Psychological Perspectives - Biological Approach

Health and Social Care National Extended Diploma
Psychological Perspective: Biological Approach
The biological approach is a psychological perspective that believes us to be as a consequence of our genetics and physiology. It is the only approach in psychology that examines thoughts, feelings, and behaviours from a biological and thus our physical point of view. Therefore, all that is psychological is first physiological. http://www.godandscience.org/images/dna-helix.gif
The key theorist for the biological approach is Arnold Gesell (1880-1961) followed the works of Darwin and many other evolutionists, eventually developing the Gesell Maturational Theory. His theory suggests that development in childhood and adolescence is primarily biological or genetic in origin. Biology and genetics inheritances determine predictable patterns in biological behaviour that Gesell termed as norms. He believed that children need a nurturing, stable environment, and very little else to mature both biologically and psychologically. Gesell was the first theorist to systematically study the stages of development, and the first researcher to demonstrate that a child’s developmental age (or stage of development) may be different from his or her chronological age http://www.gesellinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/gesell-theory-image.jpg
