...Describe and evaluate the evolutionary theory of food preferences According to an evolutionary approach current human behaviour can be understood in terms of how it may have been adaptive in our ancestral past. Evolutionary theorists are concerned with behaviour which is adaptive and having survival value, these researchers look for ultimate explanations. Current behaviours may be maladaptive and dysfunctional but can be understood as having been adaptive and functional in some way. To undertake this type of analysis they draw on the theory of natural selection and suggest that all species including humans, evolve through a process of natural selection and that only those characteristics that confer advantage or at least do not confer disadvantage survive as the species evolve. This is an interactionist approach, as an individual’s genetic predisposition is assumed to interact with their environment. In terms of eating behaviour, an evolutionary psychologist is interested in the following questions: “Are there innate preferences for certain foods?”, “How would these preferences have been adaptive in the past?” and “How do these preferences function now?” Early research by Davis investigated the eating behaviour of infants and young children. Davis observed the kinds of choice children living in a paediatric unit made in relation to their diet. Based on her data, Davis concluded that young children have an innate, regulatory mechanism and are able to select a healthy diet...
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...Definitions * PSYCHOLOGY: The scientific study of the behaviour of individuals and their mental processes * SCIENTIFIC METHOD: The set of procedures used for gathering and interpreting objective information in a way that minimizes error and yields dependable generalizations * BEHAVIOUR: The actions by which an organism adjusts to its environments * The subject matter of psychology largely consists of the observable behaviour of humans and other species of animals * Psychologists focus on behaviour in individuals Goals of Psychology 1. Describing what happens 2. Explaining what happens 3. Predicting what will happen 4. Controlling what happens Describing What Happens * The first task in psychology is to make accurate observations about behaviour * BEHAVIOURAL DATA: Observational reports about the behaviour of organisms and the conditions under which the behaviour occurs or changes * From broad, general, and global aspects all the way to microscopic details of the organism under study * Reporting facts as they actually occur (Free of any bias or subjectivity) * Each level of analysis yields information essential to the final composite portrait of human nature that psychologists hope ultimately to develop Explaining What Happens * Explanations deliberately go beyond what can be observed * Explanations in psychology usually recognize that most behaviour is influenced by a combination of factors * Factors...
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...LESSON FIVE & SIX – ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EATING DISORDERS ------------------------------------------------- Specification link: You will be able to outline and evaluate: ------------------------------------------------- Biological, including neural and evolutionary, explanations of anorexia nervosa ------------------------------------------------- Psychology explanations of anorexia nervosa Outline and description of theories | Research evidence and commentary | IntroductionThe DSM-IV Rev identifies three categories of eating disorder: * Anorexia nervosa 1. AN -restricting type – refusal to eat 2. AN- binge eating/purging type – episodes of binge eating followed by removal of food from the body by vomiting, laxatives, or enemas.Both of these are associated with significant weight loss and the other symptoms of AN. * Bulimia nervosa – episodes of binging followed by removal of food from the body by vomiting, laxatives, or enemas (no significant weight loss). * Eating disorders not otherwise specified (EDNOS)The four major symptoms of anorexia nervosa are: * The body weight is 85% or less of normal weight for age and height * Distorted perception of body weight/shape, and/or denial that the weight loss is severe * Intense fear of becoming fat * Loss of three consecutive menstrual cycles in women (amenorrhoea)Anorexia nervosa (AN) and Bulimia nervosa (BN) have much in common, particularly a dissatisfaction with body weight and/or shape....
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...HYPOTHESIS Andrew W. Lo To appear in L. Blume and S. Durlauf, The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, Second Edition, 2007. New York: Palgrave McMillan. The efficient markets hypothesis (EMH) maintains that market prices fully reflect all available information. Developed independently by Paul A. Samuelson and Eugene F. Fama in the 1960s, this idea has been applied extensively to theoretical models and empirical studies of financial securities prices, generating considerable controversy as well as fundamental insights into the price-discovery process. The most enduring critique comes from psychologists and behavioural economists who argue that the EMH is based on counterfactual assumptions regarding human behaviour, that is, rationality. Recent advances in evolutionary psychology and the cognitive neurosciences may be able to reconcile the EMH with behavioural anomalies. There is an old joke, widely told among economists, about an economist strolling down the street with a companion. They come upon a $100 bill lying on the ground, and as the companion reaches down to pick it up, the economist says, ‘Don’t bother – if it were a genuine $100 bill, someone would have already picked it up’. This humorous example of economic logic gone awry is a fairly accurate rendition of the efficient markets hypothesis (EMH), one of the most hotly contested propositions in all the social sciences. It is disarmingly simple to state, has far-reaching consequences for academic theories and business...
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... * The role of learning and modelling people become violent by watching violence, if children see a lot of aggression they become aggressive which is called social learning accounts * Bandura argued (1980) children come into the world who are innocent and their learning from parents, siblings, television and they conducted the BoBo doll experiment sat them behind the window watching an adult bashing this doll and playing and some adults were very violent and others were gentle and the children were then allowed to do whatever they wanted with the doll the children who saw the adults aggressive with the doll mimicked such * Greitemeyer and mugged (2014) meta analysis of 98 studies of 37,000 people, found significant, positive relationship between violent video games and aggressive behaviour Social learning problems * Doesn’t explain the origins of human violence * Why have humans behaved aggressively throughout history and across cultures? * Why are humans attracted to violence, even though they fear it * Is human aggression learned (social learning) or instinctive or both? “instinctive” accounts * Aggression as instinct: * Darwin-aggression functions to assert power and dominance * Threat and appeasement displays Freud and Lorenz * Freud the ‘death’ instinct hurt people they love * Lorenz- “on aggression” proposed a “fighting instinct” * Aggression is a healthy, adaptive instinct but needs appropriate...
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...Version 1.0: 0107 abc General Certificate of Education Psychology 5186 Specification B Unit 1 (PYB1) Introducing Psychology Mark Scheme 2007 examination - January series Mark schemes are prepared by the Principal Examiner and considered, together with the relevant questions, by a panel of subject teachers. This mark scheme includes any amendments made at the standardisation meeting attended by all examiners and is the scheme which was used by them in this examination. The standardisation meeting ensures that the mark scheme covers the candidates’ responses to questions and that every examiner understands and applies it in the same correct way. As preparation for the standardisation meeting each examiner analyses a number of candidates’ scripts: alternative answers not already covered by the mark scheme are discussed at the meeting and legislated for. If, after this meeting, examiners encounter unusual answers which have not been discussed at the meeting they are required to refer these to the Principal Examiner. It must be stressed that a mark scheme is a working document, in many cases further developed and expanded on the basis of candidates’ reactions to a particular paper. Assumptions about future mark schemes on the basis of one year’s document should be avoided; whilst the guiding principles of assessment remain constant, details will change, depending on the content of a particular examination paper. Further copies of this Mark Scheme are available to...
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...understanding of behaviour, making each approach unique.’ Discuss what makes the psychodynamic approach unique. Refer to other approaches in your answer. (12 marks) In terms of human behaviour, psychology provides alternative perspectives, known as approaches, which give explanation to human behaviours. What makes each approach unique is that they all have their own focal points for how to explain behaviour. For example, the biological approach looks to the evolutionary processes and gene mutations/hormone levels, whilst the cognitive approach looks at how behaviour is influenced by internal mental processes. However, the psychodynamic approach is often questioned about what makes it unique when compared to other approaches. In my essay, I will discuss this. Pioneered by Freud, the first component of the psychodynamic approach that brings uniqueness is its assumptions for the root causes of behaviour. The psychodynamic approach reduces behaviours to hidden thoughts and instinctive drives, which Freud deemed as the unconscious mind. Freud argued that these instinctive drives have been present since birth, seeking to 'gain pleasure and avoid pain', influencing the choices that an individual may make and the behaviours they may produce in order to do so. This makes the approach unique because it relies heavily upon the unconscious mind, whilst other approaches such as the cognitive and social learning theory look to conscious experiences as an explanation of behaviour. The cognitive...
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...Music arises from human behaviour, and the study of human behaviour is part of biology. So any question about music is a question about biology, and every question about biology requires an answer within the framework of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. 2.1 Music is Something We Like What is music? It’s what comes out of the speakers when we play a CD on our stereo. It’s what we hear on the radio. Music is singers singing and musicians playing. Music is a sound that we enjoy hearing. Is this a proper answer to the question “What is music?”? If I asked “What is a car?”, you could answer by pointing at a large object moving up the street and saying “It’s one of those.” But this may not be a satisfactory answer. A full explanation of what a car is would mention petrol, internal combustion engines, brakes, suspension, transmission and other mechanical things that make a car go. And we don’t just want to know what a car is; we also want to know what a car is for. An explanation of what a car is for would include the facts that there are people and other things (like shopping) inside cars and that the purpose of cars is to move people and things from one place to another. By analogy, a good answer to the question “What is music?” will say something about the detailed mechanics of music: instruments, notes, scales, rhythm, tempo, chords, harmony, bass and melody. This matches up with the mechanical portion of our car explanation. It’s harder to answer...
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...of aggression Aggression is an act that is carried out with the intention to harm another person and is viewed as one of the most disturbing forms of human social behaviour. Some psychologists believe that aggression is a legacy of our evolutionary ancestry, while others might believe it is best explained by the ‘social learning theory’. One of the most powerful sources of learning behaviour is imitative learning where we learn from observing others and imitating their actions. This is clearly shown in Bandura’s (1961) study, which involved children observing aggressive and non-aggressive adult models and then being tested for imitative learning in the absence of the model. Children in the aggressive condition reproduced a good deal of physically and verbally aggressive behaviour resembling that of the model, whilst the children in the non-aggressive condition exhibited virtually no aggression towards the bobo doll. In addition, the boys reproduced more imitative physical aggression than girls, but they did not differ in there imitations of verbal aggression. The boys showed more aggressive behaviour when the adult model was the same-sex which suggests that behaviour is likely to be imitative when the role model is not the same gender. Furthermore, according to social learning theory theorists, if behaviour is to be imitated it must be seen rewarding in some way. Bandura and Walters (1963) found that children who saw the role model being rewarded for aggressive acts showed...
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...genetic predisposition (nature), in the development of human behaviour. This notion is inaccurate, as in actuality, the shaping of human behaviour does not rely solely on learned experience. Human behaviour is in fact a mutual interaction of both genetic and environmental factors, with genetic predisposition playing a substantial role. It was argued by G.W Leibniz that an individual inherently contains the sources of various notions which external objects merely rouse up on suitable occasions. This essay will concur with Leibniz’s philosophy that in fact it is the interplay of individual nature and nurture which drives the development of human behaviour, in particular, antisocial behaviour, to in turn, contradict John Locke’s tabula rasa hypothesis. Antisocial behaviours are disruptive acts characterised by hostility, intentional aggression towards others and destructive behaviour. The behaviour includes repeated violations and definance of social rules and authority, and a reckless disregard for self and others. It is characterised by deceitfulness and theft, and is considered socially unacceptable (D.C Hardy). Researchers have produced convincing evidence that antisocial behaviour in adulthood is often the product of childhood/adolescent conduct problems. Patterns of persistent deviant behaviour, attention difficulties and overly aggressive behaviour (Moffitt, 1993, 2003) are associated with antisocial behaviour later in life. Between forty to fifty...
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...amongst few mammals capable of the self-recognition necessary for self-awareness which enables conscious manipulation in behaviour (Gallup, G. G., 1982). Understanding the behaviour of others and ourselves is increasingly complex since behaviour is attributed to fluctuating mental states (emotions, desires, feelings). Many papers have begun to cover the theory how people understand the causes of behaviour through attribution and self-concept (Kelley, H. H.1973);(Heider, F. 1958);(Markus, H., & Wurf, E, 1987). But conflicting papers have given rise to the argument of error in attributions, experience distortion and group-think to consider the other face of the coin- that people may not know quite so well why they do the things they do (Heider, 1958);(Kurzban & Aktipis, 2007);(Sherif, 1936) “Theory of the mind”/“mentalizing” is a process which we naturally engage with on a daily basis. It identifies that other people have mental states different to our own (Schacter, 2009). The recognition of mental state (e.g. noticing your partner is unhappy) is something which adults naturally perceive. This skill is essential for social interaction and is observable in infants as young as 18 months (Frith, C. D., & Frith, U, 1999);(U. & C.D. Frith, 2003). From the age of 4-6 neurotypical children are able to consciously and reflectively think about the behaviour of people and “put themselves in someone else's shoes” (U. & C.D. Frith, 2003);(Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A. M., &...
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...Definition of Sociology The subject has been looked from various points of view and now it is an opportune time to define the subject properly. According to P.A. Sorokin “sociology is a generalizing science of socio-cuitural phenomena viewed in their generic forms, types, and manifold interconnections. ” (Bierstedt, 1970. 3-28) Sociology is the scientific study of human society and social behaviour. The subject matter of sociology is huge and complex, and the knowledge produced by sociological research is still imperfect in many ways. However, it has taught us a great deal about ourselves. (RotarTson, 1977 :3) No formal definition of sociology is very satisfactory. Short definitions don’t really define; long definitions are clumsy. Yet a definition of some sort is needed, and sociology is often defined as the scientific study of human social life.. Human beings behave differently from other animals. They have unique forms of group life; they pursue customs, develop institutions, and create values. Sociology applies scientific methods to the study of these phenomena in the research for scientific knowledge. Sociology concentrates its study upon the group life of human beings and the product of their group living. (HurTon and Chester 1984: 25-27) The sociologist is especially interested in the customs, traditions, and values which emerge from group living, and in the way group living is, in turn, affected by these customs, traditions, and values. Sociology is interested in the...
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...PSYCHOLOGY REVISION Eating behaviour * Attitudes to food and eating behaviour * Explanations for the success and failure of dieting * Neural mechanisms in eating behaviour Cognitive development * Paget’s theory of cognitive development * Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development * Applications of cognitive developments theories to education Relationships * The formation of romantic relationships * The maintenance of romantic relationships * The breakdown of relationships * Sexual selection * Sex differences in parental investment * The influence of childhood on adult relationships * The influence of culture on romantic relationships Discuss attitudes to food and/or eating behaviour (24 marks) Social learning theory emphasises the impact that observing people has on our attitudes and behaviour. As children's’ parents usually provide food for them, it seems obvious that parental attitudes to food will affect their children's attitudes to them. Children also learn what to eat by watching their parents. This can be explained by social learning theory. This occurs when children observe their parents eating. In this sense, the parents act as eating role models. Observing parents getting rewarded by enjoying eating certain foods, the children learn to imitate these food preferences as they expect to receive similar rewards by doing so. This theory would therefore argue that children should show similar preferences...
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...Patel suggesting that one of the valued things provided by music is emotional power. According to the ‘multiple mechanism’ theory, music can influence human emotion in many different ways except *a. visual imagery and association with past, present and future event b. expectancy and fulfilment or violation c. activation of the brainstem by arousing acoustic features d. acoustics cues that resemble the sound of emotional voices medium Source: Section 6.1 page 22, 2nd paragraph, line 6 More questions being arise due to lack explanation on how the music’s universality can affect the emotion. Therefore Patel discuss how the multiple mechanism theory states that music can enhance emotion in five different ways which are 1) expectancy and its fulfilment or violation, 2) activation of the brainstem by arousing acoustic features (e.g., sudden, sharp onsets); 3) association with past events; 4) visual imagery; or 5) acoustic cues that resemble the sounds of emotional voices. The two examples of biological power of music discuss by Patel in the reading are I recovery of brain functions after stroke II recovery of cerebral palsy in premature baby III recovery of verbal fluency in aphasia IV recovery of deaf due to exposure of high volume sound *a) I and III b) I and II c) II and III d) III and IV Easy-medium Source: Patel reading section 4 of the biological power of music: two examples Patel clearly discuss the two examples of music and the recovery of brain functions...
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...cultures in time and space: whether one may marry more than one person at a time; who chooses marriage partners; whether abortion and infanticide are approved or forbidden; whether one may eat all meats, some meats, or none; what kinds of killings are forbidden or encouraged. How are we to make sense of all this variety? Human behavior has traditionally been the province of anthropology, sociology, and psychology. Within each of these fields there exist diverse approaches. Recently, behavioral ecology, an evolutionary approach to why we behave as we do, has joined other fields in trying to explain some of the diversity in human behavior. With its roots in Charles Darwin’s work 1 on natural selection, it examines how environmental conditions influence living things. Human behavioral ecology is one of a variety of quite similar evolutionary approaches to human behavior, with a variety of names: evolutionary ecology, biosocial science, human ethology, sociobiology, socioecology, evolutionary biological anthropology, and others.2 Depending on who is reporting, these may vary subtly, or be different names for the same thing....
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