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Six major perspectives in psychology
Six major perspectives in psychology
Six major perspectives in psychology
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Perspectives of Psychology
Psychology can be defined as the systematic study of mental processes, couple with behaviors, and experiences (Kalat, 2011). There are many ways in examining, mental processes and behaviors among people, and therefore psychologist uses different perspectives to understand how human beings, think, act, and behave. Some psychologist uses one perspective to analyze behaviors, and other uses a multidimensional approach. Carter & Seifert (2013) identified 7 major perspectives that are used to study people’s behavior, and mental processes. These perspectives are the biological, evolutionary, psychodynamic, behavioral, humanistic, cognitive, and the sociocultural perspective.
Biological perspective
The biological perspective looks at how the environment and physical causes influences behavior. In the biological perspective, neuroscience plays a crucial role in explaining how the brain and the nervous system influence behaviors. Neuroscientist describes how the brain process thoughts, emotions, feelings, and how the physical body is driven by these mental processes. This branch of psychology, engages in a variety of research such as the study of genetics, brain cells, and the function of the brain across a period of time. This is done using positron emission tomography (PET). This technique is used with radio active glucose to indicate areas of activity in the brain. Another technique that is done to conduct brain research is functional magnetic resonance imaging (IMR). It uses powerful magnets and radio equipment that provides comprehensive pictures of soft tissues of the brain.
The Evolutionary perspective
This filed of psychology is concern on how evolution overtimes, creates physiological res...
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...ses influences behavior. The evolutionary perspective explains, how evolution explains mental processes. The psychodynamic perspective assumes that human behaviors are driven by unconscious forces. The behavioral perspective is primarily concerned with learned behaviors. The humanistic perspective emphasizes on personality growth. The cognitive perspective examines our internal thought processes. Finally, the sociocultural perspective compares human behaviors to other cultures, and social settings. There are many ways to examine human behaviors, and these perspectives can help to explain these behaviors, and come up with possible solutions.
Works Cited
Carter, K.E., & Seifert,C.M. (2013). Learn Psychology. Massachusetts, MA: Jones & Barlett Learning.
Kalat, J.W. (2011). Introduction to Psychology (9th,ed). California, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Psychology can be broadly defined as the scientific and systematic study of people’s behavior and mental processes.
There are also seven psychological perspectives, which are thought to contribute to abnormal behavior. First is sociocultural, the problems reflect the values and beliefs of the culture. Second is behavioral, there is faulty conditioning or modeling. Evolutionary is the third, this is an exaggerated form of an adaptive reaction. Fourth is humanistic, where the personal growth is blocked.
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.
Comparing the Behavioral Perspective and the Cognitive Perspective The behavioral perspective is the idea that if psychology was to be a science, then it must focus on events, which are directly observable on behavior, rather than on mental life. The behavioral perspective maintains the primary emphasis on observable behavior and its relation to environmental events. Behavioral perspective is through reinforcement, which is the idea that patterns of emitted behavior can be selected by their consequences. Cognitive perspective is centered on the description of the nature and development of the representation of knowledge. It comes from three points of view, which are the theory of information processing, the inability of behaviorism to provide a comprehensive account for all aspects of human behavior, and the invention of the computer.
The term psychology has many meanings to different people, even to those who work within the psychological field. The word psychology derives from two Greek roots; 'psyche' refers to 'soul' or 'mind' and logo refers to 'the study of'. A more update definition of the word psychology can be found from Atkinson, et al (1991) “The scientific study of behaviours and mental processes.” However on Google Definitions the definition of psychology is “the mental characteristics and attitudes of a person” [accessed 16 September 2011], which gives somewhat of a contradiction. In this assignment I will be outlining and evaluating four key psychological perspectives. The psychological perspectives I have chosen are the behavioural approach, biological approach, cognitive approach and the psychodynamic approach.
The five major theoretical perspectives in psychology are biological, learning, cognitive, psychodynamic, and sociocultural perspectives. Each one of these perspectives searches for answers about behavior through different techniques and through looking for answers to different kinds of questions. Due to the different approaches, each perspective form their own assumptions and explanations. Some perspectives are widely accepted while others struggle for acceptance.
My paper is based on an article from the text’s web site (chapter 9) entitled “Lack of sleep ages body’s systems.” The basic claim of the article is that sleep deprivation has various harmful effects on the body. The reported effects include decreased ability to metabolize glucose (similar to what occurs in diabetes) and increased levels of cortisol (a stress hormone involved in memory and regulation of blood sugar levels). The article also briefly alludes (in the quote at the bottom of page 1) to unspecified changes in brain and immune functioning with sleep deprivation.
From a social-cognitive perspective your environment can change your personality, however, humanistic approach implies and event happens in your life and you apply your free will which defines your personality. The social-cognitive approach emphasizes the importance of cognitive processes, situational influences, observational learning, and self-efficacy while, the humanistic approach emphasizes free will, personal awareness, and psychological growth. The social-cognitive theory explains behavior is guided by cognitions of the world, in contrast, the humanistic approach stresses the importance of free will in explaining behavior. The social-cognitive theory incorporates mostly objective and some subjective information, while, the humanistic approach is more concerned with the subjective experiences of the individual. The social-cognitive perspective does not regard humans a unique. The humanistic approach places a high value on humans and does not believe they are comparable to rats in an experiment. Social-Cognitive approach takes into account biological factors related to cognition. The humanistic approach rejects biological determinism. The social-cognitive theory is grounded in empirical, laboratory research, in contrast, the humanistic viewpoint has no empirical research but assumptions or clinical observations. The main perspective differences between social-cognitive and humanistic perspectives are social cognitive theory believes the interaction between the environment, cognition, and behavior influence personality; and the humanistic theory believes people have free will, individual work and potential to reach
All of the perspectives deal with behavior, and the controlling of behavior. They all deal with different perspectives that affect/influence behavior. All the perspectives are used by psychologists
Perspective 1: Psychodynamic Perspective 2: Behavioral Perspective 3: Cognitive Perspective 4: Humanistic Perspective 5: Contextual Perspective 6: Evolutionary Key Concept(s) of Perspective Behavior and development are motivated by inner and unconscious forces. Related to childhood experiences. Behavior and development is understood by focusing on observing behavior and outside environmental stimuli. Behavior is related to the mental processes that allow people to understand, know, and think about the world around them.
It is not the only the convergence of factors that matter but also the way they interact. This perspective allows for the fact that the interactions of our body, mind, and our environment all affect each other in different ways. The biopsychosocial perspective integrates sociocultural, biological and evolutionary perspectives in psychology. The Sociocultural perspective examines the influences of other people as well as the larger culture to help explain behavior and mental processes. The biological perspective
They wanted explanations as to why people behave as they do. Psychologist first considered behavior as forces or drives, needs, and tension that may be inherent in an individual (Cook, 1976). Attention, including modeled events, individuality, emotional valence, difficulty, pervasiveness, practical value and observer characteristics. Motivation, including external, vicarious and self-reinforcement. Currently some theorist has recanted inner causes of behavior, they have explained that a person’s observance behavior could be the prime factor in environmental events that stimulated and maintained the behavior.
Psychology is linked with the study of human behaviour and mind. This is the major reason why individual perform things when it comes to social and health wellbeing. The body and mind are often interlinked, for example the stress caused from lifestyle and daily hassles could have detrimental impact on the immune system’s body and this may lead to severe illness. Psychologists have provided us with various approaches to clarify and explain human behaviour and practice it, through helping people in overcoming emotional issues and to deal with further challenging behaviours. Models and theories of human behaviour originate from various disciplines of social sciences.
Some perspectives assume that in our behaviour exists genetic basis that we inherit and they are the result of our conduct and actions. On the other hand, the nurture believes that the behaviour is learnt by experiences and are divided between social and physical influences. According to Psychodynamic perspective believes in nature and nurture by the fact that psychodynamic believes that our behaviour is in the brain structure and hormones but at the same time is related to past experiences. for example, a child diagnosed aggressive within school, his mother replies that the child 's father had the same aggressive behaviour and troubles with the police however, the child never met his father therefore, the child inherited his father 's behaviour. Behaviourist perspective argues that everything comes from experiences and rewards. for example, a mother who is teaching his daughter to be tidy through her behaviour and reward his daughter depends on her
In its early days, psychology had some trouble being recognized as a legitimate science; therefore, the definition contains a specific reference to scientific study as a contingency for its practice. Psychology makes a point of studying the scientific basis of all behaviors and the cognitive processes that lie behind them, as well as the physiological processes that support, affect and motivate behavior. As a study, it is always empirical, meaning that the only accepted ideas in psychology have been acquired through observation instead of arbitrary guesses or assumptions. Another important aspect of the definition of psychology is the presence of its seven unifying themes that form a common foundation for all its areas of research. The first