Compare and Contrast Two Psychological Perspectives Essay

There are numerous criticisms for Skinner’s and Rogers’ theories of behaviour management. It would be an advantage for teachers to be familiar with these criticisms when formulating their behaviour management plan. Porter (1996) explains humanists criticise the behaviourist approach by Rogers for being authoritarian, and for denying students freedom of choice.

The behaviourist perspective is an idea that we can understand any type of behaviour by looking at what the person has learner. This includes personality traits such as shyness, confidence, optimism or pessimism. Behaviourist psychologists explain all human behaviour as resulting from experience. Two key psychologists are Pavlov and Skinner, although these two theorists believed that different processes were involved, they both explained all types of behaviour as being the result of learning. This is everything from shyness to aggression and happiness to depression.

Amanda is struggling with her relationship with her parents which is typical for adolescents. She wants to express herself through her clothing and her parents are trying to pressure her into dressing more feminine or more typical. They pick on her habits, such as burping, which are not seen as very lady-like. Amanda’s parents are also not very accepting of her sexuality. Whenever they seem to bring up the topic in conversation, both Amanda and her parents begin to argue. Her parents do not understand her, while her friends do. She feels unaccepted by her parents, which strengths her relationship with her peers and weakens the relationship with her parents.

In the first chapter of her novel, Opening Skinner’s Box, Lauren Slater introduces B.F. Skinner, a neo-behaviorist who believed heavily in the power of reinforcement. He is most famous for his “Skinner boxes”, in which he would reward a rat with food whenever they accidentally pressed down on a lever. After a while, the rats would intentionally step of the levers, yet Skinner would alter the rate in which they received a reward for it, sometimes removing the incentives altogether. Skinner’s most significant discovery came from “variable schedules of reinforcement”, in which he intermittently rewarded the rats, where they would press the level but often walk away with nothing. By doing this, Skinner

This essay will explore and evaluate the purpose of behaviour management policies within educational settings. It will analyse developmental differences and environmental influences, which may affect both the cause and management of children’s behaviour in real life settings, linking to theories of leadership and behaviour management. Finally, this essay will conclude by reflecting upon the most effective methods and theories of behaviour management, in relation to children and adults within educational environments.

Behaviourism, also known as the behaviouristic approach is based on several underlying assumptions regarding methodology and behavioural analysis. Behaviourists believe that psychology should be seen as a science and therefore theories must be proved using controlled experiments whilst observing behaviour. Behaviourism is mainly concerned with observable behaviour rather than internal processes such as emotions. The psychodynamic approach to psychology is in complete contrast to that of the behavioural approach. Psychodynamic theorists look for the causes of behaviour in a dynamic interplay of inner motivational forces that often conflict with one another.

The primary standard of the behaviourist approach is that all behaviour is ought to be quantifiable in a quantitative way. Behaviour is ought to be studied objectively and variables ought to be operationalised so they are simplified and easy to measure. For instance, Bandura's work was done under lab conditions, a standout amongst the most scientific methods; whereby children were assigned to test conditions (aggressive group) or control condition (non-aggressive group). By changing the variables, Bandura could infer that hostility was because of the social learning hypothesis. On the other hand, the psychodynamic approach is not scientific as it is not testable, which makes it hard to falsify.

The purpose of this essay is to outline and evaluate at least three psychological perspectives of human behaviour. The three approaches that will be summarised are humanistic, social learning theory and the Biological approach. They will also be criticised and compared to one another. A brief description on psychology will occur, and there will also be a short summarisation on some key early influences of psychology, from its origins in philosophy.

Two Approaches In Psychology In 1900, Sigmund Freud, a neurologist living in Vienna, first published his psychoanalytic theory of personality in which the unconscious mind played a crucial role. Freud combined the then current cognitive notions of consciousness, perception and memory with ideas of biologically based instincts, to make a bold new theory of psychodynamics. Freud's theory, which forms the basis of the psychodynamic approach, represented a challenge and a major alternative to behaviourism. Freud's theory of personality was based on the assumption that all our behaviour stems from the unconscious processes.

The psychologists all over the world uses different approaches for developing the desired methodologies for analysing their research. These different methodological approaches are humanistic and scientific approaches. It is said by different researchers that humanistic approach used for understanding the psychology focuses on the acceptance of free-will for reaching towards unique development of understandings that can be used for studying and controlling the psychology of human (Gerrig, et al., 2015). Still, there are different researchers who had opposed the use of humanistic approach for understanding the psychology of the living beings.

Behaviorism explains human behavior based on principles of learning and adaptation derived from experimental psychology. Humanism explain abnormal behavior by looking at human behavior not only through the eyes of the observer, but through the eyes of the person doing the behaving. The scientific method is important in studying scientific behavior because it is used to confirm or disconfirm findings in psychopathology. Scientific methods were not often applied to the theories and treatments within a tradition, mostly because methods that would have produced the evidence necessary to confirm or disprove the theories and treatments had not been developed. Lacking such evidence, many people accepted various fads and superstitions that ultimately proved to be untrue or useless. Interpretations I received from the chapter is that abnormal psychology can form from many different experiences or environmental factors. There are different concepts to support these reasons but one model is the Freud’s structure of the mind. There are three major parts of function: the id, the ego, and the

Skinner had a belief in the understanding that any behavior could be explained by any action undertaken and valence of equitable performance. Skinner introduced much easier and simpler explanations for the reinforcement experiments that were performed specifically on the lab rats and

Behaviourism refers to a psychological approach which explains human development in terms of how they learn from experience rather than a result of inborn tendencies or higher order thinking. Learning from experience moulds and shapes behaviour and personality. (A2Healthandsocialcarepg84) The behaviourist movement began in 1913 when John Watson wrote the article 'Psychology as the behaviourist views it. ' Other psychologists such as, Pavlov, Thorndike and Skinner also worked to develop behavioural theories of learning. (A2Healthandsocialcarepg84) They focused their explanations solely on behaviour, concerning what people do rather than what may or may not be going on in their minds. Behaviourists suggest that all behaviour is learned either through classical or operant conditioning. (PsychologyASpg.50)

It is said that humanistic psychology was developed upon the limitations of behaviourism. The humanistic approach is often referred to as the “third force” in psychology coming after psychoanalysis and behaviourism; it is an alternative approach to psychology (Maslow, 1968). It offered a more wholesome approach to psychology at the time in comparison to behaviourism and psychoanalysis. This essay will compare and contrast behaviourism and humanistic psychology; it will focus on their contributions to psychological theory and their applications in the real world.

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born in 1904 “Pennsylvania. After graduating Hamilton College, he wanted to become an author, but without any avail. Pavlov and Watson’s work encouraged him to attend Harvard graduate school where he studied behavior. “He made changes in the rate of behavior a standard measure of learning: made the individual, rather that the group, the object of experimental study; and suggested ways that a natural science of behavior could be applied to medicine, work, child rearing, education and other fields” (Learning and Behavior pg#136-137). Skinner worked with rats by placing them in boxes and providing them with different reinforcements. He would teach them a different behavior by providing obstacles in order to shape those behaviors. “Positive reinforcement strengthens a behavior by providing a consequence an individual finds rewarding” (simplypsychology.org). The reinforcement was the food “The rats quickly learned to go straight to the lever after a few times of being put in the box. The consequence of receiving food if they pressed the lever ensured that they would repeat the action again and again (simplypsychology.org).