Summary

Summary Essay on the 7 Approaches to Psychology

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Course
Psychology

Institution
12th Grade

Essay summarizing the 7 main approaches to psychology which are behavioural, biological, cognitive, evolutionary, humanistic, psychodynamic, and sociocultural

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Uploaded on May 6, 2024
Number of pages 4
Written in 2021/2022
Type Summary

psychology
approaches
essay
behavioural
biological
cognitive
evolutionary
humanistic
psychodynamic
sociocultural
cbt

Institution Secondary school
Education 12th Grade
Course Psychology
School year 1

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There are seven main approaches in modern psychology. They are the behavioural,
biological, cognitive, evolutionary, humanistic, psychodynamic, and sociocultural approaches.
Each of these approaches has played an important role in the development of psychology as we
know it today and they all provide different insights as to why people act the way they do. As
with every area of study, these approaches have evolved throughout the years thanks to the work
of many different psychologists. This essay is about the creation and evolution of the behavioural
approach, the psychodynamic approach, and the cognitive approach.
The behavioural approach to psychology believes that human behaviour is a conditioned
response or a reflex. The behavioural approach is only focused on what can be observed.
Behaviourism has its beginnings with the psychologist Ivan Pavlov who conditioned dogs to
salivate at the sound of a metronome. This became known as classical conditioning (or Pavlovian
Conditioning) and it is the basis of behaviourism. Although Pavlov was the one to lay the
foundations of behaviourism, John B. Watson was the one to popularize it. He was the one who
established it as a proper approach to psychology. He is also responsible for one of the most
controversial experiments in behaviourism, the Little Albert Experiment, in which he
conditioned a baby to be afraid of a mouse. A final important figure in behaviourism is B.F.
Skinner. He drove the study forward with his research on operant conditioning and his use of
both positive and negative reinforcement. From this came the Skinner box which is still used in
psychology to this day. B.F. Skinner’s work also created radical behaviourism. Radical
behaviourism is very similar to methodical behaviourism with one important distinction, radical
behaviourism believes that there is no free will and that every behaviour is a conditioned or
ingrained response.
From there behaviourism has evolved thanks to the work of many psychologists
throughout the years. Behaviourism, along with psychoanalysis, was the most popular approach
to psychology in the early 1900s. Because of the fact that behaviourism focuses on what is
observable, it played a big part in psychology being viewed of as more of a science. However,
behaviourism is still criticized because it assumes all behaviours are genetic or learned, leaving
out many possibilities and reducing psychological problems as a whole. Despite these criticisms,
behaviourism is still widely used today.
Another approach to psychology is the psychodynamic approach. The psychodynamic
approach believes that behaviours come from unconscious drives and childhood experiences.
The creator of psychoanalysis is Sigmund Freud. He believed that if resistances to sharing were
broken down it could reveal hidden conflicts. He then did more work with this and showcased
psychoanalysis in his book The Interpretation of Dreams. There is only one other important
figure in the psychodynamic approach and that is Erik Erikson. Although he focused on
developmental psychology rather than psychoanalysis, his work still claimed that what happens
in childhood greatly affects how a person acts as an adult. He then created his eight stages of
development and theorized how each stage would affect a person and their decisions.
The psychodynamic approach has greatly evolved since Freud’s time however it still
works off the same basic principles that childhood experiences and unconscious drives are what

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