Behaviourism is associated today with the name of B.F skinner, who developed the theory of operant conditioning. The idea that we behave the way we do is because this kind of behaviour has had certain consequences in the past. For example, if your girlfriend gives you a kiss when you give her chocolates, you will be likely to give her chocolates when you want a kiss.
Psychodynamics is the study of the interrelationship of various parts of the mind, personality, or psyche as they relate to mental, emotional, or motivational forces especially at the subconscious level. A focus in psychodynamics is the connection between the emotional states in the id, ego, and superego as they relate to early childhood development and processes. Psychodynamics attempts to explain or interpret behaviour or mental states in terms of innate emotional forces or processes.
Freud claims that we have three distinctive parts to our emotional state, the id, the ego and the superego. According to Freud, we are born with our id. The id is an important part or our personality because as newborns, it allows us to get our basic needs met. Freud believed that the id is based on our pleasure principle. In other words, the id wants what ever feels good at the time. When a child is hungry, the id wants food, and therefore the child cries. When the child is uncomfortable, in pain, too hot, too cold, or just wants attention. The id speaks up until his or her needs are met. The id doesn’t care about reality, about the needs of anyone else, only its own satisfaction.
Within the next three years, as the child interacts more and more with the world, the second part of the personality begins to develop. Freud called this part the ego. The ego is based on the reality principle. The ego understands that other people have need and desires and that sometimes being impulsive or selfish can hurt us in the long run. It’s the egos job to meet the needs of the id.
By the end of five, or the end of the phallic stage of development, the super ego develops. The super ego is part of the psyche that tries to impose moral constraints on the id, represents our conscience, our moral development from the demands of family and society.
Behaviourism only cares about behaviour of the subject and doesn’t care about mental processes (the mind is considered and impenetrable black box) the psychodynamic approach looks at things happening in the mind only (usually unconscious elements therein)
Both believe that current behaviour is determined by past experiences. Here, the psychodynamics approach believes that what happened to you in the past has been “locked away” some where in the abyss of your mind, but influential nether less. Behaviourism believes that you act the way you do from past experiences through conditional learning, e.g. our parents.
Freud’s models of personality has some similarities to social learning as Bandura states that our up bringing causes our behaviours and dictates our personality, which all starts from birth through the different stages of frauds structure, also our role models father figure (the leader), the mother (comforter) these take us through the id stage as babies we have no consideration for our parents wishes but as Bandura states with the role of our parents being important, this can then take us to the next stage of Freuds structure and keeps taking us through each stage so if it wasn’t for us following and respecting our parents attitudes to behaviours we wouldn’t reach the next stage, also this can incorporate the operant conditioning as punishment and rewards also bring s our ego and superego into force.
There is plenty of evidence that rewards and punishment are an important determinant of human behaviour (e.g. Lepper et al 1973, who showed that children respond to rewards). Behaviourist explanations can account for individual differences in terms of selective reinforcement and context dependant learning (people learn behaviours that are appropriate to particular contexts.
Behaviourist explanations are reductionist, with the consequence that they may prevent psychologists investigating other explanations for behaviour. For example, an account of mental illness might be offered in terms of reinforcement instead of studying the families’ emotional relationships. Behaviourist explanations are also determinist and suggest that people are controlled by factors outside their control; they encourage a lack of personal responsibility. Self-determination is important for moral responsibility and also psychological health (as control reduces stress).
The desire for adventure holidays might be explained through social learning/observational learning. In this process, learning occurs when individuals observes and imitate others behaviour. For example, if you some one watches on of their sporting heroes on TV doing stunts on motor bikes you’re more likely to want to do the same. Behaviourists believe that our actions are determined by life experiences rather than unconscious forces, so the desire for adventure holidays is developed through the media, and also through our parent’s influences. For example, as a child you watch your dad everyday on motor bikes your more likely to want to ride motor bikes.
There are four component processes influenced by the observers behaviour during exposure to stunts, these include attention; retention; motor reproduction; and motivation. Attention is the first component of observational learning. Individuals cannot learn much by observation unless they perceive and attend to the significant features of the behaviour. For example, you must attend to what the stunt man/woman is doing and saying in order to reproduce that stunt.
Retention is the next component. In order to reproduce that behaviour, the individual must code the information into long term memory. Therefore, the information will be retrieval. Motor reproduction is another process in observational learning. The observer must be able to reproduce the models behaviour. The observer must learn and process the physical capabilities of the modelled behaviour. An example of motor reproduction would be able to learn how to ride a bike. The final process is motivation or reinforcements. In this process the observer expects to receive positive reinforcements for the modelled behaviour, e.g the stunt man being rewarded. Therefore, you may perform the same act to achieve the rewards, for example, you witness these stunts being rewarded by the media.
