introduced in how the categories are chosen and how words are assigned to them this method of content analysis can also remove detail and nuance from the initial textual data and just reduce it to a set of numbers in which case why have you bothered getting qualitative data at all over the course of an experiment researchers will generally gather both primary and secondary data primary data is information collected directly through observation or interaction with participants it's the information actually gained through the research examples of this are things like the responsive people give to interviews and questionnaires notes made observer through observations are the results of memory tests from participants in a lab secondary data is information from other studies done beforehand this can be used to back up a theory or just develop a hypothesis prior to the research meta analysis is when the results data and methodology from loads of previous studies is collated and put together and analyzed as a whole obviously this can be extremely time intensive it's very methodical which can make it very expensive but it can also provide useful information about general trends in a field of research one big issue however with meta-analysis is that it can introduce bias especially in the choice of studies to include you can leave some out or include others to try and influence a conclusion before you start there are four main basic ways in which numerical data can be analyzed through what we call descriptive statistics these are fairly quick straightforward bits of maths which give an easy way to evaluate data at least at face level for each of these four we're going to use the following set of data as an example 22 24 25 29 36 41 and 42 the mean which is sometimes also known as the average is the sum of all the data divided by the number of pieces of data in this case the sum is 22 plus 24 plus 25 plus 29 plus 36 plus 41 plus 42 which gives us 219 this is then divided by 7 the number of bits of data we used to give us 31.28 as the mean or average the range is very simple it's the difference between the largest number in this case 42 and the smallest number in this case 22 which gives us 20. the mode is the most commonly occurring number we don't really have a mode here as all of the numbers occur once finally the median is the middle number when they're placed in order these numbers here are given in order so 29 is the one in the middle the mean is actually very useful it takes into account all of the numbers that have been used and it's used in a variety of other calculations like for example standard deviation but it's also very easily distorted it can be pulled up or down by very low or high scores which could be anomalies it's also mathematically imperfect it can find for example the average number of pets per family is 1.2 which is clearly impossible the range as we've seen is very quick and easy to calculate but it has a little further usage the median takes all the data into your account which is great and it does give you a central point but it doesn't take into account all the information and it has little further use in other calculations finally the mode tells you the most common result which can be useful but it also ignores all the other data after psychological research has been done and the data has been analyzed a report is published these reports which are done and published after research must be done in a systematic way and they have a very set structure the first part is the title the title must state what the research investigated and include both the independent variable iv and the dependent variable the dv good example of this would be an investigation to measure the effect of time pressure on short-term memory recall accuracy secondly we have the abstract this is a piece of text usually a few hundred words long which gives a brief and quite concise summary of the research including the hypothesis the aims a brief summary of the results and any obvious problems or flaws after this we have the introduction the introduction should give a much wider overview of the whole area being studied including any related studies or previous research that's happened before after this should be the aims and hypotheses this section should lay out the very broad aims of the research together with the specific hypothesis he should again include both the independent variable the iv and the dependent variable the dv next should come the method this section should outline in great and exhaustive detail the exact method used in what is in effect a blow by blow account it should include many things such as the research method was this a laboratory experiment or a naturalistic observation for example the research design was it an independent groups or repeated measures design how were any outside variables minimized and controlled were there any ethical issues and if there were any ethical issues how were they dealt with or minimized what materials were used was there any written instructions for example what was the precise procedure of the experiment and how was the data recorded how many participants were used what were their breakup how were they selected and how they allocated to groups or different conditions and finally was any apparatus used how was it standardized and systemized or made safe after this comes the results this should include the data and the results together with a brief description of the methods of analysis done any very important graphs charts or diagrams should also be included although any other ones can be placed in appendices at the back after this should come the discussion section this should be a very wide ranging but very honest discussion of several things for example an explanation of the findings which gives a really good summary of the results and explains if the original hypothesis was proved or disproved or in fact neither it should also include a discussion around the implications of the study what effect may the results have on psychology or a wider society the discussion should also cover any problems or limitations of the study with suggestions on how future research could get around them every study has problems should also include the relationship between the research done and previous research on broadly similar topics together with any suggestions for future research which could expand on or improve upon the research done after this should be the references this should be a list of all the materials like books websites and articles used to prepare for and carry out the study they should be presented in alphabetical order by the surname of the author or first author if there's been several and finally is the appendices this should include all the raw data the calculations and any materials that have been used like questionnaires [Music] [Music] gender bias is a wide issue but it can be defined as a preference for or indeed against one gender obviously this is not a unique issue for psychology it's been an issue for many parts of many societies such as our politics and our economy for many years to take an example specific to psychology however studies of aggression and criminality have usually focused on males on the other hand studies of attachment have mostly focused on females sometimes and indeed quite often this bias reflects wider bias in society the general view even today is that men are much more likely to be criminal than women even though the true picture is slightly more complicated in psychology this gender bias is usually unconscious but it can be overt and deliberate in either case it tends to either exaggerate or minimize the difference between the genders there are two main types of gender bias alpha bias and beta bias alpha bias is when the differences between the genders are exaggerated or made artificially wider this tends to minimize the value of one of the sexes and maximize the value of the other on the other hand beta bias is when the differences between the genders are ignored or minimized often conclusions drawn from research which focuses on one gender is generalized out to the entire population which minimizes the difference between them research can also be androcentric that is centered around males or estrocentric that is centered around females as you may well expect androcentrism is much more common it tends to occur when male behavior or male cognition is viewed as the norm this was very common throughout much of the 19th and 20th centuries and in some quarters it remains common even today one of the main ways in which any kind of bias but especially gender bias occurs in psychology is by creeping unseen into the very design of research research design influences research results and conclusions these go on to influence the whole discipline of psychology and therefore our wider society as a whole the research aim or question itself can even be biased research around attachment for example is often designed with female behavior as the default norm or the null hypothesis the way in which participants are selected is also critical ideally any sample should be stratified with 50 male and 50 female participants this was and to an extent is however not always the case studies done all the way up to the 1980s mainly used groups of male university students as participants it was cheaper and easier this caused inherent bias from the very outset and it meant that any conclusions which were gained through that research could not be generalized out to the whole population any existing gender stereotypes within society can also influence the expectations of researchers usually at an unconscious level we may well expect women to be more caring and vulnerable and expect men to be more independent and aggressive and look to see those behaviors in any kind of observation these expectations can influence conclusions this is obviously especially true in observational studies where researchers may only record behavior that fits in with their existing stereotypes whether they know they have those stereotypes or not researchers must also take great care to treat female and male participants in any kind of study in exactly the same ways any differences in the instructions given the tone of voice used or other variables could also influence results and therefore conclusions meaning that those conclusions can't be generalized out it's worth noting that these biases are almost always not intentional they stem from existing biases and preconceptions within society but great care must be taken when research is designed to avoid bias another way that buyers can creep into research is at the stage of publication hundreds of psychological research projects take place every single year and space in dedicated scientific journals is both limited and in demand therefore only studies which show an actual difference between the genders are likely to be published they're more notable and they're of greater interest to both psychology and the wider general public the same goes indeed more so for the general media a tabloid newspaper is much more likely to refer to a study which reveals a strong gender difference sadly this is often done with a sensational misleading misinformed headline like psychology boffins find that women really can't reverse park rather than a more nuanced and balanced conclusion such as observational studies show that women are subject to much greater pressure in a driving environment leading to a slight increase in low-speed vehicle collisions this obviously exaggerates the difference between the genders known as alpha bias it leads wider society to think that the differences are much larger and more important than they actually are bias is prevalent in theories too especially ones that were developed many years ago to take an example freud always viewed male behavior as the default norm and female behavior as an interesting but irrelevant detail research that's been done into conformity especially the stanford prison experiment and those done by ash in the 1950s tended to be androcentric they focused almost entirely on male behavior ben's research into gender and androgyny on the other hand was a beta biased it ignored or at least minimized differences between the genders the word culture is unfortunately an inherently tricky concept to define but we can take it as being a set of views norms social roles and moral values shared by a group of people obviously progressive globalization over the decades has aligned cultures more closely we all now have access to the information and norms of other cultures through the internet but differences between cultures remain even in the 20th century psychology initially developed in western europe and the usa it often therefore assumes cultural norms from these areas and research into other cultures outside western europe and the usa has been fairly rare one possible reason for this was that western psychologists through the ages tended to incorrectly assume that social norms behavior and roles were similar in all cultures and therefore limited themselves to study western cultures because it was easier and cheaper cross-cultural research that's research which looks at several cultures is inherently time-consuming expensive and riddled with practical difficulties these limitations may also have meant that psychologists stuck with research which focused on the usa and western europe finally in earlier and especially in colonial times there may well have been the assumption that cultures outside of europe and later on the usa were primitive and therefore not worth investing time and money into studying in detail something which today obviously we know not to be true as we saw with gender bias cultural bias can easily creep into psychology through our research methods and research design usually this is because researchers have inherent inbuilt assumptions that influence the methodology barry working back in 1969 theorized there were two main approaches to research in psychology which could lead to cultural bias these were called etic research and emic research etic research is when any research done involving only one culture is then generalized out to apply to all cultures usually obviously erroneously sometimes though this is actually perfectly reasonable all humans everywhere share certain features we have the same genetics the same basic physical construction and the same basic physical needs like food and sleep so generalizing some studies and therefore some conclusions to the whole human population can't work that said any research which includes any cultural elements like attachment memory aggression or conformity cannot so easily be generalized emic research examines a variety of cultures and focuses on the differences and similarities between those cultures obviously this avoids to an extent the issue of cultural bias but may cause the problem of the gaps and differences between cultures to be exaggerated especially through later misreporting in the general media subculture bias can also occur this is when a large overarching culture for example arab culture is studied but subcultures for example catholic christian arab culture is missed entirely this tends to lead to inappropriate generalizations as these smaller subcultures are missed ethnocentrism is when we assume that cultural norms everywhere are the same as our own most of us are guilty of this as media the internet and tv has developed it's become common over much of the world to see westernized american culture as being normal or at least as being the default this can influence how we view the behavior and the motivations of others many western psychologists fail to take into account the importance of family respect for elders and cultures of obedience present in many other cultures outside of this small western sphere when the cultural norms of one culture are assumed to be true for another one this is usually known as an imposed etic this may seem like a small minor and a purely academic issue but it can actually have profound influences on wider society to take an example a great deal of the research done on the afro-caribbean culture within the uk measured behaviors against a norm of the white population cross-cultural research can at least to an extent resolve some of these issues but it also has problems translators can be very difficult to find and very expensive to hire they also add an additional second layer of interpretation which can easily bias results and conclusions different terms have different meanings in different cultures which can easily cause issues with validity the term brother for example has different meanings in white british culture to the ones it has in british muslim culture to take one example the free will versus determinism debate is an absolutely critical one in psychology it has also been raised in politics society economics religion and even mathematics free will is the idea that we are all able to freely choose our behavior and actions this would mean our behavior can always be explained in terms of decisions and intentions however this may be an illusion all of us like to think we have free will when in fact we are often influenced by factors completely outside of our control it has also been argued that individuals with serious psychological problems such as schizophrenia may not have the same level of free will as a psychologically healthy individual this would mean that free will is not absolute and there are degrees of it on the other hand determinism is the idea that our behavior is entirely the result of our environment genetics and biochemistry and that we are not in control of it at all essentially this is a scientific approach he seeks to establish simple cause and effect relationships between past events current behaviors and even future developments many people take issue with this idea as they think it resolves individuals of responsibility for their actions it's also impossible to prove it false and anything which you can't prove false lacks scientific validity each of the various approaches that we've looked at in a level psychology has a slightly different attitude towards this free will versus determinism debate at one end of the scale is the biological approach the biological approach argues that our behavior our emotions and our feelings are determined by basic biological factors like our brain structure and body biochemistry therefore it's strongly deterministic the psychodynamic approach is quite similar freud argued that our behaviors are determined by unconscious forces rather than our own free will the behavioral approach to psychology is also fairly deterministic the behavioral approach argues that past conditioning is the main influence on our current behavior rather than our own ability to make decisions for ourselves the cognitive approach is rather more balanced it argues that behavior is a result of a combination of free will and determining factors more specifically the cognitive approach argues that our brains process information in a very set and predetermined way but we then make free decisions based on this information finally and at the other end of the scale the humanistic approach is entirely based around free will it argues that we're all trying to be completely in control of our own behaviors and emotions and to this end we're all always trying to achieve personal growth holism and reductionism is another very key debate in psychology once again it's one that permeates out this time more into medicine philosophy and psychiatry reductionism is the idea that everything can always be eventually broken down into straightforward cause and effect relationships like for example aggression being caused by a simple hormone imbalance within the brain holism is the exact opposite holism argues that human behavior is complex and multifaceted and it can't therefore be reduced to straightforward simplistic cause and effect relationships working in 1976 rose argued that the different approaches approaches to psychology along with the different scientific disciplines represented levels of explanation and rose outlined five the first is the molecular level or physics this looks at the basic physical structure of life and the universe the second level is called the cellular level we can think of it as biochemistry which looks at the chemical interactions needed for life to occur develop and continue the third level is often known as the partial individual level we can think of it as biology this looks at how parts of individual people function and operate the fourth is the individual level or psychology which looks at the behavior of individuals finally the fifth is the group level often known as sociology which looks at the behavior and interactions of groups each of these levels is less reductionist and more holistic than the one before or underneath it they therefore represent a spectrum of holism and reductionism as we've already seen with the debate around free will and determinism the different approaches to psychology have different ways of approaching debates around holism and reductionism the biological approach is almost entirely reductionist it seeks to establish very straightforward and simple cause and effect relationships between bodily function and individual behavior given that the biological approach is almost entirely scientific at its core this is perhaps not surprising in a very similar way the behavioral approach is also quite reductionist it attempts to extract quite simple cause and effect relationships between conditioning either classical or operant and eventual displayed behavior the cognitive approach is mostly reductionist indeed sometimes it's known as machine reductionism it treats humans as computers with our brains as processors and therefore again seeks to establish those cause and effect relationships the psychodynamic approach is more nuanced and balanced freud did theorize that our behaviors are caused by unconscious factors but he also didn't try to reduce all of human behavior to these simple relationships finally at the very opposite end of the spectrum there is the humanistic approach this is almost entirely holistic it considers the whole individual and tries to determine no cause and effect relationships it's therefore not really reductionist at all the nurture nature debate is a third key debate in psychology but it also has absolutely huge wider implications on society nurture is the extent to which our emotions feelings personality and behavior are a result of our environment surrounding factors and upbringing on the other hand nature is the extent to which our emotions feelings personality and behavior are predetermined by our genetic biology biochemistry and physiology this is an absolutely core debate and as you may expect it's been ongoing for some time it formed a key background to the many scientific developments of the 19th century today in the 21st century almost all psychologists agree that both nature and nurture are important but there is wide and sometimes quite loud of disagreement about the precise nature of the balance between the two this view that both nature and nurture are important is often known as the interactionist approach and it's extremely fashionable today the precise nature of the interaction between nature and nurture may be extremely complicated ploman working with a group of researchers back in 1977 identified three basic ways in which our environment and our genetics may interact the first is known as passive interactions this is when individuals with similar genetics become much more likely to experience similar environments like two siblings which share a large amount of their genetic material living in the same home with the same parents the second is reactive interactions this is when our genetics may determine our environment to take an example the naturally tall individual may have a different career a different sense of self and a different self-image which gives them a different environment thirdly we have active interactions this is when individuals with a particular genetic basis seek out a certain environment which then reinforces that genetic basis to take an example an individual who is naturally resistant to cold due to a nordic inheritance may choose to live in a cold place over time and many generations this will reinforce the resistance to cold in their offspring as with all the other debates in psychology the various different approaches take a slightly different view as to the relative impact of nature and nurture the biological approach leans most heavily on the side of nature it argues that much of our behavior and our personality is determined by inherent genetic factors rather than any environmental factors but even this biological approach does allow that our environment influences at least how we grow and develop the cognitive approach allows that our chemical and electrical brain processes are genetic and therefore it lies on the nature side of the debate however this cognitive approach also considers that our environment has an influence on the outcomes we choose after information has been processed by the brain like other approaches therefore it's basically interactionist the psychodynamic approach argues that our personalities are the result of interactions between parts of the brain some of these parts are genetic and primal while others are considered environmental and rational so it treats them both basically equally the behavioral approach focuses on nurture rather than nature by considering that our behaviors are learnt that said the behavioral approach does allow that some very basic instincts are inherent to us and have been provided through our evolutionary journey finally the humanistic approach considers that our desire and inbuilt need to improve and reach our full potential as a person is entirely natural but our ability to do so and the methods by which we improve is down to our environment really therefore it's a nurture-based approach the fourth key debate in psychology is between the ideographic and nomathetic approaches however this one is much more nuanced it's also one which is much more specific to psychology and it references how research is planned carried out and then applied to be useful in wider society the nomaphetic approach tries to develop generalized principles and general laws that can be applied to whole populations potentially millions or billions of people this usually involves laboratory experiments general conclusions and numerical data all of which look very much like science on the other hand the idiographic approach tries to focus on the individual usually in great detail rather than looking for general laws usually this involves things like case studies and observations which give textual data rather than numbers it's very important to understand that neither of these is a correct way to go about psychology indeed they're both correct they both offer advantages and disadvantages in general the lomathetic approach is useful for constructing therapies and treatments it's more objective and scientific at its core however it lacks ecological validity and it's not always actually applicable in the real world by contrast the ideographic approach has much greater ecological validity it's much more relevant to the real world but it's also much more vulnerable to bias and subjectivity and generally it can't produce rules which we can generalize out to whole populations which can limit how actually useful it is as we've seen with the other key debates in psychology each of the approaches that we've looked at takes a slightly different view about being idiographic or nomathetic most obviously the humanistic approach focuses entirely on the individual it doesn't even attempt to produce any general trends or laws and therefore it's completely and entirely ideographic the psychodynamic approach is both it has elements of ideographic research and elements of pneumothetic research freud did use a few general laws and principles but also tailored his approach and his therapy to the individual patient the biological approach is almost completely normathetic the whole point of the biological approach is that it tries to determine general rules and laws from laboratory experimentation rather than examining the individual that said even the biological approach will sometimes involve individual case studies giving it at least a veneer a videographic the behavioral approach attempts to find and then apply generalized cause and effect laws about our behavior mostly therefore it's nomathetic finally the cognitive approach is almost completely normathetic as we've seen it mostly treats humans using a computer model which views us all as some kind of computer with inputs processes and outputs therefore it develops generalized models and laws around this any scientific discipline like physics or chemistry will always carry out some research which is influential controversial or disputed to take an example there was the manhattan project in the 1930s and early 1940s which developed the atomic bomb that was influential controversial and remains disputed however this is even more the case with psychology the findings from research around psychology can highlight or reveal social issues political problems or complex moral issues any research which taps into these problems is known as socially sensitive research and especially in psychology it can have a profound effect upon society to take an example some psychological research has uncovered a possible genetic component to schizophrenia criminal tendencies depression and aggression in an extreme case this could eventually be used to screen fetuses against these conditions which could in turn lead to higher rates of abortion or social stigma another further example are iq tests iq tests were initially developed as a means of testing intelligence in the 1920s their reliability today is widely disputed and discredited they're androcentric ethnocentric and have huge methodological problems however they have been used by those with a very biased political agenda to show possible racial differences in intelligence usually this has been done to excuse and justify existing prejudices and hatred there is always an argument that any socially sensitive research in any discipline but especially psychology should not be done in the first place that said all research has the power and potential to be used by the right people in a positive way [Music] psychologists have long known that evolution plays a huge part in our choice of partners in romantic relationships this area of psychology links our behavior today with our evolutionary instincts from millions of years ago and it's known as evolutionary psychology as you may expect this area of psychology has an awful lot to say about our modern relationships how they form and how they can go wrong and then end specifically evolutionary psychologists suggest that we all look for specific attractive traits in our prospective partners the idea is that these traits make it much more likely that the partner and therefore any offspring we have with that partner will survive to adulthood one example of this is the idea of waist to hip ratio in women this ratio which is an indicator of the ease of giving birth and research done by singh in 1993 suggests that it is a trait men look for in potential partners for romantic relationships it's a trait related to childbirth and therefore a trait related to evolution obviously one major issue with this research and indeed with this whole idea and concept is that to an extent it's inherently sexist it also assumes all relationships are heterosexual and all relationships will result in offspring which is obviously not the case in our modern world and even if you go back hundreds or thousands of years was still not the case then however this is one example at least of sexual selection sexual selection is the process of selection based on secondary sexual characteristics like for example waist to hip ratio in women facial hair in men or height in both generally speaking there are two basic types of sexual selection the first is intersexual selection this is when the female plays a very active role in deciding on a mate based on a range of characteristics depending on species intrasexual selection on the other hand is when the female is predominantly passive in deciding on a mate the mate may well be decided for them by some sort of process like for example combat where only one potential mate is left after all the rest have been driven off differences between the genders are very common in many areas of psychology and as you may expect they're also common when we look at how the different genders pick prospective partners in romantic relationships some research was done into this in 1989 by bus this research suggested that men and women do indeed have different traits that they look out for when they're picking a prospective partner this research and the conclusions that were gained from it seem to be cross-cultural this would suggest that there is a genetic or evolutionary basis for these choices that we all make they're universal the results were complex but they can be summarized it was suggested that women make decisions about prospective partner choice based on resources that is they pick a mate who they think can provide the resources needed to keep them safe and raise children to adulthood this research also suggested that men pick their prospective partners in romantic relationships based on reproductive capacity essentially they pick a mate who they think will be able to healthily bear children to childbirth and then take proper care of these offspring so they reach reproductive age themselves obviously both of these are evolutionary reasons for partner choice this research then led on to the sexual strategies theory put together by boston schmidt slightly later on in 1993 this theory suggests that men and women have different basic strategies to partner choice which depends on the situation that they're in their resources and the desired outcome of that relationship whether the desired outcome for example is just companionship or whether children is a desired outcome obviously this research may well be time relative the desired outcomes from relationships may well be something that changes over time social norms around childbirth child-rearing and parenting also change very rapidly physical attraction is an obvious and to some even dominant feature of romantic relationships it makes up a very large part of overall attraction and being attracted to somebody however it isn't the only factor there are other things involved in the process of attraction outside of how somebody looks some research was done into this by cunningham back in 1986 this research found that a group of male undergraduates found certain specific traits attractive in potential female mates these were things like a small chin large eyes prominent cheekbones and even small noses obviously there are issues with this research it's inherently sexist which does limit its validity it's also unknown if these traits are time relative or culturally relative they may change between different time periods which seems likely and different cultures which also seems likely generally speaking however it is thought that men consider physical attraction to be more important to a relationship than women do this to an extent is disputed however there's little actual hard evidence to back this theory up some more recent research done in the last 10 or 20 years suggests that both men and women value physical attraction roughly equally however a further important trait which contributes to attraction and how much we're attracted to somebody is the idea of self-disclosure self-disclosure can be defined as how much we voluntarily tell other people especially potential mates about ourselves without being asked to in general and according to two pieces of research done by johnson in 2001 and mckenna and a group of researchers slightly later on in 2002 the amount that we self-disclose to others especially events like dates has a very big impact on overall attraction there are many theories to explain how we all individually decide on a partner for a romantic relationship one of these theories which seems to have been around the longest is the idea of filter theory filter theory suggests that each of us applies several filters in succession one after the other to gradually reduce the whole human population of roughly 7 billion down to a small group of potential mates for any given romantic relationship this theory has been around for a long time it was first proposed by kirkhof and davis all the way back in 1962. the general idea is that we all use three separate filters the first is called the social demographic filter this allows us to refine the whole widespread human population all over the world down by a given field of variables things like gender sexuality age religion and geographical proximity by doing so and applying each of these variables in turn we eliminate the vast majority of people and we narrow down our possible selection of mates to a very small group people that are near us that match the right sexuality gender age and religion the second filter is the similar attitudes filter this works by applying another field of variables known as a field of desirables things like shared values shared attitudes perhaps shared political affiliations shared hobbies and interests we could perhaps include shared humor as well the idea is this further narrows down our possible pool of partners the third and final filter is known as the complementary filter over a much longer term we look for partners who will fulfill our emotional and physical needs and will therefore be a good long-term fit for a sustainable relationship there are many possible ideas and theories which go some way to explaining how both romantic relationships and the relationships we form with friends colleagues and acquaintances operate and work and indeed theories to explain how and why they may end two of these are known as social exchange theory and equity theory social exchange theory has been around for a long time it was first proposed by tybolt and kelly all the way back in 1959 social exchange theories suggest that in any relationship we all try to maximize our rewards that's things like attention happiness and emotional fulfillment and we all try to minimize the cost the cost of things we put into that relationship things like effort time and emotional expense on the other hand equity theory was first proposed by hatfield and a group of researchers more recently in 1979. this proposed the opposite that each of us seeks balance in our relationships equity theory suggests that unequal relationships result in discomfort and distress and inevitably will end on the other hand equal relationships result in the most happiness and the most satisfaction for all parties in that relationship slightly later on rush bult in 1980 developed this idea further to propose what became known as the investment model of relationships this investment model suggests that the stability of any relationship depends on the amount of commitment put into it obviously commitment is a tricky term to define but it tends to be made up of three separate factors the first factor is satisfaction this is how much the relationship satisfies the physical and emotional needs of the participants in that relationship the second is comparison this is how much the participants in the relationship feel they would be better satisfied either in an alternative different relationship or in no relationship at all and the third is investment this is how much the participants feel they have put into the relationship not just in monetary terms but also in time effort and emotional expenditure as you may expect a large amount of research has been done to try at least to establish how and indeed why relationships end not just romantic relationships but also friendships obviously the vast majority of this research has been aimed squarely at romantic relationships and indeed relationship psychology and things like marriage counselling is a fully developed profession with research evidence to back it up one key model in this area was developed by duck in 1988 and it's known as the phase model this phase model suggests there are four main stages or phases to the end of any romantic relationship the first is known as the intra-psychic phase this is when one partner in the relationship is dissatisfied but at this stage they haven't yet communicated this to the other person who carries on fully unaware that anything is wrong the second is the dyadic phase this happens when the other person is told both of the participants in the romantic relationship or the friendship are now dissatisfied and importantly they're also both aware of the other's dissatisfaction the third is the social phase this occurs when others in the immediate social network like family and the friendship groups of both become aware of the dissatisfaction and the impending end of the relationship and the fourth is the slightly oddly named grave dressing phase this is when the two partners in that relationship especially in a romantic relationship begin to move on they've separated and they start to disperse to do this they need to organize things like children and perhaps property this model has some issues it's both reductionist and descriptive to that end it completely ignores any individual differences and assumes we all act in identical ways all the time which of course is not true when we say it's descriptive what we mean is that it explains how relationships end but makes absolutely no attempt to explain why that happens a virtual relationship is one where the communication happens online through a computer rather than actually physically in person obviously these types of relationship can be platonic they can be just friendships but more often they are romantic and indeed it's romantic virtual relationships that have been studied by psychology a very common theory among psychologists is that self-disclosure that's telling other people voluntarily information about yourself has an impact on forming virtual relationships as we've already seen some research has been done on self-disclosure specifically by johnson in 2001 and mckenna and a group of researchers more recently in 2002 and this research backed up this idea both of these research projects found some strong correlations between levels of self-disclosure in participants and the forming of relationships however it's also been theorized that another contributing factor may well be self-awareness simply put self-awareness is paying attention to yourself either by envisioning how others see and perceive you which is public self-awareness or by looking inside you and being aware of your own thoughts and your own behaviors which is often termed private self-awareness that said if we hold back from self-disclosing it becomes much less likely that any kind of virtual relationships will form this process is known as gating and there are a lot of different factors that can potentially act as gates to prevent self-disclosure happening things like appearance a lack of verbal communication skills or confidence or even just straightforward shyness in an online virtual computerial environment however some of these gates especially physical ones no longer exist this may well go some way towards explaining why virtual relationships are becoming progressively more common a parasocial relationship is a relationship which is one-sided only one member of the relationship is aware of it existing at all in modern society today these tend to be individual people forming parasocial relationships with celebrities media stars and sports people that said they're not a purely modern phenomenon parasocial relationships have existed for as long as there's been mass media and therefore celebrities a really good example of this is the beatles many young female fans in the 1950s and 60s formed semi-obsessive parasocial relationships with john lennon and other members of the group these sounds sinister but usually these parasocial relationships are both short-term and entirely harmless to everybody but they can well become much more sinister and concerning working in 2002 mccutcheon outlined three levels of parasocial relationships the first level is the entertainment social level at this stage the parasocial relationship is a source of fun and enjoyment it's not taken seriously at all and quite often it's shared with others within a social group the second is the intense personal level when this stage is reached obsessive thoughts begin to intrude things like that celebrities my soul mate or we will be together forever things which are clearly not realistic finally if nothing is done to help or remove this relationship the obsessive thoughts become complete fantasies and the behaviors may well become concerning or indeed criminal things like stalking this final stage is known as the borderline pathological stage one possible explanation for parasocial relationships comes from attachment psychology attachment psychologists suggest that children who didn't at an early age form secure normal attachments to their primary caregiver usually their mother are much more likely to go on to form parasocial relationships in later adult life in general it's thought this is because there's much less chance of rejection in a completely one-sided relationship if the other person doesn't know they can't reject you and this makes it feel safe and secure to that individual there is some research evidence for this theory for example roberts in 2007 but no causal relationship or cause and effect link has ever been proven indeed there's never even been a strong correlation therefore an alternative explanation that's been put forward for parasocial relationships is the absorption addiction model this was first proposed by mccutcheon and a group of researchers in 2002 making it relatively recent this absorption addiction model suggests that the individual forming these parasocial relationships finds their own life unsatisfactory therefore they form the parasocial relationship in two stages the first is the absorption stage this is when an individual becomes absorbed and entranced in following a specific celebrity usually this is a form of escapism from their own life which they find to be unsatisfactory the second is the addiction stage eventually this absorption will become addictive and the individual becomes increasingly obsessed with the celebrity this can will lead to extreme or even criminal behavior and damage to the mental health of the individual there is also some research evidence like that done by maltby and a group of researchers in 2001 to back up this idea however this absorption addiction model ignores the potential positive aspects of any parasocial relationship one example of that is being a shared social activity [Music] so when discussing gender in the context of psychology it's absolutely critical that we understand the distinction between the term sex and gender they are two very different things and it's very important not to get them confused sex is biological it refers to very simply if somebody is biologically male or female gender however is much more complex it's based around our identity and how somebody behaves and wish to be defined in terms of masculine and feminine characteristics and behaviors sometimes some individuals have both they have a balance of male and female characteristics and behaviors in this case they are said to be androgynous it's also very important to be able to discuss sex roles these are the generally expected roles and behaviors of men and of women obviously these sex roles and expectations vary vastly over different time periods and in different cultures they're not set they're extremely variable and time sensitive a final term to understand and be able to discuss is sex role stereotypes these are the concepts about sex roles which are widely held by the majority of people as social norms widespread throughout society in essence their expectations about the roles of different sexes generally speaking at any point in history and in any culture they're rigid inflexible and very generalized without any individual differences societal advancements are a more secular society being considered a simple way of putting that is their old-fashioned a lot of sex role stereotypes in western culture today are based around sex roles in the 1950s and 60s one example is this men should go out to work while women cook clean and look after the home even today this is a very common sex role stereotype but it hasn't been an accurate one for approximately 70 years despite this it's a very commonly held one these stereotypes have some research evidence a study done by cv and a group of researchers back in 1973 found that how a lot of adults behaved towards a small child was determined by what sex the adults were told the child was so even today even though we know that these sex role stereotypes are very outdated many of us subconsciously do still take notice of them and abide by them next we must understand the concept of androgyny people who don't fit into any existing sex role stereotypes are usually said to be androgynous this is very much a misunderstood term by the general public and by the media mostly people will think it means having no gender or usually they simplify it down to even just appearance-based characteristics not dressing in male or female stereotypes in fact androgyny is much more complex usually it means that the individual shows roughly equal amounts of masculine and feminine characteristics bem was a landmark researcher into this area of psychology in 1974 they identified masculine and feminine characteristics and behaviors this was done by asking 100 students that's 50 male and 50 female to keep it representative to rate personality traits as being more male or more female this led to what's become known as the bem sex role inventory often shortened to bsri this bem sex role inventory was then further developed into a questionnaire which asks people to break their personality traits things for example like having a forgiving nature or being aggressive on a scale of one to seven some of the traits will be more male some will be more female but individuals who answer highly for all or most of the traits on the questionnaire are usually found or determined to be psychologically androgynous obviously this seems like a very modern concept in fact it's extremely likely that androgyny has been around for thousands of years but it's only recently that it's being investigated and understood obviously such a phenomenon like androgyny is going to bring about debate about its causes and there is indeed wide debate about what causes androgeny a lot of psychologists suspect it's a combination of several different factors like upbringing genetics and environment however one problem is that this bsri is very simplistic the bem sex role inventory used relatively small sample size and is very much open to subjective interpretation dishonesty and bias as is always the case with any questionnaire a further issue is that as we've seen the bem sex role inventory was developed in 1974. that's quite a long time ago now gender roles and stereotypes were radically different and to an extent therefore the bsri is quite outdated gender identity disorder quite often shortened to gid occurs when an individual's biologically determined sex does not match their displayed or preferred gender characteristics to take an example somebody who is biologically female and was born female may have a personal sense of gender identity and a preferred gender behavior which is male and therefore display male characteristics and male behaviors so there's a mismatch between their biological sex and preferred gender this is a very serious condition it can cause extremely deep psychological problems distress depression social cohesion issues and ostracism and even in many cases very sadly suicide many people who suffer from gender identity disorder or gid wish to change their sex to match their displayed and preferred gender and sense of personal identity usually gender identity disorder begins and can therefore be diagnosed very early in childhood usually between four and six years old it's important to note that gender identity disorder is very different from being homosexual from cross-dressing or just being confused a lot of people who cross stress do so merely out of enjoyment they have no wish to actually change their biological sex and don't have gender identity disorder this distinction is one that the media especially gets very confused about very often and that confusion tends to flow down to the general public this can lead to very widespread social problems and discrimination which can actually make the symptoms worse gender identity disorder does have treatments both surgery and hormone treatments can be used to change somebody's biological sex throughout most of the world however they're either unavailable or extremely expensive even in very developed nations like the uk the process of treating gender identity disorder is extremely expensive and difficult to come by as you may expect there are many conflicting different explanations for what actually causes gender identity disorder one possible suggestion is that it may be caused by malfunctions within the brain itself their brain functions in a manner which is more typical of the opposite sex to their birth sex so they display the gender characteristics of that opposite sex due to what is in effect a slight brain malfunction some research has been done around this and this research has suggested that there are differences between how the brains of males and females function likely this is due to different amounts of the different sex hormones in the brain and in the bloodstream therefore if an individual has irregular hormone concentrations something abnormal in their hormone levels especially during brain development they may well go on to unfortunately develop gender identity disorder in essence the variance in hormone levels causes their brain for want of a better word be of the wrong gender quite often people with gender identity disorder will feel like they're trapped in a body of the different sex and this research would seem to back that up there is indeed research evidence for this explanation studies were done in 2000 and then in 2009 these studies examine hormone levels in individuals transitioning between sexes either male to female or female to male they found that the levels of sex hormones were when this theory had predicted them to be suggesting that there is some research evidence to back this up that said some other research has contradicted this other research done has suggested that these disrupted hormone levels do not occur until the individual reaches adulthood this would suggest that hormones and brain function are not the root cause of gender identity disorder but they may be a symptom of it therefore many psychologists also believe there are numerous other influences which may cause the condition these could be social factors or indeed they could be environmental therefore one further possible explanation for gender identity disorder is social learning theory social learning theory would suggest that the disorder happens when a child observes and then goes on to imitate role models of the opposite sex the theory goes that this would cause them to go on to develop a gender identity and displayed behaviors which don't match their biological sex there is indeed some case study evidence for this things like rakers and lovas in 1974 and then again rakers in 1977. obviously however and as you may expect this theory our idea is extremely controversial it suggests that gender identity disorder is caused by problems in parenting and upbringing and few psychologists seriously believe that to be the case it's also worth noting that a great deal of the research behind this theory was done in a time the 1970s when the prevailing theory suggested that conditions like homosexuality which was then considered a condition were disorders which could be cured so we have to take it with a pinch of salt the biological approach to psychology as is often the case gives a fairly straightforward explanation about gender it suggests that differences between genders are a straightforward and very direct result of biological differences between the biological sexes there are indeed some biological difference between the sexes in terms of body composition biochemistry hormone concentration and distributions and indeed also brain activity generally speaking these differences are caused by sex hormones as we grow and develop in the womb as a fetus these hormones develop with us they're secreted by the body as we grow and develop with a few exceptions the vast majority of humans have 22 pairs of matching chromosomes in each cell the final 23rd pair are one of two formats either xx that's female or xy male all over or eggs contain xx chromosomes sperm have a 50 50 chance of being either x y or xx so when the two combine there is a fifty percent chance of the fetus being xx all female and the fifty percent chance of the fetus being xy or male therefore in the very early development of the fetus all fetuses have identical reproductive organs however a gene on the y chromosome triggers the development of male reproductive organs and without it female ones would develop by default we all start off as female therefore if male reproductive organs develop the larger amounts of testosterone are produced this has an influence on brain development the male brain develops in slightly different ways without male reproductive organs however these higher testosterone levels are lacking there's potentially more estrogen and the brain develops along female lines you end up with a female brain there is obviously a lot of research evidence to back this sequence and it is generally accepted but some other research which is more recent like hyde in 2005 has suggested that biological differences might be much less distinct than was originally thought in many cases the hormone levels and concentrations between the two sexes are actually very similar so there is even at this basic biological level still some level of dispute so as we've seen the vast majority of humans are either xx or xy in terms of their sx chromosomes xx being female xy being male this is the case in the vast majority of people but there are occasionally some variations from this trend these are known to medicine as atypical sex chromosome pans and we look at them here because they can have a profound impact on somebody's development obviously these conditions are extremely rare but they are also very serious studies have shown that atypical sex chromosome patterns can lead to two main conditions the first is klinefelter syndrome this occurs when a male has an extra x chromosome so instead of x y they're x x y as a general rule men with this condition are infertile they're unable to have children they're also usually smaller less muscular and display reduced male physical characteristics their voice isn't quite as deep they may struggle to grow facial hair things like that for example in essence they display slightly more feminine characteristics unfortunately this condition can also have very serious and permanent psychological effects there may well be problems with language in linguistic cognition social processing and they may well struggle to express their thoughts or interact with others normally the second condition to look at is known as turner syndrome this happens when females instead of having xx are born with only a single x chromosome the second one in the pair is damaged or sometimes entirely missing females with this condition are generally sterile they're also unable to have children usually they're much shorter than is average and may be physically quite slight often one slightly odd and not very well understood side symptom of this condition is that women that have it may well struggle with things like spatial awareness and numerical reasoning when trying to understand gender psychology it's absolutely critical to understand hormones hormones are chemical messengers there's hundreds of them within the body and they influence how our bodies grow and develop through childhood among many other things male specific hormones are called androgens female specific hormones are called estrogens it's also worth noting there are a whole host of hormones that both sexes have both androgens and estrogens are very general terms which cover a range of chemical compounds which we call hormones all of us have both male and female hormones in our bodies but the different sexes have varying concentrations and varying distributions of different specific hormones as a general rule males produce more testosterone females produce more estrogens that said in some cases individuals can produce more or less of specific hormones than is normal one good example of this is when some people and it is relatively rare produce far more testosterone than is normal it can happen to both sexes and the condition is known as c-a-h for men this condition generally causes the early onset of puberty a few years early but it has few other effects unfortunately for females the effects are much more severe and profound they tend to display more masculine physical features like growing facial hair or having a deep voice they grow much faster through the teenage years and they also have puberty much earlier sadly in extreme cases cah in females can lead to very severe physical abnormalities like genitalia which doesn't seem to be from either sex and even just straightforward physical deformity a further if even more rare condition which can be experienced is the overproduction of estrogen in women this tends to occur before menstruation happens and it can lead to psychological problems like aggression or uncontrolled emotions one other way in which psychologists look at gender is through the cognitive approach more specifically we need to consider cognitive development theory this was first put forward by piaget some time ago and this cognitive development theory suggests that the thoughts and views of children change over time as they grow and develop beyonce's theory suggests that as children grow up they move through various subsequent stages of development as they do so they gradually gain more complex and more advanced cognitive abilities this seems relatively normal to us today but when the theory was first put forward it was actually controversial cognitive explanations of gender and gender development therefore rely on piaget's theory of cognitive development to try and explain the onset of gender and gender identity in children working some time ago in 1966 kohlberg laid out the general theory of gender constancy this theory proposes three stages of gender development in children the first stage is the gender identity stage between ages one and two this is when the child first becomes aware at a very basic level that they are either male or female they also begin to determine if other people around them are male or female prior to this age children have no awareness of gender whatsoever generally children in this very early stage have very simplistic appearance-based gender ideas around things for example like colour the second stage is gender stability between ages four and six children in this second stage generally realize that gender remains fixed and is a part of their identity that said they may think that gender isn't constant and can change in some situations like if they are a male playing with female toys for example the third and final stage is called gender constancy which happens between ages 7 and 8. generally children in this final or more advanced stage understand that gender is fixed in all circumstances they usually understand that their own gender is permanent and will start to develop their own gender roles and gender identity by observing role models around them this theory seems fairly straightforward and there is a lot of research evidence to back it some examples are thompson in 1975 slavery and frey in 1975 also and monroe and his group of researchers in 1984. all of this research has also very interestingly suggested that this sequence of stages is completely universal it's independent of cultural background one issue however is that this is a very simplistic and quite reductionist theory it ignores any individual differences cultural factors and also social learning a final problem with this theory is that all it does is describe the process that's happening it makes no attempt to explain why gender identity develops the gender schema theory is one other alternative cognitive based explanation for gender development it was first developed and proposed by martin and halverson relatively recently in 1981 a schema is our internal idea or concept or even just the sum total of knowledge about an object concept or process a really simple way of putting it is a schema is all we know about a thing therefore this theory combines previous ideas about cognitive development to explain how children develop gender roles and gender stereotypes this gender schema theory suggests that by the time children reach about age three they develop a very basic sense of gender identity they know what gender they are and they have very basic generalized ideas about gender behavior things which are very simplistic like girls like pink and boys play with trucks nothing more nuanced or complex than that however as the child grows gradually and observes society happening around them this schema develops and becomes more complex they add information to the schema or change the schema to accommodate new information and develop in-groups and out-groups in-groups are objects behaviors and activities which they associate as being linked to their own sex boys and blue for example out groups are objects behaviors and activities associated with the opposite sex children will then use this system of schemas and groups to inform their own behavior obviously generally they will show a bias towards behavior which matches their in-group the schema system allows the child to process new information about gender however it also reinforces existing gender stereotypes that they see around them if those gender stereotypes are very strict and outdated it can very easily lead to discrimination and the denial of opportunity if to take one example a girl goes on to put mathematics and physics into the out group or a boy goes on to put hairdressing into the out group that may deny them opportunities in later life obviously however as children continue to grow older they develop much more nuanced complex and advanced cognitive abilities this allows them to move things between the groups and be less rigidly confined in existing gender stereotypes there is a huge body of very significant research evidence for this gender schema theory two examples are martin and halverson in 1983 and bradbert at al in 1986. that said some other research which is more recent has suggested that it's possible these in-groups and out-groups are much less rigid at an earlier age than was previously thought and there may not be a major influence in determining behavior and beliefs freud's psychodynamic approach to psychology suggests an alternative explanation for the development of gender freud usually managed to supply alternative explanations for things freud suggested that gender development is part of a psychosexual development process the theory was that children develop their gender identity and their gender-based behavior between the ages of roughly three and five years old at this age freud's theory states that children are aware of basic physical differences between the two sexes old genders he also suggested that male children may well think that the lack of a penis in females is due to castration and it being removed fry's suggestion was that these realizations lead to buried unconscious desires and deep-rooted fears children resolve these fears and desires by identifying with the parent of their own sex and then internalizing the behavior of that parent by adopting their behaviors and adopting that gender display freud named this period and this development the oedipus complex in boys fry did very little research on females some time later carl jung developed an alternatively named complex for girls which was named the electra complex for a suggestion was that at the phallic stage of development boys begin to romantically desire their mother and therefore feel jealousy and anger towards their father they know their father is physically more powerful than them so they experience fear the boy then identifies with the father by internalizing his behavior and his attitudes as they do so they develop a male gender identity the electra complex operates in a similar way young suggested that girls feel powerless because they don't have a penis therefore they begin to desire their father as with the oedipus complex as they do so they internalize the behavior of their mother and go on to develop a female gender identity it should hopefully be immediately obvious that there are some problems with this psychodynamic approach one major issue with all of freud's research and theories is that it only has case study evidence in this case we have the case of little hands from 1909 this one specific case study had extremely severe methodological problems it was entirely subjective with a tiny sample size of one and there was obvious bias the reporting mechanism was the boy's father it's also worth noting that a great deal of freud's theory of gender development is based entirely around very subjective ideas and the interpretation of behaviors we therefore can't test these theories and ideas scientifically and that alone makes freud's theory much less valid it's also generally thought in all of his research that freud deliberately sought out and then reported on case studies which specifically and definitely agreed with his existing theories one really big issue is that he never used any kind of control group so there was never any baseline to test against also a great deal of the work done around penis envy was based on stereotypes and gender roles from the very early 20th century since that time period gender expectations and gender roles have changed therefore the same processes are very unlikely to apply today over a hundred years later finally one key issue is that freud made a number of assumptions firstly that children will always be brought up by a mother and a father this was usually the case back in 1900 but isn't always the case today the second assumption was that homosexual couples with children simply don't exist again this was predominantly true in 1900 but it's very much not the case today thirdly freud assumed that the parents will be living together this was not actually always the case in 1900 and is certainly not always the case today we can also look at gender from the perspective of social learning theory social learning theory is the idea that we all learn our behavior by observing and then copying or imitating role models in society around us and this theory can be applied as one possible explanation of how we as children go on to develop gender typical behaviors the behaviors which are typical for our gender generally and obviously most children have role models of their own gender their parents media and social media personalities perhaps older siblings or other members of the wider family the child grows they observe the behaviors of these role models they look up to them and then imitate that behavior as their own as they do so they display gender typical behavior and gradually develop a gender identity of their own often it's very likely this will be developed through reinforcement parents will quite often reward children for gender appropriate behavior they may sometimes punish them for gender inappropriate behavior although this is becoming fortunately much less common there is also quite a lot of evidence that both parents and peers treat children differently depending on their gender fathers especially use a very different set of linguistic terms around children of different genders with girls or daughters they quite often use words like soft or gorgeous but for boys they'll use words like strong and hard to reinforce gender stereotypes mothers too very often have very different expectations of gender behavior quite often they will attempt to teach girls social norms and tasks that they themselves undertake but they won't do the same thing with boys it's often been suggested that children prefer friends and playmates of the same sex this would further reinforce gender-specific behavior it would also mean that children kind of automatically segregate themselves by their gender obviously social learning theory identifies this process of learning stereotypical gender behavior but it makes absolutely no attempt to explain where this behavior came from initially which is one major issue with this theory one major line of research for both psychology and gender specific psychology is around gender universality are gender roles and gender behaviors consistent in the same among varying different cultures or alternatively are there differences in how the genders and sexes behave between different cultures we know that gender behavior is time sensitive but is it culture sensitive too if gender roles and gender behaviors are universal and the same among every culture this would suggest there is a genetic or a biological root cause of these gender differences however if the roles and the behaviors aren't universal and there are differences between cultures this would suggest some sort of social or psychological explanation for gender differences in 1988 whiting and edwards carried out cross-cultural research that's research which looks at more than one culture this was done to examine gender roles and expected behaviors in the usa mexico japan kenya and the philippines they found that in every different country they looked at there were always very clear differences between male and female behaviors generally speaking females were usually more caring and kind while males were usually more aggressive it seemed that these behaviors were universal they were similar between different cultures but there were some minor differences obviously one major problem with any kind of cross-cultural research is that it's very difficult to undertake it without any kind of ethnocentric bias most psychologists come from western culture so that tends to be taken as a norm against which all other cultures are compared it seemed from the research that gender roles seem to be at least somewhat universal one possible reason for this is that these roles stem from child care responsibilities previous research has shown that the main responsibility for child care usually rests in most cultures with women therefore males tend to have a role which involves more travel harder manual labor and more dangerous activities which would back those gender expected stereotypes [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] any study of cognitive development psychology has to begin with piaget and piaget's theory of cognitive development piaget was a major figure in developmental psychology who developed the theory of cognitive development this theory became the baseline or default working model from which this area of psychology expanded and developed piaget suggested that all infants are born with some very basic innate abilities our reflexes and senses which are programmed by our physical biological structure and also by the evolutionary process above these however piaget theorized four set very distinct stages of development the first is the sensory motor stage from birth to about two years old in this stage the infant has only very limited knowledge of the world around them which is provided by their basic biological senses however as the infant goes on to explore their environment they gradually gain an understanding of object permanence object permanence is the idea that even if you can't see something it continues to exist the second stage is the pre-operational stage that's between two and seven years in this stage the child has some language abilities but also makes very basic logical mistakes for example thinking that everything with two legs is human because humans have two legs as a general rule children in this stage show egocentrism irreversibility and concentration three concepts that we'll look at in more detail slightly later on the third stage is the concrete operational stage between 7 and 11 years old during this stage children are able to process basic logic but they can't yet use any kind of abstract theoretical reasoning without an actual real-life example in front of them usually they're able to place objects into groups or categories and they can usually understand that objects can be more than one group at once humans for example are animals and they're also living things finally the fourth stage is the formal operational stage 12 years and above during this final stage the child is intellectually developed they can use theoretical problems abstract reasoning and hypothetical situations to solve complex tasks piaget's theory of cognitive development was based around schemas schemas are the total sum of our knowledge about an object process or event they are all we know about something for both children and also adults schemers help us organize interpret and apply the information we have to the world around us any new information that we receive is used to update or alter our existing schemas it's how we process new information piaget's three mountains task was a landmark piece of research all the way back in 1956 this three mountains task examined how well children of different age groups could analyze information from the perspective of others in carrying out this research peyashi found that children at the pre-operational stage that's from two years old to about seven years old display egocentrism irreversibility and centration centration is when children in this age range are usually able to only focus on tiny singular small aspects of a large task they can't take the bigger picture and look at the whole task itself egocentrism is when children in this pre-operational stage can only ever see the world from their own viewpoint they don't really have the ability to identify with or understand the perspective of views of other people these can be psychological perspectives and views how people look at something and their attitudes or literal physical views what would that mountain look like if it was seen from somebody over there for example finally irreversibility is when children in this stage of development don't understand that actions can be undone or reversed they think that everything that happens is permanent and only goes in one direction when we look at development conservation and class inclusion are two very important concepts conservation is the basic understanding that a set quantity of a substance remains constant even if it looks different or it's in a different container for example if we take 200 milliliters of orange juice it's still 200 milliliters independent of if it's in a bottle in a glass in a cup on the floor generally children below the concrete operational stage cannot understand this concept when they reach the concrete operational stage between the ages of 7 and 11 they usually can and it's a major landmark in development class inclusion is the ability to distinguish between much larger overarching classes like animals and smaller more specific classes or groups like dogs generally speaking children in the concrete operational stage between age 7 and 11 are able to understand this they can usually place objects or things in the correct classes and subclasses most importantly they're able to understand that an object can be more than one class at once a dog is both a dog and an animal for example below this age group however and below this stage of development children are usually unable to do this quite often they specifically struggle with the idea that an object can be more than one class at once which can cause a great deal of confusion when we look to evaluate piaget's theory of cognitive development there are a number of things we need to take into account this theory was and to a great extent remains today the baseline default theory used to explain childhood intellectual development everything else that's been developed since then has built on piaget's theory it was based on some very solid experimental evidence like piaget in 1956 mcgarrigal and donaldson in 1974 and piaget and semenska in 1941 of course many of those were quite a long time ago research has shown at least some level of cross-cultural universality in the stages it seems that children in all cultures progress in the same order at roughly the same time periods through these stages this would seem to suggest that these stages are some sort of biological or genetic basis to them there are however some downsides to this theory piaget seems to have consistently underestimated the abilities and the understanding of children at each of the stages subsequent research since the 1960s has found that these stages of development are not as set rigid and well-defined as pearse thought controversially piaget also believed that teaching and coaching couldn't speed up development piaget thought that development would happen at the same pace regardless of any outside help further research and experience suggests that teaching and coaching can indeed speed up development a great deal of piaget's research and therefore the development of the theory was all based around questionnaires and interviews with participants there's many issues with this they're all subjective they're open to bias and they're very easily swayed by things like the observer effect or more often dishonesty on the part of participants oddly piaggia also had some very strong views around language and linguistics piaget thought that language was completely irrelevant to development obviously much later research has shown this is probably not the case working slightly after piaget a psychologist called vygotsky proposed an alternative but very much related theory of development it's very important to understand that these two theories are not in competition vygotsky's is very much a development on from piaget's like piaget vygotsky thought that evolution and basic physical biology pre-programs us with some very basic innate abilities like our senses basic memory and our reflexes from this higher cognitive processes like decision making and language must be developed however in contrast to piaget vygotsky's theory was that language must be important language guides our social interactions and influences how we process information and learn from people around us a very important idea in vygotsky's theory is known as the zone of proximal development this is the gap between what we are able to do on our own and what we would be able to do with a more able peer helping us a mentor or a teacher due to this zone of proximal development vygotsky theorized that development is at its core a social process one which is driven by teachers mentors tutors peers role models and critically language without language there's no way for teachers or mentors to communicate with us therefore vygotsky's theory was that children learn language mostly as a means to communicate their needs and wants with caregivers without language you can't tell your caregivers what you need however as they grow and develop they start to self-talk out loud children quite often will talk to themselves as they do things they do this to guide and regulate their own behavior essentially they do it to tell themselves what they're doing over time and with more development this process of self-talk becomes internal the child now has two forms of speech internal to themselves and external these two forms have very different uses internal self-talk is for behavior regulation and informing what they're doing external is still for communication with others from this theory and in a very similar way to piaget vygotsky attempted to place the development of children into distinct stages to make the process more understandable however these stages are much less rigid and less well-defined than piaget stages they are still a sequence but one which doesn't have distinct age lines to it the first stage is known as vague syncretic this is when the child is using very basic trial and error methods to solve problems they don't have any understanding of concepts or any ability to build systems to help them the second stage is called the complex stage this is when the child starts to begin to develop some mechanisms and some strategies to handle problems usually however they're not ones that work but they are thinking about the problem and how to solve it the third stage is called the potential concept stage during this stage the child is successfully using mechanisms and strategies and ideas to solve problems and tasks but they're only applying one strategy at once to the task there's no ability to use multiple ones at the same time finally we have the fourth stage known as mature concept this is the final stage of development and the child will use several strategies to solve problems and tasks quite often these involve using several strategies at once and they tend to be based on complex hypothetical reasoning and abstract logic things like abstract mathematics hypothetical reasoning is thinking about what would happen if i did do something without actually doing as we saw with piaget's theories vygotsky's theory of social interaction and cognitive development has considerable research evidence behind it there's three key ones that it's important to understand and be able to remember the first was done by gardner and gardner in 1969 this study found that with some instruction and coaching the more intelligent animal species like monkeys and dolphins can reach some high levels of abstract reasoning famously they taught animals to do maths this would suggest coaching and language and communication is very important for development which is in direct contradiction to piaget's ideas the second is kai atal in 1989. this study was one of the first that looked at self-talk and it concluded that the self-talk process that children do is very important for their development the third and more recent one was burke in 1994 this study also looked at self-talk but within the concept of mathematical problems but concluded that self-talk helps children solve difficult mathematical puzzles because they can guide and regulate their own behavior as they do it scaffolding is also a very important concept for development scaffolding happens when a teacher a coach or an older role model acts as an instructor and provides support for a child trying to solve a task that support might be telling them what they need to do suggesting what they need to do or simply showing them what they need to do this was looked into in much more detail by a piece of research by wood and a group of researchers in 1976 this study demonstrated that scaffolding does indeed work but the nature and the mechanism of support how that support is actually given to the child has to be tailored to the individual learner much of this seems relatively obvious to us today and that's because vygotsky's theory and these ideas have been applied to educational techniques and teacher training across the world for several decades generally they've improved the quality of education which if you go back 100 years was rote learning or copying things off a blackboard something which very rarely happens today one issue however however with vygotsky's theories is that they just identify developmental stages like piaget there's no attempt whatsoever to explain why these stages occur another key figure in development psychology is bellagion bellagio wanted to learn about infant ability the abilities of very small children to do this bellagion examined the abilities of very young infants usually below 12 months to try and determine if and how these infants develop the idea of object permanence and how they interpret that concept object permanence is the understanding that something carries on existing even if we can't see it balancing suspected that this knowledge and understanding developed between eight and twelve months old like many other psychologists we've looked at in this video balajin's theory was that infants are indeed born with a few very basic innate abilities and understandings this gives them very basic information about objects and how they work which they then build on through their development balance theory was that through experimentation and observation infants go on to gradually learn much more about the world around them as they do this they will eventually understand that objects are permanent and that they carry on existing even when you can't see them beautiful reached this theory in conclusion by carrying out violation of expectation research this is when the expectations of infants have violated or upended to see how they react when something they don't expect to curse the assumption was that infants will spend a much longer period of time looking and examining something which violates their expectation this can be determined from a comparison of how long they look at something which meets their expectations the two key pieces of research were then done these were bellagion in 1985 and bellagio in 1987. it seems she liked to work alone these two studies concluded that object permanence develops much earlier than was originally thought around three to six months rather than the eight to twelve months there are however as always a few issues with this research and theory obviously the research used extremely young children there is an ethical issue there they are unable to communicate complex ideas and this may have caused incorrect conclusions from incorrect results the ethical problem is that very young children might have been distressed or alarmed or confused by the research they couldn't give informed consent so it's very important that it was got from the parents social cognition is our ability to understand and process society social interaction and society around us a massive step in social cognition and overall development is gaining a sense of self sense of self is a slightly woolly concept which makes it very difficult to develop define but it includes understanding the following one that others are different people they're completely separate from us they need to be referred to by appropriate language you he she it they for example second that we each have knowledge abilities views attitudes and motivations and that these vary from person to person and are different for each person thirdly that we each have a physical body and we have a view of that body we all have a physical sense of self and self image generally speaking psychologists think that children will pass through several distinct stages as they gradually develop this sense of self the first stage is called the existential self this is when children are able to understand the distinction between themselves and other people and objects they understand that there is a difference and generally this happens from an early age of about three months old the second stage is known as categorical self this happens when children are able to describe themselves in terms relative to other objects they can usually place themselves in categories boy girl tall short blonde brunette etc etc thirdly the final stage is identity crisis this tends to happen during the teenage years between maybe 12 and 18. during this time period our bodies change rapidly as this happens we no longer have a very clear sense of our own identity and sense of self-image so we therefore try out various roles and identities until we find our own distinct one by the end of this phase we all have a very set sense of self another key concept to understand for developmental psychology is the theory of mind unlike most animals humans have a unique ability to work together with other humans to carry out very complex tasks which we could not complete alone like building a house for example one explanation for why this can happen is known as the theory of mind this is the understanding that both ourselves and other people have individual unique minds with our motivations views perspective attitudes and indeed opinions as we develop this theory of mind we're all more able to understand other people we can therefore make predictions about their behaviors their motivations and their opinions often this includes the knowledge that other people may have incorrect information or they might make incorrect assumptions about the world without the theory of mind we're not really capable of processing the idea that other people might be wrong research has been done into this such as a landmark study by baron cohen and a group of researchers relatively recently in 1985. this research has linked conditions that have social or communication difficulties like asperger's or autism to a lack of a fully developed theory of mind this study also suggested that for most of us the theory of mind develops around age four however there is very wide disagreement about the precise age that it develops fully and it may well be the case that all of us develop our theory of mind at a different age it may even be innate and present from our very birth generally speaking children below age 4 are completely unable to communicate the idea effectively so we just can't be sure a major problem with the baron cohen study that underpinned this idea is that it used very complex ideas involving perspective shifting and the motivations of others which may have been confusing to the children involved in the study if a much more straightforward study was done it may well provide evidence that the theory of mind develops at a much younger age than many people currently think the major advantage to having this developed and complete theory of mind is that it allows each of us to understand and ideally decipher the perspective and therefore the motivations of other people around us friends family people we don't like wider society this was first researched in 1980 by selman the process was this children were given stories the stories included some sort of ethical dilemma the answers the children gave were then analyzed one example of a story would be this sally promised her parents she would not climb trees but then her cat got stuck up a tree in the garden should sally climb the tree to rescue the cat from this research someone concluded that there are five distinct levels of perspective taking the first is known as the undifferentiated and egocentric stage which is from birth to about six years old during this first stage children are able to make a basic physical distinction between themselves and others but only physically they're completely unable to see that other people have independent minds and their own perspectives the second stage is known as the differentiated and subjective this is between five and nine years old during this stage children understand that other people have different information and they may therefore have different views but they're unable to understand that other people may have valid views therefore they tend to believe that only their opinion or perspective is important everybody else is irrelevant the third stage is the second person and reciprocal this is between seven and twelve years during this slightly more advanced stage children are able to grasp and understand the perspective of other people they also become aware that others can do this too the fourth stage is third person and mutual between maybe 10 and 15 years old during this stage children gain the ability to view events or ideas from the perspective of a third abstract neutral hypothetical person how would an outsider see what is happening finally we have in-depth and societal symbolic which is 14 years and above in this final and most advanced stage children are able to understand events and concepts from very complex and abstract viewpoints they can take things into account like social issues legal values cultural values political processes for example attempts have been made by biological psychology to connect specific social functions and social interactions with these neurons this has resulted in the development of the mirror neuron system this system or theory identifies mirror neurons within the brain these are active when we perform an action like eating for example but critically they're also active when we see other people carrying out the same action this was first looked into in a landmark but ethically very iffy study on monkeys by di pellegrino ital in 1992. this study provided the first evidence that mirror neurons do actually exist this was an animal study and that was because recording the brain activity of humans is difficult and dangerous but it's never possible to generalize animal studies out to humans so to an extent the existence and the precise function of the mirror neuron system is quite disputed however this area of psychology has developed very swiftly in the last 25 years or so and is now known as social neuroscience the precise role of mirror neurons within the brain is a hotly debated topic in certain very small circles of psychology the main prevalent theory is that they're for imitation for observing and then replicating the actions of others for our own benefit as we learn and develop however many animals have mirror neurons but they only have a very limited ability to replicate and repeat actions this would at least suggest that mirror neurons have some kind of other function an alternative theory if one that's very difficult to investigate or prove is that mirror neurons are connected in some way to the theory of mind however mirror neurons have been found using animal studies animals don't seem to have a developed theory of mind therefore research is ongoing into mirror neurons it's a hot topic of psychology some research in 2006 suggested they may develop within the first 12 months after birth this is very quick which would suggest they play some sort of evolutionary role in helping to ensure the survival and therefore procreation of the infant obviously this type of social neuroscience is interdisciplinary it involves researching and therefore experts and scientists from a whole range of scientific areas things like evolution psychology biology zoology biochemistry this is a big advantage because it allows us to understand behavior of many different levels we can then use the research to develop cures and treatments either medical and biological or psychological for medical and psychological problems critically this research may also allow us in the future to develop theories into empathy and how empathy does or does not develop this research into empathy has wide ramifications for society as a whole it impacts things like politics crime rates criminality and education [Music] do schizophrenia is normally defined as being a thought process disorder it's a mental illness which disrupts emotions perceptions beliefs and cognition the onset of schizophrenia can be acute sudden with behavior and emotions dramatically shifting over a period of weeks or sometimes even just a period of a few days however the onset of schizophrenia can also be chronic it can be a gradual shift or decline in behavior and emotions over years or even over decades schizophrenia impacts males and females in roughly equal proportions this is actually quite unusual for mental illness which usually tends to have an unequal gender distribution for men schizophrenia if it does develop usually develops in the later teenage years or early adulthood perhaps between the ages of 17 and 25 whereas for women the development of schizophrenia tends to be in their mid twenties schizophrenia is thought to happen in roughly 0.5 percent that's roughly 1 in 200 of the population making it relatively common as we'll see the symptoms of schizophrenia range widely this has led many psychologists and medical professionals to suspect that it's actually a compound of several different conditions each and all of which require separate diagnosis and treatment one problem for psychologists and for psychiatrists is that even in 2021 there's still no universally agreed definition for schizophrenia misunderstanding remains very high among the general public and all too often this leads to severe social stigma which can often worsen the disease as we'll see schizophrenia has a huge range of symptoms not all of them or perhaps even most of them will be found in any single sufferer of the illness however generally these symptoms can be divided up into several main headline categories perceptual symptoms cognitive symptoms social symptoms effective or emotional symptoms and behavioral symptoms we'll start with perceptual symptoms perceptual symptoms of schizophrenia affect sensory information and how that information is then processed the first most common and most serious are auditory hallucinations many sufferers of schizophrenia will often hear completely imaginary voices quite often these voices will be abusive towards them often these will be accompanied by other sensory hallucinations some sufferers of schizophrenia will sometimes have hallucinations which stem from their other senses like touch smell sight or taste obviously it's very unlikely these will be abusive in the same way as auditory hallucinations but it's still very likely they'll be distressing or at the very least very confusing they're likely to make a person seem very disorientated the second range of schizophrenia symptoms are the cognitive symptoms these specifically impact thought processes and quite often they cause faulty cognitions or linguistic issues the most common type of cognitive symptom is delusions delusions can be loosely defined as strongly believing in things which are obviously not true and these delusions can manifest as any one or sometimes more than one of several different types first types of delusions are delusions of grandeur this is when people strongly believe they are much more important or much more powerful than they actually in reality are quite often people will believe they're the rightful monarch or the rightful prime minister in extreme cases people tend to believe they're the reincarnation of jesus christ delusions of paranoia also occur delusions of paranoia happen when people believe that everybody but usually the government state or police are specifically targeting them for unclear or rambling reasons the third type of delusion are delusions of power this is when people believe that they have powers or abilities that they don't actually have like magical abilities or the ability to fly or for example the ability to read minds finally we have religious delusions these are relatively common and they happen when people believe they are involved in a religious experience sometimes people will believe they are a key religious figure themselves like thinking they're the reincarnation of buddha or jesus christ for example another type of cognitive symptom is around language and language impairments quite often symptoms of schizophrenia will suffer issues with their processing of language issues with their ability to understand the language of others and problems with their own communication and again this can manifest in several different ways one of the most common types of language impairment is word salad this is when the stream of language that they use is just incoherent nonsense a second is speech poverty this is when sufferers of schizophrenia give very short answers to questions usually a single word answering everything with a curt yes or no there are also neologisms which is creating new words obviously this is not limited to schizophrenia shakespeare created a lot of words but it is one language issue with schizophrenia and finally we have clang associations this is when sufferers of schizophrenia speak in completely nonsense rhymes this especially can alienate people around them the third set of schizophrenia symptoms are known as the social symptoms these impact on any individual's ability to behave and communicate socially and also to meet basic social norms and expectations a very common one for schizophrenia suffers is social withdrawal quite often this manifests as no longer enjoying or sometimes no longer understanding social interactions and social norms they literally withdraw from society and no longer take part one other way this can present is as aloofness these individuals may appear aloof are really awkward but often this can be linked back to those delusions of grandeur one of the cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia the fourth type of schizophrenia symptoms are the behavioral ones these are symptoms which impact on an individual's displayed behavior what they actually do quite often they can unfortunately be the root cause of the widespread social stigma faced by schizophrenia sufferers one common type of behavioral symptom are stereotyped behaviors this is when very specific behaviors which are usually random and without purpose are repeated many times like tapping on a desk or turning round they can be related to psychomotor disturbance this happens when individuals no longer have control of their muscles that can manifest in several different ways but catatonia is the most common catatonia is sitting in a slumped recumbent usually horizontal position for extraordinary long periods of time hours upon hours quite often people in catatonia will remain in whatever position they have been left in sometimes in very extreme cases this can manifest as a catatonic stupa that is remaining in a horizontal and rigid position for large amounts of time finally we have the effective sometimes known as the emotional symptoms of schizophrenia these are the symptoms which influence somebody's emotions and feelings one of the most common is known as abolition abolition is a complete loss of interest in anything and everything people completely lose interest in their hobbies their relationship their personal goals all their work this can obviously have a massive impact on their life and quite often leads to their relationships breaking up and them getting fired from their job usually people will also have a lack of interest in hygiene and their personal upkeep quite often this very unfortunately adds to the social stigma around schizophrenia a third effective symptom is a lack of emotion sometimes this is also known as emotional blunting this usually manifests as not responding correctly to things happening or at least not within social norms another way of looking at this is as inappropriate emotions which also manifest as feeling not just displaying incorrect emotions like feeling sad when others have success or look are quite often laughing when given very very unfortunate information one very common displayed effective symptom of schizophrenia is laughing when informed of a bereavement again this can very much add to the social stigma around the disease the symptoms of schizophrenia are usually neatly divided into two basic types positive symptoms and negative symptoms obviously this doesn't refer to them being good or desirable no symptom of schizophrenia is good or desirable instead it refers to if they display added behaviors on top of the norm or if something that we would normally expect is removed or not displayed positive symptoms are sometimes also known as type one these are when a behavior or an emotion is added when it's not normally expected some examples include the hallucinations that we saw delusions nonsense speech or motor ticks negative symptoms are often known as type 2. these are when an unexpected behavior or emotion which we'd find normally present in most people is removed and not there in the schizophrenia sufferer examples include a lack of abolition which is a lack of interest social withdrawal and complete withdrawal from society lack of emotion and quite often sadly lack of personal hygiene it's worth noting that it's actually the negative type 2 symptoms which most bring about the social stigma faced by sufferers of schizophrenia quite often therefore treatment looks at those first the dsm is the american psychiatric association's diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders despite it being american this is usually taken to be the standard guide throughout most of the world to the diagnosis and identification of mental health issues it aims to give a diagnosis of schizophrenia among other mental health problems which is both reliable and valid reliability is how similar the diagnosis is between patients hopefully and in general you would expect the same diagnosis to be reached when two different doctors examine the same patient or when the same doctor examines different patients with the same symptoms validity is how well any diagnosis accurately measures what it claims to measure generally validity can be divided up into three types the first is descriptive validity this is how similar the symptoms of different patients diagnosed with schizophrenia actually are so likely they'll be absolutely identical but they should be vaguely similar the second is etiological validity that is how similar the root cause of the issue is for different patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and the third is predictive validity this is how appropriate the diagnostic criteria given for schizophrenia are for predicting useful treatment as a general rule dsm states that any patient being diagnosed with schizophrenia must show at least two of the major symptoms for an extended period of time it defines the major symptoms to be delusions hallucinations disorganized speech catatonia and any of the negative symptoms and once again we see the negative symptoms of schizophrenia treated with greater seriousness than the positive ones something additional to consider when we're looking at schizophrenia diagnosis is the problem of comorbidity comorbidity can easily cause problems with the diagnosis of schizophrenia being valid and reliable we can define comorbidity as having more than one condition at once it's a fairly simple concept but it's one which is easily misunderstood by the general public comorbility is actually very common for psychiatric and psychological conditions the problem is that the causes of many mental health issues overlap to take an example one possible trigger for schizophrenia is thought to be lifestyle things like alcohol or substance abuse can cause a range of other mental health issues like depression for example another common issue is the schizophrenia as we've seen in this video has a hugely wide and varied range of symptoms it's entirely possible that any single one of these could actually be the result of another completely undiagnosed condition avolition for example a lack of interest in hobbies goals works relationships can actually also be a symptom of depression if the abolition leads to a schizophrenia diagnosis it's entirely possible the depression will go undiagnosed and therefore untreated when we add all this up it can mean that other very serious conditions go entirely unrecognized and undiagnosed it can also mean that schizophrenia can hide behind other more common mental health issues like alcohol dependency or depression this can lead to schizophrenia never being recognized in the patient it's therefore never treated one possible explanation for schizophrenia rests in genetics being related to somebody who suffers from schizophrenia makes it massively more likely that any individual will suffer it themselves the concordance rates among relatives siblings and twins are much higher than they are among unrelated individuals this would mean that there could be at least a genetic element to schizophrenia a concordance rate is how often the same condition is found in two people that could be two twins two relatives or two completely unrelated people it could well be that a completely random genetic quirk makes an individual more likely to develop schizophrenia but it could also mean that a shared family environment like a shared home is a trigger for schizophrenia to develop in either case however this is a correlation no definitive causal cause and effect relationship has ever been proven as is often the case with genetic explanations for psychological issues many people find this idea simplistic and reductionist as we've seen schizophrenia is a very complicated condition with many symptoms so a very simple direct genetic explanation does seem unlikely but it is entirely possible it could form one component of a wider biological explanation it has been suggested that there could be biological and biochemical explanations for the onset of schizophrenia this has been suggested by both pet scans and postmortems a postmortem is a physical and biochemical examination done on the brain after somebody has died and both pathmortems and pet scans have suggested chemical causes for schizophrenia within the brain specifically many people who suffer from schizophrenia have been found to have unusually high levels of dopamine dopamine is a neurotransmitter or chemical messenger that's found within the brain neurotransmitters influence our emotion and mood and brain function this has led to the dopamine hypothesis which suggests that people who suffer from schizophrenia have issues with the re-uptake of dopamine in their synapses reuptake is the process of a neurotransmitter being removed from circulation being taken back into the tissues therefore many antipsychotic drugs alter the actions of synapses to normalize reuptake the idea is that if the reuptake of dopamine is brought back to normal it should relieve the symptoms many of these antipsychotic drugs work and the fact that they generally work at least to an extent means there must be some sort of link between dopamine and schizophrenia some recreational drugs like amphetamines which alter dopamine uptake can also cause symptoms which mimic schizophrenia which will also seem to back up this link this seems like a very concrete explanation but it's worth considering that this relationship is completely correlational no causal relationship has ever been found dopamine therefore cannot be the sole cause of schizophrenia indeed it's possible that the relationship works in reverse schizophrenia may cause excess dopamine rather than the other way around another possible explanation for schizophrenia lays with abnormal brain structure the main problem with this idea is that it's extremely difficult to prove you can't directly examine somebody's brain while they're alive it's only possible once somebody has died carrying out a direct examination while somebody is alive is likely to lead to significant brain damage and no ethical researcher or surgeon will do it therefore we can only ever get either very limited information from other types of scans or potentially post-mortem information that said these post-mortem examinations of schizophrenia patients brains have suggested a possible link between structural brain abnormalities and the onset of the illness johnston working in 1976 with a group of researchers compared the size of the brain ventricles within the brains of schizophrenia sufferers with a completely healthy and normal control group this research did indeed find a correlation between ventricle size and schizophrenia that said having enlarged brain ventricles doesn't always lead to schizophrenia it's actually relatively common and the vast majority of people within large ventricles have no ill effects at all the relationship is completely correlational no causal link has ever been found it's entirely possible that an unknown outside third factor causes both schizophrenia and enlarged brain ventricles it's also theoretically possible that schizophrenia causes the issue with ventricles rather than the other way around another possible explanation for schizophrenia is evolutionary it's worth noting right at the outset of this that this is controversial and not really taken as a serious explanation by that many professionals nevertheless it's worth looking at it's been theorized that from an evolutionary perspective some of the symptoms of schizophrenia might not be entirely a bad thing indeed some of the things like an audio visual hallucination and possible aggression might have actually been an evolutionary advantage the theory which develops from this seems fantastic and is certainly completely unprovable but it's also entertaining and worth us looking at a lot of the symptoms of schizophrenia like hallucinations hearing voices other hallucinations nervous ticks and stupas may have led individuals suffering from the disease to have become religious or cultural leaders shamans within early human societies who had basically pagan ways of looking at their belief systems these religious or cultural leaders due to their status would have been naturally much more likely to survive therefore they'd be much more likely to breed they'd have access to greater resources and a greater choice of mates this makes it more likely that any genetic predisposition to schizophrenia would have been passed down through the generations this is a very interesting and entertaining theory but it's fundamentally difficult or completely impossible to prove it also sets a dangerous precedent of looking backwards for schizophrenia in important but disturbed historical figures researchers have gone back to look for evidence of schizophrenia in rasputin richard iii and even adolf hitler but it's a completely pointless and fruitless exercise it's nevertheless one possible explanation about schizophrenia a further explanation for schizophrenia is that it could be caused by the environment or the conditions within the family and within the home this theory suggests that some mothers who are particularly unemotional distant unfeeling or cold may at least unintentionally cause lasting trauma in the child at a later age this lasting trauma may then manifest into schizophrenia usually during young adulthood these mothers have often been termed schizophrenogenic mothers often they cause internal conflict in the child through mixed messages and mixed signals the child naturally expects love affection and warmth from their mother but instead of this kindness they receive indifference cruelty and coldness and they can't reconcile these two this conflict between basic expectations and actual experienced reality eventually causes schizophrenia when it overwhelms the child in later life especially in young adulthood there's a type of environment called expressed emotion environments and these contain large amounts of expressed open hostility emotional aggression and malice these environments are obviously most common found in heavily dysfunctional families it's been theorized that this type of environment which often involves substance abuse contributes to the development of schizophrenia there is some research evidence for this family explanation of schizophrenia but one issue is that they're retrospective normally the families are studied after schizophrenia has developed and been diagnosed in a patient so there's no control group to compare them against research is therefore being done specifically to fit facts around the set theory rather than to develop an impartial theory around the facts so we must take this family explanation for schizophrenia at least with a pinch of salt as we've seen schizophrenia is often defined as a thought process disorder and the cognitive approach to psychology makes the argument that schizophrenia is caused by faulty thought processes often known as faulty cognition at least in theory these errors in thought processing could lead to memory loss delusions hallucinations and language issues many of the symptoms of schizophrenia there is some experimental evidence for this idea some research done in 78 by newfield found a correlation between sensory processing problems memory problems and schizophrenia this would suggest that faulty cognition is a widespread issue for schizophrenia patients following on from this some further research done in the early 2000s by mayor lindenberg and a group of researchers found a link between specifically memory issue and schizophrenia that said this cognitive explanation for the disease ignores a massive range of other factors it especially ignores biochemical causes of schizophrenia so at best it can only ever provide a very partial and limited explanation obviously this relationship is completely correlational it's entirely possible that the faulty cognitions could be caused by issues around dopamine this would mean that faulty cognitions and schizophrenia actually have the same root cause rather than the faulty cognition causing schizophrenia one other possible explanation for schizophrenia that we need to consider is a socio-economic one these socio-economic expectations for schizophrenia include a lot of cultural references so this is less of a psychological explanation for a mental health issue and more of a political and economic theory about the causes of a psychological problem quite often this theory is known as the social causation hypothesis this is the idea that the poor are much more likely to suffer from schizophrenia than the rich because of this there must be a link between poverty deprivation and discrimination and developing schizophrenia there is some evidence to back this theory working in 2001 harrison and a group of researchers did find a correlation between schizophrenia rates in given areas and the poverty rates in the same areas this would suggest a link between this deprivation homelessness poverty and the mental illness that said these results and by extension the whole theory is purely correlational it may well be that the link works the other way around schizophrenia and its symptoms would obviously cause deprivation and poverty rather than the deprivation and poverty causing the schizophrenia an even more likely scenario sadly is that deprivation poverty and schizophrenia all have very similar root causes substance abuse joblessness etc obviously this is a controversial theory it's even controversial to have a theory in this general area it drags politics and economics into the arena of science and psychology few people on either side of that divide are completely comfortable with that so as we've seen there are loads of different explanations for schizophrenia many people have tried to combine them into one coherent explanation the one which we're going to look at is the diathesis stress model which combines several of the different explanations of schizophrenia to try and provide a more holistic coherent explanation which is useful for actual treatment rather than being completely theoretical theoretical models are brilliant but they don't actually help people the diathesis stress model proposes that some of us are biologically vulnerable to suffering from schizophrenia due to genetic or biochemical factors that doesn't mean we're definitely going to get it but it means that we're more likely to be vulnerable to it we therefore become more likely to develop schizophrenia when there's an emotional societal or cognitive stressor which triggers the onset of the disease this is an interactionist approach to schizophrenia it actually combines aspects of many different approaches to psychology a little bit of biochemical approach a little bit of genetic approach a little bit of cognitive approach as such it relies on many different bits of research from loads of different bits of psychology which can be useful a lot of experimental evidence behind it because of this it provides a useful very basic road map to schizophrenia which can then be used to try and develop useful treatments to help sufferers of the disease one possible way of treating schizophrenia is through biological therapy biological therapy is essentially a euphemism what it tends to mean is medication this idea is based on the dopamine hypothesis that we've already seen the dopamine hypothesis is the theory that the root cause of schizophrenia is problems with dopamine reuptake within the brain therefore antipsychotic drugs work by blocking dopamine receptors within the brain this stabilizes out the dopamine reuptake at least in theory this should eliminate symptoms of schizophrenia and allow the patient to lead a roughly normal if slightly medicated life generally antipsychotic medication comes in two basic types typical and atypical as the name would suggest typical antibiotics were developed first they first became widely available in the 1950s and they act directly on dopamine receptors very sadly because of this direct way in which they act they have a huge range of very common and very serious side effects which can include nausea cramps dry mouth blood vision headaches muscle spasms and dizziness because of this range of side effects people looked for alternatives and in the 1970s atypical antipsychotics were eventually developed they act on both serotonin and dopamine receptors in theory at least they should have fewer side effects but they also cause many of the same issues as typical antipsychotic medication essentially and in short any type of antipsychotic drug has very serious side effects but it may well cause direct and very swift results when we evaluate biological therapy or medicines as a means of treating schizophrenia there's actually a very wide range of things we need to consider and think about as we've seen antipsychotic medication is very useful but it treats the positive symptoms of schizophrenia like hallucinations it's much less useful for treating the negative symptoms of schizophrenia where something's removed like the withdrawal of language or social withdrawal obviously it's worth noting that in general terms medication does work it allows individuals who suffer from this horrible condition to get some immediate relief from their symptoms they can then go on to lead somewhat normal lives in the community rather than being confined to a secure psychiatric institution as they would have been in the past drug-based treatments are also not mutually exclusive with the other types of treatment we'll look at like therapy several different types of treatment can be used at the same time however a lot of people inside and outside of the medical profession have ethical problems with drug-based therapy many people have referred to it as a chemical straight jacket and as we've seen the side effects of antipsychotic medication can be profound and debilitating sometimes they can even be life-threatening some trials that have been done suggest that a majority of schizophrenia patients would rather suffer the symptoms of schizophrenia than suffer the side effects of the medication obviously there is also a huge amount of public ignorance about antipsychotic drugs that goes for all medication designed to help mental illness many people believe that people on antipsychotic medication will lose their personality or lose their memory which is not usually the case a final point is that drug therapies are usually very expensive they're also not permanent it doesn't make any attempt to treat the root cause of schizophrenia instead drug therapies just make an effort to relieve some but not all of the symptoms another possible way of treating schizophrenia is through cognitive behavioral therapy often known as cbt this relies on the theory that schizophrenia has a root cause of faulty cognition this theory suggests at least that suffers of schizophrenia can be helped by identifying explaining and adjusting these faulty cognitions and therefore this becomes the aim of cognitive behavioral therapy the main technique used for schizophrenia cbt and in these most types of cbt is the abc model this model seeks to help those patients by identifying first the activating event or a secondly by exploring their beliefs or b and then by recognizing the consequences of those beliefs or c for schizophrenia specifically this usually means that patients are guided to reality tests their hallucinations and their delusions the idea is that by comparing those hallucinations or delusions to reality patients can be led to realize that the voices or the hallucinations are not in fact real in theory at least this should reduce their distress or their confusion but it also involves an element of challenging the patient the patient has to be challenged to confront the reality that what they're experiencing is simply not real this challenge should never become conflict role play activities positive self-talk and homework can all aid in the process in theory but gradually the patient will usually begin to challenge many of their own symptoms and cbt eventually should become self-sustaining as with drug-based treatments for schizophrenia cognitive behavioral therapy has its advantages and disadvantages there is actually a range of experimental evidence which suggests cbt is a useful productive treatment method for schizophrenia to take an example a case study was found by chadwick and a group of researchers in 1996 and also a wider study was found by sinsky and a group of researchers in 2000 in both cases cbt was found to be generally useful in helping those patients with schizophrenia however being case studies both of those pieces of research had a very small sample size one major plus point is that unlike using antipsychotic drugs cbt doesn't have any significant side effects for the patient it relies on a lot of self-help strategies and this can make the patient feel much more in control of the process and actually eliminates a lot of possible ethical issues like drug therapy however cognitive behavioral therapy only treats the symptoms of schizophrenia it doesn't try and identify or treat a root cause it can also be quite expensive it needs a properly trained qualified experienced therapist the patient also has to opt in for cbt it requires them to be actively involved in the process they have to be willing to go through cbt this is not always going to happen with many schizophrenia patients who are emotionally disturbed one big issue is that not all or many schizophrenia patients will respond well at all to being confronted about their hallucinations or their delusions this is especially the case with delusions of grandeur and this can make them violent and actually worse than their condition as we've seen one theory about schizophrenia is that it might be caused by a very disrupted or a heavily dysfunctional family home environment family therapy for schizophrenia therefore aims to restore this environment to something resembling a normal healthy win in the hope this will remove a root cause of the illness this is done by trying to reduce conflict within the family and between different members of the family shared alliances realistic goals and attempts to reduce the overall burden of care on each member of the family are all different mechanisms used to try and do this this can be done alongside other treatments like drug-based antipsychotic therapy and cbt they're not mutually exclusive and this type of therapy has seen some success it's actually particularly useful at helping patients who don't think they have a problem they're in denial about their illness it's also particularly useful in helping family members who lack understanding or empathy about the disease they may not be able to process that their child or husband or parent has schizophrenia or they may not be empathetic about it family therapy can help them particularly that said one issue with family therapy is that it relies on having the informed consent of everybody involved if the family is seeing a lot of conflict over the years it's very unlikely to get that informed consent family therapy also relies on people within the family being open being honest and being engaged if there's been a history of interpersonal conflict this is unlikely one other method which can be used to help people with schizophrenia is called a token economy this is most commonly used within secure psychiatric institutions token economies are quite simple they operate by rewarding patients with tokens either real physical ones or sometimes virtual currency they're given these rewards for desirable behavior and the tokens can then be exchanged for desirable things like luxury food confectionery tobacco or video games obviously this method relies to an extent on operant conditioning it uses learning through reinforcement it's worth noting that token economies have actually been able to achieve remarkable successful results within these very isolated secure environments but they're not a lot of use outside in the real world this gives them very little ecological validity however well a token economy works in a secure psychiatric institution there's absolutely nothing to suggest the behavior that it encourages would carry on if the patient's released back into the community obviously this type of token economy system has ethical issues they're patients not prisoners and many people consider them to be deeply disrespectful to the patients they should never be used to withdraw basic items like food or water a final way of treating schizophrenia is known as interactionist therapy an interactionist approach to psychology is one which combines several different other approaches for schizophrenia an interactionist approach to therapy tends to combine the biological behavioral and cognitive psychological approaches quite often therefore it's known as the biopsychosocial approach this interactionist approach suggests that a holistic approach should be taken towards therapy too any single method of treatment be drug therapy family therapy or cbt is highly unlikely to produce results on its own but a combination of several of them staggered over a period of time is much more likely to be effective so in practice this interactionist therapy uses a variety of different treatments the idea is to try and treat both the symptoms and the root cause of the problem this sounds brilliant but there are a few problems this makes it extremely expensive it's very very difficult to know if any single one of the treatments is actually useful they're all measured as a whole and it may involve the use of many different medicines and many different people which can all add to the cost it can also be extremely time consuming and complicated this can make it confusing or sometimes even very distressing to the patient it's very important if this type of therapy is being used that a schizophrenia patient has a single easily accessible individual who they can communicate with and who is in charge of their treatment without that single individual it becomes dramatically less likely that any interactionist therapy will actually work [Music] [Music] modern humans are fortunate to have many cookery advancements are developed in advanced cuisine and a wide and sophisticated use of cookery techniques despite all this however we are still at our core animals our basic food requirements are therefore biological they are the raw materials we need to grow survive continue and operate in a roughly optimal way that said however our food preferences are evolutionary they can be explained by natural selection competition and the overriding need to survive and procreate the first example of this is sweet foods parents especially have long suspected and this was confirmed in 1987 by research done by harris that babies seem to prefer to eat sweet sugary foods like cake for example over things that are bitter like olives or brussels sprouts it's a very rare baby that enjoys an olive this trend seems at least to be universal it applies to all babies everywhere and it does also make sense from the perspective of evolution babies are growing they need a lot of calories in proportion to their body weight sweet foods like cake for example generally have a very high calorie content therefore babies who prefer eating sweet food are much more likely to survive this trend carries on into our adult lives historically speaking individuals with greater or more regular access to calorie-rich foods are much more likely to survive and therefore much more likely to procreate most of us alive today therefore have a liking for sweet foods evolution also impacts us when we look at fatty foods historically speaking and especially in our infancy as a species tens of thousands of years ago foods with very high fat content would have been very scarce and difficult to find a lot of the fats that we encounter today in our modern cuisine require complex methods of identification and extraction these are all fairly recent at least in the last couple of hundred years therefore we're all attracted to foods which have a high fat content from an evolutionary perspective any individuals who have access to these especially on a regular basis were much more likely to survive and breed as we're all the children of these early humans we've all inherited that attraction to fatty foods a very interesting way that this evolutionary food preference works is with spicy food generally food science research has shown that throughout much of the world meat dishes are much more likely to be heavily spiced than vegetable dishes this may sound random but there is actually very sound evolutionary reasons for that a lot of spices things for example like cumin or coriander or turmeric have mild antibiotic properties meat is much more likely to require this property than vegetables it goes rotten or bad much quicker and when it does it's much more dangerous this is especially true in climates with very high temperatures for example near the equator or in the tropics in these temperatures meat becomes rot much quicker this would explain why spices are found most often and used most often in countries with warmer temperatures rather than in for example the frozen north social influence also has an impact on our food preferences social influence is the processes of imitation observation identification and reinforcement these processes provide a possible explanation for many of our food preferences some research evidence for example brown and ogden back in 2004 has suggested that our eating habits are determined and then reinforced by our parents that said parents are not the only role models available and visible to infants this is especially true in today's modern age the media and the internet in particular are now such an integral part of our daily lives we all see as children many role models all around us on tv on the internet and in films children will also observe and then go on to imitate characters that they see on tv or on the internet these provide one form of alternative role model with food and they have an influence on our childhood eating habits sometimes quite a profound influence generally this is why media characters especially in cartoon form aimed at children are used so often to try and encourage a balanced or healthy diet an eating habit for children sadly it's also why many fast food or unhealthy food advertising is banned on tv before a set time in the evening known as the watershed children may be watching before that time and these adverts are likely to have a disproportionate effect on those children social learning theory and evolutionary biology provide two possible explanations for food preferences another possible one is cultural influence our cultural background can provide explanations for the food we choose to eat generally speaking these cultural explanations are often tied to either geographical location or religion it's worth noting that in a direct contrast to today's culture historically it was the case that being overweight if not morbidly obese was seen as a sign of high wealth and high status this may seem odd to many of us today but this cultural norm was common across much of the world until relatively recently certainly into the 20th century in some cultures such as for example pacific islands it's still there today in much of the developed western world however such as the usa and western europe this cultural norm has been replaced by a supermodel culture women especially are pressured to be thin sometimes to a dangerous degree this is in direct contrast to previous norms obviously our geographical location also has a huge influence on our food preferences usually this is through availability some foods are simply not found in some areas like tropical fruit in much of europe and many root vegetables in the tropics obviously many of these geographical restrictions have long since gone away this has happened due to advances in transportation technology but they still go a long way to explaining the differences between food in different cultures potatoes for example are very rarely found in oriental cuisine because potatoes historically just did not grow there obviously a lot of our food preferences can be explained or influenced by religion this happens in four main ways firstly fasting some religions such as islam for example do not eat for religious reasons at certain times secondly prohibition some religions in fact most religions prohibit certain foods like for example pork in islam and judaism or beef in hinduism thirdly feasting some religions have traditional feasts at certain specific times of the calendar like christianity at christmas fourthly ritualization some religions even incorporate food into religious rituals like for example communion wafers in the catholic church as we look at controlling our eating behavior and our appetites we are mostly concerned with the hypothalamus hypothalamus is a small gland within the rough center of the brain it's mostly responsible for the homeostasis process this is the process of maintaining internal body conditions at roughly optimum levels this involves several distinct processes like temperature regulation or blood sugar regulation but two specific parts of the hypothalamus are thought to be involved with food eating behavior and appetite regulation these are the ventromedial hypothalamus often known as the vmh and the lateral hypothalamus often known as the lh the theory goes that the ventrimedial hypothalamus or vmh is what triggers the process of satiety this is the feeling of being full and contented that generally prevents us from eating anymore we've had enough the vmh triggers this feeling when it receives some signals from hormonal messenger compounds transported in the bloodstream around the body when it detects them it thinks we're full and sends the signal to stop eating it's therefore been theorized that any malfunction or damage within this vmh may be one cause of obesity if it's damaged we wouldn't ever feel full we therefore continue to overeat and overeat and gradually gain weight there is indeed some experimental evidence for this that was found by bayless and a group of researchers in 1996. this however was an animal study as is always the case with animal studies there were some severe ethical problems with this study we also can't generalize the results out to humans it is thought that the lateral hypothalamus or lh is involved in the opposite feelings of hunger and wanting to find food the lh has receptors these receptors monitor our blood sugar levels blood sugar levels are very high immediately after eating gradually as time passes after the meal they drop when blood sugar levels drop below a certain given threshold the lh is able to detect this and stimulate feelings of hunger and wanting food when we then go on to eat our blood sugar levels rise again very quickly and signals are sent to the vmh to make us feel full and content and therefore stop eating as with vmh there is some experimental evidence for this process one example of this is wynn and a group of researchers back in 1990 but there are significant methodological issues with this research the big problem with examining hunger and brain function is that we only have a very limited ability to examine and probe into brain function if we try to do any really significant experimentation on live humans then we're likely to cause lasting brain damage as we've already seen animal studies have very significant ethical issues they also can't be generalized out to the human population despite some similarities in behavior we behave very differently to almost all animals it is also widely believed that hormones have a very significant influence on our appetite and eating behavior generally there are two main hormones involved in regulating eating these are ghrelin and leptin hormones are chemical messengers they act much more slowly than the main nervous system but they're able to carry much more complicated and nuanced messages throughout the body let's begin with ghrelin ghrelin is a hormone which is released by the stomach and the intestinal tract into the bloodstream to be transported around when we eat the body stops releasing ghrelin over time the ghrelin levels then gradually increase bit by bit when they get past a certain threshold we feel hungry and then eat which resets this whole cycle this is a relatively straightforward biochemical process and then as you may expect there's some evidence for it a landmark study done by cummings at all in 2004 was able to prove a link between ghrelin levels and overall hunger in a relatively small group of participants secondly we have leptin leptin is another hormone but it's made by adipose or fat tissue and released into the bloodstream this happens when a given quantity or percentage of body weight is composed of adipose fat tissue it tells us to stop eating once again there is some research evidence for this process one example is hal asset al in 1995. the problem is a great deal of this research involved experimentation on mice this raises a few problems as always there are very severe ethical problems with any kind of animal experimentation they may well be harmed by the research and in fact the ones in that study were they also can't give any kind of informed consent generally results and conclusions from animal studies can't be generalized to human populations this is especially true of complex biochemical processes anorexia is along with obesity sadly one of the most common eating disorders present both across the world and specifically in the uk it's much more common in women than it is in men roughly one in 250 women will be affected by clinical anorexia nervosa for men it's roughly one in two thousand generally speaking anorexia manifests and becomes apparent during the teenage years between 13 and 18. it generally results in extreme sustained prolonged under eating which can often lead to very severe weight loss and a whole range of subsequent medical consequences none of them good like many psychological conditions one of the big problems with anorexia is that there's no universally agreed definition there's also a disputed range of possible explanations and possible causes that said the dsm which is the standard diagnostic manual for psychology gives three probable indications of anorexia being present the first is energy intake restriction this happens when the individual consumes far fewer calories than is normal either for them or generally or healthy which will usually result in very swift weight loss the second is an intense fear of weight gain the individual will show a sustained deep-seated fear of gaining weight even if they're currently horrendously underweight thirdly a distorted body image the individual will generally believe they are overweight even when they are clearly obviously significantly and dangerously underweight they will resist any explanation or any evidence which contradicts this strongly held belief as with most psychological conditions it's been suggested that there may well be a genetic component to the onset of anorexia in patients some research done by holland and a group of researchers in 1988 did find high concordance rates in identical or mz twins however as is usually the case with twin studies these concordance rates were nowhere near 100 that would suggest that some other factors must be involved it's also been suggested that there may well be neural causes for anorexia a neural cause is one which involves the structural or functional damage within the actual brain itself some sort of physical functional issue with the brain one theory being developed is that anorexia may well be caused by physical damage to the lateral hypothalamus or lh this part of the hypothalamus as we've seen is involved in causing us to feel hungry and seek out food therefore any damage to the lateral hypothalamus may cause a sustained ongoing lack of hunger this would then go on to cause an unwillingness to eat which may well result in anorexia another possible explanation is that serotonin may be involved in some way serotonin is a complex and multifaceted compound used within the brain for many things but it is a neurotransmitter generally it's found in abnormally high levels within anorexia patients that said it's important to remember that the link between anorexia and serotonin is only a correlation it's very possible that the relationship works the other way around and that the lack of eating causes abnormal serotonin levels rather than abnormal serotonin levels causing a lack of eating and anorexia since anorexia was first noticed by psychologists it's often been noted that a lot of the sufferers of anorexia share certain psychological and behavioral characteristics like a controlling personality an overriding burning constant need to be a high achiever in everything they do and very high expectations both of themselves and of people around them therefore it's been theorized that these traits and anorexia itself may have a root cause in the family environment this has led to this family system's explanation for anorexia some research done by mnuchin at al in 1978 provided some research evidence for this idea this study explored the influence of the family on anorexia and suggested that the families of sufferers of anorexia share three main characteristics the first is enmeshment this is when the families have very strong emotional bonds quite often this is to the point where they're completely dependent on each other emotionally and no clear separated out social roles develop the second is overprotection this is when the family is overprotective and usually controlling this results in the child being unable to feel as if they have any autonomy or independence at all they just see themselves as part of this larger whole with no sense of self whatsoever the third is rigidity this is when the family has extremely strict rules and strongly held beliefs which the child feasts feels completely unable to break or challenge in any way there is some experimental evidence for the idea that these types of family dysfunction can go on to cause anorexia but there are some issues with the theory a lot of people feel that this theory or idea blames the family for the anorexia of the child trying to change the behavior of a whole family unit is very difficult time consuming and expensive it may go on to cause all the harmful effects and interpersonal problems it's also worth noting the anorexia often continues long after the child has left the home for example to go to university it's relatively common in fact among university students this would suggest that the family environment itself cannot provide a complete explanation for anorexia and other factors must be involved one other possible explanation for anorexia nervosa comes from social learning theory social learning theory is the idea that we all learn behavior from society around us by observation imitation and then reinforcement in much of western society at least the widespread media reinforced beauty standard is to be slim this is especially true for women social learning theory would suggest that all of us generally observe and then imitate individuals we admire in doing so we use them as role models to inform our own behaviors these role models especially for young women in the age of the internet with altered images and technology to manipulate media appearance may well have a distorted displayed body image which younger people especially may well try to emulate they look up to the figures they see in the media and think they should look the same the process of vicarious reinforcement then happens the younger person sees the fame the money the influence and the social success of these role models they feel validated in trying to replicate their behavior and especially their appearance generally speaking others around the young person perhaps their family or friends will accidentally reinforce this behavior by mentioning how thin or healthy they look in a positive way there is some research evidence for this explanation of anorexia it also explains why the number of people with the condition has increased since mass media became a common aspect of our lives in the 50s and 60s that said each one of us is subject to the same persuasions and the same influence from the media not all of us go on to develop anorexia so there must be other factors involved in the process a further possible explanation for anorexia is based in cognitive psychology the idea is that it's caused by cognitive problems a cognitive problem is a thought process error which leads to changes in behavior generally speaking people who suffer from anorexia show four main or common thought process errors firstly they believe they are overweight or obese even though they are healthy or more usually underweight secondly their entire sense of self-esteem and self-worth is based on their appearance and their weight they disregard other factors like intelligence or kindness thirdly their opinions and beliefs around food eating and weight are irrational and illogical and fourthly much or all of their sense of self and self-identity is based around eating and more specifically controlling their eating they think not eating much makes them a good person and that becomes part of their core identity there is indeed some research evidence which suggests that cognitive issues and thought process errors do indeed have a role in causing anorexia however this theory is relatively new it's therefore quite underdeveloped we would need a lot more research before it could be accepted as a mainstream theory or a mainstream explanation of anorexia one downside is that it would place anorexia in the same category of thought process disorders as schizophrenia a lot of people are understandably uncomfortable with this like so many terms used by both the general public and specialists obesity is a very difficult one to define it's not just being too heavy or being overweight it's more complex and nuanced than that generally we can define obesity as having too much adipose tissue as a proportion of overall body weight also generally obesity is usually diagnosed through body mass index this is a simple mathematical formula which compares height in centimeters and weight in kilograms to arrive at a number that said it doesn't work for everyone it actually involves using a square function which means individuals who are either end of the height spectrum very tall or very short all people who have large amounts of muscle to issue may well find that their bmi does not accurately reflect or describe their level of adipose tissue somebody who is very muscular would have an obese bmi in fact they're relatively healthy and a relatively normal weight in general terms a bmi between 18.5 and 25 is considered to be normal and roughly healthy a bmi above this would be considered overweight a bmi below 18.5 would be considered underweight medically speaking at least in the uk a body mass index above 30 is usually considered obese a bmi above 35 is usually considered morbidly obese where there is an immediate danger to health generally speaking obesity has a single cost taking in much more energy through food than is expended through activity the greater and more sustained this disparity and gap between the two the greater the risk of obesity obviously over the decades there's been many different miracle cures that usually have been sold for obesity in reality of course the only way to actually cure obesity is through taking in less calories and expending more through activity ideally both as with many medical or psychological problems it has been suggested that obesity may well have a genetic root cause this would mean that a genetic quirk within the gene sequence or dna of individuals causes them to either become obese or to become more vulnerable to being obese there has been some research to back this idea up some twin studies done over recent decades have found higher rates of concordance for obesity among twins some adoption studies have also provided some evidence generally speaking adopted children of obese parents do not become a beast themselves but biological children of obese parents do which would at least hint at a genetic link that said however no 100 concordance rate has ever been found this would suggest some other factors must be involved in the case of twins specifically it's also very likely that a host of other factors may well be involved and have an influence things like a shared culture and therefore shared cuisine a shared environment shared parentage a shared home and even shared experiences that said the production of leptin which is a hormone that regulates appetite and food consumption may be controlled by a very specific gene sequence so it's possible that this could be one way in which our genetics has an influence on obesity if this gene malfunctions people may well have abnormal appetites that said this relationship is only a correlation it's very possible that the relationship between leptin and obesity works the other way around and being obese causes problems with leptin production the boundary model of obesity is one possible explanation developed by psychologists it was first put forward by hermann and pallavi back in 1983. it has several steps of explanation firstly our need for food is driven by basic innate biological processes and needs each one of us needs a set amount of food and energy for our basic survival secondly feeling hunger means that for all of us at least if we can we will always eat the bare minimum amount of food and calories needed to ensure our survival thirdly eating food will make us feel full and satisfy this hunger in theory at least this should then stop us eating and prevent us taking in more calories than is needed normal or healthy fourthly there is a gap between the minimum amount of food needed to ensure our continued survival and the amount we eat before we feel full or satiated fifth if this gap is large then we will take in many more calories than we actually need which may well result in obesity or at least being overweight over time finally many factors like our overall physical and psychological health our levels of stress our food preferences and culture our learned behaviors and our environment all influence how big this gap actually is therefore the theory goes that if we can reduce the size of this gap between survival and feeling full then obesity can be avoided when we've eaten the bare minimum we need we'll feel full and not eat anymore restraining the theory is an alternative psychological explanation of obesity in many ways it's a development on from the boundary model it also involves the concepts that we've already seen of the minimum amount of food needed for survival satiety and the gap between the two however restraint theory adds a third very important concept something called a cognitive diet boundary this is effectively how much we think we should eat and restraint theory suggests that a restrained eater somebody behaving roughly normally will eat until they reach this cognitive diet boundary this boundary is how much we think we should eat we won't go above it unless there's a reason to however if we cross that boundary for some reason then we're in a state of disinhibition we give up all attempts to stick below this cognitive diet boundary and we'll just eat as much as we're able to it's worth noting that some individual people are indeed able to ignore the cues that our bodies give us for being full either through training or through genetic quirks at which point they can continue eating massive amounts obviously this will contribute to obesity both this restraint theory and the boundary model we saw previously have research evidence behind them they have also been used to very accurately predict the behavior of human participants in experiments one down sound however is that they are both very simplistic explanations they ignore individual differences and treat us all in exactly the same way and assume we will all behave in exactly the same way this is not always or indeed usually the case and there are many individual differences in how we all interact with food across the world in the modern age many people diet this is the process of adjusting their exercise regime and their food intake usually with the goal of losing weight or losing body fat despite millions of people dieting especially at the new year few are successful at it the vast majority of people find that their weight fluctuates up and down or that they simply lack the willpower to lose weight eat less and be more active therefore there are many factors to dieting and weight loss outside of just wanting to lose weight the first is social support having sustained emotional support from our social network of friends and family makes it much more likely that any dieter will be successful in losing weight and keeping the weight off a second thing to consider is that eating in any form is a form of social interaction many psychologists think that dieting should be a form of social interaction too dieting as part of a group with mutual encouragement seems to have a positive impact and make it much more likely that people will be successful thirdly our bodies have evolved to protect fat stores especially in times of food scarcity which is what the body believes is happening when we diet it doesn't know that we're trying to lose weight he just thinks there's been a poor harvest if we go to extreme lengths while dieting and starve ourselves it's very likely our bodies will not burn fat they'll conserve it to try and make it through the winter or the poor harvest fourthly if we relapse back into overeating after we diet our body will store more calories as fat in preparation for more scarcity we've essentially trained our body to think that food is now scarce because the body will store more calories as fat we actually then go on to gain weight often this is known as yo-yo dieting because weight goes up and down [Music] as is so often the case in psychology the term stress is not simple and does not have a simple definition in fact the word stress means too related but entirely different and separate things firstly stress can be an environmental stimulus which brings on a stress-based bodily response quite often we may call this a stressor to avoid confusion secondly the word stress can mean a response to the stimulus sometimes known as bodily stress therefore we can combine these two into a single compound definition the response that occurs when we feel we are unable to cope with the demands of our environment therefore it's really important to note that stress isn't something that happens when we are unable to cope with demands on us but instead it's something that happens when we think or consider that we will be unable to cope with demands stress is essentially therefore an internal occurrence generally it's thought this occurs because of our hypothalamus this is a small gland located in the center of our brain that coordinates bodily response to stimulus stress is one example of that things like changing temperature is another example depending on the nature and of the severity of the stress the hypothalamus may activate one or both of two systems these are the sympatho medullary pathway or the hypothalmic pituitary adrenal system these two responses are related but also entirely different the sympatho medullary pathway is activated when the body experiences urgent and immediate stress something that has to be responded to immediately this triggers activity in the autonomic nervous system this is a nervous system over which we have no control a little bit like the reflex system this releases adrenaline and noradrenaline into the bloodstream from the adrenal medulla it's released into the bloodstream so it can travel around the body this release of adrenaline and no adrenaline causes a number of physical changes within the body our digestion rate slows down this is done to reroute energy to muscles where that energy is likely to be needed our breathing rate increases which helps with oxygen uptake our heart rate also increases this is done pump oxygenated blood around the body faster so that oxygen can get to the muscles where it can be used for respiration the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal pathway is activated when the body experiences long-term and sustained stress this triggers a more long-term sustained but chemical response to try and avoid using up large amounts of the body's scarce resources to do this a hormone called acth is produced and then distributed through the bloodstream acth triggers the release of cortisol cortisol causes a key biochemical change in the body it allows glucose to be obtained from proteins this gives the body a much longer term source of energy than just extracting glucose from carbohydrates in doing so it allows the body to respond to the stress over a much longer term however there is a downside to this long-term cortisol presence over a large amount of time can cause issues with the immune system this may make the body more vulnerable to infection the study of stress as an area of psychology is a relatively recent development something really that's happened through the latter ages of the 20th century however hans celia was a key pioneer in the development of psychology and stress unfortunately a lot of his research had ethical issues mostly this is because that research was done on animals there's several issues with experimental animals partly it's that the results can't be generalized to a human population but also animals may well be harmed by the research and they cannot give any kind of informed consent that said celia did put forward a three-stage response to stress which he names the general adaptation syndrome often abbreviated to gas or even just gas the first stage is the alarm stage in this the body is made aware of some sort of change in the local environment this increases our arousal and sensitivity to change to try and make sure we're able to deal and cope with this change in some sort of physical way which might be fighting or running for example often known as the fight or flight response the second stage is the resistance stage if the stressor that's the change in the environment remains present for a long period of time our bodies gradually learn to adjust and they start to return back to what's normal they do this with ongoing higher levels of arousal however while we're getting back to normal we're still very aware of the change finally the third stage is the exhaustion stage if this stressor remains around for a very long time our bodies begin to be unable to cope normally this results in damage to bodily systems especially the immune system which can well lead on to physical illness if we experience stress especially over a very long period of time this can have an effect on the cardiovascular system the cardiovascular system is the collective name given to the heart and blood vessels that pump blood around the body it is considered fairly unlikely that this will cause an immediate sudden problem but it can well increase the risk of other conditions things like coronary heart disease there is indeed some research evidence for this idea one example being the work done by krantz and a group of researchers back in 1991 that said however the vast majority of all the evidence is correlational it may well be that some sort of third unknown outside factor causes both high stress and heart disease for example some sort of genetic factor or the heart disease may have caused the stress the link may work in the opposite direction a second possible consequence of stress to the body is damage to the immune system the immune system protects us against pathogens this is known as immunosuppression and patients suffering that are immunosuppressed we can define this as the long-term degradation of the immune system which will lead to a higher rate or incidence of infection and make those infections more long-lasting and serious unfortunately a great deal of the research into this and the evidence for it has come from animals we can't generalize this to humans that said there is some research evidence for this phenomenon happening in humans one key example being the work done by keycard glaser and a group of researchers relatively recently in 1995. many of the major events in all of our lives are stressful this can be good events like weddings or a new job or a new school but obviously it can also be bad events like bereavement getting divorced getting fired or just being ill this was looked into in great detail by holmes and rahe all the way back in 1967. they linked major life events and being physically ill by studying the medical records of thousands of patients and looking for major life events things like bereavement or divorce prior to the patient becoming ill obviously this study had a huge sample size slightly later on in 1973 holmes and rye the same pair of psychologists also asked a smaller group of participants to rank various life events both good and bad for how stressful they were eventually this became known as the social readjustment rating scale the events near the top of the scale things like the death of a spouse or a divorce are considered to cause more stress than those at the bottom of the scale like christmas for example or a change of job the scale is still in use today but it does have some issues firstly the scale actually makes no distinction between positive and negative events some extremely stressful events one really good example being getting married and clearly a positive development even though they're stressful secondly the social readjustment rating scale or srs was inherently ethnocentric the participants who determined the scale from the very beginning were western and mostly white it wasn't cross-cultural finally the social readjustment rating scale relies entirely on self-reporting this is inherently biased and it's also vulnerable to dishonesty among the participants in addition to these major life events small day-to-day hassles in all of our daily lives can also cause a stress these have been given a name they were named hassles by holmes and ray these include examples like losing our house keys misplacing our phone getting stuck in traffic congestion or just simply not having enough time to do everything we want to do these are things experienced by all of us and these are counter balanced by uplifts these are things which reduce our stress levels on a daily basis like interacting with our family spending time with our friends or taking part in a hobby that we enjoy to look into this in more detail kanna and a group of researchers in 1981 used 100 participants these participants ranked a series of daily hassles on daily uplifts on a scale which became known sensibly as the hassles and uplift scale like the social readjustment rating scale however there were some issues with this the first issue is individual differences everybody is different and we all respond very differently to everyday hassles and everyday uplifts for some of us getting stuck in traffic may well be a major issue for others it's a minor inconvenience it all depends on the individual the second is resources every one of us has access at different times to different levels of resources and these levels of resources cause us to respond differently to daily hassles a delay on public transport for example probably isn't going to be an issue for somebody with plenty of spare time for somebody with a hectic lifestyle who's running low on time however it can be a major cause of stress the third issue is self-reporting the hassles on uplift scale did rely on self-reporting as we know this is inherently biased it's also open to subjective interpretation participants may well have claimed not to be bothered by some minor hassles which were in fact a huge issue for them a fourth and final issue is correlations this hassles and uplift scale relied on correlative rather than causal relationships in reality the scale can't establish that stress is a direct and sole cause or effect of any single variable but it can only determine that the two variables are linked for many of us perhaps even for all of us the workplace can be a major source of stress and this can come from a range of different factors there are five main ones the first is our work relationships our relationships with people around us at work be they are superiors our colleagues our employees can be a source of stress this is particularly true if we feel undervalued or neglected or if we feel a hostile environment from these people the second is work pressures pressure to complete work quickly or to meet very specific deadlines can obviously cause a stress this is especially true if it's unlikely we're going to be able to do that remember stress is all about if you think you can cope the third is our work environment if our environment is uncomfortable physically too small too cramped too cold too humid too hot this can cause sustained or long-term stress fourth we have work role stress if we have concerns about being fired or being made redundant or even just not having job security this can also cause us long-term stress this is especially true if we're doing a role we don't feel we're up to finally we have work control stress if we don't have any saying when we work what work we do or how we do that work this can also cause us stress over a long period of time as we know this long term and sustained stress can cause physical issues in addition to mental health problems and can really be quite debilitating as you may expect proper in-depth research of stress in the workplace is a modern and fairly new area of psychology that said a lot more time and effort has been put into it in the last 30 years in part this is because of two major pieces of research done early on in the 70s and then much more recently in the 90s marmot and a group of researchers in 1997 examined the illness in the workplace the participant group for this piece of research was over 7 000 uk civil servants giving an absolutely enormous sample size each of them filled in a very detailed questionnaire about their work their work environment and their work relationships five years later the participants were contacted again to try and find out if any medical issues had arisen and to look for correlations between questionnaires and the medical issues it was found that the major variable was control individuals who had little or no control over their work when it was done and how it was done were much more likely to fall ill and the presumption was this was due to stress a fair bit before this in 1975 frankenhauser examined two groups of workers in a german sawmill the first group had a very repetitive very loud and a socially isolated task they were feeding logs into a machine one by one on their own the second group had a much more sociable and pleasant task it was found perhaps unsurprisingly that the first group had much higher levels of certain stress hormones and therefore suffered higher rates of physical illness because of stress when we take these two studies together they do provide compelling evidence of at least a link between stress within the workplace and physical illness they also give some suggestions as to factors within workplaces which may cause stress outside of emotional symptoms and obvious mental health symptoms stress has physical symptoms which can be measured and plotted the great advantage to this is it turns stress into a physical illness and a physical problem society in general tends to take physical problems more seriously a second advantage is this results in some numerical mathematical data which makes it easy to diagnose the presence and the severity of the stress we should in theory lead to easier treatment there's a huge list of physical stress symptoms but we'll look at some of the most important the first is heart rate people suffering from stress generally have a higher heart rate than is normal both normal generally and normal for them unless their normal resting heart rate without stress present is known however this can be very difficult to spot you need a base value to compare against the second is blood pressure people suffering from stress will generally have a higher blood pressure above both their normal and above the average for most adults once again however to diagnose this you need a baseline the third is hormone levels people suffering from stress will usually show raised concentrations of very specific and identifiable hormones within their bloodstream the fourth is skin conductance response or skin conductivity generally people suffering from stress will sweat more this makes their skin more conductive to electricity which is measurable again however you need a baseline it's also worth noting that each of these can be caused by a whole range of factors which aren't stress like fever infection heat stroke or even coronary heart disease so we can't always get a concrete stress diagnosis from any single or even a combination the best they can tell us is that stress may be present as is the case with any psychological condition or problem there are a huge range of individual factors which contribute to if somebody will suffer from stress and if they do the severity of that stress some research has been done to try and determine these individual factors which have an effect on stress like that done by friedman and roseman in 1974 this examined differences in personality type this research concluded that individuals with a type a personality who tend to be more extroverted aggressive and hostile tended to suffer stress more than individuals with a type b personality who tend to be more passive introverted and laid back in 1979 a psychologist named kobasa also suggested the idea of hardiness in relation to stress individuals who have a hardy personality are more determined they tend to see change in a positive way and they have a strong feeling of control over their life and their psychological health kobasa's suggestion was that this idea of hardiness may will also be a contributing or even a determining factor in how likely somebody is to suffer stress and how severe that stress would be finally and controversially some research recently has suggested that stress may be linked to gender but there's no causal link that's ever been proven at best there's a correlation so this is a hotly debated topic among psychologists as with any psychological condition or problem there are a number of possible ways to treat stress in patients the first and perhaps the most obvious of these is medical drug-based treatments generally these use medication to try and manage the symptoms of stress usually they do this either by slowing down the whole central nervous system or reducing the activity of the autonomic nervous system both of which can be done chemically obviously and as is usually the case with drug-based treatments this can work it can be effective but drug-based treatments only ever treat the symptoms of stress they don't address the root cause a second possible treatment method is biofeedback biofeedback involves showing the patient in real time changes within the body things like temperature blood pressure and muscle tension this can work it can help patients relax and see that relaxation happening the idea being this will reduce the symptoms of stress a problem with biofeedback however is that it's extremely time intensive and therefore very expensive it requires large amounts of equipment and specially trained staff for it to be effective so it can't be used that often or for that many people it's particularly useful however in treating stress in children or for individual cases of extreme stress a third way of treating stress is stress inoculation therapy often known as sit or just sit this is a type of therapy which involves identifying and altering thought processes the cognitive processes within the patient to try and reduce level of stress this is done by introducing small bites or small pockets of stress to patients giving them small stressful tasks to try and teach them how to handle that stress better stress inoculation therapy is particularly effective with short-term stress but it can also work to combat long-term stress in contrast to drug-based therapy this type of sit therapy can be sustainable and it can be long lasting however it does require a huge amount of time mental commitment and self insight by the patient so unfortunately it doesn't work for everybody finally we have social support this isn't really a treatment method but something which you would hope patients would have the support of a wider social network can work to combat stress and reverse it to an extent which may reduce the symptoms obviously this can take several different forms like practical support with things like meals or child care from friends and family emotional support from a wider social group or professional therapists or even esteem based support helping to build self-esteem from people like life coaches or even parents [Music] like many of the other terms we see in psychology like addiction crime or abnormality aggression is an inherently widespread and difficult term to give a concrete definition for there's a few different reasons for this aggression is time relative behavior which we may consider aggressive today may not have been considered aggressive decades or especially centuries ago aggression is also culturally relative behavior which is considered abnormal or aggressive in one culture may be thought completely normal and expected in a different culture aggression is also gender relative obviously expectations of behavior vary massively between genders some behavior which would be considered aggressive in one gender may be thought of as normal in the other finally aggression is age relative our expectations of behavior from people change as they change their age behavior that would be considered aggressive and abnormal at a young age may not be considered so at an older age similarly behavior which in somebody's adult life might be considered aggressive or abnormal or outside social norms may be thought of as being completely normal when their babies are infants one possible explanation for aggressive behavior lies with genetics throughout human history many different animals have been bred specifically to be aggressive either to other species or to their own species guard dogs are one example ferrets which have been often bred to hunt mice and rats are another one in both these cases the animals have been bred specifically for aggressive behavior the very fact that it's possible to breed animals selectively for the specific trait of aggression is a very strong indicator that aggressive behavior has an explanation which is at least partly rooted in genetics as we've already seen animal studies have huge ethical issues they can never give informed consent and they may well be harmed by the process but another issue is that animal behavior can't be generalized out to humans therefore genetic explanations for aggression rely on adoption studies and twin studies one landmark study was done by christiansen all the way back in 1977. this study examined aggression in twins it found high concordance rate for aggressive criminal behavior in identical twins this would at least suggest a genetic component to aggressive behavior a concordance rate is how often the same characteristic our behavior is found within two members of a pair in this case twins no 100 concordance rate has ever been found so there must be other factors outside of just genetics that are involved perhaps a shared environment for example one other possible biological explanation for aggressive behavior lies with maoa maoa is the abbreviation usually used for monoamine oxidize a monoamine oxidized a is an enzyme which is involved in the transport of neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine around the brain this is controlled by the maoa gene the maoa gene controls the production and therefore by extension the quantity and distribution of this particular enzyme it's thought that genetic mutations during the process of meiosis and dna combination during reproduction may cause this maoa gene to be disrupted which can then lead to lower levels of maoa within the brain this has been linked with aggressive behavior the theory goes that the brain is less able to distribute and process serotonin which leads to feelings of anger and therefore aggression and aggressive behavior there is some evidence for this theory a study done in 1993 by brunner leading a group of researchers studied a large extended family in the netherlands the study found that several male members of the family had minor mutations to the maoa gene and that these members showed repeated highly aggressive behavior some animal studies have also provided some evidence for this theory as is always the case with animal studies however there are huge ethical issues the animals may have been harmed or at least distressed by the process another issue is that any results from animal studies can never be generalized out to human behavior a further possible biological explanation for aggression lies with the limbic system this explanation suggests that disruptions to the limbic system may have an influence the limbic system is a specific area of the brain which has been linked with aggressive behavior one part of the limbic system is called the amygdala amygdalas have been linked with aggression animal studies have shown that this area of the brain when stimulated electrically can cause some animals to immediately become extremely aggressive there is also some limited case study evidence for this in humans although it's worth noting that as is always the case with case studies it's a very small sample size and we can't really generalize the results out this particular case study however is worth noting it concerns charles whitman charles whitman was a sniper in the united states he killed 14 innocent people and left a further 30 war and severely wounded when he was eventually captured and killed it was found during the autopsy that he'd sustained damage to his temporal lobe this damage had caused his temporal lobe to expand which was pressing on his amygdala he was then theorized that this damage to his amygdala may have led to his clearly aggressive behavior however this is only one case study and it can't prove any kind of causal relationship the animal studies have huge ethical issues and because they're animal studies we can't in any way generalize them out to humans a further biological explanation for aggression involves serotonin serotonin is a neurotransmitter it's a chemical messenger inside the brain that's believed to inhibit and hold back aggressive behavior in humans logically therefore at least in theory aggressive behavior in humans might be caused by a lack of serotonin or by serotonin being incorrectly distributed around the brain this has been evidenced by several animal studies of higley etal in 1996 and before that valselli and bernasconi in 1979 examined animals with very low serotonin turnover in both cases they found that animals with very low or disrupted serotonin turnover in the brain displayed some type of aggressive behavior which was outside the norms for that animal in that scenario some studies have also disrupted the diets of human participants in an effort to find a link between aggression and serotonin serotonin is made using an amino acid called tryptophan which is found in only a very small number of specific food items when tryptophan was removed from the diet by removing these specific items they showed increased aggressive tendencies within a very short period of time usually only hours this also suggested a further link between serotonin and aggression a further biological or at least biochemical explanation for aggressive behavior lies with testosterone testosterone is an androgen that is a male sex hormone responsible for the development of key masculine characteristics during puberty things like facial hair growth and a deeper voice obviously therefore men produce far more testosterone than women who do still produce some men are also statistically much more likely to display violent or aggressive behavior than women therefore many psychologists have theorized a link between testosterone and aggression there are some major issues with this theory however the studies that have looked into it have often confused aggression with criminality they therefore usually focused on criminals which is a very small and specific sample that can't be generalized out they have also found only a correlation there's never been a causative link found between testosterone and aggression it may well be that the correlation actually works in the opposite way criminality and aggressive behavior may well stimulate the release of testosterone rather than testosterone causing aggressive and violent behavior it's very difficult to prove or disprove this either way and very few psychologists consider testosterone to be a key cause of aggression instead it's thought it's probably one component in a wider biological and biochemical imbalance when we look at possible explanations for aggressive behavior we must also consider an ethological explanation ethology is a slightly arcane concept within psychology but it can be summarized as the study of animal behavior which is usually aimed at better understanding human behavior however advanced we are humans are animals our behavior therefore is essentially also animal however far we've come and however complicated we think our emotions and our developed society to be we act behave and feel in ways which are essentially animal and evolutionary lorenz proposed that aggressive behavior can be explained in terms of animal behavior specifically his theory was that aggression is an innate response one that is pre-programmed into us this actually makes logical sense if we consider evolutionary biology individuals that show more aggressive behavior are at least theoretically more likely to survive because they're more likely to survive they become more likely to procreate as they will have access to greater resources a wider territory and therefore more sexual partners with whom to reproduce lorenz therefore proposed a set of sequences of events which link our innate tendencies with environmental triggers around us to explain why aggressive behavior may happen in the modern world and in modern society even though it's outside of social norms lorenz's ethological sequence was built up of six steps the first is that the urge or instinct to behave in an aggressive way gradually builds up in us over time bit by bit the longer the amount of time that's lapsed since our previous aggressive behavior outburst the larger this urge to act aggressively becomes secondly eventually some sort of stimulus around us will trigger an outburst of aggressive violent behavior third is that as this time gap elapsed and the urge to be violent and aggressive grows the strength of the stimulus which is needed to trigger the outburst of aggressive behavior gets progressively smaller and smaller and smaller fourthly eventually it may become completely spontaneous no trigger around us will be needed for us to be aggressive and this aggressive behavior will simply just happen the fifth is that this stimulus sets off a fixed set of actions through an innate releasing mechanism this has been built into our behavior patterns by evolution and genetics it's not something we can change and the sixth is that this behavior pattern is identical throughout our entire species there is some evidence to back lorenz's sequence there was a key experiment done all the way back in 1947 on red stickleback fish which supported the idea it links in with some existing genetic and biological explanations for aggressive behavior too that said it doesn't explain some types of aggressive behavior a good example is premeditated murder this isn't the result of a single stimulus and it's not triggered by one thing it's planned over a long period of time lorenz also believes that some aggressive behavior can eventually become ritualized in being ritualized it can be released completely harmlessly through things like sport or recreation a further evolutionary explanation of aggressive behavior considered aggression as an adaptive response this comes from evolutionary psychology evolutionary psychology tries to explain human behavior and human emotions in terms of evolutionary advantage and the continuation of our entire species to put it in context obviously a lot of the pressures on early humans hundreds of thousands of years ago simply don't exist for most of us today for most of us there's no need to hunt or fight for a mate but we are subject to the same very basic rules of evolution and evolutionary biology therefore evolutionary psychology suggests that aggressive behavior may have several possible functions within wider society and within the wider continuation of the species and our bloodlines the first is to gain status or dominance within a set social group the second is to gain resources for ourselves at the expense of others within that social group the third is to defend against this and defend against others seeking to gain status dominance or resources from us and the fourth is to provide a possible deterrence against infidelity by sexual partners if you as an animal are known for being aggressive it's highly unlikely that your mate will go to somebody else some research projects like boss set all in 92 and wilson and daley in 85 have suggested that gender differences jealousy and aggression might occur which would seem to back up this theory it's been suggested that men are much more likely to respond to sexual infidelity with aggression women are much more likely to respond to emotional infidelity with aggression suggesting that for the two genders aggression serves a different evolutionary purpose it's also possible that aggression and aggressive behavior might have social explanations rooted in our society one hypothesis around this is called the frustration aggression hypothesis this was first proposed very early on as a social explanation for aggressive behavior by dollard and his group of researchers all the way back in 1939 the basic idea is that aggression is always the result of frustration and that frustration always leads to aggression to understand this we need to define frustration and frustration can be defined as the feeling provoked by a setback when trying to reach or achieve a specific goal the frequency and the intensity of the aggressive behavior displayed therefore depends on the frequency and the intensity of the setbacks experienced while trying to get to that goal something else suggested by this model is that fear of negative consequences like punishment or imprisonment may inhibit our natural aggressive tendencies society in the way punishes aggression sets limit this model does actually have several strengths experimental evidence does suggest there's a link between frustration and aggression that said however many people consider it very simplistic or reductionist for example this model makes absolutely no distinction between a setback cast by random chance like it raining when you're trying to climb a hill and a deliberate setback being caused by an enemy or a rival so many people consider it to be overly simplified another possible social explanation for aggression comes from learning theory generally social explanations for aggressive behavior make a link between aggression and wider society that's our immediate family our peers and other trends within our wider social network the idea is that social learning theories suggest that aggression like all behavior is learned from those around us in our immediate family and friends and in wider society this is in direct contrast and direct contradiction to the biological or evolutionary explanations we've seen this would suggest that behavior is innate whereas learning theory would suggest that behavior is learned therefore social learning theory suggests that we're likely to be aggressive if one of two things occurs firstly we see aggressive behavior in others around us especially role models or older members of our family or secondly we see this behavior being rewarded with increased status or increased resources are at least not obviously punished there is research evidence to back this idea up piece of research done in 1965 by bandura showed that children behaved aggressively towards a doll when they saw this type of behavior done by others being rewarded however this is only correlational it's completely impossible to ever prove that social learning provides a complete explanation for aggression but most psychologists consider that there is an element of social learning within explanations for aggression another possible social explanation for aggressive behavior is de-individuation this is the process that happens when somebody loses their individuality and becomes anonymous obviously this can happen in a range of different ways but it's most commonly the case when one individual is a small part of a much larger crowd or mob around them this is supported by lots of naturalistic real world evidence which really makes it more viable as a theory to take an example studies have been done on lynch mobs in the us this has suggested that when people are grouped in a large crowd they lose the fear of individual punishment which naturally would inhibit their normal behavior within social norms when this happens and they lose that fear of punishment it becomes much more likely that they'll behave in extreme or aggressive ways this seems logical enough but there's also evidence which supports the opposing process and suggests that when people gather in a large crowd they'll behave with more good will and more natural warmth towards others to take a few examples crowds at religious festivals or music festivals and some sporting events don't become aggressive instead they head in the opposite direction and show more good will so it's possible that this process can work in both ways but there is certainly evidence that when you have a crowd or mob individuals within it will lose their natural inhibitions and become more aggressive when talking about aggressive behavior it's very important to objectively consider the role of the media many people in a range of disciplines like politics psychology criminology and sociology have suggested that there is a positive link between the media and aggressive behavior to take one example a very common trend among the many recent school shootings in the united states has been that the murderers have often enjoyed video games some people have taken this as evidence that violent video games cause violence in real life that said violence in the media is not limited to video games films television cartoons streaming social media newspapers and magazines all discuss all display and all show as violence as indeed they have for decades or centuries this only shows a correlation it doesn't prove a causal link between media violence and real-world violence it's actually completely possible that this relationship works in the opposite way and that the media is just reflecting increasing amounts of violence in society rather than causing it a third possible option is that there is no link whatsoever between the media and violence and greater access to information and the internet has just made everybody more aware of a constant level of violence in our society it's not that the amount of violence has increased is that we're all better able to access information about it it has been suggested however that the increasing and sustained levels of violence that we see in the media all around us has three main impacts on individuals and on society as a whole they are desensitization disinhibition and cognitive priming the first is desensitization this is when people either individually are as a group gradually lose their normal emotional reaction to witnessing violence as we see repeated extreme violence on television for example we gradually stop being horrified by it we become desensitized as it becomes more normal to us than something we see all the time the second is disinhibition this is when people gradually lose their natural inhibition about behaving aggressively because they've seen it being rewarded usually in violent action films they see an action hero saving the day and being rewarded for violent behavior and they think they can be violent too they gradually lose their inhibitions about being violent the third is cognitive priming this happens when we gradually associate some environmental cues like a drink spilling or somebody glancing at our partner with violence we all witness sequences of events and sequences of behavior in the media which become imprinted subconsciously in our memories we gradually start to associate sequences of events like a drink being spilled on us with incoming violence because we've seen that sequence so many times before as this happens we become ready to partake in that violence ourselves we've been cognitively primed to expect a set series of events that we then take part in violence and aggressive behavior is sadly still widespread in prison environments in the uk and all over the world on a surface level this might seem obvious by definitions prisons contain violent and aggressive people they're in prison to keep society and the general public safe so surely we should expect violence in prisons however on the other hand prisons have dedicated staff and very heavy security measures in an effort to keep prisoners from being violent or being aggressive there's also the incentive to not be violent which comes from the possibility of parole early release or perks however one explanation for the high level of aggression in prisons is called the dispositional explanation the dispositional explanation suggests that prisons are violent places because the individuals within them are naturally more violent and have an aggressive disposition there has been some research which suggests this might be true but it's also been criticized for being androcentric it's too focused on male prisoners when actually the level of violence in female prisons is as high another possible explanation for prison violence is called the situational explanation this suggests that violence happens in prisons because of the environment and that the conditions within the prison like overcrowding or a poor diet or just nothing to do inevitably lead on to violence confusingly there's also experimental evidence for this theory but a lot of people reject it because it absolves prisoners of responsibility for their violence as is often the case in various explanations for things in psychology it's likely both explanations are partially correct and valid to an extent the true picture and the true explanation of why prisons are violent is likely to be a composite of both of these [Music] [Music] crime may seem like a very straightforward concept with a very easy straightforward definition like breaking the law or undertaking criminal activity like so many things in psychology the reality however is much more complicated and nuanced to take an example many of the barbaric acts carried out by german civilians towards jews in the 1930s and early 1940s were completely legal under the laws of germany at the time but nobody would argue that makes them morally right or free of criminality in contrast homosexuality was illegal and often punishable with heavy prison sentences or even execution in many countries until relatively recently but a few rational people today make the argument that homosexuality is morally wrong or criminal a simple blanket definition of crime like breaking the formal laws of society does not therefore provide us with the full picture a more complete definition may be breaking social norms in a harmful way but even this more nuanced definition has problems when we try to define crime or criminal behavior therefore there are a few problems that we need to consider crime is time relative that means that the definitions any society holds of criminal behavior change rapidly through different time periods let's take an example blasphemy or speaking out against religion was a very serious criminal offence in the united kingdom for many years today at least for most of society it holds very little significance crime is also culturally relative the definitions any society holds of criminal behavior change from society to society to use the same example blasphemy continues to be a very serious offence in some cultures around the world even to the point in some specific places have been a capital crime punishable by execution finally a third issue is that crime is age relative the definition of criminal behavior changes with the age of an individual to take an example a very young child in a shop may well pick something up and wander off with it without paying if the child is extremely young nobody would seriously consider this to be criminal behavior in the uk children under the age of 10 cannot be charged arrested or convicted of a crime they're not considered to be morally responsible for their actions but through different time periods different cultures and different countries this age of responsibility changes sometimes it goes up or down as we've seen therefore criminal behavior is a difficult thing to give a strict definition to a side effect of this is that it makes measuring crime equally tricky therefore there are three main ways that we measure crime they are official statistics offender surveys and victim surveys firstly we have official statistics these are sets of data created by official government bodies like the police the courts and the civil service these have been published regularly for about 200 years and that makes them extremely useful for plotting trends and developments in criminal behavior like any statistics however they are not always or even often that accurate and any criminal behavior which never reaches the attention of the authorities goes completely unrecorded secondly we have offender surveys these are when individuals are anonymously asked to relate any and all criminal behavior they have been engaged in these can obviously be very useful for building up a more accurate picture of criminal behavior which has gone otherwise unrecorded because for example the police never found out about it this is especially useful for minor crimes or financial crime however people are obviously very reluctant to disclose their own criminal behavior even if it's done anonymously it's also extremely likely that people will be dishonest thirdly we have victim surveys these are done often and they're when the general public are asked about criminal behavior which has had an impact in some way on them these can be very useful for understanding criminal behavior which isn't officially recorded especially very low level crimes like antisocial behavior but they're also easily distorted by misconceptions misunderstandings and bias to take an example the general public doesn't always understand that some things are criminal and some things are civil problems one key way that psychology has contributed to law enforcement is through offender profiling offender profiling is the process of mapping out the likely characteristics of certain offenders this can produce new leads or new knowledge within investigations which can eventually lead to the perpetrators being caught arrested tried and convicted there are two main ways in which this is done the u.s or top down approach and the uk or bottom-up approach we'll start with the u.s approach this was first done and indeed continues to be done by the fbi they began interviewing convicted serious criminals in an effort to find common traits that they shared they used the large amount of information they gathered to classify serious criminals into two main groups organized and disorganized organized criminals were methodical planned rational and intelligent they usually had good social skills on the other hand disorganized criminals were socially inadequate impulsive and much more likely to act alone this approach obviously however was based on self-reporting from criminals this makes it extremely vulnerable to bias and dishonesty the uk approach works the other way around this approach used and continues to use geographical profiling that's a process where information is gathered from the crime scene and the surrounding local area which builds up a picture of the individual concerned obviously this is much more time intensive it can take hours days even weeks but it builds up a much more specific picture of the individual offender both the concept and the methods used in offender profiling remain very disputed and extremely controversial that's despite them being used by many or most police forces around the world for decades one main issue is that they can be used for every type of crime crimes which are very rational or that are used for material gain like theft or financial crime are much harder to profile than impulsive violent crimes like murder or rape they are personal and they're specific to either the offender or the victim there's also some debate about the actual purpose of profiling some suggest it should be used to help identify and then arrest an individual and very specific offender as we saw in the uk bottom-up approach other people suggest it could be used to determine the broad type of person who's more likely to commit a specific as we've seen in the top-down u.s approach a further issue is that the actual effectiveness of offender profiling might be quite limited holmes did some research on this in 1999 and that research showed that profiling only actually contributed to arrests made in about 20 or one-fifth of the cases it was involved in which is not a fantastic effectiveness rate finally there is or at least can be a very serious ethical problem with profiling profiling can be easily exploited by individuals with a personal agenda of racism or sexism to claim that a specific group of people are all criminals that is not at all the purpose of offender profiling there are two very notable case studies of profiling offenders one of these that of john duffy shows the usefulness of profiling while the other that of rachel nichol shows how it's very limited we'll start with the case of rachel nichol this was the very sad and disturbing case of a young woman she was brutally murdered in front of a young infant's son while in a public park in 1992. the police brought in a profiler named paul britain mr britain developed a very detailed profile of the offender this profile was assumed to be true and it was broadcast repeatedly on national television these broadcasts caused four separate callers to all independently call in and identify what appeared to be the same person this possible offender fitted britain's profile exactly his name was colin stagg and he was completely and utterly innocent indeed he was found not guilty in court due to the way in which the police had handled the crime eventually after many years a completely unrelated man who didn't match the profile pleaded guilty in contrast a case which showed the more useful side of profiling was that of john duffy john duffy is still alive today and he's known as the railway rapist he was responsible for 24 very serious sexual crimes between 1982 and 1986 the crimes continued a profiler call canter was asked by the police to build up a very detailed profile by examining all of the forensic evidence available this profile when it was completed may john duffy who'd already been interviewed and was known to police seemed like a much more likely and realistic possibility than he had previously seemed candice predictions whether the culprit would live close to the first few crime scenes be in his late 20s work in a skilled or semi-skilled profession have a criminal record already have a good solid working knowledge of railways like martial arts and be quite short all of these were true of duffy and this information eventually led to his arrest trial and conviction some very early research into biological explanations for crime were done by lombroso who lived between 1835 and 1909 lombroso believed that an individual's criminal behavior was linked to their basic physical features this seems fairly ridiculous to us today but in fairness lombroso's theories did come from some research he'd found a correlation between certain specific physical features and the prevalence of those features among convicted criminals lombroso used this research to generate a set of features which he thought were common among criminals and which the typical criminal would have this was quite a long list but they included a strong jaw a long nose a heavy brow large prominent ears and sloping shoulders this seems very odd to us today and since limbrosa didn't use any kind of innocent control group of non-criminal participants it's not possible to prove any kind of causative link there might be a correlation that said however lombroso did highlight the link between biology and criminality this has continued to be a future use to both psychologists and criminologists although not in the very basic simplistic way that lombroso believed one major problem that lumbro so overlooked was that it's completely possible criminality caused the biological features rather than the biological features causing the criminality environmental factors like sustained drug use poverty or a very limited diet may have caused the physical features that were identified and listed there is some limited evidence which supports the view that our genetics has an influence on criminal behavior and crime rates though it's very important to understand that nobody is saying our genetics cause us to be criminals some adoption studies like that done by mednick and all in 1984 did find a concordance rate between siblings it was much more likely that genetic siblings would both become criminals than when two siblings were adopted the biological approach has also found a link between genetics and aggressive behavior obviously aggression is a major contributing factor to criminal behavior a 1965 study done by jacobs leading a group of researchers did also find a link between genetic sex chromosome abnormalities usually an extra y chromosome and eventual displayed criminal behavior it's been suggested although never proven beyond a correlation that individuals with this extra chromosome may have lower iqs and be more impulsive which may explain their higher rates of criminal behavior there has also been a possible neural explanation of criminality this neural explanation suggests that biological dysfunction within the brain causes criminal behavior however this also is at best a correlation and no causative link has ever been found when we evaluate biological explanations for criminality there are a number of things we have to consider as we've seen there is actually a large amount of hard experimental evidence for these biological explanations of criminal behavior the vast majority of this research is scientific and has been laboratory experiments this vastly reduces the chances of any outside extraneous variables causing issues with the conclusions that said all of this evidence taken together does not conclusively provide a sole biological cause of criminal behavior but it does at least point to biology and genetics as a contributing part of the explanation that said no study has ever shown a 100 concordance rate in either identical or non-identical twins so there must be an environmental component too to take an example criminality could in part be inherited through genetic vulnerability to mental illness inherited poverty for example would be another one but the environment would have to trigger these issues they wouldn't cause criminality on their own some people would suggest that any biological explanations for criminality are reductionist that is they reduce the complex behavior of humans down to straightforward cause and effect relations and they're also deterministic they suggest we're not in control of our choices and actions many people find this a difficult moral stance to live with some extremely early psychological research done by hans insync examined human personalities this was done in an effort to group them into types and believed that we all placed somewhere along different personality dimensions or personality scales and two were outlined some later research done then added the third we'll look at each three in turn the first is the neuroticism stability dimension individuals at the neurotic end of this dimension are anxious and restless while individuals at the other stable end of this dimension are calm steady and reliable the second is the extroversion introversion dimension individuals at the extroversion end of this dimension are assertive and impulsive while individuals at the introversion end are passive and more timid and withdrawn later research then added the psychoticism dimension individuals at the psychotic end of this scale or this dimension are much more likely to have a psychotic breakdown and hence be uncaring aggressive and overtly hostile to others around them nsync suggested that our places on these dimensions are genetic they're caused by our base dna but the positions can be modified slightly by our environment controversially it was also suggested that particular types of personality would be criminal in particular he believed that psychoticism is a very good predictor of criminality for the young while on the other hand neuroticism is a good indicator of criminality for the old these theories controversial though they are have been influential though they remain disputed they suggest criminality is inbuilt from our very birth by genetics and can't be avoided this would further suggest that the individual isn't really responsible for their actions they were always going to make criminal behavior so why blame them many people are not comfortable with this some research done by joshelson and salmonella in 1976 did at least suggest a link between faulty thought patterns and criminality specifically that all criminals share certain faulty thought patterns or cognitive patterns like a lack of trust a lack of empathy and obsessions or fantasies about criminal behavior working in 1995 gibbs leading a group of researchers also listed four very common cognitive disorders that were found among criminals the first of these was being self-centered that is an obsession with themselves and their own experiences and being uncaring about other people and other people's experiences the second is minimization that is minimizing the impact in the seriousness of their own behavior refusing to believe that their crimes had an impact for example the third was blaming blaming their choices and their problems on anyone and everyone else making everything not their fault and the fourth was hostile bias hostile bias is believing that anybody and everybody especially anybody in a position of authority is always out to get them and then specifically another way of looking at hostile bias is constant conspiracy theories and paranoia kohlberg suggested that as we gradually grow and develop from infancy our ability to reason morally gradually becomes more complex and more nuanced in line with our widening and deepening knowledge of the world around us and the social norms of whatever society we're in to try and investigate this further kohlberg used a series of moral dilemma questions to map the morality of children at different ages and different stages of their development from this kohlberg theorized that our moral reasoning is in three main overarching stages which are then subdivided into six smaller ones we'll look at each of the six in turn the first group of two is known as pre-conventional reasoning during the first stage any action is only morally wrong to us if we're punished for it this is obviously a very basic level of reasoning during the second stage an action is morally correct to us if it's the one which is in our own best interests the second group of two is known as conventional reasoning during the third stage the to us the correct behavior is one which results in positive regard from others one that will make other people think better of us during the fall stage we understand that it's important to follow laws and social norms because these help the society around us function this is the level that most of us are at at any given time the final two stages are grouped together to give post-conventional reasoning during the fifth stage the right course of action to us is the one that results in the greatest good to the largest number of people and finally during the sixth and most advanced stage of moral reasoning our actions are driven by principles of right and wrong which are set they're not situational and they're not changed by factors around us and our environment kolberg's theory was that each one of us is at a slightly different stage of this sequence of moral reasoning but criminals are much more likely to be stuck at earlier stages usually in pre-conventional reasoning their behaviors and morals are therefore driven only by what is right and best for them rather than any considerations of wider society are fixed principles as with most areas of the human experience freud weighed in on criminality freud's psychodynamic approach to psychology may also provide us with two explanations for criminal behavior they are an inadequate superego and defense mechanisms freud believed that the only way we can understand and reflect on behavior is to look at the past of the individual in question the extension from this was that criminal behavior must be linked to childhood and development experiences we'll start by looking at the explanation of inadequate superego freud's suggestion was that if our superego develops in an abnormal way it won't be able to keep the primal instincts of the id in line and therefore we may well go on to become criminals freud linked this abnormal superego development with our parental relationships this idea has been widely misrepresented in the media and widely misunderstood by the public most often now the public thinks that having a disruptive family life always leads to criminal behavior this is in fact not the case and not what freud was saying the second possible explanation is defense mechanisms as we've seen freud outlined displacement repression and denial as the various defense mechanisms we could all have all of these could potentially explain offending or criminal behavior to take an example if individuals repress or deny their violent or sexual urges without a positive outlet for them like sport or a healthy sex life with a loving partner then this could eventually go on to result in crimes like assault aggression or rape one theory about the causes of criminal behavior was developed by sutherland in 1939 and it's known as the differential association theory this differential association theory lays out a series of points which seek to identify and explain criminal behavior how it's learned and how it's spread the first is that criminal behavior like any other behavior is learned and can therefore be unlearned the second is that criminal behavior can only be learned by observation and communication with others the third is that criminal behavior is picked up much quicker and much easier if the group of people is small the fourth is that criminal behavior is not just the behavior itself but is also a set of motivations attitudes and thought processes which are all criminal at core the fifth is that laws state if a given behavior is right or wrong but criminals decide their actions based on if behavior is favorable to them or unfavorable to them the sixth is that people are much more likely to learn criminal behavior if they're exposed to it repeatedly the seventh is that the speed and effectiveness with which criminal behavior is learned depends on the frequency duration priority and intensity of the interactions between people the eighth is that criminal behavior can be learned by association and the ninth and perhaps the most controversial one is that anybody can become criminal and that criminality does not depend on age sex socioeconomic background or ethnicity in 1939 that was a controversial idea indeed today it's slightly more widely accepted the proper term for imprisonment is custodial sentencing in brief this means that an individual has their right to individual liberty withdrawn from them and they're placed in a secure environment there are five main purposes to custodial sentencing the first and to most people the most obvious is retribution this is to punish the offender and ensure that they pay for the crimes that they have committed the second is rehabilitation to reform offenders and make it possible for them to rejoin society in a positive way the third is incapacitation this is to ensure that the offender cannot continue to harm the general public and keep the public safe the fourth is denunciation this is to demonstrate to the general public that a given specific behavior is wrong and against the law and will be punished the fifth is deterrence that's to deter the general public and indeed the specific offender from carrying out that criminal behavior in the future obviously each culture in each country places a different amount of stress and emphasis on each of these five some countries like norway for example have an extremely liberal justice system where the focus is very much on rehabilitation whereas others for example the united states have justice systems focused on deterrence and retribution most countries are somewhere in the middle but every different country weighs up these five in very slightly different ways the actual impact of being put in prison on prisoners has been looked at in great detail many times over many years and it's now generally agreed that there are several key psychological effects of being imprisoned the first and perhaps the most obvious is mental health issues individuals in prison are much more likely to suffer from depression and suicide also becomes much more common some research was done into this by dooley in 1990 and that research suggested that depressive illness is a very likely contributing factor to the very high suicide rates around the world in prison environments the second is institutionalization individuals placed in prison gradually lose their sense of personal autonomy and sense of individuality research such as that done by zimbardo have shown this makes prisoners very quick to conform to social expectations around them on the one hand this can make them very well behaved and compliant to the authorities on the other it can make them conform to the violent expectations of other prisoners and actually make them worse the third is criminal reinforcement one obvious and major downside to putting prisoners together is that they can all learn criminal behavior and criminal attitudes and motivations from each other this can result in high recidivism rates recidivism is when a prisoner leaves prison and then reoffends and ends up back in there the fourth impact is labels or labeling prisoners often hold the stigma of criminality and imprisonment for a long time after they've been released back into society this can make it very hard for them to find sustained and gainful employment or maintain a healthy social network which make it very more likely that they will re-offend as we've already discussed the criminal justice system in any given country we take is a composite of many factors like the general political outlook of that country cultural and religious factors overriding crime rates the media public perception and even basic financial resources it's worth noting that at a very basic level prison can and does work it makes the public safer and it takes dangerous and violent individuals out of general circulation and makes it so they can no longer hurt people if prison is done well with a focus on rehabilitation it can release individuals back into society in a controlled way which makes it unlikely they will reoffend one major downside to prison however is that it's extremely expensive many people in many countries have argued that it would be much more productive to put these resources into preventing crime in the first place rather than just dealing with the criminals after they offend there are also many alternatives to prison like community service for example which may well be much more effective and cheap for minor criminals obviously a major issue with prisons is that reoffending rates around the world remain quite high it's thought there are many factors which can influence reoffending rates seven main ones are listed here firstly the length of time the individual spends in prison secondly the strength of the supervision they have after they're released from prison thirdly the nature of their initial crime what did they actually do to get put in prison in the first place fourthly their ethnicity and their wider cultural background fifth their individual experience in prison was it awful or did they have quite a good time sixth their level of learning and education and seven the disciplinary action that was taken against them while they were in prison these seven taken together all seem to contribute to reoffending rates one possible way of changing the attitudes and hence the behavior of prisoners is known as the token economy this method uses operant conditioning to modify attitudes and behaviors prisoners are rewarded for good behaviour with tokens that can be spent for desired products like sweets chocolate or cigarettes these tokens obviously can be withdrawn for bad or undesirable behavior token economies can work but to work there are several factors which have to be considered when that token economy is designed firstly the behavior which is desired must be clear and strictly defined secondly the rewards available must be desirable thirdly the methodology and rationale behind token allocation and provision must be clear and well defined fourthly the exchange rate between tokens and rewards must also be clear and well defined and fifth the manner and rate in which tokens are earned must also be clear some studies like that done by milan and mckee in 1976 have shown that these token economies can work well but it's unclear if this token economy modified behavior continues after the prisoners are released back into society some people do also consider token economies to be deeply unethical to work really well they actually need to involve basic needs like food and drink which can't be safely or morally withdrawn this limits their usefulness there is some very strong evidence to suggest that aggression and resulting anger are strong contributing factors to criminal behavior to try and cure this anger management is a therapeutic program which is designed to reduce violence in prisoners anger management programs usually aim to reduce violent and aggressive thoughts through self-control and self-awareness there are a lot of different ways of doing this but most commonly it involves a weekly two-hour session for a total of eight consecutive weeks meaning that the prisoner received a total of 16 hours of anger management therapy the actual effectiveness of anger management therapy is hotly debated some studies like that done by howells and a group of researchers in 2005 have actually suggested that it has little overall effect some other studies like that done by ireland in 2000 have suggested that it does lead to widespread improvement one major and unavoidable problem is that therapy is inherently expensive it requires not only a trained and paid therapist but the active involvement of the prisoner and this limits how widely and indeed how often it can be used as we've seen traditional justice systems and custodial sentencing mostly focuses on retribution and the protection of the public restorative justice is an alternative to this a restorative justice focuses on criminals directly making amends for their crimes the theory is that this helps them understand the impact of what they've done and hopefully take some responsibility for their actions a good example of this would be a criminal who was convicted of graffitiing being tasked with the removal of their own graffiti obviously this can only happen with the express written consent of the victim of that crime it therefore also follows that the offender must have admitted their crime if they're still denying that they've done it restorative justice has little point this process can obviously help victims of crime usually they meet the offender face to face in a very safe and controlled setting this can reduce their post-traumatic stress and importantly it makes it much less likely they will continue on to seek violent and criminal revenge hence becoming a criminal themselves obviously the main advantage is that compared to imprisonment restorative justice is extremely cheap but one major issue is a lack of public awareness the general public little understand this whole process it's likely that they'll misconstrue it with the aid of the media as the criminal getting away with it or is a soft touch approach so in the uk at least restorative justice is not that widely used [Music] so [Music] do [Music] like many of the terms that we use in psychology addiction is broad and sweeping it's also somewhat disputed a lot of people expand the traditional definition of addiction the traditional definition of addiction is based around substances many people expand this out however to social media video games and other social phenomena to be more precise however psychologists divide addiction into physical addiction and psychological addiction generally speaking physical addiction is when our bodies become chemically dependent on a substance like nicotine for example they are then unable to function normally without that substance psychological dependence is when our mental and our emotional state become dependent on a substance or other activity two other important features of addictions are tolerance and withdrawal symptoms tolerance is when our body gradually becomes accustomed to or used to a substance and it gradually builds up a resistance to it eventually we end up needing more and more of that substance to achieve the same result withdrawal symptoms are when our bodies begin to display uncomfortable and unusual physical changes as we remove the addictive substance from our bodies often this forces that individual back to the addictive substance it's really important to note that we usually discuss addiction in terms of substances like alcohol or tobacco chemical stimulants things like that addictions however can also be experienced based on gambling and other social phenomena smoking is usually thought to be the most common addiction it's one which at least in the uk and across much of the developed world comes at a high financial price regardless of where you are however it also comes with a myriad range of health risks like cancers and bronchitis despite these risks which are well proven and well documented smoking continues to be very common around the world especially in less developed nations many individuals continue to smoke after they've been diagnosed with very serious life-limiting health conditions obviously therefore smoking is highly addictive many people who begin smoking daily wish to stop but very few of those people are actually able to do so one possible explanation for the addictive nature of tobacco lies in our brain neurochemistry that's the chemical interactions which take place in the brain tobacco smoke contains a large number of harmful chemical compounds like for example carbon monoxide or tar but the addictive agent is nicotine nicotine is a neurotransmitter that causes feelings of elation relaxation and happiness as it causes dopamine to be released within the brain over a relatively short period of time this dopamine is removed from the brain that's a process called reuptake and the person desires more therefore as smoking continues gradually the body learns to expect and then demand nicotine to trigger the release of dopamine eventually nicotine is even needed to maintain normal pre-smoking dopamine levels at this point quitting becomes extremely difficult the individual will experience significant unpleasant withdrawal symptoms if they try due to the lack of dopamine which will give them symptoms of irritability and shaking when we look to evaluate this neurochemical explanation for smoking and smoking addiction there are a number of things we need to consider this is essentially a biological explanation so there is a great deal of research to back this theory up one particular one of note is the experiment done by olds and miller all the way back in 1954. this experiment examined the effects of dopamine in rats that said similar to all the other animal-based experiments done in the middle of the 20th century this piece of research has huge ethical issues it also has problems with ecological validity you can't just generalize out and experiment on rats to humans there has also been a huge amount of research done to link nicotine dopamine and addiction this link seems to provide a relatively watertight explanation of why smoking is so addictive on the other hand however a lot of people believe that explaining the complex multifaceted issue of substance abuse with only our brain chemistry is reductionist it looks to take this very complex behavioral issue and boil it down to very simplistic cause and effect relationships and reactions it's entirely probable that it isn't that simple this neurochemical explanation also ignores a range of other factors it's been suggested that genetics environmental factors behaviorism and learning theory could all have an influence on smoking and how people develop smoking addictions finally and as we've seen a great proportion of the research done to establish the link between brain neurochemistry and smoking was done using animal studies in the 50s and 60s all of these studies have huge ethical problems but another issue is it's impossible to generalize out animal studies to humans a second possible explanation of smoking and smoking addiction is provided by behaviorism and learning theory this idea suggests that our smoking behavior is learned through observation modeling and then imitation this is especially likely to be the case if operant conditioning reinforces the behavior this could happen for example if positive role models are seen to be rewarded for smoking behavior obviously reinforcement can occur in the opposite direction the individual will experience negative withdrawal symptoms if they try to stop smoking over time this will condition them into continuing the smoking behavior this cycle could take weeks if they're making a dedicated attempt to stop smoking or if they're a continuing smoker it's this reinforcement which triggers them to have another cigarette smoking can also be reinforced through association with other behaviors that the individual finds pleasurable usually alcohol intake social interaction or gambling eventually this leads to the phenomenon of q reactivity where being in a certain specific place or going through a particular set of experiences triggers the desire for tobacco many people who smoke for example find that they desire a cigarette as they finish a meal associations can also form between smoking and other stimuli a lot of smokers for example will find themselves wanting to smoke in a pub or bar because they've gradually learned over time to associate those stimuli their sounds those smells in those environments with smoking when we evaluate this learning theory or behaviorist approach to smoking addiction there are a number of parallels with the neurochemical explanation but there are also a number of differences unlike the research done for the neurochemical explanation of smoking addiction the research for this learning theory explanation wasn't done on animals primarily it used humans this has two advantages firstly it can be generalized more to human behavior but also there are fewer ethical issues this learning theory especially the idea of learning by association does provide some explanation for psychological addiction psychological addiction can't be explained by neurochemical factors some research done has also backed up this explanation a study done in the year 2000 found that three quarters of teenage smokers had at least one parent that smoked which does suggest an environmental link the idea of q reactivity that's addiction being caused by environmental cues and stimuli is much more recent and much more controversial but there does seem to be some research evidence for it one problem with this explanation however is that it's entirely normaltheatic it assumes that each one of us behaves and experiences addictions in an identical way therefore it ignores genetics individual differences and biological factors many people are a little bit uncomfortable with that finally this explanation does not take into account free will it's completely deterministic and it assumes that we're all always at the mercy of choices outside of our control again not everybody is comfortable with that in the last 20 or 30 years gambling technology has come on leaps and bounds and as this technology has developed more and more people across the world have easier access to gambling through things like online casinos and apps and online bookmakers gradually this has led the previously minor problem of gambling addiction to be an increasingly widespread and serious one especially in the developed world and especially where people have some disposable income gambling addiction may seem like a minor issue compared to smoking or drugs but it can cause extremely serious consequences increased stress deprivation obviously financial hardship and even potential violence all of these have an impact on the individual their family and also on wider society one theory about gambling addiction is that they're caused by cognitive biases cognitive biases are thought process errors which lead us to false perspectives and errors of judgment for people stuck in a gambling addiction this usually leads to things like oversimplifications and false conclusions these allow them to rationalize their addictive behavior and continue on with their habit quite often like harmless optical illusions these cognitive biases carry on even when the individual is completely aware of them even when somebody is addicted to gambling is completely aware of their cognitive biases they'll carry on making the same assumptions the same oversimplifications and therefore the same rationalizations the problem of gambling addiction was first identified in many ways in the late 1980s working around this time wagoner identified and listed 16 rules that gamblers often but erroneously believe many of these are essentially mathematical errors and we don't need an exhaustive list of them but some important examples could be helpful the first is called illusion of control a lot of gamblers believe gambling is a skill in fact it's pure luck but this illusion gives them the illusion that they can control events which in fact they cannot the second is called representative bias many gamblers think that random events should look like they're random for example a random string of numbers could be any sequence 1 2 three four five six one hundred ninety nine ninety eight ninety seven ninety five for example but a gambler would think it should look random something like seventeen nine twenty five one forty four thirty six this is not the case the third is called the gambler's fallacy it's very common for gamblers to believe that a long string of bad luck will eventually be followed or rewarded by good luck gambling is completely random and therefore this is completely false the fourth is known as illusory correlations a lot of gamblers make links between positive outcomes and completely unrelated outside events like wearing specific trousers or using particular lucky dice these events can't have an influence at all the fifth is called fixation on success since gamblers gamble so often and so regularly they can recall a lot of past instances of winning or success generally this makes them think or believe that their rate of success is a lot higher than it actually is finally the sixth is called sunk cost gamblers will often invest large amounts of money into gambling indeed that's where the problem comes from this makes them think they are due a return our reward and must or should continue on gambling to make back their initial investment when in fact they're just sending more and more money into the gambling void this explanation for gambling addiction actually has many strengths a big contributing factor to that is that a lot of these cognitive biases aren't purely psychological they've been examined through statistical mathematics a pure scientific discipline there's also quite a lot of research evidence like that done by griffiths in 1994 and earlier on by henslin in 1967. these have provided some evidence for this cognitive approach to gambling it was found for example that gamblers tend to throw dice with much greater force when they desire or need a higher number to win obviously the amount of force you throw dice with has absolutely no impact on the eventual result that said however on the other hand not everybody always develops these cognitive biases gambling addiction is seen in the highly educated and even people who are mathematically competent sometimes even professional mathematicians therefore this cognitive theory doesn't take into account any individual differences between people it also fails to explain how these cognitive biases develop in the first place although something worth knowing is that certain statistical errors are shared by the majority of the population it's also entirely possible that this relationship works in the opposite direction the gambling addiction may well lead to the cognitive biases rather than the cognitive biases leading to the gambling addiction a final point worth considering is that the cognitive biases we've identified are specific to gambling they don't seem to be present in other addiction people don't use cognitive biases around statistics to justify a smoking addiction for example both classical and operant conditioning can be applied to gambling addiction and they provide a one other explanation of how gambling addictions can occur classical conditioning provides an explanation for gambling addiction in terms of pleasurable rewards we all feel excited when we gamble that's why many of us do it and we feel elated when we win which encourages us to continue on gambling to get the rewards again and again operant conditioning operates in the opposing direction in this case the addiction works in terms of reinforcement however this type of reinforcement is an unusual one often known as variable reinforcement sometimes the gambler is financially rewarded for their activity more often however they are punished some research however has shown that even this variable reinforcement is easily enough to sustain the addiction generally it's thought that this is because even when the gambler does not win the positive reinforcement or at least the prospect of positive reinforcement felt from earlier wins compels them to carry on this is especially likely when it's combined with the cognitive biases that we saw earlier on the two put together provides a toxic and compelling combination which will encourage people to carry on gambling regardless of how many times they lose when we evaluate a learning theory or behaviorist approach to gambling addictions there are a number of things we need to consider obviously not everybody who gambles goes on to develop a serious crippling gambling addiction many of us even perhaps the vast majority of us are easily capable of very healthy levels of occasional gambling on major sporting events or infrequent happenings like the grand national or general elections skinner working all the way back in 1953 suggested that the addictive potential of gambling may depend on if a gambler has a very big win early on in the process well they're relatively new to gambling if this happens it causes a huge amount of positive reinforcement all in one go and it therefore becomes much more likely that that individual will continue on and eventually develop a gambling addiction it's also possible that vicarious reinforcement may explain why people begin to gamble in the first place if we see other people around us being financially rewarded for gambling it becomes much more likely we will begin to gamble ourselves the main strength of this explanation of gambling addiction is that it explains why people carry on gambling even when they lose the reinforcement is intermittent but it is still reinforcement this idea of reinforcement aiding an addiction has some solid biological evidence too increased heart rate faster breathing and profuse sweating are all obvious physical symptoms of gambling which may well act as a conditioned response that said however one issue is that only a very small number of people who gamble actually develop a serious gambling addiction learning theory has no explanation as to why this is the case and as is always the case with behaviorism and learning theory explanations a huge amount of the research done behind it was done on animals obviously and as always this has serious ethical issues it also can't be generalized out to humans we simply don't behave in the same ways that animals do finally learning theory and behaviorism has absolutely no ability to explain the cognitive biases that we saw earlier and that are very common in people with gambling addictions before we begin to examine the risk factors in addiction it's very important to understand what a risk factor is a risk factor is any given factor or variable with an individual which may increase the risk of them developing a condition or addiction for example risk factors for coronary heart disease include things like ethnicity diet fat levels level of exercise there are a huge number of risk factors which have been suggested if not all proven for addictions the first risk factor for addiction is stress some relatively recent research done in 2007 looked into any possible links between high stress levels in individuals and the onset of a gambling or a substance addiction this research suggested that high stress levels may make an individual more vulnerable to cues which cause addiction that said this research only found a link between stress and addiction it was only a correlation no cause and effect causative relationship was ever found it's possible and it's perhaps even likely that the relationship works in the other direction high stress levels may be caused by the addictions rather than the other way around if you are fifty thousand pounds in the red due to a gambling addiction for example that's going to cause a lot of stress but you haven't developed the addiction because of the stress you've developed the stress because of the addiction a second possible risk factor for addiction is peer behavior it's been long suggested that the behavior of our immediate social circle that's our friends and family may well have a huge influence on our likelihood of developing addictions to take an example we're much more likely to smoke or indeed get involved with drugs if a sibling friend or parent is an active smoker or drug user leading on from this a very important factor in the pasting on of addictions down through generations is the idea of approval we're much more likely to become addicted to smoking or gambling drugs or alcohol if our parents guardians older siblings approve of our partaking in them if we're met with approval on our first time it's much more likely that we'll continue on obviously for children and teenagers especially the behavior of their immediate peers is an important factor parents through the ages have long feared peer pressure causing their children to drink or smoke that said it's worth noting that some research has suggested this idea of peer pressure may not be as likely or as widespread as parents generally fear schedler and block in 1990 and then ferguson and horwood in 1999 both carried out research that found that although peer pressure does play a part in addiction the risk isn't as great as with thought and huge numbers of other risk factors are actually involved another type of peer behavior which plays an important part in risk factors for addiction is that of the peer behaviour of the family the behavior and especially the attitudes of immediate family seem to be especially critical in the development of addictions in young people working in 1985 odessa theorized that we develop our expectations around alcohol tobacco and other addictions from our parents and other critical role models as we're growing up therefore we can pick up addictive behaviors and attitudes through social learning if we see our parents smoking drinking and enjoying those substances it's very likely we will mimic that behavior when we reach the appropriate age that said however on the other hand christiansen leading a group of researchers back in 1982 found that our individual differences especially during our teenage years can modify these expectations and attitudes to take one example if we have a bad experience with alcohol at a young age we can actually go on to develop a lifelong aversion to alcohol bayer ital in 1987 also found a link between negative or at least stressful events during the teenage years and the onset of alcohol addiction slightly later on this link is especially likely if a young person sees a parent or role model respond to a negative event or a piece of bad luck with alcohol themselves if we see our parents drinking heavily after a bad day we will then pick up that attitude and it becomes more likely we will go on to mimic that behavior it's worth noting however that all of the studies here were correlational it's never been possible to identify a concrete cause and effect link between family and family attitudes and addiction and as with all correlations it's possible that addiction in two generations of a family is caused by an outside factor a third possible risk factor for addiction is called personality dimensions working in 1976 einstein developed three main dimensions of personality the first is psychoticism which measures egocentricity self-absorption aggressive tendencies and impulsiveness the second personality dimension is extraversion which measures happiness social ease and outgoing natures the third personality dimension which was actually added on slightly later on is neuroticism which measures anxiety mood swings and irritability it's been suggested in the years since this research was done that some specific personality types make an individual much more likely to suffer from an addiction to a substance or experience essentially being predisposed based on their personality to take an example some research done in 1996 found a correlation between very serious substance addiction and scoring very high on the psychoticism and neuroticism scales or personality dimensions however it's quite vague this relationship is quite unclear and a great deal of further research needs to be done it's also very possible and perhaps even extremely likely that this correlative relationship could actually work in reverse the addictions themselves especially if they're based on alcohol or substances may well cause these psychotic or neurotic personality types rather than the personality types making somebody addicted a fourth risk factor in addiction is self-efficacy it's worth noting that this one is actually a little bit controversial it's also given the time scales of psychology a fairly recent one and not everybody agrees with it some research done in 1977 by bandura eventually led to an alternative fourth personality-based risk factor for addiction called self-efficacy bandura theorized that self-efficacy that's how likely somebody thinks they are to be able to do something is actually a big indicator of addiction unlike the other risk factors however this one is particularly relevant when we're looking at people who are trying to get rid of an addiction some slightly later research by de clemente in 1981 looked specifically at people who were trying to give up smoking this is a wide participant group there's always a lot of people trying to give up smoking in this particular case their level of self-efficacy was measured five months after the initial contact they were contacted again to see if they'd managed to succeed in giving up their addiction not that many people had however this research found a very strong correlation between self-efficacy and the actual ability to give up that particular addiction as always however with correlational research it's entirely possible this worked in reverse the ability to give up the addiction may have resulted in high levels of self-efficacy it's impossible to tell and a lot of further research would need to be done genetics gives a fifth possible risk fact for addiction albeit again slightly a controversial one as always when we're looking at genetics twin studies are important and some twin studies have shown very high concordance rates when they've looked at addiction especially in both identical and non-identical twins a concordance rate is how likely it is that two individuals in a pair in this case twins will both suffer an addiction logically this does at least suggest there is some sort of genetic component to addiction as both identical and non-identical twins share an overwhelming proportion of their dna that said at no stage was it found that these concordance rates were a hundred percent so while genetics can provide us with some explanation it can give us a complete one there has to be some other factors involved some adoption studies have actually provided some similar results one of these was done in 1973 by goodwin ethel this study found that biological children were four times more likely to inherit an alcohol addiction than adopted children with the same parents once again this at least suggests a genetic component to addiction if it was purely environmental then it would be 100 or at least the same likelihood to inherit an addiction it's worth noting that being done mostly in the 1970s these studies focus purely on alcohol addictions more recently some similar studies have shown vaguely similar results when they've looked at other substance addictions genetics does at least seem to be involved but at no stage does it provide a complete explanation one possible method of reducing or trying to cure addictive behavior in patients is drug therapy drug therapy is essentially the formal psychological name for medicine that said as we've already seen eliminating these addictive substances and these addictions in one go can cause very serious side effects which we call withdrawal symptoms because of this the majority of drug therapies try to reduce the presence of the addictive substance alcohol tobacco drugs for example gradually usually this is done through the use of medicines called agonists agonists are a specific type of medicine which replicate the effects of the addictive substance in a less damaging or less dangerous way that said one obvious problem with this is that great care has to be taken that the patient doesn't just become addicted to the agonist which does happen a really good example of this type of medication is methadone this is used as a proxy for heroin in a lot of countries around the world one common problem with it however is that a lot of addicts have just transferred their addiction from the heroin to the methadone and the problem remains the same one alternative which is certainly less addictive is to use a type of medicine called an antagonist an antagonist removes the pleasurable sensations of the addictive substance quite often it actually makes them unpleasant to use one example many antagonists are used to stop alcohol addictions in these cases these antagonists cause extreme side effects if alcohol is taken like vomiting or headaches obviously this isn't is an ethical issue this medicine deliberately causes discomfort pain or embarrassment to this individual one problem therefore is it can be very difficult to convince addicts to continue with that medication although it's worth noting that if they do continue using antagonists especially with an alcohol addiction it's actually very likely that they'll succeed to get rid of their addiction one other way of reducing addictive behavior is to use behavioral interventions essentially this is usually seen as an alternative to drug-based therapy and the most common type of behavioral intervention is called aversion therapy the overall goal of aversion therapy is to replace the positive link in the addict's brain between the addictive substance and emotions with a new negative link they stop seeing alcohol gambling or tobacco is good and start seeing it in a negative light this can be combined with drug-based therapies they're not mutually exclusive like using drugs to make an individual vomit when they take in alcohol or it can be done using just the imagination which obviously is more difficult to carry on using the example of alcohol addiction it is quite often done by having an individual addict imagine horrible scenarios as they drink quite often it's linked with animals that they're deeply afraid of or a noise that they strongly dislike eventually gradually and over time this introduces negative associations between that substance and the animal or the noise obviously there are huge ethical issues with this process at its core it involves deliberately causing discomfort or even harm to a patient on the flip side however it can actually work some research was done by craft and craft in 2005 this research found that this type of therapy can have a significant impact after only a couple of sessions this makes it extremely cost effective usually it's cheaper than drug-based therapy it also makes it fairly quick although obviously it doesn't work for every addiction in every scenario cognitive behavioral therapy often known as cbt is one other method which is often used to try and reduce or eliminate addictive behavior in patients cbt has many uses in many areas of psychology and in all cases its primary aim is to modify thought processes with addiction the aim is to modify the thought processes of the patient to make them less vulnerable to that addiction often this is especially useful when trying to treat a gambling addiction because a gambling addiction involves a lot of cognitive errors cbt has at times proved to be effective in some cases even outside of gambling in the cases of serious substance abuse on the other hand however cognitive behavioral therapy has several drawbacks which must be considered it requires an enormous time investment somebody who is addicted especially if it's substance abuse may not be able or willing to invest that amount of time consistently it's also therefore expensive it needs a trained qualified therapist governments around the world and through the ages historically have been reluctant to invest huge amounts of money in treating drug addicts finally cognitive behavioral therapy requires huge amounts of dedicated focus and attention from the participant these are really unlikely to be available when somebody has this serious substance or gambling addiction they effectively rule themselves out that said in some cases cbt has worked a slightly more complicated and indeed a slightly more controversial method of reducing addictive behavior is known as planned behavior also known as the theory of reasoned action which was developed by fishbein and asian back in 1975 it was developed as a means of explaining behavior and this theory states that somebody's behavior can be predicted firstly from their intentions and that that intention is made up of subjective norms and the attitudes of the individual some research has shown that this theory which combines the individual attitudes of people with wider social attitudes and social norms towards addictive substances is a reasonable if not infallible predictor of the future behavior of individuals the theory was developed some further research by asian in 1991 added something called perceived behavioral control this is the extent to which any single individual can control or thinks they can control their own behavior when perceived behavioral control was added to the theory of reasons and action it eventually resulted in the theory of planned behavior this theory suggests that behavior can be influenced directly that's through an individual's perception of their own ability and indirectly through the perceived difficulty of the behavior therefore if an individual's self-perception and their perception of the difficulty of dropping the addiction can both be modified it's possible to alter their addictive behavior for example if you convince somebody that they are able to give up smoking and that giving up smoking isn't that difficult then it becomes much more likely they'll actually be able to give up smoking this whole theory is actually still quite theoretical but it or at least parts of it have been incorporated into other therapies like cbt to try and make them more effective or at least explain why they work or don't work the overall framework which is generally used to plot reducing addictive behavior is known as the six stage model initially this model was developed by prochaska and clemente in 1983 at its core it sets out a series of stages for any kind of changing behavior it's really important to stress that this model doesn't just apply to addiction it applies to other behaviors as well it's used by a lot of social programs to try and change people's attitudes to social phenomena it's also used by programs which try to cure long-term unemployment to change that behavior too quite often it's worth noting that these programs treat benefit dependency or unemployment as an addiction in themselves and then apply this model of behavior change to try and cure that addiction so this six stage model has much wider implications outside of theoretical psychology it's used in many different places throughout society and can have very positive effects at each stage of this model the individual is given a lot of encouragement and positive reinforcement the aim being to try and gradually inch bench move them on to the next stage the first stage of the six stage model is the pre-contemplation stage at this point the person with the addiction is not at all ready to change generally they refuse point blank to see their behavior as a problem one way of looking at it is that they're in denial they refuse to accept that they have a gambling addiction or a smoking addiction for example usually at this stage they'll be trying to rationalize their own behavior to themselves and all that can be done by everyone around them is to show concern and to gradually try and open a discussion with persistence and look eventually they can be moved on to the second stage the second stage is called the contemplation stage during this stage the addict is very gradually starting to see that their behavior is a problem and an issue but they've not yet translated that in a to a firm decision to make a change to that behavior they're therefore encouraged to try and look at their behavior objectively and from the perspective of others and to weigh up the advantages and the disadvantages of continuing on or of changing their behavior the hope is that they'll see the advantage to change the third stage is called the preparation stage people in this stage have accepted the need for their behavior to be changed or altered but they haven't actually started that change they're really just thinking about it usually they've made some level of promise or some level of commitment to people around them this is usually shown by very set and specific goals being put in place for example instead of 20 cigarettes a day i'll try and limit myself to 10. i've tried to only gamble with 10 pounds a week etc etc it's really important to know that during this stage encouragement from people around them like friends and family is absolutely key therapists will usually encourage them to try and take the first tiny steps towards change the fourth stage is the action stage during this the individual is actively actually trying to change their behavior for the better they're working towards the goals they've already set usually this involves some level of planning often assisted quite often it will also include changes to everyday routines it's really important therefore during this stage that the person is given all the help and support that is practically and financially available to carry on the hope is that they continue to change but to do that they will need the support of their friends family and wider social circle the fifth stage is the maintenance stage during this the individual has changed their behavior and they're trying to continue on with that change and fully drop their addiction put it behind them and in the past in doing so they're trying to avoid the circumstances or the triggers which may push or drive them back towards their old behaviors this would be known as relapse and they're giving all the support possible from therapists friends and family to stop that happening sometimes however unfortunately people will relapse back into their addiction and the sixth stage of the six stage model is the relapse stage this occurs if the individual goes back to their old behaviors and resumes their addiction they take smoking up again they start gambling again after they've spent some time being free of it this is always unfortunate and for everybody it's often frustrating but it's key that this is treated not as a bad thing but as a learning opportunity rather than a failure [Music] you