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Essay about psychology

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As described, there are 10 different perspectives of early psychology. These perspectives are: Structuralism, functionalism, Gestalt psychology, Behavioral, psychodynamic, humanistic, physiological, evolutionary, cognitive, and cultural and diversity. I will only be looking at three of these perspectives still in common use today here is a summary of each.
The behavioral perspective "focuses on the observable behaviors; thus it does not speculate about mental processes such as thinking." (Davis and Palladino, 2005).Unlike the other approaches, the behavioral perspective accentuates how it is important to learn and understand and doesn't focus on coconscious. B. F. Skinner, a well known …show more content…

Educator’s and parents need to be very careful, in my opinion, when using only this approach with their children. Humanists will not label any behavior as “bad” or “wrong” but instead they will focus on the individuals right to choose what they will do or what decision they make on their own. In schools today I believe we place to much emphasis on making the child feel they have done well no matter the level of work they have produced or the actions they have chosen to take. The humanistic approach can work well when trying to improve a child’s self-esteem or cure shyness but, when a child is not told they are doing something wrong how will they then learn what is considered right and wrong in society? “We've got youngsters here now who . . . are under the authority of the school [and] are being persuaded that there is a better way, and that way is to make their own decisions. They're being induced to make decisions about activities that the citizenry of the state have decided are wrong” (http://www.probe.org/docs/psy-educ.html) When used in conjunction with behaviorism and cognitive psychology a child will gain a much better understanding of their place in the world as well as what is expected of them in regards to behavior.

“Many psychologists have accepted the cognitive perspective – where the focus is on how thought occurs, memory processes, and

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