Advances in Psychological Knowledge: Research and Theory Analysis

This essay explores the advancements in psychological knowledge, focusing on how research challenges and refines existing theories. It begins by examining the Social Learning Theory of Bandura and its implications for understanding human behavior, particularly the influence of media violence on children. The essay then delves into attachment theory, discussing the work of Harlow on rhesus monkeys and the importance of contact comfort, as well as Bowlby's ideas on the development of attachment bonds. Finally, it addresses the psychology of attention, highlighting Broadbent's model and Cherry's experiments, which demonstrate how meaning can influence the allocation of attention. The essay concludes by emphasizing the dynamic nature of psychological knowledge, where new research constantly builds upon and challenges established theories to deepen our understanding of the human mind and behavior.

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ADVANCES IN PSYCHOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE
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Introduction
The essay aims to discuss and provide argument regarding the statement that advances in
psychological knowledge have been accomplished with research challenging the existing
psychological theory. The essay will also provide arguments challenging the view that research
challenging existing psychological theory has advanced psychological knowledge. Various
theories have emerged over the years that have challenged the existing psychological theories.
Among these include the Social Learning theory of Bandura, the work by Harlow and the
Broadbent’s model of attention. The readings from the unit suggest that while the
accomplishment of psychological advancement has been achieved through the challenges that
the research has presented to the existing theory, some have proved it to be otherwise. The social
learning theory builds upon the previous theories on behavior whereas the theory of attention
challenges the previous theories. Harlow’s attachment theory also challenges the previous
psychological theories on attachment.
The portrayal of violence in the media has affected human behavior as many
psychologists believe. This view relates to the behavioral theorists and their proposition that
humans particularly children learn from the behavior of others (Bushman, Gollwitzer and Cruz
2015). The Social Learning theory was one of the first theories to shed light on the behavior of
humans that they learn through observation. Albert Bandura, the founder of this theory during
the early 1960s claimed that children are most likely to imitate aggressive behavior they observe
(Deaton 2015). Bandura, along with his colleagues conducted a research to explore the level to
which children imitate aggressive behavior. They also made sure to observe the different factors
that might influence the children to imitate the aggressive behavior including gender and age.
The study revealed that the children demonstrated an increased aggressive behavior when

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exposed to violent behavior in both live and indirect form through television. The researchers
concluded that violent acts could certainly influence children’s behavior and such influence
makes itself obvious as raised levels of aggressive behavior after immediate exposure to violent
activities. The authors further concluded that this influence is different based on several factors
including the child’s gender and the person modeling those violent acts.
However, there have been questions regarding the credibility of the research especially
the question whether the findings of the study could be generalized or not. The question came up
because of the limited age range and context of the children and the experiment respectively.
Many other doubts and questions came up such as some asked if the children would behave the
same away with humans as they did with the toys. Evidence regarding this notion is very little
(Akers and Jensen 2017). Another important thing to notice is that there were variations in the
aggressive behavior of children from a boy to another boy and from a girl to another girl.
Variations were also observed in the reactions of boys and girls. Nonetheless, these different
behaviors were not obvious when looked at the averages for the different groups allotted to
different conditions. It however tells that other factors also played a part in influencing the
behavior of the children. With all these questions and doubts about the research, it is also a fact
that the research provided a platform for other researchers to build upon this theory and develop
other important theories on human behavior or social learning.
Existing theories are the base on which advanced theories are developed. They provide
the framework for thinking the growth in the humankind such as growth and development. When
the questions arises in regard to the things that motivates human thoughts and behavior the basic
theories provide the understanding and useful insights into society and individual (George 2019).
One of the important aspects of understanding human behavior is to understanding human

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attachment. There are various things that look obvious such as the relationship of parents and
children where one love the other. For many parents the feeling of love comes almost instantly
with the birth of the child while for some others the feeling develops gradually. For human
infants, the feeling develops over and above everyone else at approximately 7 months of age.
John Bowlby was the first scientist who used the term ‘attachment’ in order to refer to the mutual
affectionate bond which is noted between a child and her caregiver. Attachment is a deep
enduring emotional bond which connects an individual to another individual across time and
space. It is not necessary to find attachment as reciprocal always. A person may have attachment
to another individual without making it a shared relation. Bowlby believes that there should be a
primary bond which was much more significant than any other which is commonly the mother.
According to Bowlby this attachment is different in kind from any other subsequent attachments.
He also argues that the relationship with the mother is in some way entirely different from other
relationship (Holmes 2014).
The American psychologists Harry Harlow investigated whether infants bond with their
mother due to cupboard love. He studied attachment in rhesus monkeys through monkey through
accident. According to Harlow the infants’ affection was primarily based upon ‘contact comfort’
(Berscheid and Regan 2016). After his experiment with the monkeys, he concluded that
Bowlby’s concept of attachment was a safe bases attachment since the contact comfort was more
significant in the formation of an attachment than food. Therefore, it is the innate, biological
instant is needed to be formed an attachment as opposed to attachment being learnt from the
environment.
Therefore, the capacity make inmate emotional bonds with other individuals that involve
the care seeking role or care giving are the most important aspects of effective personality

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functioning and mental health. Exploring the environment which involves play and varied
activities with peers is considered as the third basic component and one of the antigenic in
human attachment behavior. The two vital theories of attachment displays the importance of
existing theories on which the further researches have been conducted (Bateman and Fonagy
2016).
People are often found calling some other person as ‘absent-minded’ or calling a person
to pay attention. Attention is one of the human behaviors which tend to indicate as the priority of
one aspect of the world to another. According to the definition of William James, who is
regarded as one of the founders of experimental psychology, people cannot attend to everything
at the same time. If there are several stimuli, people tend to focus only in one aspect or few. They
are conscious of those few stimuli and they may miss the other occurring of the moment. One
has to maintain the focus of attention on the materials of the theories that are presented by the
researchers in order to understand the phenomenon of attention in human being. Attention is the
psychological process that is applied in the daily live (Lopez, Pedrotti and Snyder, 2018). It does
not refer to the implied aspect of concentrating on a particular task. It is referred to the process in
which an individual takes possession of information that allows for its storage and retention in a
progressive way. It can be understood as part perpetual processes as well as part of the memory.
The above discussion demonstrates that the psychological theory of social learning
helped other theories build upon the theory to develop other theories on human behavior. Similar
to this, the development of Collin Cherry’s attention model built upon the existing model of
attention by Broadbent and that helped in advancing psychological theory (Matusz et al. 2015).
Cherry conducted series of experiments that were designed to decide the exact information,
which allows participants to distinguish two spoken messages. The results of Cherry’s

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experiment gave support to the idea that material could be refined based on the simple physical
characteristics like the kind of ear the music is played to and so on. The same was suggested by
the Broadbent model. The findings from the experiment where distinct message was give to each
ear are aligned with that of Broadbent’s model. Therefore, Cherry’s findings, while majorly
encouraging Broadbent’s model, also implied that a meaning’s content could influence the way
attention is assigned.
Conclusion:
Various theories have emerged over the years that have challenged the existing
psychological theories. The portrayal of violence in the media has affected human behavior as
many psychologists believe. This view relates to the behavioral theorists and their proposition
that humans particularly children learn from the behavior of others. there have been questions
regarding the credibility of the research especially the question whether the findings of the study
could be generalized or not. The question came up because of the limited age range and context
of the children and the experiment respectively. One of the important aspects of understanding
human behavior is to understanding human attachment. There are various things that look
obvious such as the relationship of parents and children where one love the other. People are
often found calling some other person as ‘absent-minded’ or calling a person to pay attention.
Attention is one of the human behaviors which tend to indicate as the priority of one aspect of
the world to another. The theories discussed above displays the importance of existing theories
on which the further researches have been conducted.

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References:
Akers, R.L. and Jensen, G.F., 2017. The empirical status of social learning theory of crime and
deviance: The past, present, and future. In Taking stock (pp. 37-76). Routledge.
Bateman, A. and Fonagy, P., 2016. Mentalization-based treatment for personality disorders: A
practical guide. Oxford University Press.
Berscheid, E.S. and Regan, P.C., 2016. The psychology of interpersonal relationships.
Psychology Press.
Bushman, B.J., Gollwitzer, M. and Cruz, C., 2015. There is broad consensus: Media researchers
agree that violent media increase aggression in children, and pediatricians and parents
concur. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 4(3), p.200.
Deaton, S., 2015. Social Learning Theory in the Age of Social Media: Implications for
Educational Practitioners. Journal of Educational Technology, 12(1), pp.1-6.
George, A.L., 2019. Case studies and theory development: The method of structured, focused
comparison. In Alexander L. George: A Pioneer in Political and Social Sciences (pp.
191-214). Springer, Cham.
Holmes, J., 2014. John Bowlby and attachment theory. Routledge.
Lopez, S.J., Pedrotti, J.T. and Snyder, C.R., 2018. Positive psychology: The scientific and
practical explorations of human strengths. Sage Publications.
Matusz, P.J., Broadbent, H., Ferrari, J., Forrest, B., Merkley, R. and Scerif, G., 2015. Multi-
modal distraction: Insights from children’s limited attention. Cognition, 136, pp.156-165.