PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES

PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES

The perspectives of psychology offer distinct outlooks and emphasize different factors. Today the field of psychology includes five major perspectives. These emphasize different aspects related to behavior and mental processes.

These include;

1.                       Neuroscience

     2.                       Psycho-dynamic

3.                                      Behavioral

4.                                      Cognitive

5.                      Humanistic

Neuroscience perspective

The approach that views behavior from the perspective of the brain, the nervous system, and other biological functions.

This perspective considers how people and non-humans functions biologically: how individual nerve cells are joined together, how the inheritance of certain characteristics from parents and other ancestors influences behavior, how functioning of the body affects hopes and fears, which behaviors are instinctual and so forth.

Psycho-dynamic perspective

The approach based on the view that behavior is motivated by unconscious inner forces over which the individual has little control.

Proponents of the psycho-dynamics perspective argue that behavior is motivated by inner forces and conflicts about which we have little awareness or control. They view dreams and slips of the tongue as indications of what a person is truly feeling within a seething cauldron of unconscious psychic activity.

Behavioral perspective

The approach that suggests that observable, measurable behavior should be the focus of study.

J.B. Watson was the founder of this approach. He was of the view that one could gain a complete understanding of behavior by studying and modifying the environment in which people operate.

Cognitive perspective

The approach that focuses on how people think, understand, and know about the world.

The emphasis is on learning how people comprehend and represent the outside world within themselves and how our ways of thinking about the world influence our behavior.

Humanistic approach

The approach that suggests that all individuals naturally strive to grow, develop, and be in control of their lives and behavior.

Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow were the central figures in the development of this approach.

It maintains that each of us has the capacity to seek and reach fulfillment.

  (Note)

The material provided in the post is taken from the book “UNDERSTANDING PSYCHOLOGY”   (10^th edition)

All credit goes to the author; Robert S. Feldman 

 (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)