Introduction To Models And Methods

Of Understanding Human Behaviour

• There are five basic models in the understanding
of human behaviour. These models include:
• The Biological Model
• The Psychoanalytic Model
• The Behaviourists Model
• The Cognitive-Behavioural Model.
• The Humanistic Model.

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 APPROACES
• Biological: Concerned with the activity of the nervous
system, especially the brain, action of hormones &
genetics
• Psychodynamic: Emphasizes internal conflicts, mostly
unconscious
• Behavioral: Concerned with learning, especially each
person's experience with rewards and punishments
• Cognitive: Studies the mechanisms through which people
receive, store, retrieve, and otherwise process information
• Humanistic: Emphasizes individual potential for growth
and the role of unique perceptions in guiding behavior
and mental processes.

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 Introduction to the Psychodynamic Approach

• The Interpretation of Dreams was a landmark.

• Freud's ideas about dreaming and other mental
processes were often controversial
• Whether one accepts or rejects Freud's theory,
there is little doubt that psychoanalysis had
significant impact.
• Terms like unconsciousness, ego, defence
mechanism were introduced by Freud.

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 Freud's Structural Models of
Personality (Psychoanalysis)
• Sigmund Freud's Theory is quite complex and
although his writings on psychosexual
development set the groundwork for how our
personalities developed, it was only one of five
parts to his overall theory of personality.
• He also believed that different driving forces
develop during these stages which play an
important role in how we interact with the world.

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 Structural Model of Personality
(id, ego, superego)
• THE Id: According to Freud, we are born with our Id. In
Psychoanalytical theory, it is the part of the personality which
contains our primitive impulses such as sex, anger, and hunger.
• The id is an important part of our personality because as newborns, it
allows us to get our basic needs met. Freud believed that the id is
based on our pleasure principle. In other words, the id wants
whatever feels good at the time, with no consideration for the reality
of the situation. When a child is hungry, the id wants food, and
therefore the child cries.
• The id doesn't care about reality, about the needs of anyone else, only
its own satisfaction. If you think about it, babies are not real
considerate of their parents' wishes. They have no care for time,
whether their parents are sleeping, relaxing, eating dinner, or bathing.
When the id wants something, nothing else is important.

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 Structural Model (id, ego, superego)
• The Ego:
• Within the next three years, as the child interacts more
and more with the world, the second part of the
personality begins to develop. Freud called this part the
Ego
• It is the part of the personality which maintains a balance
between our impulses (id) and our conscience (superego).
• The ego is based on the reality principle.
• The ego understands that other people have needs and
desires and that sometimes being impulsive or selfish can
hurt us in the long run. Its the ego's job to meet the needs
of the id, while taking into consideration the reality of the
situation.
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 Structural Model (id, ego, superego)
• The Superego
• By the age of five the Superego develops. The Superego is
the part of the personality that represents the conscience.
• It is the moral part of us and develops due to the moral and
ethical restraints placed on us by our caregivers. Many
equate the superego with the conscience as it dictates our
belief of right and wrong.
• In a healthy person, according to Freud, the ego is the
strongest so that it can satisfy the needs of the id, not upset
the superego, and still take into consideration the reality of
every situation.
• If the id gets too strong, impulses and self gratification take
over the person's life.
• If the superego becomes too strong, the person would be
driven by rigid morals, would be judgmental and rigid in
his or her interactions with the world.

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 The Divisions of MIND
• Freud believed that the majority of what we experience in our
lives, the underlying emotions, beliefs, feelings, and impulses are
not available to us at a conscious level. He believed that most of
what drives us is buried in our Unconscious
• Freud also believed that everything we are aware of is stored in
our Conscious.
• At any given time, we are only aware of a very small part of what
makes up our personality; most of what we are is buried and
inaccessible.
• The final part is the preconscious and subconscious. This is the
part of us that we can access if prompted, but is not in our active
conscious. Its right below the surface, but still buried somewhat
unless we search for it. Information such as our telephone
number, some childhood memories, or the name of your best
childhood friend is stored in the preconscious.
• The iceberg

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 Behavioral Model
• Behavioral Psychology is basically interested in
how our behavior results from the stimuli both
in the environment and within ourselves.
• Scientific Experiment: Often a demanding
process, but results have helped us learn a
great deal about our behaviors, the effect our
environment has on us, how we learn new
behaviors, and what motivates us to change or
remain the same.

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 The Origins of Behaviourism
• Behaviourism traces its roots to the early part of the 20th
century, a time when many psychologists emphasized self-
analysis of mental processes (introspection) or the
psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud.
• In contrast, researchers like Ivan Pavlov and John B.
Watson, and B.F Skinner began to develop a framework
which emphasized observable processes (environmental
stimuli and behavioural responses).
• The result was a new approach, behaviourism, which grew
in popularity for some fifty years, becoming the dominant
framework for experimental research.

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 The Cognitive Approach
• The cognitive approach deals with mental processes like
memory and problem solving.
• By emphasizing mental processes, it places itself in
opposition to behaviourism, which largely ignores mental
processes. (not measurable directly)
• Today, the cognitive approach has overtaken behaviourism
in terms of popularity, and is one of the dominant
approaches in contemporary psychology. (Specially in
treatment)

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 The Humanistic Approach
• The Humanistic Approach began in response to concerns by therapists
against perceived limitations of Psychodynamic theories, especially
psychoanalysis.
• Individuals like Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow felt existing
(psychodynamic) theories failed to adequately address issues like the
meaning of behavior, and the nature of healthy growth.
• There are several factors which distinguish the Humanistic Approach
from other approaches within psychology, including
• The emphasis on subjective meaning,
• A rejection of determinism,
• A concern for positive growth rather than pathology.

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 Mind Body Connection
• Most experts in the field of psychology and biology agree
that the mind and the body are connected in more complex
ways than we can even comprehend.
• Research constantly shows us that the way we think affects
the way we behave, the way we feel, and the way our
body’s respond.
• The opposite is also true, physical illness, physical well
being, exercising, insomnia all affect not only the way we
feel and behave, but also the way we think about ourselves
and the world.

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 Understanding Development
• Psychologists have been interested in the changes that occur
during our lives since the very beginnings of the discipline.
• John B. Watson, in his famous statement about being able to
shape any child to achieve any career, was making an
assertion about the power of the environment to shape
development;
• Others, from Francis Galeton onward, have asserted that our
destiny is in our genes.
• Neither view is likely entirely correct,

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 TYPES OF RESEARCH METHODS
• THE EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
• If researchers are interested the Causal Effects of
one variable on another, they use an experimental
design for their study.
• With an experimental design, the researcher can
control for extraneous variables
• The simplest experimental design includes two
variables and two groups of participants.
• The two variables (Independent versus
Dependent variables)
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 THE EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
• In experimental designs with two variables, one is called the
independent variable (IV) and the other is called the dependent
variable (DV).
• The IV is the predictor variable whereas the DV is the outcome
variable. Researchers manipulate and control the IV to study it's
effect on the DV.
• The two groups of participants (Control versus Experimental group)
• Before beginning the experiment, the researcher (randomly) assigns
his/her sample to two different groups: the control group and the
experimental (treatment group or clinical group).
• The control group receives no manipulation of the IV (no treatment),
whereas the experimental group receives the manipulation of the IV
• Advantages
• - Can infer causation (experiments are the ONLY way to determine
causation)
- Can control for (most) confounding variables
• Disadvantages
• - Are subject to placebo effects
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 THE EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
• By defining our variables that we will use to test our theory we
derive at our Hypothesis, which is a testable form of a theory.
• As an example of this, lets say that we have a theory that people
who drive sports cars are more aggressive in interactions with
others.
• Our independent variable would be the type of car you drive
(sports, sedan, etc.).
• Our dependent variables, the outcome of our research, would be
aggression.
• We would need to further define aggression so that it is
something we can test and measure such as speeding or cutting
other people off in traffic. (Operational Definition)
• We now have the basics of our very simple experiment and can
write our Hypothesis: People who drive sports cars drive over the
speed limit more frequently than people who drive other types of
cars.

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 THE EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
• Controlling for Biases
• After carefully reviewing our study and determining what
might effect our results that are not part of the experiment,
we need to control for these biases.
• To control for selection bias, most experiments use what’s
called Random Assignment, which means assigning the
subjects to each group based on chance rather than human
decision.
• To control for the placebo effect, subjects are often not
informed of the purpose of the experiment. This is called a
Blind study, because the subjects are blind to the expected
results.
• To control for experimenter biases, we can utilize a
Double-Blind study, which means that both the
experimenter and the subjects are blind to the purpose and
anticipated results of the study.

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 THE EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
• Internal Validity is whether observed changes can be attributed to
your program or treatment intervention (i.e., the cause) and not to other
possible causes (sometimes described as "alternative explanations" for
the outcome). In those contexts, you would like to be able to conclude
that your program or treatment made a difference -- it improved test
scores or reduced symptom.
• But there may be lots of reasons, other than your program or treatment,
why test scores may improve or symptoms may reduce.
• External validity is related to generalizing. That's the major thing you
need to keep in mind. So, external validity refers to the approximate
truth of conclusions the involve generalizations. Put in more simple
terms, external validity is the degree to which the conclusions in your
study would hold for other persons in other places and at other times.

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 Standardization
• We have our hypothesis, and we know what our subject pool is, the
next thing we have to do is standardize the experiment.
• Standardization refers to a specific set of instructions. The reason we
want the experiment to be standardized is twofold.
• First, we want to make sure all subjects are given the same
instructions, presented with the experiment in the same manner, and
that all of the data is collected exactly the same for all subjects.
• Second, single experiments cannot typically stand on their own. To
really show that are results are valid, experiments need to be
replicated by other experimenters with different subjects. To do this,
the experimenters need to know exactly what we did so they can
replicate it.

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 OTHER TYPES OF RESEARCH
TECHNIQUES
• There are several other types of research that you need to be aware of.
• Naturalistic Observation: A research method where the subject(s) is
(are) observed without interruption under normal or natural
circumstances. Perhaps this is the simplest form of research and it
involves:
• Observing behavior in their natural environment
• Often involves counting behaviours, such as number, frequency,
duration of aggressive acts, or of smiles, etc.
• Advantages: Behaviour is naturally occurring and is not manipulated
by a researcher and it can provide more qualitative data as opposed to
merely quantitative information.
• Limitations: Even the presence of someone observing can cause those
being observed to alter their behaviour (Reversed mirror).
Researcher’s beliefs can also alter their observations.

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 OTHER TYPES OF RESEARCH TECHNIQUES

• Case Study: Following a single case, typically over an

extended period of time (e.g. developmental)
• Can involve naturalistic observations, and can also include
psychological testing, interviews with others, and the
application of a treatment
• Advantages: Can gather extensive information, both
qualitative and quantitative and it can be helpful in better
understanding rare cases or very specific interventions
• Limitations: Only one case is involved, severely limiting
the generalization to the rest of the population. (External
Validity)

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 OTHER TYPES OF RESEARCH TECHNIQUES

• Survey: A research technique in which subjects respond to

a series of questions. It is suitable for studies which
involves a relatively large sample (e.g. Epidemiology).
Usually questionnaires are used to gather information.
• Advantages: Can gather large amounts of information in a
relatively short time, especially now with many surveys
being conducted on the internet.
• Limitations: Survey data is based solely on subjects’
responses which can be inaccurate due to outright lying,
misunderstanding of the question, placebo effect, and even
the manner in which the question is asked

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 OTHER TYPES OF RESEARCH TECHNIQUES

• Correlation Methods:
• Correlational Research refers to studies in
which the purpose is to discover
relationships between variables through the
use of correlational statistics (r), which is
referred to as a correlation coefficient.
• A correlational relationship between two
variables is occasionally the result of an
outside source, so we have to be careful and
remember that correlation does not
necessarily tell us about cause and effect.

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 Correlation Methods
• Correlation means relationship, so the purpose of a
correlational study is to determine if a relationship
exists, what direction the relationship is, and how
strong it is, causality can be tested by using an
experimental approach.
• Advantages: Can assess the strength of a
relationship. Is popular with lay population
because it is relatively easy to explain and
understand.
• Limitations: Can not make any assumptions of
cause and effect (explain how third a variable can
be involved, or how the variables can influence
each other).

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