Chapter 1 Introducing Psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. The word “ psychology‖ comes from the Greek words “psyche” meaning life, and “ logos” meaning explanation. Psychology is interested in the nature of humans and how human beings function. However, psychology is by no means the only field of inquiry that seeks answers to the puzzles of human nature. The roots of psychology can be traced to the ancient philosopher based on their early records to understand psychology.
The behaviorism start to make the field of psychology a mainstream scientific by observing one behavior. The field of psychoanalysis is another school of thought. Sigmund Freud best known for his work in psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is a term that was used to refer the different parts of Freud's research, which would include the Freudian therapy and how he developed this theories through his research. Psychoanalysis deals with the thoughts and motivations that are outside of our awareness which is influence our behavior.
Instead, he suggested, we should look only at the external, observable causes of human behavior. Skinner used the term operant to refer to any "active behavior that operates upon the environment to generate consequences". In other words, Skinner's theory explained how we acquire the range of learned behaviors we exhibit each and every day. Bandura – Social Learning Theory The social learning theory proposed by Albert Bandura has become perhaps the most influential theory of learning and development. While rooted in many of the basic concepts of traditional learning theory, Bandura believed that direct reinforcement could not account for all types of learning.
Watson (1878-1958). Watson was responsible for developing the behaviorism school of thought. Behaviorism is a school of psychology that deals with observable behavior and ignores the subjective aspects of human activity involved. Watson was amazed with the work of Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936). Pavlov was a Russian physiologist, who studied conditioning.
Then a scenario will be use to explain an example of classical conditioning. In the 20th century, Ivan Pavlov had unexpectedly come across the philosophy of classical conditioning, when he was researching his dogs’ digestion system. During his research he realized that the dogs tend to salivate to the sight of food, so then he paired the food with a bell to see if the
John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner – Little Albert Experiment The aim of the experiment was to investigate whether fear can be acquired through classical conditioning on human beings. Before conditioning, pre-testing was done to see if Albert was capable of producing a fear response. The checked if he was afraid of different materials, such as: a white rat, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, masks with and without hair, cotton wool, burning newspapers, etc but he demonstrated no fear. They found that little Albert showed fear when exposed to loud noises. They started conditioning by showing Albert a white rat.
Descartes introduced the theory of dualism (the mind-body problem). According to this theory the mind and the body are two completely separate entities that work together to make up human experiences (Goodwin, 2008). Descartes played an important role in the mind-body problem, which has been a persistent issue in the history of psychology. Locke Locke was the referred to as the founder of British Empiricism. He believed that personal experiences have a large impact on the inner workings of the mind and the development of personality and behaviors.
Hormones are thought to play a significant role in manipulating behavior and the mental process because they are involved in various mental disorders as a resulting in interacting with the nervous system. In conclusion, much theory and research have been placed on identifying the major schools of psychology and the underlining assumptions linked to biological factors of behavior. In the beginning stages of psychological research, psychology first began as an establishment of science separate from biology and philosophy. Within those complex findings began the debate in relation to the schools of thought and behavior in the human
Foundations of Psychology Greg Ustel 01/12/2014 PSY/300 ANGELIQUE GRADY Behavioral Approach to Psychology Behaviorism is a concept of psychology that is centered on learning Ivan Pavlov was one of the first know scholars to establish behavior studies on animals. He claimed that behavior was the most valid source of information because mental events cannot be observed (Sullivan Ed. 2009). The three basic functions of behaviorism are reward, punishment, and reinforcement. This type of behavior has been used to study animals and humans alike.
Structuralism was developed by a man named Edward Titchener who was a student of Wilhem Wundt. Titchener was extremely interested in learning about the structure of the consciousness. He believed in the use of experimentation for the science of psychology (Kowalski & Westen, 2009). The second school of thought, functionalism, along with structuralism was the two schools of thought which were dominant in the beginning of psychology (Kowalski & Westen, 2009). Functionalism studied the psychological processes which enable individuals to be able to adapt to their environments; each psychological process has an important role which is their main point of focus.