PsychologySchools of Thought

Psychological Schools of Thought

Like the other social sciences, psychology has been divided into a number of schools

of thought:

Psychoanalytic Behaviourism Humanistic Cognitive

Psychoanlytic

• Psychoanalytic: The role of unconscious motivation (usually aggressive and sexual in nature) and early childhood experiences in determining behaviour and thought. (Sigmund Freud)• Theorists:• Sigmund Freud• Karen Horney• Carl Jung

Behaviourism Behavioural: The role of the

environment in shaping and controlling behaviour. We learn through observation and consequences. (John Watson, B.F. Skinner and Ivan Pavlov)

Behavioural psychology is based on the belief that psychologists need empirical evidence, obtained through experimentation, to understand and change human behaviour.

Behaviourism

Behavioural psychologists emphasize the importance of observable behaviours and phenomena, as well as using scientifically proven intervention procedures.

It can be applied to a individuals with a wide variety of mental disorders, as well as to groups as those in a workplace.

Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

• Ivan Pavlov started his career• studying the digestive system. • His research with dogs showed that they would

drool as soon as he put food in their mouths. He noticed that they would start to drool at other times, for example when they saw a white lab coat, which he and his colleagues wore whenever they fed the dogs. This led him to devise an experiment to see if other things could make a dog drool.

Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

• He already knew that he would get an unconditioned response (drooling) when he presented the unconditioned stimulus (food) to a dog.• To test his theory he used a bell and started to

ring it at the same time the dog received food. After a while the dog began to associate the sound of the bell with receiving food, a conditioned stimulus, since it produced the conditioned response. This type of learned response is known as classical conditioning.

Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

B.F. Skinner (1904-1990)

Skinner used rats and pigeons and studied how the used of rewards and punishment can influence behaviour.

His theory became known as operant conditioning.

He designed a chamber with a bar or pedal on one wall that, when pressed, caused the release of a food pellet into the cage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm5FGrQEyBY

B.F. Skinner The rat was rewarded with food each time it

presses the bar. Within a short time the rat furiously peddled away at the bar, hoarding its pile of pellets in the corner of the cage

If the rat didn’t get any more pellets, it would stop pressing the bar. This is called extinction.

Application:

• Think about your favourite school sujbect.• How is behavioural psychology used in

your subject area?• Example: Math – correct results get

positive feedback.

Application

• History – learning about subject matter that interest you• Art – freedom to work with materials the

student appreciated and is rewarded with interest in their work•Music – working with material or

instruments they feel comfortable with

HumanisticHumanistic: The importance of the individual's subjective experience as a key

to understanding behaviour (humans have a need for freedom and personal growth). i.e. Abraham Maslow, Viktor Frankl, and Carl Rogers

It developed out of patient relationship idea of therapy. Humanist psychologists believe that the client should be very involved in his or her own recovery.

It rejects quantitative methodology like experiments and prefers qualitative research methods. Ex. Diary accounts, open-ended questionnaires, and unstructured interviews and observations.

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)• He was interested in studying people that were well as

opposed to those who are sick.• He studied what he called “self-actualizing” people and their

“peak experiences” as he wanted to understand how they achieved the status of having reached their full potential.

• He is best know for his Hierarchy of Needs to describe his theory of motivation. His theory is based on observing clients rather than on experimentation. The Hierarchy of Needs explains that basic needs must be fulfilled before higher-order needs become important.

Hierarchy of Needs

Criticism of Maslow:

• It is not supported by scientific, experimental research• There could be other factors that affect

motivation, such as values and conditioning.• It is assumed that you have to move step by step• His concept of self-actualized individuals

included only highly educated white males.

Viktor Frankl (1905-1997)

• His therapy and theory grew out of his experiences in Auschwitz – a Nazi concentration camp that was set up during World War II.• Frankl observed the behaviours of his fellow

prisoners and saw that those who survived often did so because they had something to hold on to.• Some had loved ones that they hoped to reunite

with, while others wanted to return to their lives to complete a project. For some, great faith increased their chances of survival.

Viktor Frankl

• He used this knowledge of the power of having meaning in one’s life as the basis for a new form of therapy.• He called his form of therapy logotherapy, from

the Greek work logos, which can mean study, word, spirit, God, or meaning.• He believed everyone has an inborn inclination

to seek the meaning of his or her existences.• Logotherapy suggests that humans are

motivated by a need for meaning

Carl Rogers (1902-1987)

• Developed client-centred therapy. This approach focuses on the potential of each person to realize his or her own growth in self-awareness and self-fulfillment.• It focuses on the present and the future, rather

than the past, and gives more value to conscious, rather than unconscious thoughts as does psychoanalytic therapists.

Client-Centred Model

• In this therapy clients can express any feelings or thoughts without fear of judgment. As clients explore their attitudes and emotions on an issue, they will discover the underlying motivations for those attitudes. The client therefore gains greater insight and gains self-acceptance. Because of its effectiveness, this approach has become the basis of modern psychotherapy.

Cognitive Psychology

The word cognitive refers to the mental processes in the brain.

Cognitive psychology is the study and application of how the brain learns. Cognitive psychologists believe in and consider mental states, such as beliefs, motivations, and desires. It is often coupled with behavioural psychology to create methods of treating people with some mental illnessess and neurotic disorders.

• Theorists – Albert Bandura and Elizabeth Loftus

Albert Bandura (1925 - )

• Bandura wondered why the same situation could generate different responses from different people or even the same person.• His research led him to come up with social-

cognitive theory, a perspective on personality that takes a person’s motivation, environment, and behaviour into account.• His theory can be used to predict and change

individual and group behaviour.

Albert Bandura

• He believed people learn behaviour by watching and then imitating others. To explore his theory, he created the Bobo Doll experiment.• First, children watched a video in which an adult

acted aggressively toward a rubber Bobo doll by hitting, punching, kicking, and even striking it with a mallet.

Bobo Doll Experiment

• He then allowed the children, one at a time, to interact with the doll.• Other aggressive and nonaggressive toys were also

provided in the room. He discovered that instead of their aggression being let out by watching the adult, the children behaved just as aggressively.• The children also had an increased interest in using toy

guns to hit Bobo, despite the guns not being used by the adult in the video.

Elizabeth Loftus (1944 - )

• Loftus has been studying false memories and the flexibility and reliability of repressed memories.• She believes that repressed memories rarely

exist and can be created through the power of suggestion. This theory has been controversial, especially with victims of sexual assault who recall their repressed memories after many years.

Elizabeth Loftus

• Some research suggest there is some truth behind false memories.• Canadian doctor Laura Melnyk’s found children’s reports

of a behaviour can be influenced by the statements of others.• To test her theory, Loftus created an experiment where

participants read several stories of real events that had occurred during their childhood, as well as one fictional story where they were lost in the mall at the age of five.• Results showed that 29% remembered at least part of

the false event in a follow up interview.

Lost in the Mall Study

• The lost-in-the-mall study is about how to implant false memories.• It proves that people can be led to remember their

past in various ways, and even “remember” a past that didn’t happen to them.• Understanding how false memories are implanted

can help psychologists understand how a person can be led to remember something that never occurred.• Loftus’ work has therefore had an impact in the

fields of cognitive psychology as well as law in terms of the reliability of eyewitness accounts.