5 modern perspectives of psychology essay
Worried about plagiarism? Read this. Help Login Sign Up. The study of the way people think and behave is called psychology. The field of psychology has a number of sub-disciplines devoted to the study of the different levels and contexts of human thought and behavior.
Introduction to Psychology/Introduction
There are, however, various schools of thought that evolved throughout the development of psychology that continue to shape the way psychologists investigate human behavior. Because psychologists might emphasize various points within psychology in their research and analysis of behavior, there are different viewpoints in psychology.
These schools of thought are known as approaches, or perspectives. Psychodynamic theory is an approach to psychology that studies the psychological forces underlying human behavior, feelings, and emotions, and how they may relate to early childhood experience.
This theory is especially interested in the dynamic relations between conscious and unconscious motivation, and asserts that behavior is the product of underlying conflicts over which people often have little awareness.
Psychodynamic theory was born in with the works of German scientist Ernst von Brucke, who supposed that all living organisms are energy systems governed by the principle of the conservation of energy. Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud developed the field of psychoanalytic psychology and the psychosexual theory of human development.
The concept of the unconscious was central: Freud postulated a cycle in which ideas are repressed but continue to operate unconsciously in the mind, and then reappear in consciousness under certain circumstances.
Hysteria was an ancient diagnosis that was primarily used for women with a wide variety of symptoms, including physical symptoms and emotional disturbances with no apparent physical cause. Today many researchers believe that her illness was not psychological, as Freud suggested, but either neurological or organic. The id is the unconscious part that is the cauldron of raw drives, such as for sex or aggression.
The ego, which has conscious and unconscious elements, is the rational and reasonable part of personality. Its role is to maintain contact with the outside world to keep the individual in touch with society, and to do this it mediates between the conflicting tendencies of the id and the superego. Like the ego, the superego has conscious and unconscious elements. When all three parts of the personality are in dynamic equilibrium, the individual is thought to be mentally healthy.
However, if the ego is unable to mediate between the id and the superego, an imbalance is believed to occur in the form of psychological distress. The information in our unconscious affects our behavior, although we are unaware of it. Freud believed that each of us must pass through a series of stages during childhood, and that if we lack proper nurturing during a particular stage, we may become stuck or fixated in that stage.
Jung focused less on infantile development and conflict between the id and superego and instead focused more on integration between different parts of the person. Jung created some of the best-known psychological concepts, including the archetype, the collective unconscious, the complex, and synchronicity.
At present, psychodynamics is an evolving multidisciplinary field that analyzes and studies human thought processes, response patterns, and influences. Research in this field focuses on areas such as:. Psychodynamic therapy, in which patients become increasingly aware of dynamic conflicts and tensions that are manifesting as a symptom or challenge in their lives, is an approach to therapy that is still commonly used today. Behaviorism is an approach to psychology that emerged in the early 20th century as a reaction to the psychoanalytic theory of the time.
Psychoanalytic theory often had difficulty making predictions that could be tested using rigorous experimental methods.
The behaviorist school of thought maintains that behaviors can be described scientifically without recourse either to internal physiological events or to hypothetical constructs such as thoughts and beliefs.
Rather than focusing on underlying conflicts, behaviorism focuses on observable, overt behaviors that are learned from the environment. Its application to the treatment of mental problems is known as behavior modification. Learning is seen as behavior change molded by experience; it is accomplished largely through either classical or operant conditioning described below. The primary developments in behaviorism came from the work of Ivan Pavlov, John B.
Watson, Edward Lee Thorndike, and B. The Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov was widely known for describing the phenomenon now known as classical conditioning. In his famous s experiment, he trained his dogs to salivate on command by associating the ringing of a bell with the delivery of food. Watson, the idea of conditioning as an automatic form of learning became a key concept in the development of behaviorism. Ivan Pavlov Ivan Pavlov is best known for his classical conditioning experiments with dogs.
John B. In this experiment, he used classical conditioning to teach a nine-month-old boy to be afraid of a white toy rat by associating the rat with a sudden loud noise. This study demonstrated how emotions could become conditioned responses. Skinner, describes a form of learning in which a voluntary response is strengthened or weakened depending on its association with either positive or negative consequences. The strengthening of a response occurs through reinforcement. Skinner described two types of reinforcement: positive reinforcement, which is the introduction of a positive consequence such as food, pleasurable activities, or attention from others, and negative reinforcement, which is the removal of a negative consequence such as pain or a loud noise.
Skinner saw human behavior as shaped by trial and error through reinforcement and punishment, without any reference to inner conflicts or perceptions. In his theory, mental disorders represented maladaptive behaviors that were learned and could be unlearned through behavior modification.
In the second half of the 20th century, behaviorism was expanded through advances in cognitive theories. While behaviorism and cognitive schools of psychological thought may not agree theoretically, they have complemented each other in practical therapeutic applications like cognitive-behavioral therapy CBT , which has been used widely in the treatment of many different mental disorders, such as phobias, PTSD, and addiction.
This later gave rise to applied behavior analysis ABA , in which operant conditioning techniques are used to reinforce positive behaviors and punish unwanted behaviors.
Cognitive psychology is the school of psychology that examines internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language. Much of the work derived from cognitive psychology has been integrated into various other modern disciplines of psychological study, including social psychology, personality psychology, abnormal psychology, developmental psychology, educational psychology, and behavioral economics. Cognitive psychology is radically different from previous psychological approaches in that it is characterized by both of the following:.
Cognitive theory contends that solutions to problems take the form of algorithms, heuristics, or insights. Major areas of research in cognitive psychology include perception, memory, categorization, knowledge representation, numerical cognition, language, and thinking.
Cognitive psychology is one of the more recent additions to psychological research. Though there are examples of cognitive approaches from earlier researchers, cognitive psychology really developed as a subfield within psychology in the late s and early s.
The development of the field was heavily influenced by contemporary advancements in technology and computer science. In , Donald Broadbent integrated concepts from human-performance research and the recently developed information theory in his book Perception and Communication, which paved the way for the information-processing model of cognition.
Although no one person is entirely responsible for starting the cognitive revolution, Noam Chomsky was very influential in the early days of this movement. Chomsky — , an American linguist, was dissatisfied with the influence that behaviorism had had on psychology. He is most widely known for his stage theory of cognitive development, which outlines how children become able to think logically and scientifically over time. As they progress to a new stage, there is a distinct shift in how they think and reason.
Jean Piaget Piaget is best known for his stage theory of cognitive development. Humanistic psychology is a psychological perspective that rose to prominence in the midth century, drawing on the philosophies of existentialism and phenomenology, as well as Eastern philosophy. It adopts a holistic approach to human existence through investigations of concepts such as meaning, values, freedom, tragedy, personal responsibility, human potential, spirituality, and self-actualization.
The humanistic perspective is a holistic psychological perspective that attributes human characteristics and actions to free will and an innate drive for self-actualization. This approach focuses on maximum human potential and achievement rather than psychoses and symptoms of disorder.
It emphasizes that people are inherently good and pays special attention to personal experiences and creativity. This perspective has led to advances in positive, educational, and industrial psychology, and has been applauded for its successful application to psychotherapy and social issues.
Despite its great influence, humanistic psychology has also been criticized for its subjectivity and lack of evidence. In the late s, a group of psychologists convened in Detroit, Michigan, to discuss their interest in a psychology that focused on uniquely human issues, such as the self, self-actualization, health, hope, love, creativity, nature, being, becoming, individuality, and meaning. Abraham Maslow — is considered the founder of humanistic psychology, and is noted for his conceptualization of a hierarchy of human needs.
Self-actualized people, he believed, have more of these peak experiences throughout a given day than others. At the bottom of the pyramid are the basic physiological needs of a human being, such as food and water.
The next level is safety, which includes shelter and needs paramount to physical survival. The third level, love and belonging, is the psychological need to share oneself with others. The fourth level, esteem, focuses on success, status, and accomplishments. The top of the pyramid is self-actualization, in which a person is believed to have reached a state of harmony and understanding.
Individuals progress from lower to higher stages throughout their lives, and cannot reach higher stages without first meeting the lower needs that come before them. Carl Rogers — is best known for his person-centered approach, in which the relationship between therapist and client is used to help the patient reach a state of realization, so that they can then help themselves. Instead, the therapist uses the skills of active listening and mirroring to help patients explore and understand their feelings for themselves.
Carl Rogers Carl Rogers was one of the early pioneers of humanistic psychology, and is best known for his person-centered approach to therapy. He believed that those raised in an environment of unconditional positive regard have the opportunity to fully actualize themselves, while those raised in an environment of conditional positive regard only feel worthy if they match conditions that have been laid down by others.
Rollo May — was the best known American existential psychologist, and differed from other humanistic psychologists by showing a sharper awareness of the tragic dimensions of human existence. May was influenced by American humanism, and emphasized the importance of human choice. Humanistic psychology is holistic in nature: it takes whole persons into account rather than their separate traits or processes.
In this way, people are not reduced to one particular attribute or set of characteristics, but instead are appreciated for the complex beings that they are. Humanistic psychology allows for a personality concept that is dynamic and fluid and accounts for much of the change a person experiences over a lifetime.
It stresses the importance of free will and personal responsibility for decision-making; this view gives the conscious human being some necessary autonomy and frees them from deterministic principles. Perhaps most importantly, the humanistic perspective emphasizes the need to strive for positive goals and explains human potential in a way that other theories cannot.
However, critics have taken issue with many of the early tenets of humanism, such as its lack of empirical evidence as was the case with most early psychological approaches. Because of the inherent subjective nature of the humanistic approach, psychologists worry that this perspective does not identify enough constant variables in order to be researched with consistency and accuracy. Psychologists also worry that such an extreme focus on the subjective experience of the individual does little to explain or appreciate the impact of external societal factors on personality development.
In addition, The major tenet of humanistic personality psychology—namely, that people are innately good and intuitively seek positive goals—does not account for the presence of deviance in the world within normal, functioning personalities. Sociocultural factors are the larger-scale forces within cultures and societies that affect the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals.
These include forces such as attitudes, child-rearing practices, discrimination and prejudice, ethnic and racial identity, gender roles and norms, family and kinship structures, power dynamics, regional differences, religious beliefs and practices, rituals, and taboos.
Several subfields within psychology seek to examine these sociocultural factors that influence human mental states and behavior; among these are social psychology, cultural psychology, and cultural-historical psychology.
Cultural psychology is the study of how psychological and behavioral tendencies are rooted and embedded within culture. The main tenet of cultural psychology is that mind and culture are inseparable and mutually constitutive, meaning that people are shaped by their culture and their culture is also shaped by them.
A major goal of cultural psychology is to expand the number and variation of cultures that contribute to basic psychological theories, so that these theories become more relevant to the predictions, descriptions, and explanations of all human behaviors—not just Western ones.
The evidence that social values, logical reasoning, and basic cognitive and motivational processes vary across populations has become increasingly difficult to ignore.
By studying only a narrow range of culture within human populations, psychologists fail to account for a substantial amount of diversity.
Psychology is the scientific study of how we think, feel and behave. In this lesson, you'll get an overview of the five major perspectives that have guided modern. Major perspectives within psychology. words (8 pages) Essay in Psychology. 5/12/16 Psychology Reference this. Disclaimer: This.
There are, however, various schools of thought that evolved throughout the development of psychology that continue to shape the way psychologists investigate human behavior. Because psychologists might emphasize various points within psychology in their research and analysis of behavior, there are different viewpoints in psychology. These schools of thought are known as approaches, or perspectives. Psychodynamic theory is an approach to psychology that studies the psychological forces underlying human behavior, feelings, and emotions, and how they may relate to early childhood experience.
In the field of psychology , social psychology is the scientific study of how the thoughts , feelings , and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, and implied presence of others. Moreover, the notion that the presence of others may be imagined or implied suggests that humans are malleable to social influences even when alone, such as when watching videos, quietly appreciating art, or even sitting on the toilet.
By Saul McLeod , updated An approach is a perspective i. There may be several different theories within an approach, but they all share these common assumptions.
5 Major Perspectives in Psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of behavior, cognition, and emotion. Psychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the scientific study of mental processes and behavior. Psychology also refers to the application of such knowledge to various spheres of human activity, including relating to individuals' daily lives and the treatment of mental illness. Psychology differs from the other social sciences — anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology — in that psychology seeks to explain the mental processes and behavior of individuals. Whereas biology and neuroscience study the biological or neural processes and how they relate to the mental effects they subjectively produce, psychology is primarily concerned with the interaction of mental processes and behavior on a systemic level.
Compare and Contrast the five main perspectives in psychology
The seven different approaches to psychology have helped humanity out greatly in the solving of our everyday problems that we face. These seven different approaches tackle psychology in all different types of areas and view points in an attempt to make sense of ourselves and how the world we live in affects us. Psychologists have dedicated their whole lives to understanding these two things in a number of different ways, which is why they have broken up into subcategories into this wonderful subject. Psychology truly is a wonderful subject because it is able to be applied to many different aspects of human life weather it is on the nurture or nature side of the argument. These view points are not perfect and definitely seem one sided at times but that does not disregard these theories as invalid. These opinions have bettered the lives of many people world wide by providing insight, perspectives, and a deeper look into our individual realities. The following are the 7 approaches to psychology. This approach was also used to treat people will mental illnesses by trying to better understand how that particular individual views the world and what may have altered their way of thinking. Impact on society. Key proponents.
The field of social psychology is growing rapidly and is having an increasingly important influence on how we think about human behavior.
Each division has stemmed from one of the seven major perspectives: psychodynamic, behavioral, humanistic, cognitive, sociocultural, biological, and evolutionary. This diversity within psychology, allows psychologists the ability to expand in all areas of explanation, assessment, and diagnoses, which furthers the science of psychology through many different. Early approaches of psychology eventually evolved into the five major theoretical perspectives: the biological, learning, cognitive, sociocultural, and psychodynamic perspectives, which now dominate the field.
Perspectives of Psychology
This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. Learn more Got it! The humanistic perspective is an approach to psychology that emphasizes empathy and stresses the good in human behavior. In politics and social theory, this approach calls for human rights and equality. In counseling and therapy, this approach allows an psychologist to focus on ways to help improve an individual's self-image or self-actualization - the things that make them feel worthwhile. A person feels like his or her life is bland and boring. A humanistic perspective would encourage the person to do some soul-searching and determine what is missing - a hobby? A relationship? Whatever it takes for the person to feel fully self-actualized is what should be sought as treatment. The humanistic perspective encourages gestalt therapy, a special type of therapy that encourages an individual not to allow the past to affect the present, and focuses on the here and now rather than anything else. Family therapy is another example of the humanistic perspective. This type of therapy allows families to talk about their relationships with one another in order to encourage and strengthen those relationships, especially when families are going through difficult times such as periods of substance abuse or divorce.
7 APPROACHES TO PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology is the study of human behavior. These perspectives include the psychoanalytical approach, the behavioral approach, the humanistic approach, the cognitive approach, the sociocultural approach, the psychological or neuropsychological approach, and finally the evolutionary approach. Martinez 1 Julian Martinez Professor Roger Copeland Psychology 29 August Psychology Perspectives The behavioral perspective of psychology is focused on explaining why people react the way they do to specific situations and environments. People will tend to act differently according to the environment they happen to be in, and they will most likely act in a way where the most benefit will be attained. If a reward is given every time a certain action is made, people will. Within the psychology field and in society, there is a common belief that theological principles, scripture, Christianity, and psychological principles are not compatible.
