Humanistic and Behaviouristic Approach to Human Behaviour

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Humanistic and Behaviouristic Approach to Human Behaviour

The humanistic and behaviouristic approaches have different perspectives on the study of human behaviour. This essay will describe and contrast behaviourist and humanistic approaches to the study of human behaviour. It will give a clear description of both theories and describe the main ways in which they differ in their approach to psychology.

Behaviourists say people are not inherently good or evil; their behaviour is the result of a continuous interaction between personal and environmental variables. Environmental conditions shape behaviour through learning, in turn; a person’s behaviour shapes the environment. Persons and situations influence each other.

The behaviouristic approach to psychology was first established by J.B. Watson in 1913, in which he argued that to be truly scientific, psychology should only concern itself with behaviour that could be directly observed, not the mind, (Gross 2005). He thought Wundt’s work, based on introspection, that is to introspect about sensations and feelings and to report these accurately as they could, was not scientific enough (Eysenck 2004). Watson thought that eventually all behaviour could be understood through a complex chain of learned stimulus response connections. A major approach in the first half of the 20th century, it ignored cognitive and holistic explanations of human behaviour as they could not be observed explanations of human behaviour as they could not be observed directly/objectively, this earns this approach a lot of criticism as little research was done into cognitive psychology until the 1950’s. Watson claimed he could raise an infant to be anything, regardless of the infant’s ancestor’s talents, tendencies, and abilities. Behaviourists now hold a strong confidence about our capability to change human behaviour by changing the environment we grow up. (E.Smith, et al 2003)

The behaviouristic approach comes the nearest to meeting the criteria of the scientific approach. The behaviourist approach promotes precise control of variables, and replicability. Theories are testable, all data is observable, as it has to be able to be objectively measured. Behaviourists assume we live in order as a result of stimulus-response; our lives are determined, so this fits in well with the scientific approach. (Eysenck 2004)

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Behaviourists focus only on directly observable behaviour, this is an objective approach. Biological psychologists focus on the physiology of the brain and the nervous system and the relationship between this and behaviour, again this is an objective approach. Cognitive psychologists focus on the study of perceptual processes e.g. attention, memory, imagery, language, concept formation, problem solving, creativity, reasoning, decision-making and cognitive development. This approach is also objective as the research methods are experimental and involve measuring directly observable behaviour. However, these approaches are using other less scientific method’s to add depth and further insight to their findings. For example, ...

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