He believed there were 5 stages of psychosexual development from age 0-puberty, and that an over or under indulgence in any of these stages could cause a fixation in adult life and create a particular type of personality. This is where many of his followers broke away from him, for example Carl Jung whose structure of personality was ego, persona and self, Alfred Adler who emphasised social factors and childhood experiences, and Erik Eriksson who also felt Freud put too much emphasis on sexuality and neglected social forces in development.
Freud also firmly believed that childhood experiences moulded us into whom we became as adults and any bad experiences were saved in our unconscious where they either remain buried, r found a way into our conscious. If they remained buried, it could affect our emotional wellbeing in the form of neurosis or psychosis.
Psychoanalysis is the therapy that came out of Freuds’ theories. It states that all human behaviour is motivated by something, but these motivations were often unconscious. It was the therapy technique he used to cure patients with psychological problems, and supported his hypothesis with studies like little Hans [Oedipus conflict] and Anna O, whose conflict Freud resolved. He also provided other case histories of patients, attempting to explain their behaviour using psychoanalytic explanations.
Freud also used techniques like regression, hypnosis, dream analysis [as he believed dreams often had metaphorical meanings] and free association where patient spoke freely allowing him to look for clues of a patient’s disorder. He felt that parapraxes were also the workings of the unconscious.
Behaviourist propose that behaviour can be studied and defined without looking too much into the mental state and that only studies of measurable behaviour should be seen as scientific, therefore the ‘thought’ part of the equation should be ignored. Behaviourists focus on the influence of the environment and feels we are shaped by our interactions with it.
Around the 1920’s John Watson was responsible for changing the study of psychology from that of conscious experience to the study of behaviour. He separated psychology from philosophy, steered it towards biology and rejected Freuds’ theories about unconscious as they could not be observed. Behaviourists did not reject the existence of consciousness and a mind but felt these concepts were impossible to study so couldn’t give a great deal towards a scientific approach in psychology. They felt the human body was a machine and watched what went into it (stimulus) then measured what came out (response)
Watson and his colleagues state that behaviour is moulded by experience and relied heavily on Pavlov’s classical conditioning theory. Pavlov initially discovered that dogs’ behaviour followed a pattern of stimulus and response. He then carried out experiments which developed a conditioned response to a stimulus that was paired with an original unconditioned stimulus. He went on to find that other behaviours like discrimination, spontaneous recovery and extinction developed. This research also worked with humans.
Behaviourists theorized that all human behaviour could be explained as a complex series of highly conditioned reflexes and as humans are related to other organisms through evolution, their behaviour could be understood by looking at animals and that general rules could apply to both. They felt that humans and animals were related physiologically and behaviourally.
Behaviourists see learning as a change in behaviour that is bought about by altering links between stimuli and response and that however complicated a behaviour, it was possible to break it down and analyse it in basic stimulus-response units (reductionism). Also, by observing external behaviour, a clear hypothesis could be tested and re-tested with experiments.
Ivan Pavlov [Pavlov’s dogs] Edward Thorndike [cat in the puzzle box], John Watson and Clark Hull all studied learning in the form of conditioning. Thorndike’s ‘Law of Effect’ focused on voluntary behaviour that increased or decreased depending on consequence [operant conditioning]. This is learning to repeat through reinforcement, meaning behaviour could be shaped. It was later researched by Skinner with the rats and pigeons and the Skinner box. He studied the stimuli that generate behavioural responses. No mental processes were considered.
Behaviourists focus on 3 ways of learning. Classical conditioning, operant conditioning and social learning. Social learning was demonstrated with Banduras ‘Bobo Doll’ – learning new behaviour through observation but not necessarily repeating it.
Their focus on behaviour led them to see whether behaviour that was not desirable could be changed. Their input to therapy has been longer lasting than other areas of psychology and includes desensitisation [Wolpe] which reduces the link between stimulus and response, flooding, which involves exposing a client to the feared object, and aversion which deals with curing addictions
Although both approaches are vastly different from each other, they do both include the opinion that the environment is one of the things that make us the way we are, but view its effect on us in very different ways. Freud and psychodynamics felt that our personality came from within us, but was also influenced by external things that we experienced as a child ,but behaviourists felt, that we were strictly a product of our environment and that there is no room in science for mental experience and conscious thought, that psychology should be to describe, predict, understand and control behaviour. Psychodynamics also concentrates on personality and motivation but behaviourism does not deal with motivation at all.
Freud stated that all behaviour has an inner cause; behaviourists ignored the internal reasons and argued that all behaviour was caused. Freud believed that most of our behaviour was determined by processes that were outside our awareness and to a degree behaviourists followed this too with their unconditioned response theory. It was a behaviour that was not controllable.
The psychodynamic approach focused on things that happen in the mind but it usually concerned mentally unhealthy middle age, middle class women whereas behaviourists focus on external behaviour, usually of healthy animals in laboratory settings, so neither approach could be generalised to the whole of society. Neither could their findings be realistically applied to each other either.
Both believe that our behaviour is influenced by past experiences. Psychodynamic believes those experiences are locked away but still influential. Behaviourists believe you act the way you do from past experiences through conditional learning.
Most of Freuds’ research was undocumented and was based on patients’ recollection which could be unreliable, Freuds’ clinical case studies were unsupported by quantitative data or statistical analysis so many aspects of his theory were difficult to put to test.
However the behaviourists could scientifically document their findings as they were observable and unlike Freud they could almost identically replicate experiments. They also argue that emotional and instinctual drives cannot be observed, therefore are also unfalsifiable.
Freudian theorists state that adult behaviour is best understood by looking at childhood experiences. Behaviourist Skinner agrees but feels connections are based on the reinforcement history of the person and that the id, ego concept is too vague.
Behavioural therapy only focuses on altering behaviour and ignores the underlying problem but psychoanalysis tries to get to the underlying problem to alter current behaviour.
Behaviourists don’t take into account the possible role of biological factors in human behaviour and believe learning and experience determines the type of person you become, whilst Freud firmly believed that childhood experiences moulded us into whom we became as adults
Both approaches are very deterministic, they leave little room for free will. Behaviourist ignore free will, they view individuals as passive beings that are at the mercy of their environment. This doesn’t account for creative and spontaneous behaviour, they generalise behaviour ignoring differences between individuals and their experiences. Psychodynamics also ignores free will. How can internal conflicts be in our control?
Both approaches also agree that past experience can determine how we react to present and future events, but some of Freuds’ ideas are clearly tied to his time in history and not easily testable. The research carried out by behaviourist can still be repeated today.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jarvis, Russell, Angles on Psychology Stanley 2002
Flanagan, Dolan Thomas
Karen Oliver & Psychology and
Louise Ellerby Jones Everyday Life Hodder & 2004
Stoughton
Bridget Giles History of Grange books 2005
Psychology
William E Glassman Approaches to Open University 2000
Psychology Press
Cardwell, Clarke, Psychology Collins 2005
Meldrum
Richard Gross & Developmental Hodder & 1997
Rob Mcilveen Psychology Stoughton
Class Handouts
1st December 2006