This essay will in turn look at the behaviorist, Psychodynamic, and
Humanistic approaches to Psychology. It will evaluate the assumptions
and contributions for each approach.
Behaviorists emphasize the relationship between the environment
surrounding a person and how it affects a person’s behavior. They are
primarily concerned with observable behavior, as opposed to internal
events like thinking and emotion. This is a criticism of the
behaviorist approach; it is seen as mechanistic and oversimplified,
because it ignores mental processes or reinterprets them as just types
of behavior. John Watson saw emotions as the secretion of glands and
thinking as the movement of our vocal chords without actual speech.
However studies have been carried out and it has been found that
people can still think even when their vocal chords are paralyzed.
Behaviorists make the assumption that in humans; virtually all
behaviors are caused by learned relationships between a stimulus that
excites the sense organs and a response which is the reaction to the
stimulus.
John Watson was strongly influenced by the work of Pavlov on classical
conditioning. Pavlov trained dogs to salivate whenever he rang a
bell. An unconditioned Stimulus (the bell) leads to an unconditioned
Response (salivation). When the unconditioned stimulus is paired with
another Stimulus (food), this stimulus will eventually produce the
response on its own and is then called the conditioned stimulus which
produces a Conditioned response. Behaviorists propose that phobias
come about in a similar way, for example, somebody who is
spider-phobic, might have learned to be scar...
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This essay has evaluated the assumptions and contributions of the
behaviourist, psychodynamic and humanistic approaches to psychology.
The behaviourist approach focuses on the behaviour of people and seeks
to explain behaviour as being learnt. The psychodynamic and humanist
approaches are more concerned with the emotional aspects of people’s
lives rather than their behaviour. The psychodynamic approach places
importance on childhood experience. The humanist approach places more
emphasis on the importance of our self image.
Bibliography
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Class lectures and handouts
The World of Psychology. (2002). A Pearson Education Company. Boston, MA: Samuel Wood & Ellen Green Wood p. 593
The field of psychology is a discipline, originated from many branches of science. It has applications from within a complete scope of avenues, from psychotherapy to professional decision-making. The flexibility and versatility of this field reflects its importance and demands in-depth analysis. Psychology was a division of philosophy until it developed independent scientific disciplines. The history of psychology was a scholarly study of the mind and behavior that dates back to the beginning of civilization. There are important details from previous theory psychologist, research have contributed to behaviorism approaches and have contributed towards specific current behavioral practices. Contemporary behavior therapy began to emerge into distinct practical and core learning theories concerning the needs and knowledge engaging cultural and professional differences.
Davis, S. F., & Palladino, J. J. (2003). Psychology. (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
In 1913 a new movement in psychology appeared, Behaviorism. “Introduced by John Broadus Watson when he published the classic article Psychology as the behaviorist views it.” Consequently, Behaviorism (also called the behaviorist approach) was the primary paradigm in psychology between 1920 to 1950 and is based on a number of underlying ‘rules’: Psychology should be seen as a science; Behaviorism is primarily concerned with observable behavior, as opposed to internal events, like thinking and emotion; People have no free will – a person’s environment determines their behavior; Behavior is the result of stimulus resulting in a response; and All behavior is learned from the environment. How we process these stimuli and learn from our surrounds
Classical conditioning refers to a type of learning in which a previously neutral stimuli took on the ability to stimulate a conditioned response in an individual (Gormezano & Moore, 1966). To prove that environment was more impactful than genetics, Watson conducted an experiment on an infant, little Albert. Initially, Albert showed little fear towards rats. When Watson repeatedly exposed Albert to the rat accompanied by a loud noise, the latter began to develop fear towards not just the rat but also other furry animals. Watson successfully showed that the acquisition of a phobia can be explained by classical conditioning (Watson & Watson, 1921). Regardless of their genes, the associations of the right stimuli can result in the development of a new behaviour in any individual.
Various perspectives on behavior have changed the face of psychology over the centuries. Some of the most influential of these theories on behaviorism were made by John B. Watson, B.F. Skinner, and Edward C. Tolman. The manner in which behavior is modified has become a growing debate in the aspect of which technique is more reliable and effective. The theories from these three men have become a foundation for many different schools of thought throughout modern psychology. Through their research, many modern psychologists have grown a better knowledge on why people react and behave during certain situations or in different environments. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the various theories of Watson and Skinner to that of Tolman.
The psychodynamic theory encompasses both Freud and Erikson. Freud believed the three components of personality were the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is responsible for all needs and urges, while the superego for ideals and moral. The ego moderates between the demands of the id, the superego, and reality. However, Erikson believed that personality progressed through a series of stages, with certain conflicts arising at each stage. Success in any stage depended upon successfully overcoming these conflicts. The advantage to psychodynamic is that it encompasses the individual, meaning that the theory looks at personality from childhood all the way into adulthood. The disadvantages of this theory are that it cannot be tested validly. Therefore,
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Psychoanalysts focus on the unconscious mind as the sole problem of all things. It has to do with your Id, the part of ourselves that contains our unconscious desires and immoral thoughts, our ego, our reality, and lastly our super ego, our ideal moral self. The part of ourselves that encourages us to do the right thing is the super ego. (Psychodynamic Theories of Personality, 5). If something is found to be affecting you in a wrong way, then it has to do with the Id controlling you or it could deal with the stages of personality that Freud came up with. The stages are: oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital. (Psychodynamic Theories of Personality, 8) Our case is of a 14 year old freshman named Jodie. She has been feeling hopeless and depressed since her mother passed away. She has been experimenting with illegal drugs and alcohol. She used to have good grades and a good GPA, but now she is failing over half of her classes. She also is not communicating with anyone in her family. Jodie is the oldest child of three and has the responsibility of taking care of her two younger brothers. Unfortunately now she neglects them. She leaves them home alone to take care of themselves. She does not feed them or watch over them. She has
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Psychoanalysis gives an understanding of the unconscious mind of human beings while behaviorism is the study of behaviors of individuals in different environments. The theory of humanistic theory emphasizes on the potential of every person and focuses on the benefits of self-actualization and growth. The humanistic theory focuses on the belief that individuals are internally good and that social and mental problems are because of deviations from the norm (Arnaud & Vanheule, 2013).
Classical conditioning can be describe as a reflexive or automatic type of learning in which a stimulus acquires the capacity to evoke a response that was originally evoked by another stimulus. It was first described by Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), a Russian physiologist, in 1903, and studied in infants by John B. Watson (1878-1958). In the 1920 's John b. Watson and Rosaline Rayner trailed to show how fear can be induced in an infant through classical conditioning. Designating conditional emotional reactions attempt would become the most infamous psychology studies that has been conducted and would be entitled "the case of little Albert”. Watson goal was to get Albert very afraid of the white rat by comparing the white rat with a very loud, clashing
Behaviorist theory is that any and all behaviors can be learned, emotional or otherwise. This learning is founded on an impression that all behaviors are developed by the means of conditioning. The behaviorist theory has been affected by many important scientists. The main contributors to this theory are: John B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov, and B.F. Skinner. The two major components of the behaviorist theory are from Pavlov and Skinner and they are classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Watson was “the founder of behavioral psychology the aim of which was to predict and control human behavior” (John, 2011). Behaviorism believes that a person’s behavior is the product of the environment in which the subject is involved.