Perspectives of Psychology

In terms of human behaviour, psychology provides alternative perspectives, known as approaches, which give explanation to human behaviours. What makes each approach unique is that they all have their own focal points for how to explain behaviour. For example, the biological approach looks to the evolutionary processes and gene mutations/hormone levels, whilst the cognitive approach looks at how behaviour is influenced

Biological Perspective is the relationship between the brain, hormones, heredity, and evolution, also the behavior and mental process. I feel that on both sides they are almost the same. When you talk about dreams that is kind of mental and what happens in the brain. The behavior of what you were doing before the on-set of dreams, fantasies and thoughts. Did you have a bad day or a lot on your mind or under a lot of stress. So I feel that both side are hand and hand.

Three of the five major perspectives in Psychology are biological, cognitive and humanistic. The biological approach states that all behaviours, thoughts and feelings are caused by biological factors such as hormone production and genetics (McLeod 2007). For example the production of the hormone serotonin causes an individual to feel happiness, while genetics have evolved over the years so that human bodies and behaviour adapt to their environment, meaning that most behaviour we display today has an evolutionary purpose. The development of social behaviours in humans have resulted in the rise of civilisation, which has introduced “social norms” and feelings such as embarrassment. This shows the biological approach is nomothetic, meaning

One of the major psychological perspectives that I find the most interesting is the humanistic approach because I agree that the environment that a person is currently in can either negatively or positively affect growth. As it states in the textbook, Exploring Psychology, humanistic psychology focuses less on the early years of a person’s life and more on the requirements a person needs to grow. The environment that a person is in can largely affect their mood and their thoughts. Another major psychological perspective that I am interested in is the biological approach because I previously never thought about genetics as a factor of human behavior. Despite my lack of previous knowledge about this perspective, I agree that it plays a role in

The understanding of aspects of the human mind that was produced in twentieth century is lacking what is needed to describe and explain psychological experiences. To get a complete and full understanding of any phenomena, each perspective must be looked at collectively and not individually. I do support an integrative approach to understanding the human mind. Cacioppo and Freberg (2013, pg. 33) suggested, “merging the seven perspectives mind” as an approach to understanding the human mind. The seven perspectives of psychology are biological, evolutionary, cognitive, social, developmental, clinical, and individual perspective and personality (Cacioppo & Freberg, 2013).

The biological perspective is developed through our genes and DNA which will be the reason we act and behave as we do. It is the belief that our behavior is a consequence of our genetic makeup interlocking with our nervous system and hormones. So our thought process and our feelings stem from a biological reason and have a direct affect on our behavior. We have inherited our personality from both parents and it is due to our genetic makeup that we have developed the traits that we have. Therefore it is important to get familiar with our physical bodies. We can get to know who we are as we learn about how our bodies function. It will give us a greater understanding of all the systems within us and how connected everything is. Our personality

Humanistic psychology was fundamental belief that people are innately good, with mental and social problems. Humanistic psychology emphasizes the role of the individual in controlling and determining their state of mental health. To explain properly the humanistic concept Abraham Maslow came up his hierarchy of needs pyramid.

The biological standpoint gives an inside look as to what mechanisms are going on inside the body to cause a person’s behavior. This aspect is defined as, “Major explanatory focus is how the

The contextual perspective is concerned with the relationship between an individual with their different aspects of the world such as social, physical cognitive, and personality. On the other hand, the evolutionary perspective mainly focuses on the direct relationship of our behavior from genetically inherited traits from our ancestors. Finally, the cognitive perspective looks at the individual’s internal viewpoint of the world and how he tries to fit in it (Neill, 2014).

The biological foundation of psychology when linked to behavior is the four perspectives of psychology which are psychodynamic, behaviorist, cognitive, and evolutionary perspectives. Evolutionary psychology largely supports the importance of explain human psychology. Sigmund Freud developed the psychodynamic perspectives which proposed that our action reflects our emotions. The cognitive perspectives focus on how or the way one perceives, processes, and retrieve information (Kowalski and Westen, 2011). The cognitive perspective is used in better understanding how we make decision, what is involved in that process. According to Kowalski and Westen the evolutionary perspective was made from Darwin principle of natural selection. In understanding the school of thoughts in psychology we are able to come up with conclusions and closely identify ideas and understand why certain behaviors occurs.

There are believed to be four different approaches and theories on why we behave the way we behave. The 4 main approaches are biological, cognitive, psychodynamic and behavioural. I shall be talking about all four approaches and all the main research techniques and also the strengths and limitations of the approaches.

The concept of personality is extensive and complex, but psychologists have tried to describe the nature of personality using different perspectives. Some of the perspectives are founded on empirical studies while others are based on clinical case studies or theories. Some common aspects of personality include psychodynamic, trait approach, cognitive, genetic, and learning approach. The cognitive approach emphasizes how our behavior is influenced by how we process, mentally represent, and store information. Psychologists who take the cognitive approach suggests that mental processes can help us understand several kinds of social and individual behaviors, from problem solving, to decision making, to intelligence and interpersonal attraction. According to Bernstein, (2011), a cognitive perspective on a person inherently describes meanings that are created by the individual, and these meanings are usually constructed out of cognitions on the environment. Personality psychologists taking a cognitive approach to a person, typically study the processes arising from behaviors and effects.

During week one, our class examined the“Contemporary Perspectives in Psychology.” According to Wood, Wood, and Boyd (2014), psychological perspectives are “general points of view used for explaining people's behavior and thinking, whether normal or abnormal”(p. 13). By using a combination of perspectives, I believe it provides more knowledge and strategies to improve the behavior.

I agree with the theoretical perspective of cognitive psychology because there is a factor to behavior that is unobservable. Behavior is causally related to a mental state or act, and those mental factors are viewed as the underlying factors that make behavior possible. Also, elements of the mind, like states and mechanisms, have operating characteristics. Understanding those characteristics allows for an understanding of the causes of behavior (Stout, 2008).

Psychology is the scientific study of human brain and its characteristics, especially the functions that drives our behaviour (Colman, 1999). It is a type of study which emerged in the nineteenth century and struggled in the first period to find the appropriate issues of a human to study. To be more precise, firstly, the study was focused with determining the unconscious behaviour of human which later transformed into analysing the behaviour of humans and animals due to the influence of the environment. Later on, from 1950s onwards, the perspectives of psychology is determined in three aspects, that are, humanistic, cognitive and biological (Colman, 1999). The first one deals with the sole features of the experience of humans as they are free to think and choose their activity in their own way which are fundamentally different from animals. The cognitive approach thinks with the thoughts and mental processes of humans- how they acquire, store and receive information from the outside world. The last one is about the biological setting of humans and animals, which means to perceive physical functions of the thoughts and processes portrayed through various bodily structures and biochemical processes.