Humanists believe that we as in humans self-actualise in stages. We see and realise who we are due to what is important to us and makes us ‘complete’. Through this we would strive to get the same again and repeat those actions. An example of this would be when a teenager goes out on a date for the first time, if he/she enjoyed the date then it is likely for that person to ask to go out again or move their relationship a stage further. One of the differences between behaviourism and humanism is that behaviourists use animals as well as humans in the procedure of an experiment as they believe that animals learn in a similar fashion to that of humans. Humanists look towards the actions of humans and their environment to see how they learn. This approach is clarified through the Hierarchy of needs triangle; this shows the different levels of human needs placed in a triangle. At the bottom of the triangle is the most basic of needs; food sex and ‘basic survival needs’. Next up would be the ‘life enhancing needs’ followed by ‘emotional needs’ and at the top of he triangle would be the concept of self-actualisation. It is believed that people go through their lives working their way up the ‘hierarchy of needs’, as their environment influences them, which surrounds them in their every day life. Supposedly once a person reaches the top of the triangle the will be self-contempt. Although this makes sense, it is still a theory, and behaviourists, feel that its not a good enough hypothesis, as it cannot be proved through ‘general science’ methods.
Ivan Pavlov discovered a learning process called ‘classical condition’ at the beginning of the 20th century. This process is when a stimulus which brings about no response in a human or animal, until it is associated with another. Pavlov carried out an experiment on a dog to prove this theory. A contraption was made through which he could measure the amount of saliva this dog produced. A bell was rung and there was no significant change in the amount of saliva that was produced. Pavlov slowly began to stimulate the dog with dog food for it to smell, each ringing the bell. Pavlov began to notice that if he rang the bell yet showed no food, the dog would begin to produce siliva in anticipation of it.
John Watson realised the potential of this idea, and started the behaviourist movement in 1913, when he wrote an article called, ‘Psychology as the behaviourist views it’. This was followed by behaviourists; John Watson, Edward Thorndike and Beirs Frederick Skinner, carried on with Pavlov’s theory of ‘classical conditioning’ forming their own theories on all aspects of human learning.
The Humanism movement developed in the America in the early 1960’s, where it was believed that it would replace the two other main approaches in psychology at the time; behaviourism and psychoanalysis. Humanists believed that behaviourism was incapable of studying humans learning habits as it was artificial, because it studied animals, which were different to humanistic. As psychoanalysis was not provable in many arts it could not fully explain psychology. Humanists aimed to investigate, all aspects of the experiences that human beings go through, in order to truly understand. Both aspects of psychology are very different and believe in ideas, which control each other, such as behaviourists, using animals to study human behaviour and humanists using humans to study human behaviour in ethical conditions.
Behaviourists believed that all behaviour is learned after birth, from the environment that surrounds the person, hence, the rules and reactions of learning should be studied. In contrast to this Humanists believe that psychology should also study the experiences the person goes through, which would clarify, why a person would behave the way they do along with having free will. In contrast to this, Behaviourists believe that people do not have free will but just think they do. This approach links into the theory that people are actually carrying out actions that were influenced by past experiences. According to behaviourists only observable behaviour should be studied and not peoples thoughts or minds, as they could be inaccurate. Humanists on the other hand, believe that even though they cannot be seen or measured, they are still important to the way people behave, therefore should be measured.
Another belief is that humanists should use the ‘idiographic method’, the study of individuals contrasted to their environment. An example of this would be Carl Rogers, who was an important humanist, whom developed the idea of humanist theory. This would be a non-directive, where as a directive would be where the councillor tells the patient what to do and how to solve their problems; Humanist theory helps to listen to the patient’s full problem which helps to ‘open them up’ and understand their problems. Once this is done the next step in the hierarchy of needs to self-actualisation, through the councillor not judging the patients in any sort of form.
Both approaches have very different opinions when it comes to research and the methods that they are to investigate their theories. Behaviourists adopted a homothetic approach, using only lab experimentation. Animals were mostly tested on, because they believed that animals were practically easier and ethically more convenient to test. As the ‘laws of learning were universal’ and there is only a small difference between animals and humans. Humanists would use the phenomenological approach where, people would be interviewed, and the q-suit technique, where people would be given one hundred cards with statements on them, and they would chose which cards would suit them best. Both approaches disagree with each other when it comes to their methods of investigation. As humanists disagree with animals being compared to humans, and behaviourists disagree with people choosing statements and reasons for their own behaviour, as they could lie or be mistaken.
Both behaviourist and humanist approaches have their strong points and weak points. Behaviourists have done a lot for psychology in the mainstream by, creating experimental methodologies, which have been very effective to the topic over all. Strengths of humanism are that, it helped people to realise, that it is important to study the human mind and the experiences that people go through. It helped, to stop other approaches becoming too extreme in ideas that were incorrect, and by emphasising that it is important for people to realise who they are, through, self-actualisation’. However ethnologists believe that the use of animals in their experiments only achieved ‘artificial learning’. Cognitive psychologists believe that behaviourism, ignores important mental process in learning, hence their results could not achieve accuracy or correct, and humanists disliked their rejection of the experiences humans went through. Whereas, the weak points to humanism are merely based on the way, humanists base their approach. The reasons being they choose to take a less scientific approach, hence they do not have a large impact on the mainstream of psychology.
Although these two approaches in psychology have a great effect on the subject, they have weak points but together the five main approaches help us complete an idea of how to perceive people in general. Through comparing both scientific and non-scientific you can use the strengths of both views in order to complete and overall perception of psychology.
