Human nature from the perspective of the three major psychological school of thought.

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University Degree Medicine and Dentistry

Human nature from the perspective of the three major psychology school of thoughts

The importance of the study of the human nature (the essence of the human) was at all times recognized by psychologists of every school of thoughts (Vesa Talvitie, 2019) and an unknowable research object like the human nature inevitably opened a space of discussions allowing the integration of different psychological perspectives. Thus, this essay will discuss the Human nature from the perspective of the psychoanalysis approach, then the behaviorism approach, and lastly humanistic approach, going chronologically, as well as comparing their perspectives on the human nature, or how and why humans behave the way they do.

The Psychoanalysis view on human nature can be described as historical in nature (Zilbersheid, 2013), a good example would be a history book containing both the history of humanity as a race and the individual life story, viewing the modern human as a cave man in his essence, govern by sexual instincts and fear of death instincts, and these instincts are presented to reality as defense mechanisms, dreams, and motivations (Żechowski, 2017) (Bateman et al., 2020). However, this is only one part of Frued’s psychoanalytical theory, this cave man part of his theory is called the Id, it is the unconscious biological part of the self, Another part is the Ego, the rational and mostly conscious part of the self, lastly there is the Superego which works as a moral compass to the individual, these three components of the self are what, in accordance with the psychoanalysis theory, represents the human (Lantz et al., 2022). It can also be described as historical in regard to the individual memories, according to Frued, the unconscious mind is shaped mainly by past experiences, especially early childhood memories, and the relationship between the individual and their caretaker (Stangor et al., 2019) this theory had a strong impact on the attachment theory, a theory dealing with the dynamics and development of affectionate bonds between human beings (Cherniak et al., 2020), concluding Frued’s theory: the unconscious mind that is born from instincts and shaped by memories highly influences the human behaviors (Löffler-Stastka & Steinmair, 2021).

The Behavioristic approach lead by John Watson in 1913 (Coleman & Ganong, 2014), who believed that psychology as any other scientific disciplines should have measurable facts only, leaving its mark on the history of the psychology field and stating it a fact that psychologists should study the human behavior not the conscious (Wertheimer & Puente, 2020), and as in physics psychology too should study bodies in motion, making their view on the human nature mechanic and physical, and so basic emotions were identified by the responses they bring, such as fear being identified by the response of screaming (Lawson et al., 2018), and any concept or explanation in psychology according to the behaviorism should be based on the observation of the stimuli and the behavior(Moore, 2013), their experiments had shown the great influence the environment has in stimulating the individual behavior (Spielman et al., 2020), this impact can be seen clearly in urban designs, one good example is the building circulation system, a system of design that connects the most used spaces such as the stairs, corridors, elevators, and lobbies and it can impact the physical activities within the buildings (Pinter-Wollman et al., 2018), which meant that the Behaviorism was not only studying how people behave but also how to control their behavior (Spielman et al., 2020), mainly through punishment and reward as a good outcome will make the subject repeat the act (the behaviour) and a bad outcome (from the subject perspective) will make the subject stop the act (Kay & Kibble, 2016).

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In opposition to the the Psychoanalysis approach and the behaviorism that were dominating the psychology field (Votaw, 2020), a “third force” came in action, a movement named the humanistic approach began in the early 1960s (Lawson et al., 2018), moving against the psychoanalysis and behaviorism believe that a lot of human behavior is determined by past experiences or the environment surrounding them, the humanisms focus is on the conscious experience, on the human self, the innate good of all human beings, and the existence of free will (Votaw, 2020), the humanism had contributed in many practices today, such as the client centered therapy, the client centered therapy is a holistic approach designed to improve the quality of the provided therapy services, focusing not only on the client but also the people and the environment surrounding the client (Kim & Park, 2017), this type of therapy had maximized the results wanted from patient in two major ways, firstly, having the client being involved in their own care, in contrast to them submitting to the health provider, and having the client’s family and care givers participating in caring for the client, which results in maximum satisfaction from the client, and better social and coping skills, which in turn reduces the chance of recharges (Sanerma et al., 2020), this type of method had resulted in other types of care emerging in the health field such as the family centered communication programs around the globe, such programs focuses on the impact the family members has on the patient health, and therefor improving the communication between the health care team and the patient’s family (Khan et al., 2018), Another fundamental part of the humanistic approach is the, it is a system suggested by Abraham Maslow, showing the correlation between the human needs and motivations (Dohlman et al., 2019), this theory of motivation is usually visualized as a pyramid, where the most basic needs are at the bottom of this pyramid and the higher human needs (the less basic) are at the top of the pyramid, and normal human being will try to satisfy the needs at the bottom of the pyramid first, and if those needs are not met, the human will show an increased motivation to get them (Shoib et al., 2022).

Maslow Hierarchy of Needs (from the most basic to the least basic)

Physiological needs: water, food, shelter.
Safety needs: physical, psychological, and financial safety.
Social belonging: family, friends, and social groups.
Esteem: respecting the self and respecting others.

Self actualization: [Grab your reader’s attention with a great quote from the document or use this space to emphasize a key point. To place this text box anywhere on the page, just drag it.]

making use of the individual capacities. (Dohlman et al., 2019)

Lastly there is the humanism impact on the positive psychology movement, a movement started by Martin Seligman in 2000, focusing its studies on the topic of happiness, and well-being (Seligman, 2019).

Conclusion: direct comparison and contraction between the three approaches, firstly, all of the three schools of thoughts believe in the power the nurturing environment has on shaping the human behavior (Biswas-Diener & Diener, 2019), Both the psychoanalytic approach and the humanistic approach have a focus on the self, the individual beliefs, and the concept of self esteem (Widiastiti et al., 2019) (University of Minnesota, 2015), Both the psychoanalytic approach and the humanistic are highly subjective, while in comparison the Behavioristic approach is very objective (Wertheimer & Puente, 2020), the psychoanalytic approach focuses mostly on the individual aspects but also considers the majority laws, while the behaviorism is the opposite, focusing mostly on the majority laws yet also on some individual aspects, the humanistic approach however is in a balance between majority laws and the individual aspects, in contrast to the psychoanalysis and the behaviorism the humanistic approach embraces the concept of free will, and the human having control over their behaviors, although subjective, the psychoanalytic approach can be experimented with, as well as the behaviorism being very objective and observable, yet in comparison the concepts of humanism can rarely be experimented with (mostly for ethical reasons), leaving some questions about the credibility of some of its concepts, another area of similarity between the psychoanalytic approach and the humanistic approach is the introduction of the safety as a core need of a mentally healthy human being, and the danger that both the absence or the excess of safety have on the development of the self, although doing the behaviorism justice, the impact of fear is strongly presented and studied in the behaviorism theory, another major similarity between the three is the recognition of the past experiences influence on the mind, the psychoanalysis being very focused on this point making the whole theory about it, while the behaviorism represented it in the theory of the constructive mind recognizing that people use past experiences to identify with new ones, the humanistic however had put less focus on this area yet still recognized it as a basic human behavior (Kearns & Lee, 2015), all in all while each approach viewed the essence of human in a perspective unique to their own, one must remember that the topic of human nature is a very subjective one, so it is unlikely that a debate such as this one will have an and.

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Human nature from the perspective of the three major psychological school of thought.

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