Compare And Contrast The Major Perspectives In Psychology

Psychology is a discipline that involves monitoring mental processes and behaviour scientifically. Psychologists try to delve into the basic functions of a person and animals cerebral activity. This usually involves studying relationships, emotions, personality and many more areas of a person or animals day to day life. Psychology tends to steer towards finding reasons for a person or animals actions in an attempt to resolve them.

Behaviorism is defined as,” a school of psychology that takes the objective evidence of behavior (as measured responses to stimuli) as the only concern of its research and the only basis of its theory without reference to

Behaviorism is one of seven schools of thought. Behaviorists focus on observable actions rather than the internal aspects of individuals, such as thoughts and emotions. Ultimately, behavior is a response to the surrounding environmental stimuli. Behaviorists have established many basic principles that are still critical to understanding human behavior today.

Psychology is the scientific “study of the mind” (Gross, 2015) and behavior, which includes the study of humans and animals. There are various approaches in modern psychology. A theoretical approach is a perspective (view) about human behavior, there may be several different theories within an approach, but they all share these common assumptions and principles. (McLeod, 2007). A theory is an attempt by theorists to try to explain behavior. Theories are not facts but can be verified by testing. Theories can then be evaluated which I aim to do through this essay, where I will briefly explain the theoretical approaches in psychology and aim to focus on an analysis for each perspective which consist of the psychodynamic, humanist, cognitive and behavioral approaches where I will analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each approach separately.

Behaviorism is the scientific approach to psychology that is distinguished by logical-theoretical emphasis as is seeks to develop reasons for behavior (Moore, 2013). The theory of Behaviorism was developed by John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner. Uniquely, this theory states that personality is plastic and can be shaped by the environment or situational influences. Another difference from previous thoughts is

The four major perspectives of Psychology are: Biological, Learning, Cognitive, and Sociocultural. First, is the biological perspective which relates to bodily events that affect the behavior, feelings, and thoughts. During the biological perspective electrical impulses shoot along the nervous system and hormones flow through the blood stream alerting the internal organs to slow down or speed up. The biological perspective affects the nervous system, hormones, brain chemistry, heredity, and evolutionary influences. A child who has been exposed to abuse may also grow up to abusive which is an example of the biological perspective. Second, is the learning perspective which the environment and experience affect the behavior of humans or animals. The environment either rewards or punish that maintains or discourage behaviors. Behaviors are based on acts and events taking place within the environment. Environmental influences, observations and imitation, beliefs, and values affect the learning perspective. A violent role model can influence a child to behave aggressively is an example of the learning perspective. Third, is the cognitive perspective which is the psychological approach that emphasizes mental process in perception, memory, language, and problem solving. The cognitive perspective shows how thoughts and explanations affect their actions, feelings, and choices. The cognitive approach is one of the strongest forces in psychology. A violent person may be quick to

Psychology can be defined as the systematic study of mental processes, couple with behaviors, and experiences (Kalat, 2011). There are many ways in examining, mental processes and behaviors among people, and therefore psychologist uses different perspectives to understand how human beings, think, act, and behave. Some psychologist uses one perspective to analyze behaviors, and other uses a multidimensional approach. Carter & Seifert (2013) identified 7 major perspectives that are used to study people’s behavior, and mental processes. These perspectives are the biological, evolutionary, psychodynamic, behavioral, humanistic, cognitive, and the sociocultural perspective.

One of the pioneers of the behaviorism perspective was John B. Watson. He was born to a poor family in Greenville, South Carolina. When Watson was 13, his father left due to a drinking problem and his countless affairs. Watson went to the University of Chicago, which sparked his interest in behavior. “He saw psychology as the study of people's actions with the ability to predict and control those actions.” (http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/watson.htm) Another respected believer in

One Psychologist who contributed a huge proportion to behaviorism is John B. Watson, it was at the Psychological school of Behaviorism he established it. John B. Watson was born in South Carolina in 1878, later in his life his father became absent from his life leading to wrongdoing that John Watson would never be at easy with. Eventually John Watson went to the University of Chicago to study Psychology where he found his interest in behaviorism. During this time, he was studying behaviorism became huge part of psychology in the United States in the 1920’s and 1930’s. A new philosophy that John Watson published was, “The Behaviorist Manifesto” which is about a psychological view of behaviorist. The major goal of John Watson’s manifesto was to predict and show the controls of behavior, which led to him conducting experiments and research projects on animal behavior, child rearing and advertising.

* Psychological Perspectives: general points of view used for explaining people’s behavior and thinking, whether normal or abnormal.

Behaviorism is “the view that psychology should be an objective science that studies behavior without reference to mental processes” (Myers, 2011, p. 6). John Watson believed that science is based upon observation. Therefore, Watson developed behaviorism based upon the idea that while you cannot observe a feeling or thought of a person, you can observe their reactions

THe Behavioral perspective believes that our behavior is the result of the environment we are in. Behaviorists believe that psychologists should rely on the stimuli in the environment and our response to the stimuli. There perspective was that our behaviors are the result of our upbringing and environment. The behavioral perspective works on the molecular level to understand an individual 's behavior. They developed research generated evidence. John Watson was the founder of American behaviorism. Watson advocated that psychology is a science and it should be limited to observable, measurable behaviors. Watson studied babies and how they learned everything from their environment. He advocated that nurture was stronger than nature. Watson was famous for his experiment with Baby Albert and a white rat. Baby Albert did not fear the white at at first but began to fear it once it was associated with a loud sound. Watson proved through his experiments that parents should take

Psychology is made up of many perspectives, such as, behavioural, biological, cognitive, social, humanistic and finally, psychodynamic. This essay will focus on the behavioural perspective and the biological perspective. According to J Walker (2012) the behavioural perspective is based on behaviourism and is the study of observing behaviour when in certain contexts and events. The biological perspective however, explains behaviour by focusing on the function of the nervous system, genes and the brain.

When it comes to psychology it is described as the discipline that is “concerned with behavior and mental process” (Wade & Travris, 2017, p.3), while also how they are affected by an organism’s external and internal environment. Then there is the scientific perspective also known as the scientific psychology in, which is rather based on research and empirical evidence, in which it is “gathered by careful observation, experimentation, and measurement” (Wade & Travris, 2017, p.3). Pseudoscience, psychobabble, popular opinion, and plain old common sense all relate to psychology topics in which scientific psychology challenges them with psychology’s methods and reliance on empirical evidence. Another example of how psychology addresses topics from a scientific perspective is with critical thinking. With critical thinking, one assesses claims and makes judgments that are based on well-supported reasons and evidence instead of emotions “critical thinking is fundamental to all science, including psychological science” (Wade & Travris, 2017, p.7). Psychology is the scientific study of human feelings, behavior, and thought. There are four major perspectives in psychology and those are biological, learning perspective, cognitive, and social cultural perspective. Psychological scientists typically use these four perspectives, because they each reflect a different question about human behavior, how the mind works, and it allows them to explain why people do what they do.

     John B. Watson was an early psychologist that didn't agree with many other psychologist's ideas about learning only relating to consciousness and thought processes. As the founder of behaviorism, Watson studied learning in a behavioral perspective, an approach that emphasizes the relationship between outwardly observable behaviors and environmental events, rather than mental processes.