Comparing Two Psychological Perspective Analysis

Firstly I'm going to evaluate Psychodynamic Psychology as this is one that I have previous knowledge about. First founded by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) an Austrian Psychologist who linked childhood experience with how it influences us as adults. He described that experiencing something in childhood resulted in similar behaviour as an adult. The Psychodynamic approach believes we have drives which can determine our behaviour and that these drives are shaped in childhood and this is where we develop our personality. The strengths to this approach is that if we get to the core of the problem psychologically and tackle the memory linked to the behaviour, it may change the way we interpret memory into the certain behaviour.

Behaviorism is one of the perspectives used to help get a better understanding of people. John B. Watson, an American psychologist, founded behaviorism while studying people. While others studied the conscious experience, Watson studied behavior. He switched the study of psychology

The purpose of this essay is to outline and evaluate at least three psychological perspectives of human behaviour. The three approaches that will be summarised are humanistic, social learning theory and the Biological approach. They will also be criticised and compared to one another. A brief description on psychology will occur, and there will also be a short summarisation on some key early influences of psychology, from its origins in philosophy.

1. Explain how a person committed to each of the following contemporary perspectives would explain human aggression.

‘Nature v. Nurture’ is the psychological term that questions whether genetic factors or environmental factors affect human psychological development more. This short essay will cover three main topics. What does ‘nature vs. nurture’ mean? The discussion of ‘nature vs. nurture’ classifications. Also, the controversy of ‘nature vs. nurture’.

To understand behaviour is very important when it comes to psychology. Behaviour is what makes psychologist understand people. Behaviour is influenced by a variety of different factors (Grieve, Van Deventer, & Mojapelo-Batka, 2005). Some of these factors are within the individual as well as in the environment. People need to be examined by lots of perspectives, or on different levels so that psychologists are able to understand why people behave the way they do (Grieve et al., 2005). Different theories have different perspectives on looking at behaviour, generally known as approaches. This essay will be looking at the following: approaches of neuroscience, psychodynamics, behaviourism, and cognition. To compare the different perspectives of which psychologists use to examine behaviour as well as mental processes.

Depending on which perspective you look at aggression from, it gives you different possible explanations. Within this essay it will discuss the biological perspective, which focuses on a person’s neurological and chemical processes that could cause this form of behaviour. It will also look at Freud’s theory of psychoanalytical perspective which focuses on the unconscious desires that could explain aggression, and finally the social learning perspective which includes the behavioural approach, which looks the external environment factors and weather aggression is learnt behaviour, this perspective also includes how the cognitive approach, the way in which we process, and store information has an influence on the social learning perspective.

Freud proposed that humans possess two innate drives from birth; the drive for pleasure, or Eros, and our ’Death Instinct’, or Thanatos, the latter being the basis for human aggression. Thanatos is a destructive energy which can surface initially as self-destructive behaviour but can develop into aggression towards others later on in development. Freud theorised that an aggressive urge builds up as part of Id while our rational being, the ego, and our ideal image, the superego both seek to oppose and suppress these negative impulses. This internal conflict creates tension inside an individual which tends to build up over time and requires releasing, sometimes in the form of aggressive behaviour.

The behaviourist approach focus’ mainly on the role of environmental factors influencing behaviour and development, relying heavily upon Darwin’s theory of evolution, and was actually considered a branch of biology by Skinner, one of its key theorists (Gross, 2009). According to one of the first key behaviourists, John B. Watson, psychology could not truly consider itself to be a science unless it became modelled on the natural sciences, and argued the validity of what he

This essay will explore and analyse four different theoretical approaches within psychology; the behavioural, psychoanalytic, humanistic and cognitive approaches. Assumptions and theories of each approach will be described and evaluated.

The debate of Nature vs. Nurture is possibly one of the oldest arguments in the history of psychology. This dispute regards the why as to who we are as people. There are some psychologists and non-psychologists alike who believe that people are the way they are due to their genetics, that they are simply born with a set of personality traits. Others believe that people are molded by their life experiences and the environment in which they grow up in. What each party would be surprised to discover though, is that it is actually a mixture of both of these factors.

In regards to the nature vs. nurture debate, “this debate is a major issue in many social science disciplines and is concerned with the influence that biology, genetics, and overall heredity have, along with or in contrast to environmental influences" (Groark, McCarthy, & Kirk, 2014, page 3.1). Some theorists argue that a person’s behavior is predetermined at birth (nature), while others argue that a person’s environment is crucial during the developmental years (nurture). However, “today, many development professionals agree that a complex relationship exists between nature and nurture that may lead to a variety of outcomes later in life” (Groark, McCarthy, & Kirk, 2014, page 3.1). While there may be a relationship between nature and nurture, there are different influences on child development; such as biological, environmental, societal, and cultural.

Both nature and nurture affect child development in a complex manner, through hereditary information and the environment that children interacted with. It cannot be said that a particular behaviour is influenced by genetic factor and another is environmental factor because both nature and nurture are essential for any behaviour. Some others

It is a matter of concern whether human behaviors and characteristics are determined by nature or nurture. If a person’s behavior is inherited directly from the genes of his/her parents or other biological factors, then it is the nature that determines his character. But if the environment that a person grew up in, affects his behavior, then it is the nurture that determines his/her character. It became a great matter of controversy among scientists, psychologists and sociologists. Previously, many people believed that human behavior was instinctive. It can neither be taught nor learned. But later some psychologists came to the conclusion that human behavior is learned throughout the lifetime which is not instinctive.

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.