Preview

Three Theories of Psychology

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
752 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Three Theories of Psychology
The three types of theories I chose are Behaviorism, Psychodynamic, and Humanistic. I chose these three because they intrigue me the most. Psychodynamic psychology was one of the first types of theories created. The first studies were published by Sigmund Freud in 1895. The next one out of these three created was Behaviorism. In 1913 John Watson presents behavioristic views. Last was Humanistic psychology created in 1943 when Abraham Maslow publishes "A Theory of Human Motivation." (Coon, 2006, pg. 22)

The basic idea behind psychodynamic views is behavior directed by forces within ones personality, often hidden or unconscious. It emphasizes internal impulses, desires, and conflicts mostly that are unconscious. The behavioristic view is behavior shaped and controlled by ones environment. It emphasizes the study of observable behavior and effects of learning. The humanistic view is behavior guided by ones self-image, subjective perceptions of the world by needs for personal growth. It focuses on subjective, conscious experience, human problems potential, and ideals.

Behaviorism focuses on a kind of learning called conditioning. It involves associations between environmental stimuli and responses. There are two types of conditioning, classical and operant. Classical conditioning is what happens before a response. You start with a stimulus that triggers a response. For instance you give a dog a bowl of food and he salivates. Then a week later you give the dog just the bowl without food in it and he salivates with out the food even being there. Operant conditioning is a response based on consequences. For instance a response is made by the type of reinforcers (i.e. food, punishment, or nothing). If you tell your child you will give them a cookie if they clean there room they are more likely to clean there room. If you tell them you are going to put them on a time out they might not be so thrilled to do it.
Psychodynamic theory is behavior that emphasizes



References: Wade, C. Tavris. (2006) Psychology. Upper Saddle River, NJ. Pearson/Prentice Hall. Coon, D. (2006) Psychology: A Journey. United States. Thomson/Wadsworth.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    5. Behaviorism implies that the learner responds to environmental stimuli without his/her mental state being a factor in the learner’s behavior. Individuals learn to behave through conditioning. Then John Watson conduct an experiment to prove classical conditioning called the Little Albert experiment. He found a baby afraid of lond sounds, but not afraid of rats at first. Then he associated these two things together and presented to the baby. He successfully conditioned a child to be afraid of rats in the end.…

    • 473 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Psych 110 Exam 1 Study Guide

    • 2743 Words
    • 11 Pages

    Behaviorism is the idea that the mind cannot be observed and that psychologists should only study things that are observable through behavioral patterns, such as classical/operant conditioning…

    • 2743 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In Psychology learning is seen as a change in behaviour caused by an experience. Behaviorism, is seen as a learning theory; an attempt to explain how people or animals learn by studying their behaviour. The Behaviourists Approach has two theories to help explain how we learn, Classical conditioning and operant conditioning. In this task I will attempt to describe and evaluate this approach.…

    • 1263 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    P1 M1 Unit 8

    • 2679 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Psychology is the study of the human mind, its functions and behaviour. It tries to explain the way we act and the way we are. The behaviourism theory is primarily concerned with observable behaviour, as opposed to internal events like thinking and emotion. The social learning theory is where an individual is introduced to other individuals which may have different actions and behaviour which the individual may learn off. The biological theory is where theorists believe that emotions and actions are passed through genetics and they look at the way an individual’s parents and grandparents to see if the behaviour and actions are the same within the family or not. The psychodynamic theory is the human functioning based on the interaction of drives and forces within the individual. The cognitive theory is the concept that if we want to know what makes an individual react to an object we learn the internal process of their mind. The humanism psychology looks at human experience the viewpoint of the individual.…

    • 2679 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Behaviorism is one of the most used theories in education. Due to it can fit in both a classroom setting and at home. Educators had sought out the reason why for many years. But due to each child learns a different way so should the educator. Behaviorism was study by many great Psychologists over the years. Just to name some that had done work and publish books on the subject are, John Watson, Ivan Pavlov, Clark Hull, and B.F. Skinner.…

    • 1390 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Unit 8 Assignment 2

    • 4190 Words
    • 12 Pages

    Firstly behaviourist theories within psychology, generally believe that all behaviour is learnt and can be shaped through principles of conditioning, which was suggested by two different psychologists, ‘Skinner’ and ‘Pavlov’. This approach is to be able to understand different aspects of human behaviour, this is sometimes referred to as the learning theory. These can result from either classical conditioning or operant conditioning.…

    • 4190 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Unit 8 P1 M2

    • 3137 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Behavioural psychology, also known as behaviourism, is a theory of learning based upon the idea that all behaviours are acquired through conditioning. Conditioning occurs through interaction with the environment. According to behaviourism, behaviour can be studied in a systematic and observable manner with no consideration of internal mental states.…

    • 3137 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Unit 8 Psychology

    • 503 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Behaviourism approach differs from psychodynamic greatly, because behaviourism is founded on observation, physical stimuli and responses that are somewhat measureable by using many experiments to support its theories. Furthermore, behaviourists use science to analyze everything and regard seeing as believing. Compared to psychodynamic that is based on assumptions, it is more of a leap of faith than a science as there is no hard evidence to support its theories. In addition, psychodynamic approach criticises behaviourists as it does not accept that the unconscious mind influences behaviour.…

    • 503 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    intro psychology workshee

    • 582 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Although there are several different perspectives used to describe, predict, and explain human behavior I think the main three that stuck out to me and was more interesting to me where the Behavioral perspective, Humanistic perspective and the Psychodynamic perspective. Behaviorism grew due to a Russian psychologist named Ivan Pavlov. This perspective is based on behavior in which it states that psychologist should focus more its scientific studies on overt behavior which means that it can be measured and verified. Humanistic was founded by an American Carls Rogers. Humanistic was more different then some of the other perspectives it had more to do with the conscious side of clients other than the unconscious side of them. Psychodynamic was studied and developed by a Physician in Austria named Sigmund Freud. This was studied with unconscious clients but was focused more on personality and behavior.…

    • 582 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    example of this type of behavior is school yard bullying. It is said that 37 percent of…

    • 742 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Behaviourism looked at learning in a scientific way, theorist of the time believed that they could teach anything as they could condition an animal to behave in a particular way, whether it was a dog to salivate by the use of food, Pavlov (Learning and Teaching [internet], or pigeons playing table tennis, by breaking the game down into a sequence of actions, Skinner (Edschool.csueastbay [internet]. The person was conditioned to their environment. However behaviourism is very limited, due to the need to repeat the process so many times. This in turn reduces how fulfilled the learner would be especially if the lesson was purely based on behavioural learning. However behaviourism is still important in today’s classroom in the systematic reinforcement of each aspect which helps build up here understanding. Also giving praise, and giving the…

    • 2875 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The behaviourist theory was brought up by Pavlov. It’s an act according to need and reward. Behaviour is reinforced; it could be either punishment or reward. Focuses on observed event. Pleasant and unpleasant consequences were the two terms that explained reinforcement. The behaviorist theory believes that once you see changes in s child’s behavior, then that means something new has been learnt. The behavioral learning model is a result of conditioning.…

    • 562 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    The behaviorist theory is based off of positive and negative feedback to students in a classroom. It is a way to train the students in learning the correct way so they can keep moving onto the level of their education. An example can be a mouse in a cage that is really thirsty. Well the mouse will do and try anything to get out of that cage to get something to drink but when it finds the feeding bottle and see that all it has to do is push the little tab on the end to get some…

    • 1146 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Behaviorism, is the key approach in psychology, is based on the belief that people act the way they do because of conditioning. This means that there is no mental state of the individual and that the learning is based on the environment. It was believed that the way people behavied was because of conditioning. On way of conditioning was operant conditioning and that is “behavior is changed by its consequences” (Friedman, p. 198). This means that by shaping an individual by them knowing if they act a certain way there was a specific consequence for them acting that way. Classical conditioning is where a natural act is paired with a natural reponse. For example, when you walk into a bakery and smell all that fresh bread or pasteries then you immediately become hungry.…

    • 1081 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    * Behaviourist – is an approach that looks into what an individual does, what action we take rather than what we think or feel. Everything we do is a result of what we have learnt. Burrhus Frederick Skinner was a theorists who stated that we was all born blank slates, he was particular interested in the study of how children learn behaviour. People were to learn best when rewarded known as positive reinforcement such as a reward like a treat and fear for anything with a bad impact known as a negative reinforcement. A negative reinforcement doesn’t necessarily mean you will be punished, a negative reinforcement can be an unpleasant experience for example you may be a D mark on an exam, it is not the best grade so you use this negative experience to push yourself to work harder in order to achieve an A grade in your next exam.…

    • 3469 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Good Essays