Different Perspectives in Psychology Coexist Rather Than Conflict. Evaluate This Proposition Drawing on at Least Two Chapters from Book 2

Freud’s theory of personality examined the interplay between the primitive, instinctual urges—the ‘id’; the practical and rational ‘ego’; and the morally attuned ‘superego’; ‘object relations’ refer to the "object" of an instinct”, which is “the agent through which the instinctual aim is achieved”—most often a person and, according to Freud, most often the mother (Ainsworth 1969, p. 1). The psychosexual development theory that Freud launched reduces our behaviour to mechanistic responses to an instinctive need for pleasure fueled by the ‘libido’ and barriers or distortions to the gratification of the libido at various delineated stages of development were responsible for later problems in life (Kail & Zolner 2012, p. 5). Erik Erikson later added depth to the approach by including more humanistic elements to Freud’s stages and including more periods of development (p.

Years later McConnell-Ginet (1989, as cited in McConnell-Ginet, 2011) began to study about language and gender in which it focused on speeches of men and women. Later in 2002, in investigating the characterisation of men and women in language, a study has been conducted that covered the sexism in language (Weatherall, 2002). Thus, the foundation of this research is based on the study of language and gender and its effect on

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.

Psychology is the study of the behavior and mind of all living organisms. Perspectives are made in psychology in order for us to be able to have a better understanding of human behavior. These “theories” help contribute to studying how people think, feel, and behave. Three of the main perspectives include behaviorism, which is the study of people’s behavior, humanistic, which is the study of the potential good in everyone, and cognitive, the study of mental processes.

In this assignment I will be explaining the principal psychological perspectives, and then I will be assessing different psychological approaches.

“The social construction of gender comes out of the general school of thought entitled social constructionism. Social constructionism proposes that everything people "know" or see as "reality" is partially, if not entirely, socially situated. To say that something is socially constructed does not mitigate the power of the concept. These basic theories of social constructionism can be applied to any issue of study pertaining to human life, including gender. This is

Although, gender typing might be considered an external factor, gender schema theory suggests that children are pre-programmed to construct or establish beliefs about the sexes. The child will formulate gender-stereotyped preferences and demeanors from others. One example could be picture day at school and the child formulates that girls wear dresses and boys wear slacks by observing those around them. Another example can be when children are on the playground where girls are more likely to be seen playing house and boys playing war. Since gender schema theory is an information processing approach, it further explains that environmental strains and a child’s cognitions work together to pattern gender-role evolution.

Developmental psychology is an area of research dedicated to the understanding of child-development. Throughout history many theories have been used to attempt to explain the complex process. Two of those theorists, Freud and Erikson, were instrumental in creating a foundation for child-psychology to build on. From a Freudian perspective, human development is centered on psychosexual theory. Psychosexual theory indicates that maturation of the sex drives underlies stages of personality development. Alternatively, Erikson is considered a neo-freudian scholar who developed psychosocial theory. In Erikson models there are eight major conflicts that occur during the course of an individual’s life.

“Sex Differences” is an essay written by a professor of linguistics named Ronald Macaulay. In the essay, he pointed out that there were no gender differences regarding to language development. He talked about various stereotypes about how men and women speak. He also explains in depth about how social environment made an impact on the talking between men and women. He also concluded that those linguists who still believe in that theory only continue to do so even if what they found in their research is not statistically significant. In many ways, Macaulay’s essay is persuasive. Through this essay, one would agree with him that there is no different form of language in which women and men speak.

Identify one of today's perspectives in psychology (Ch. 1, Module 2) that most closely aligns with your own views and discuss what relates to your own beliefs and thinking in this approach.

Gender schema theory was introduced in 1981 and states that children actively construct mental representations about that which defines males and

Gender is an individual’s cognitive reference to themselves as male or female, whereas sex is their sexual anatomy, made up from their genes (Anderson, 2015). Children develop gender schemas through observations of others, looking at different characteristics and roles each gender takes on, while also learning through their own culture (Rathus, 2006). Bem did not believe in clear gender roles, she stated that, “an individual could display characteristics of both males and females, making them androgynous” (Anderson, 2015). Within her theory, individuals can be gender schematic or gender aschematic. Gender schematic individuals see the world through a lens that is strictly black and white. They have a set view on how a males and females should act and they do not deviate from their perceptions, instead they align with their “categorized schemas” (Anderson, 2015). If an individual is classified as being gender aschematic, then an environment is not strictly defining roles or characteristics of males and females, then children will have a broader schema because they are not being influenced to develop ideas of which traits belong to which gender (Rathus,

Myers, David G. Exploring Psychology. 6th ed. 1 vols. New York, NY: Worth Publishers, 2005.

After this recognition of this dissimilarity, the female believes that she is at a great disadvantage and she resultantly wishes to acquire a penis. The theory also explains that small girls feel sensitive over the lack of a sex organ equal to the boy’s, and holds herself to be inferior on that account. Freud’s describes that “three lines of development diverge from penis envy, one leads to sexual inhibition or to neurosis, the second to a modification in the sense of masculinity complex, and the third to normal femininity” (NLA Ch.5). The usage of this explanation as a way to characterize feminine psychology has spurred many negative criticisms of Freud’s work on female psychology, and most people have now realized that this his theories were very inaccurate.

From a Freudian perspective human development is based on psychosexual theory. From a psychosexual perspective maturation of the sex drives underlies stages of personality development (Shaffer et al., 2010). Ultimately, Freud believed that sex was the most important instinct and any mental disturbance revolved around sexual conflicts that were suppressed from childhood. Furthermore, Freud believed that parents permitting too much or too little gratification of sexual needs led