Theories That Have Information About Behaviour And The Conscious Mind

Lauren Slater is the author of the 2004 book called “Opening Skinner’s Box”. In this book, Slater writes about ten important psychological studies of the 20th century and she describes the personalities of the famous researchers who conducted the experiments. The book is written in story form with the author recreating the experiments in her own way. Slater uses the experiments to get the reader thinking about important concepts such as free will, authoritarianism, conformity, and morality. She writes about controversies that surround the researchers and she also tries to track down the actual researcher or other people who can help provide more information. In the first chapter of the book, Slater writes about the work of B.F. Skinner, who is known for his contribution to behavioral psychology, specifically the concept of operant conditioning. In this paper, I will summarize some of the major points from this chapter, titled “Opening Skinner’s Box” and I will also offer a critical analysis of the chapter.

The unconscious mind houses the preconscious, a small section that houses material that is non-threatening, and easily brought to mind. But deeper in the unconscious mind are the instinctual drives, the wishes, desires, demands, and needs that are kept hidden from out conscious selves because of the conflicts and pain they would cause if they were brought to bear every day. Psychoanalytic personality theory tells us that the personality consists of three separate, but forever intermingling elements, id, ego, and superego. The id section of a personality is by far the largest, the only section that we are born with, and the section that contains the unconscious thoughts, it is raw, unorganized, and from the time of birth it tries to reduce tension caused by our primary drives. The ego, a section that develops soon after birth, balances the instinctual desires of the id and the realities of the outside world. Last of course is the superego, the final personality structure that is developed in childhood, and represent the rights and wrongs of society, contained within the superego is the conscience, the part of us that prevents us from behaving in a morally deplorable way and is responsible for guilt. Psychoanalytic personality theory is not without its virtues; Freud’s proposed five psychosexual stages – oral, anal, phallic-oedipal, latency and genital – are all supported in life.

One of Freuds most famous experiments was 'Little Hans'. This was about a five year old boy who was afraid of horses, and was jealous of the birth of his sister. It was thought that Hans' anxiety culminated from his inner desire to be his mothers mate. Freud used Hans in order to help develop another of his theories - the 'Oedipus Complex' which is a small boys inner jealousy of his father and fear of punishment by castration by him. It must be stressed that the

Most evidence for theories is taken from Freud’s case studies, e.g. Little Hans. This case study was only based on one person in detail. Little Hans case study was carried out via mail contact with his father, only meeting Hans after the case was published which many would argue is not reliable. Freud got his results from talking sessions known as “free association” with patients which he wrote as case studies. Some patients in question are often small numbers of middle-aged Jewish women from Vienna that suffered comparable issues, which are biased samples, this makes the generalization to the wider population challenging. (Gross, 2015). Re-examinations of Freud’s theories propose that he occasionally distorted his patient’s cases to fit with his theory, e.g. being Dora and Ratman, both separate case studies both claimed he misrepresented facts and was unsuccessful in curing them. The theories are also greatly criticized by the humanist approach for being sexist against women. (Sulloway, 1991).

Sigmund Freud, a well-known psychologist portrays an interest in the Psychodynamic approach to Psychology. Freud developed a theory relating to personality in the aftermath of his observation of patients experiencing a disorder called conversion hysteria. He took particular interest in the unconscious

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.

The philosophic contributions to the formal discipline of psychology have primarily been dominated by male visionaries, but many notable women pioneered a role in the history of psychology between 1850 and 1950. Sigmund Freud was not the only Freudian to establish credibility in the field of psychology, as his youngest daughter Anna Freud pursued a career in psychology and made significant historic contributions. Anna’s background, theoretical perspective, and contributions to the field of psychology will be discussed.

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.

Freud is known for developing the use of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is based on the observation that people are often unaware of many of the things that determine their emotions and behavior. Psychoanalytic

Psychology is not just philosophical speculation and reasoning over the years it has evolved and it is now also recognised as a science, to understand what psychology is all about it is necessary to know it’s origins and the theorist who brought it out of obscurity, Sigmund Freud. He developed the Psychodynamic or Psychoanalytical perspective to enable better understanding of human behaviour these concepts will be discussed further later in this study. After Freud opened the gateway other perspectives and approaches have been developed, now with five main areas of psychology - Cognitive, Behaviourist, Biopsychology and Humanist approaches. For a comparison with the Psychodynamic theory, Behaviourist Theory will be discussed.

One advantage of Freud’s concept of the ego, id and superego in relation to understanding human development and individual behaviour is that it gives a good overall description of development of the human psyche. It recognises the

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is responsible for developing the Psychoanalytic Theoretical Perspective; Freud argued that our early life experiences are essentially the base to our subconscious mind and in turn heavily influence our current behavior. Freud believed that people could be treated and healed by articulating their dreams and childhood memories allowing an individual to gain insight into these unconscious thoughts and ultimately motivate them to resolve the repressed conflicts within. This technique was developed into a therapy used today known as Psychoanalysis, similar to hypnosis, it was founded in 1896 (“Freud's Psychoanalytic Theories.”). Just like any other psychological theory, there are many interesting concepts to Freud's Psychoanalytic Theoretical Perspective. The theory says that your personality is determined by the manner in which your behaviors have been depicted to the unconscious mind, this theory tells us that our behavior is completely

The Psychoanalytic approach to human behaviour was founded by Sigmund Freud – neurologists who believed that the key

Freud violated his rules by analyzing his daughter and this was kept a secret for many years and this was viewed as an Oedipal acting at both ends of the couch.

She also had a major impact in Freudian psychological research. She is responsible for the standardization of records for children with diagnostic profiles, pushed for the development of children from childhood to adolescence to be studied longitudinal, and encouraged the use of multiple analysts when it comes to observations. Anna Freud also paved the way for natural experiments to be used in the analysis of children who had similar disabilities (e.g. early traumas, blindness,