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P1 - Explain the Principal Psychological Perspectives. Essay

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The behaviourist perspective:

The behaviourist perspective is an idea that we can understand any type of behaviour by looking at what the person has learner. This includes personality traits such as shyness, confidence, optimism or pessimism. Behaviourist psychologists explain all human behaviour as resulting from experience. Two key psychologists are Pavlov and Skinner, although these two theorists believed that different processes were involved, they both explained all types of behaviour as being the result of learning. This is everything from shyness to aggression and happiness to depression.
Classical conditioning was a theory developed by a Russian psychologist called Ivan Pavlov. He was working with dogs to investigate their …show more content…

For example, if someone such as Bradley wiggins recommends that we should wear a cycle helmet, we are much more likely to imitate this behaviour as we are closer to being like this admired model. But, if someone we look down on recommends that we do the same, we are much less likely to do so as we do not want to be perceived as the person we look down on. Certain attributes of a person determine whether the behaviour is more likely to be imitated, these attributes include; gender, similarity to ourselves, status, prestige, competence and fame.
Our behaviour is also influenced by the presence of other, no matter how much we believe ourselves to be individuals.

Culture is the shared values, norms, language, customs and practices of a group. It also refers to different sub-groups within society. It is important to understand how culture affects our behaviour in order to gain a full understanding of the people we encounter and those we work with. Watson found that the average amount of eye contact made varied between countries, with high degrees of eye contact being seen as insolent by some Africans and East Asians, whereas among Indians and Latin-Americans this was seen as desirable.
The self-fulfilling prophecy is a concept in psychology that has an impact on the way we behave towards others and expect them to behave towards us. If we believe ourselves to be worthwhile, pleasant and likeable then we

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