Behaviourism and Humanistic Approach

1159 Words5 Pages
The Behaviourist and Humanistic approaches to personality Personality is an aspect or department of psychology amongst many. There are several approaches developed by various psychologists to understand human behaviour. This essay will focus on the Behaviourist approach as well as on the Humanist approaches so as to determine which one of these will better understand Michael’s problems. This essay will therefore discuss each approach by identifying its founding fathers (main proponents), determining its causal factors and providing strengths and limitations for both the Behaviourist approach and the Humanistic approach. According to The Oxford University Press Southern Africa (2008; 126), Behaviourism is a psychological personality approach which mainly focuses on aspects of the past in term of past learning experiences as well as history. This in the sense that behaviourists determine or rather understand human behaviour and personality based on their history which usually involves the environment in which they are raised in. The major proponents also identified as founding fathers of this approach or theory are B.F Skinner and Watson who understood it to be based on , “whether they have been rewarded or punished for the particular behaviour in the past or whether to expect a reward or punishment for the behaviour in the future”( Oxford University Press Southern Africa.2008;126). For easy comprehension, one should consider children learning from the actions of their parents. Children tend to repeat what they hear or see parents doing or even what they experience at educational institutions. They learn by reward and punishment, when they do something wrong parents often tend to reprimand them as they would in turn present the child with , for argument sake, a sweet as a reward for good behaviour. This is thus where parenting skills as well as the environment
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