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Unit 11 Psychological Perspectives Task 1
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Unit 11- Psychological PerspectivesTask 1
Introduction
Psychology is the scientific study of how people behave, think and feel. There are 6 psychological
perspectives: the biological perspective, the social learning perspective, the humanistic perspective,
the psychodynamic perspective, the cognitive perspective and the behaviourist perspective. In this
report I am going to evaluate and analyse the role of psychological perspectives through the two
case studies outlined below.
Andy who is thirty-two years old and has recently been involved in a road traffic accident where his
partner died. Andy has been diagnosed as having post-traumatic stress disorder and has begun to
self-harm.
Keira who is 54 has become addicted to painkillers following surgery three years ago. Keira found
the surgery traumatic as it followed the diagnosis of cancer and has altered her appearance.
P1. Explain how psychological perspectives are applied to the understanding of human development
Behaviourist Perspective
It is how environmental factors called the stimuli affect observable behaviour called the response.
There are two theorists that investigated this Pavlov and Skinner. Ivan Pavlov’s theory was called
classical conditioning. Ivan experimented with dogs to investigate their digestive systems. The dogs
were attached to a harness and Ivan Pavlov attached monitors to their stomach and mouths so he
can measure the production of saliva. He studied that a dog began to salivate when his laboratory
assistant when walked in with a bowl of food before it had actually tasted the food. Salivation is a
reflex response until then it had been thought that saliva is produced when the food is touching the
tongue. Pavlov thought that the dog was salivating because it had learned to link the food to the
laboratory assistant. Salivation is not a learned response therefore Pavlov called it an unconditioned
response because food leads automatically to this response here therefore called it unconditional
stimulus. Pavlov then supplied the food alongside a ringing bell (neutral stimulus) to see if the dog
would link it to the food and it did over several trials and then it would start to salivate when the bell
rung and no food was supplied. The dog had learned a conditioned response of salivation to the
conditioned stimulus of the bell. Even though humans are more complex than dogs a lot of their
behaviour is learned through the principles of classical conditioning, an example would be if you
whenever you come home with a football in your hands, you would take your child to the park to
play so whenever your child sees you with a football in your hands they will get excited because he
or she has associated the football in your hands with a trip to the park.
Operant conditioning is when the consequences of a response determine the probability of it being
repeated it is associated with Skinners theories. Skinner worked mostly with pigeons and rats he
uses them to investigate the key principles of learning new behaviours, he did this with a device
called the Skinner box. The Skinner box is a device used to objectively record an animals behaviour in
a reduced time frame. Skinner placed the rat in box and let it run around and sniff the different
items and at one point it will press the lever which will then release the food pellet and this will then
reinforce lever pressing behaviour. The more the rat repeats these actions the more it will realise
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, that pressing the lever is followed by the release of a food pellet. There are two types of
reinforcement which is positive and negative.
Social learning perspective
Social learning theory explains the importance of observance, modelling and imitating behaviours,
attitudes and emotional reactions of others this is known as observational learning, it considers how
both environmental and cognitive factors influence human learning and behaviour. Albert Bandura
who developed this theory agrees with classical and operant conditioning. There are many
influences on our behaviour some of these influences can stem from peers, siblings, parents,
television, social media and celebrities. Social learning theory shows how important role models are.
You can learn new behaviour from anyone however it is more likely that we are influenced to
perform such behaviours by the way we see a person performing these behaviours. If you observe
someone you admire behaving in a certain way you are likely to imitate their behaviour. If, for
example a respected celebrity is shown on your social media wearing a dress that is trendy, you are
likely to be motivated to imitate their behaviour because it'll make you feel as though you would be
admired like the celebrity, however if it someone you don’t respect you are less likely to imitate
them because in this case you would not be motivated by them.
The self-fulfilling prophecy is an important concept in psychology that has an impact on the way you
behave towards others and how you expect them to behave towards you. For example, if you
believe yourself to be polite then that’s how you will be with the people you meet and make a good
impression and they will respond by being polite and behave in a positive way towards us. However,
if you behave negatively then the response will not be polite.
The psychodynamic perspective
The psychodynamic perspective is related to Sigmund Freud he developed this theory and the
treatment known as psychoanalysis. Freud says that we are not always aware of all the aspects of
ourselves, he says that what we are aware of is our conscious mind but things like memories,
feelings and past experiences are a part of our unconscious mind. Freud believed that your
conscious part of your mind is a small part of the mind that is available to awareness. The part of the
unconscious mind that we can access easily is called preconscious, this contains information that is
not yet in our consciousness but can easily be retrieved.
The importance of early experiences which determined later behaviours is clearly shown in Freuds
developmental theory of psychosexual stages. He believes we all go through stages of psychosexual
development. On each stage the individual's energy is focused on a part of the body that is relevant
at that stage. If the need of a child is met at that stage it moves onto the next developmental stage
however if the child finds that there is struggle it becomes stuck at this stage, which will then result
in certain personality traits which could then be later carried into their adulthood.
Ego defence mechanisms are important when it comes to early experiences. The use of them allows
you to block out anything that threatens to overwhelm you from your consciousness. The things that
you then push into your unconscious mind may turn out to be unusual behaviour, caused by the ego
defence mechanisms.
Defense Mechanisms Explanation Example
Repression When an individual pushes an You have been bitten by a
event into their unconscious spider when you were younger
mind and so therefore it and then later in life you
develop an intense phobia of
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