One of the first behaviourists was Edward Thorndike (1874-1949), an American psychologist who studied the behaviour of animals. He noticed that some events, usually those that one would expect to be pleasant, seemed to ‘stamp-in’ a response that had just occurred. Noxious events seemed to ‘stamp-out’ the response, or make it less likely to occur. We now call these processes reinforcement and punishment
This approach has strong strengths and weaknesses. Behaviourists adopted a scientific method to their studies, so results and conclusions can be measured and therefore can be seen as more reliable. This challenged traditional methods of research. So by using scientific methods in the study of psychology they broke into new ground and a new ways of thinking were developed. With regard to practical applications of their research, many of the theories produced still hold true today. For example, classical and operant conditioning is used in the training of animals and pets using punishment and rewards. As for treatment of humans, such methods like systematic desensitisation and flooding are used for the treatment of maladaptive behaviour. These include addiction to alcohol, drugs and smoking or the treatment of phobias. On the down side there is the issue of ethics in the research methods used. The study of little Albert by Watson and Rayner (1920) is one such example. An eleven month old child was subjected to harmful conditioning, which if repeated today would evoke national outrage. Animal welfare is also an issue. Pavlov used surgical techniques to remove dog's saliva glands in his studies on classical conditioning. Modern psychological ethics would not allow these studies to take place, but at the time in which they were carried out a different moral code and social acceptance existed. Therefore the research is accepted today as valuable and can be applied usefully.
The Behaviorist approach explains schizophrenia as a learned response
and that people will behave in a schizophrenic way if they reinforced by it, develops by operant conditioning by observing behaviour of other schizophrenics. It doesn’t explain how schizophrenics get symptoms in the first place. Simplifies distressing condition to attention seeking strategy. Treatment Investigated the effectiveness of operant conditioning by reinforcing appropriate behaviour with schizophrenic patients. Treatment was set uo by using token economy system in hospital ward where patients were given tokens as reward when behaved appropriately, which could be exchanged for luxury items. As a result for that positive and negative symptoms were significantly reduced and 11% of patients need drug treatment, compared to 100% of the control group. Concluding that operant conditioning is an affective means of treating people with chronic schizophrenia
Cognitive therapies have been criticized on ethical grounds; the clients’ problem behaviours or thoughts are being changed to those which the therapist sees as acceptable; who is to say that they are correct?
The behaviorist approach is deterministic: people’s behaviour is assumed to be entirely controlled by their environment and their prior learning, so they do not play any part in choosing their own actions. The approach takes the nurture side of the nature-nurture debate, believing that apart from a few innate reflexes and the capacity for learning, all complex behaviour is learned from the environment. Their insistence that all learning can be accounted for in terms of law-governed processes like classical and operant conditioning, reflects a nomological approach to studying human behaviour (although behaviourists never ignore individual differences, since every person’s history of learning is unique). The behaviourists’ view that all behaviour, no matter how complex, can be broken down into the fundamental processes of conditioning makes it a highly reductionist approach to psychology.
Cognitive Psychology focuses on the mental processing of information, including the specific functions of reasoning, problem solving, and memory. Cognitive psychologists are interested in the mental plans and thoughts that guide and cause behavior.
The key notion in the cognitive approach is that the human mind is an information processor, similar to a computer. Information is selected, coded, stored and recalled when needed. They believe that events occurring within a person need to be studied if we are to understand that person's behaviour. These events are referred to as mediators as they occur between the stimulus and the behaviour. With this being apparent the main areas of research that cognitive focuses on are memory, perception and language. Piaget (1896-1980) who studied cognitive development in neo nates through to adolescence produced one of the most famous theories in this area. He saw cognitive development having 4 key stages. Firstly the sensorimotor stage (0-2), the baby has an innate reflex to situations, which gives the basis for future development. These are called schemas and are like plans of appropriate action in certain situations. The baby has no concept of anything which is out of sight e.g. it doesn't exist; he referred to this as object permanence. Second is the pre-operational stage (2-7). This involves conservation, which is the ability to perceive differences in appearance and size. Thirdly, the concrete operational stage (7-11). The child's emotions become more developed and become less egocentric. This is referred to as decentration; a more empathic approach is taken. Last is the formal operational stage where the child develops abstract thought and is able to demonstrate deductive reasoning. This theory is widely regarded and used to form the basis for modern child psychology.
Cognitive psychology explains schizophrenia as being a faulty information processing and that Schizophrenics fail to monitor their own thoughts.
Voice-hearers can be helped to being voices under their control.
Psychotherapy – controlling thought processes instead of uncovering unconscious (Bentall).Patients are told that the voice represent part of their thought processes and encouraged to develop strategies to protect themselves against the voices. Relaxation techniques, talking to others also were used as in cognitive treatments to Schizophrenia.
Cognitive psychologists are divided on the issue of free will. Some believe people can choose their actions, others are more deterministic and suggest that we can no more decide on our own behaviour than a computer can. In the nature-nurture debate, cognitive psychologists take an interactionist position, believing that our behaviour is influenced by learning and experience (nurture) but also by our brains’ innate capacities as information processors (nature). The approach is basically nomological in outlook, as its focus is on establishing the information processes that are common to all people. Cognitive psychologists are generally reductionist although they vary about how far psychological processes should be broken down when explaining them. Some suggest that cognitive processes can be broken down ultimately into biological processes, whereas others believe there is a level beyond which it makes no sense to reduce cognitive processes to a more fundamental level.
Humanistic psychologists focus on the subjective, conscious experience of the individual. They place great emphasis on the uniqueness of humans and the freedom to choose their own destiny. Humans are motivated by the drive to achieve they're full potential (to self-actualise) and that present experiences are as important as past ones. The approach dismisses scientific methods of research, as they are deemed inappropriate for the study of humans. The two main exponents of humanist are Maslow and Rogers. Maslow's (1908-1970) research involved the motives that drive people towards self-actualisation. He identified two types of motivation. First is deficiency motivation, which is the need to reduce and abate physiological tensions such as hunger and thirst. Secondly is growth motivation, which concentrates on the satisfaction of needs like the need to be esteemed and loved. From this he developed his Hierarchy of needs. He believed the needs in the hierarchy to be innate. The lower needs in the hierarchy such as food, shelter and water must be satisfied if that individual is to progress up the hierarchy. The end goal is to become self-actualised, to realise one's full potential and be fulfilled. Rogers's (1902-1987) work involved what he called the would/should dilemma. This is concerned with the conflict of what an individual ought to do and what they feel is best for themselves. A conflict in this causes anxiety. The individual is unique and has a need for positive regard from others. He believed that we are all born with an actualising tendency, which is the development into mature and healthy human beings. Central to this theory is the concept of the self. This can be split into the perceived and ideal self. The perceived self involves the individual's perception of the world and of his/her own behaviour. The ideal self is what the individual would like to be. An imbalance between these, leads to psychological problems. This was developed into treatment which was very much client centred, which gives help to the clients clarification of their thoughts on problems and gain greater insight into them.
The humanistic approach explicitly states that people have free will, which sets it apart from other approaches (with the possible exception of some cognitivists). It could be suggested, however, that their position on free will is incoherent, since at the same time as insisting on people’s ability to choose their actions, they explain how our behaviour is determined by our treatment at the hands of others and an innate set of needs. In the nature-nurture debate, humanists favour nurture, because of the influence of experiences on a person’s ways of perceiving and understanding the world, but also acknowledge the influence of biological drives and needs. Their belief in the uniqueness of each individual inclines them toward an ideographic approach to psychology. Because they believe that human experience must be engaged with as such, humanistic psychologists do not attempt to break behaviour down into more fundamental processes. As such, their approach to psychology is explicitly holistic, rather than reductionist.
With the good, always comes the bad, and this theory is no different. The biggest criticism of humanistic thought appears to center around its lack of concrete treatment approaches aimed at specific issues. With the basic concept behind the theory being free will, it is difficult to both develop a treatment technique and study the effectiveness of this technique.
Secondly, there are those who believe humanistic theory falls short in its ability to help those with more sever personality or mental health pathology. While it may show positive benefits for a minor issue, using the approach of Roger’s to treat schizophrenia would seem ludicrous.
Finally, humanistic theory makes some generalizations about human nature that are not widely accepted as complete. Are people basically good or are their some individuals who are not capable of this? Can we adequately argue that everyone follows the same levels as Maslow explained, or are these levels, and even what they stand for, be determined by the individual? Why do some people seem to make negative choices even when positive solutions are staring them in the face? These questions plague humanistic thought and the difficulty in researching the theory does not provide any freedom.
Developed from the most famous psychologist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). The psychodynamic approach believe the human personality contains and is greatly influenced by the unconscious mind harbouring repressed memories, which determine conscious thoughts and behaviour. They also believe that human beings have innate instinctual drives, which motivate and regulate behaviour; the source of these drives is the libido, which is sexual in nature. Freud believed that the human personality consisted of three parts, the Id, the Ego and the superego. These interacted with each other to form our personality, morality and normality. The Id is innate and is the pleasure aspect e.g. the devil on our shoulder. The Superego is learned and is our morality or conscience e.g. the angel. The ego is our morality principle and mediates between the other two. If there is a tendency towards the id or superego Freud believed that this was the source of neurosis and psychological problems. Freud's theory of personality development consisted of 5 stages. If the child became fixated in any of these stages it would lead to different psychological problems in later life. Oral. Age 0-1. The child's activities centre on crying, feeding and teething. Fixation at this stage leads to nail- biting, smoking or overeating. Anal. Age 1-3. The main focus in the child's life is toilet training. A fixation in this stage leads to being anally retentive or anally expulsive (e.g. tidy/messy). Phallic. Age 3-5. A physical awareness of gender and gender differentiation. Fixation in this stage leads to a difficulty with relationships and one's own sexuality. Latency. Age 5-Puberty. This is a period of consolidation for the first three stages. Genital. Age Puberty-Maturity. Here interest turns to the formation of heterosexual relationships. As a summary Freud's key theory is that the individual is shaped by early experiences.
The psychodynamic approach rejects the idea that people have free will. A person’s behaviour is determined by their unconscious motives which are shaped by their biological drives and their early experiences, making this a deterministic approach. With reference to the nature-nurture debate, the psychodynamic approach takes an interactionist position: it agrees that we are driven by innate, biological instincts (nature) but also maintains that the expression of these is heavily modified by our upbringing (nurture). The psychodynamic approach also occupies the middle ground in the debate between nomological and ideographic approaches to psychology. Whilst Freud argued that human behaviour is governed by universal processes that apply to everyone (the psyche, the psychosexual stages), reflecting a nomological understanding, psychodynamic psychologists agree that the exact ways in which these processes manifest themselves in the individual is unique in every case. Their case-study approach to research reflects this uniqueness and exemplifies an ideographic way of studying people. However, because the psychodynamic approach generally explains complex behaviours as manifestations of more primitive biological drives, it is widely regarded as a reductionist approach to psychology rather than a holistic one.
Psychodynamic approach is used in modern psychology to treat anxiety, the aim is not the ‘cure’ the patient’s psychological problems, in the same way that the medical profession might hoe to find a cure for AIDS. Rather, the aim is to enable the person to cope better with inner emotional conflicts (between the id, ego & superego) that are causing anxiety. The purpose of therapy is to uncover unconscious conflicts & anxieties that have been repressed & work through these.
Psychology has a bearing on all of us in every day life from birth to death whether conscious or unconscious. Our understanding and interpretation depends largely on the society in which we live and our cultural and religious beliefs. It is therefore a subject where right and wrong is very difficult to determine. Because of this and the fact that we still can not categorically state which of the various perspectives is closer to the truth, psychology is an ever changing and fascinating subject and each paradigm has something unique to contribute to our understanding.
References
Malim,T and Birch, A(1998)Introductory Psychology, Ney York: Palgrave Macmillan
Hill, G. (1998) Advanced Psychology Through diagrams, Oxford:University Press
Williamson, M., Cardweel and Flanagan, C. (2007); Higher Psychology, Cheltanham: Nelson Thornes
Hayes,N. Orrel, S. (1998) Psycology an Introduction,3rd Edition,Essex:Logman
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