The effects of groups on behaviour: Humans behaviour is dramatically influenced by the presence of others around us, however much we may believe ourselves to be truly individual in our behaviour. It was clearly demonstrated in the experiments in the 1950’s by social psychologist called Solomon Asch. He was highly interested in a concept called majority influence which is a type of influence exerted by groups that is associated with the individuals desire to be accepted. This is when the presence of others causes us to change our public behaviour or personal opinions as we do not want to stand out from the crowd. Due to us having a powerful desire to belong and will ‘go along’ with what others in our group say, think or do in order to fit in. This is what Solomon did to test this idea.
A group of six participants of the experimenter (people who were play acting according to instructions) were joined by a naïve participant (a genuine participant who didn’t have a clue about the nature of the experiment) in a task that apparently tested visual perception. The experimenter explained that the task involved stating whether a target line shown matched the length of one of a set of three lines (a, b and c) similarly shown to the participants. As far as the genuine participant was concerned, all the participants that were taking part were similarly naïve for example they didn’t know what was happening therefore they were genuine participants. The group were sat in a layout of horseshoe arrangement, with one naïve participant always last but one to be asked to make a judgement. The procedure began with the first participant stating out aloud whether the target line was equal and fair in length to one of the specified comparison lines. Then the next person in the horseshoe seating answered and so it followed on right to the end. The ‘perceptual trial’ was repeated 18 times but on 12 of the 18 trials the participants all gave the incorrect answer when the correct answer was blatantly obvious. Shockingly out of 123 naïve participants, 28% gave an incorrect answer eight or more times. This evidently shows how one individual can be influenced by a group/team.
The Psychodynamic Approach:
The psychodynamic approach is associated with an Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1936). He developed this theory of psychodynamic psychology and the treatment is known as psychoanalysis. A key follower of Freud was called Erik Erikson (1902 – 1994) who adapted aspects of Freud’s approach.
The importance of the unconscious mind: Sigmund Freud described the situation when a Member of Parliament was referring to the MP for Hull, with whom he had disagreed about a policy. Instead of saying the ‘the honourable member from Hull’ he started saying ‘the honourable member from Hell’.
Sigmund Freud was one of the earliest thinkers to bring to public attention the idea that we are not always aware of all aspects of ourselves. Freud suggested that what we are aware of is represented in our conscious mind but that many of our memories, feelings and past experiences that are hidden away in a part of our mind which is referred as the ‘unconscious’. We humans cannot access the contents of our unconscious, however they often leak out in dreams and slips out of the tongue. Freud believed that the conscious mind was like the tip of the iceberg for e.g. only the small part being available to awareness. However the part of the unconscious that we can easily access he referred as the pre-conscious. This contains information not yet in full conscious but that can be easily retrieved for e.g. a name of a pet.
Erik Erikson was psychologist who agreed with much of Freud’s theory in so far as he thought that we developed through a series of stages. However he thought that these continued throughout our lifetime and were essentially social in nature. Erik also believed that Freud had too much input of emphasis on our desire for individual gratification and not enough on our need to be accepted by society and lead a meaningful life. Erikson suggested that we move through a series of psychosocial crises with a different social focus at each stage. For e.g. Between birth and the age of one.
The Humanistic Perspective:
Humanistic psychology looks at human experience from the viewpoint of the individual. It focuses on the idea of free will and the belief that we are all capable of making choices. They are two psychologists that are associated with this approach they are Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers.
Abraham Maslow: Maslow (1908 – 1970) was an American psychologist who believed that we are all seeking to become the best we can possibly be; spiritually, physically emotionally and intellectually. He referred this as self-actualisation which is tendency we all possess as human beings to become the best that we all can be in all aspects of personality. He developed a theory known as the hierarchy of needs which he explained every human being requires certain basic needs to be met before they can progress and approach to the next level.
Carl Rogers: Rogers (1902 – 1987) was particularly interested in the concept of self. There many aspects of self but two are especially important here. Self – concept refers to how we view ourselves, this includes physical and biological attributes such as being male or female, blonde or brunette, tall or short along with personality traits such as being kind, humble, assertive and hard working. Self- concept is formed at an early stage of life and young children internalise which is when we take in information from the outer world and build it into sense ourselves which then becomes a part of our feelings, thoughts and beliefs about who we are and what we expect from the society around us, other peoples judgments of them. This becomes a part of one’s self concept, for e.g. if a child is told they are silly and naughty and is not of any good part of their self – concept will contain these aspects. However on the other hand if a child is praised and encouraged to succeed they will have a positive self – concept and see themselves as someone who is worthwhile.
The Cognitive Perspective:
Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980) was a Swiss psychologist who initially worked on measuring intelligence. During his research he noticed that children of the same age group made the same mistakes in logic, however bright they were. Piaget came to a conclusion that cognition develops through a series of stages. Cognitive behaviour represents approach to understanding the effects of learning the instigation of behaviour. Cognitive perspective studies how people perceive, remember, reason, decide and solve problems to resolves the cause of mental illnesses.
George Kelly: George Kelly (1905 -1996) developed a unique psychological theory known as the psychology of personal constructs. Kelly saw the individual as a scientist, making predictions about the future, testing them and revising them according to new evidence. A construct is a way of interpreting reality and the environment, for example if a person develops deafness in middle age they may see this as a disaster and then begin to withdraw from the outer world and be socially isolated. Alternatively, if they construe this as a challenge they may seek out new opportunities and work around their deafness and continue to live a fulfilling life.
The Biological Perspective:
Maturational theory: The theory of maturation holds that the effects of the environment are very minimal. The baby is born with a set of genetic instructions passed down from its parents, and it’s cognitive, physical and various other developmental processes merely unfold over time, rather than being dependent upon the environment to mature. It is in effect, a theory which states that developed is due to nature and not nurture.
Gesell’s theory of maturation: Arnold Gesell (1880 – 1961) believed that development occurred according to a sequence of maturational processes. For example development in the womb follows a fixed set of stages; firstly the heart begins to form along with the rudimentary nervous system. Bones and muscles develop next and over a period time the organism develops into a fully functioned human being and is ready to be born. As the child develops and progresses from birth onwards, its genes allow it to blossom gradually into the person he/she is meant to be. The environment should provide support for this unfolding of talents, skills, personality and interests; however the main thing driving this development is the maturational process.
M1 – Assess different psychological approaches to study:
The behaviourist approach & aggressive behaviour:
The behaviour approach assumes that all behaviour is learned and shaped by the environment. The behaviourist approach seeks to understand human behaviour in terms of what has been learnt and the behaviourist theory assumes that if a person continues to behave in a specific way such as showing disruptive and irritable behaviour then it is not a natural occurrence for them to behave in that way as they have learnt to behave in this way on their own accord. This has occurred with aggression if a child desired to play with a sharp object such as a vase and if the parent was preventing the child and moves the vase as it is unsafe and the vase could break, this may trigger the child to get annoyed and begin to throw a tantrum. If the parent doesn’t like their child throwing a tantrum and decides to give the child what they want the child will learn from this experience and in the future if they do not get what they want or get their way they will begin to have a tantrum which may lead to aggression and become aggressive. When this child begins to get older and is in a school environment and if another child possesses something that the child wants and the child refuses to give to the child, this child may possibly throw a tantrum and become aggressive to the other child as a result of this the behaviourist approach may explain aggression.
Humanistic approach & aggressive behaviour:
The humanistic approach believes aggressive behaviour may occur due to people attempting to satisfy their needs. If an individual’s needs are not met this may lead to them showing aggressive behaviour to try and deal with their situation. This approach assumes that if we do not become fully functioned individuals and learn to live life as it happens then this could lead to severe aggressive behaviour. This approach assumes that humans have free will and that not all behaviour is firm. Though using free will to explain human behaviour can be seen as disadvantage as it is not very reliable and accurate.
Biological approach & aggressive behaviour:
The biological approach views a aggressive behaviour as being based on the genetics and family background of a person. For example if a person grows up with aggressive and violent parents then they are likely to inherit that when they get older because of the environment they have lived in. The biological approach also believes that the machinery of aggression has been created into our brains by evolutionary processes and also chimpanzees that humans share a popular ancestry with also engage in aggressive behaviour which may explain aggressive behaviour in humans.
Social learning & aggressive behaviour:
In the Bandura et al, study, it is demonstrated how aggression is learned and shaped by role models. Bandura’s study of aggression used human participants whereas Skinner’s studies of operant conditioning used animals. The Bandura experiment used 72 boys and girls from a nursery school while Skinner used rats and pigeons to experiment. This means that with Bandura’s study it is generalised to other humans with more confidence than skinner’s study of pigeons and rats. The behaviour approach believes that like other behaviours, aggression is learned like how with the ‘bobo doll’ experiment the children had seen adults behaving aggressively towards the bobo dolls and they had picked up and learnt this behaviour, so that when they came in to contact with the bobo dolls they behaved aggressively towards them. An additional example could be linked with bullies, if bullies go through life always achieving what they want through being aggressive and always getting their way then they will continue doing this because they will find this rewarding. Also aggressive behaviour could be learnt by a parent if a child sees their parents as their role model and watches them being aggressive this will make them want to copy their parents and become aggressive.
Psychodynamic approach & aggressive behaviour:
The psychodynamic approach assumes that we may possibly all unconsciously have a desire to destruct ourselves however due to our functioning egos it does not allow us to self destruct therefore due to instincts we would turn this behaviour towards others. Supporters of the psychodynamic approach believe that aggression may be caused by the unconscious death instinct. This approach also believes aggression could be caused by some of our needs not being met such as Erikson’s eight stages of development which are hopes, will, purpose, competence fidelity, love, care and wisdom. The psychodynamic approach believes we may get aggressive if we do not go through all of these stages in the order we should and something crucial may be missing in our lives which could cause a negative pattern that could cause aggressive behaviour.
Cognitive & aggressive behaviour:
The cognitive approach believes that everybody’s brains are comparable but dissimilar because we all process things in our brains differently to each other. Aggressive behaviour may be due to a person being exposed to violence most of their life which may lead to them to behave differently towards someone who has never been exposed to violence before and this may lead the person to become aggressive. This approach believes that behaviour is based upon experience and genetic make- up so someone may have aggressive behaviour early in life and it may get worse if it is permitted to progress. This approach could possibly be criticised by being abstract and not too realistic.
Selena Ahmed
Unit 8
Christine
