Psychological Perspectives

In this assignment I will be explaining the principal psychological perspectives. I will explain the different psychological approaches to health and social practice and assessing the different psychological approaches to study. Psychology is the focus on different subjects such as the human development, social behaviour and cognitive processes. There are different approaches that have been developed in order to explain the psychology. These perspective or approaches include the behaviourist, social learning, psychodynamic, humanistic, and cognitive and the biological perspectives.
These perspectives focus on trying to explain human development by focusing on how people learn and develop. Also the perspectives explain how an individual’s behaviour can be influenced by ones childhood (notes). The behaviourist approach focuses on how people are influenced by the environment and the behaviour of an individual is learnt from the environment. As psychology is a scientific study, behaviorist, as a psychological perspective it obtains its evidence. The behaviorist approach uses scientific studies as they can be objectively measured.
This perspective does not believe in what people say but believes in how the environment determines behavior. The behaviorist perspective as a scientific study it observe behavior relating to the basis that behavior can be reduced to learned stimulus-response units. The behaviourist approach includes two theories of learning. These theories of learning include the classical and operant conditioning. These theories explain how people learn from the environment (www. simplypsychology. org). The classical condition is was a theory which was developed by a Russian physiologist by the name of Ivan Pavlov.

The classical conditioning theory is a learning process that occurs when there is a link/association between an environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus. As classical conditioning involves a stimulus and a natural occurring stimulus. He used the dog experiment in order to back up his theory. Pavlov used the digestive research of the dog in order to back up his theory. The observation of the experiment suggested that salivation was a learned response. Dogs normally salivate when the see food, however Pavlov was intrigued and interested to see why dogs started to salivate when they see people who normally feed them.
For him to reach to a conclusion he set up the dog experiment. In order to show that salivation was a learned response his experiment is as explained. (www. niu. edu) When it was time for the Pavlov assistant to feed the dogs, they would ring a bell. The amount of the saliva was measure. The assistant did this a couple of times to make sure that the dog was used to the routine. After the trials, Pavlov then rang the bell without showing the food and the result was that the dog had salivated the same way when it saw the food. The classical conditioning procedure Food was considered as the stimulus or in other words the unconditioned stimulus. This stimulus caused the response to happen naturally. * The dog salivated when it saw the food. When this happened it was considered as an unconditioned response. This response happened naturally. * When the bell was rung the dog would salivate. This happened because that the production of saliva was there because the bell was associated with the presenting of food. This is a conditioned stimulus * The salivation is a conditioned response because the dog is reacting to the thought that the bell is associated with food. www. niu. edu) Then operant conditioning is a theory that was developed by an American psychologist called Burrhus Fredic Skinner. His experiment was based on his experiment on rats and pigeons. He developed a well-known device caused the Skinners Box. The operant conditioning looks at ones actions and its consequences. The operant conditioning was based on two types of reinforcement, the positive and negative reinforcement. His experiment showed positive and negative reinforcement through his experiment. He did this by putting a rat in his famous box (www. sychology. uiowa. edu). The rat that he placed in the box was meant to be hungry. The rat would sniff around in order to familiarise itself with the environment while doing this the rat will, accidentally press the lever and a food pellet will be released. When the rat had done this frequently it would learn that when the lever is pressed food would be releases. The food pellet was a positive reinforcement (www. psychology. uiowa. edu). In order to show the negative reinforcement side of the experiment, Skinner placed an electric current on the floor of the box.
A rat is placed in a cage and immediately receives a mild electrical shock on its feet. The shock is a negative condition for the rat. The rat presses a bar and the shock stops. The rat receives another shock, presses the bar again, and again the shock stops. The shock was a negative reinforcement (www. psychology. uiowa. edu). (P2) Classical conditioning can be used in health practice. For example, a patient receives a, a certain injection frequently maybe for example 3 times a week. The injections are administered in a very small room every session. The drug causes increased heart rate.
However, after certain trips to the hospital, being in a small room make cause the persons heart rate. Referring to the classical conditioning this is how the theory works: * The drug is the unconditioned stimulus. * The accelerated heart rate is the unconditioned response. * The small room is the conditioned stimulus. * The accelerated heart rate to the room is the condition response. (P3) Operant conditioning can be used in social practice. At a nursery operant condition can be used when dealing with children’s behaviour. When a child hits another child they are given time out which is negative reinforcement.
When a child plays nicely with other and tidies up after play time they will receive a golden star. This is positive reinforcement. (M1) The behaviourist has been successful due to the methods it has used to explain people’s behaviour. The scientific experiments that have been used to study people’s behaviour tend to be very reliable due to the evidence that they end up with being based on facts. However, this approach is it does not considered mental processes that can affect an individual’s behaviour. This perspective only focuses on how people learn form their own experience.
People like Bandura who introduce social learning approach disagree with this perspective as he believes that people can learn from observing and learning other people’s behaviour and experiences. Furthermore, studies of a wide range of human behaviours have shown that classical and operant conditioning cannot adequately explain how people are able to solve problems without the extended period of trial and error that behaviourism would say is necessary. These findings imply that mental processes must play a part in explaining much human behaviour www. psychlotron. org. uk). The approach has been successful in explaining learning as it has provided a practical experiment which has shown results that are valid. This perspective has seemed to be working when dealing with people’s behaviour. For example, the operant conditioning is very effective as children are aware that when they do something good they are given a reward. This perspective can be improved by making sure it includes different factors that can influence individual’s behaviours such as genes and family influences.
This is so because through for example genes a person can develop a genetic condition that can affect the person’s behaviour. People may not behave in the same ways as the behaviourist approach. This is so because it is not guaranteed that a child can change behaviour from being placed on timeouts when they have done something wrong. However, other people believe that people may behave the same way because there is the same influence of a combination of instinct and learning. The social learning approach explains how people learn from observing other people behaviour. This approach was developed by Albert Bandura an American psychologist. Most human behaviour is learned observationally through modelling: from observing others, one forms an idea of how new behaviours are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action. ” (Bandura). In order for people to learn from modelling, there are certain effects that should be present in order for an individual to learn from others. These effects include * Availability-in order for observation to take place a learnt behaviour should be available. * Attention – the individual who is observing should be able to notice the behaviour.
The level of paying attention can be influenced by the characteristic of the role model. For example, if it is a celebrity that a person admires, chances are they are going to pay more attention to the behaviour. * Retention- the individual must be able to remember the behaviour that he/she was paying attention to. * Reproduction- is when the parson is bale to repeat the same behaviour that has been learnt (latent learning). * Motivation- the behaviour that has been learnt, the individual is now able to repeat it. The repeating can occur due to seeing and recalling the reinforced model. Moodle notes) The social learning theory explains the self-fulfilling prophecy and the social role. The self-fulfilling prophecy is a two way interaction that explains how we behave and how others see us and behave towards. For example, when a person who does not believe in him/herself that they can achieve a certain goal, if they are motivated they are able to fulfil the prophecy by working hard. The role theory is almost the same as the self-fulfilling prophecy. The role theory suggests that since we live within a certain culture or social group we are influenced by the society.
When this happens it leads to an individual accepting that they are certain roles that they are expected to live to due to what society says. For example, the mother is expected to look after the children and feeding them. The role of the mother can change when they are in a different environment for example when going for an outing with friends the mother takes up the role of being a friend (Stretch et al, 2010). (P2) In health practice social learning can be used to change the health of an alcoholic or a drug addict. Positive and negative reinforcement can be used when explaining the behaviour of people who are alcoholic and drug addicts.
Positive reinforcement is that when the people take drugs or alcohol they have a certain pleasure or euphoria they receive from that. The negative reinforcement that addiction can lead to unpleasant feelings such as depression or anxiety and also the can cause the developing of health related illnesses. Social learning will then relate to this situation. For example, public health authorities can use a role model to advertise a programme such as rehabilitation. By seeing the role model the individual will enrol for the programme in order to change their lifestyle (P3) The social learning approach can be used to promote health behaviours.
By the media introducing health related storylines in famous TV programmes such as East Enders. The role model in that programme is able to influence people to change their behaviour. It easy for role models to send a health related message to the people than an ordinary person. For example a celebrity like Davina McCall was able to influence people to take up exercising by making sure she produced a DVD on how to exercise so that people are able to learn the behaviour of taking up exercising (www. dailymail. co. uk). (M1) The social learning is that it has demonstrated the strong effect of social influences on people’s behaviour.
This approach has strongly explained how people are influenced by role models. People do learn from role model as they motivate individuals in achieving a goal. For example, without the help of celebrities such as Jamie Oliver who is the founder of Jamie Oliver Foundation, people who have not made an effort in changing their eating habits in order to improve their health. This show the effectiveness of this theory as social learning is influential to the people in the society. The social learning approach uses different approach as well in order to study the mind.
For example, the social learning approach agrees to what the behaviourist approach says as children learn their behaviours by imitating their parents. In this case the parents will be the role model of the children. The social learning approach can be improve by stressing the point or explaining how children’s cognitive development can be affected as the child may observe the wrong information. This approach may not relate to everyone in the society as they are people who do not learn from observing others. For example, there are people called theorist who think logically. They like to learn things based on facts/theories.
They like to know facts behind things. This approach would not apply these people. The psychodynamic approach was developed by an Austrian psychologist by the name Sigmund Freud. The psychodynamic approach suggests that experiences in our earliest years can affect our emotions, attitudes and behaviour in later years without us being aware that it is happening which is our unconscious. We can never have access to the information that is located in the unconscious part of the mind. Freud believed that the information that we are not aware of can sometimes ‘leak out’ as dreams or the slip of the tongue.
When things that were are aware of it is explained as the conscious mind. When Freud came to explain the conscious and the unconscious part of the mind he gave reference to an ice berg. He described the tip of an iceberg as the couscous mind as it is the small part being available to awareness. The middle part of the ice berg he described it as the pre-conscious minds where we can assess some of the memories. The bottom of the ice berg was the unconscious part of the mind where thought are kept and we do not have access to the information or memories. Freud suggested the psyche has three parts to it, the ID, Superego and the Ego.
The Inner Desire is the part of the mind that is unconscious. The Superego is the formed due to socialisation as this part of the mind that represents a view of our ideal self. The Ego tries to balance the demands that can arise from both id and superego as the superego can be hash. Freud the argued how childhood experience plays a crucial part in adult development, including the development of adult personality. He believed that the behaviour is caused by the mind and portrait through the use of the ego-defence mechanism. This mechanism protects people from getting harmed by something that are stored in the unconscious mind.
The defence mechanisms are divided into seven. * Repression-pushing painful memories deep down into our unconscious mind, so they are effectively forgotten. * Rationalisation- is making decisions based on reasons that have facts to it. * Compensation-when a person covers up their flaws by keeping a positive mind. * Transference-is when an individual transfers their emotions to another person. For example, when a person is angry the might shout at the other person. * Denial- is used when a person denies the fact that something wrong is going on with them so that they are not hurt much. Projection-is used when a person attaches their own thoughts, feeling and motives to another person. * Suppression- is used when a person hide their feelings in order for people not to know what is going to them. (Moodle notes) Freud also developed a theory on personality development. This theory was known as the psycho-sexual theory. This theory explained the different personality development based on the different part of the body and age. He believed in order to reach the next step you were supposed to meet the all the needs before that. Freud believed that personality development in hildhood would influence the personality in adulthood. The table below shows the different developmental stage and the outcomes . Oral stage-He believed that the outcome was either going to be positive or negative for example, if the infant was weaned too early, it would forever feel under-gratified or this would lead to the person becoming a pessimistic or sarcastic person. If the child was weaned too late, it would be over-gratified . Due to this a person would develop a gullible personality, naively trusting in others and with the tendency to believe anything (notes).
Anal stage- this stage the libido is focused on of toilet training. When a child feels that they are being forced to potty train before they are ready they can retain their faeces in other terms it is defined as anal retention. When this happens to the child they may develop personality characteristic when they are older which includes obstinacy or greediness (Stretch et al, 2010). Phallic stage- the fixation stage is being associated with anxiety and guilty feeling about sex and fear of castration for males. At this stage there is an unresolved situation that a girl may become a lesbian.
This can lead to personality characteristics such as castration anxiety (Stretch et al, 2010). Latency-at this stage the child develops a relationship with siblings, relatives and adults and solidifies the habits of earlier development stages. The personality characteristic that a person can develop is being Asexual (Moodle notes). Genital puberty- at this stage Freud’s believes that a person fixated on developing a strong heterosexual relationship. During this stage a person who is involved in a relationship is able to show love towards the partner. In order for this stage to happen other stages should have happened (Stretch et al, 2010).
Erick Erickson was a psychologist who agreed with most of Freud’s theories. He believed that we develop through a series of conflicts. By this he meant that the stages the conflicts were basically a part of social nature. Erick disagreed with Freud as he believed that Freud only paid great attention on people’s desire for satisfaction and not really focusing on that people have needs that we want to be accepted by society so that we can live a meaningful life. He believed that people go through certain psycho-social life crises and these are trust vs. basic mistrust, autonomy vs. shame and doubt initiative vs. uilt, industry vs. inferiority, identity vs. role confusion, intimacy vs. isolation, generativity vs. stagnation and ego integrity vs. despair. For example, to the trust versus mistrust stage of Erick Erikson theory of psychosocial development this stage occurs between birth and approximately 18 months of age. According to Erikson, the trust versus mistrust stage is the most important period in a person’s life. This is so because how a baby is entirely dependent upon his or her caregivers, the quality of care that the child receives plays an important role in the shaping of the child’s personality.
During this stage, children learn whether or not they can trust the people around them. If these needs are met the child is then able to go to the career for emotional support. If the child does not feel dependent on the parent and does not trust them it can lead to fear and suspicion in the later age (Stretch et al, 2010). (P2) The psycho-dynamic approach can be applied to understand why an adolescent in a child home who is continuously rebelling against all the rules and appears to be developing signs of delinquent behaviour. This can be explained by looking at Freud approach.
The reason why the adolescent acts that way is because there is no balance between the ID and the superego in the mind causing the memories of his bad childhood to take over. (P3) The approach can also be used to explain how an individual who has been given a diagnosis of cancer but is refusing to accept that they have the disease. I think that the person does not want to accept as he is living in denial. When there is denial a person is able to trap certain though or emotions in order to hurt themselves emotionally. (M1) The psychodynamic approach explains how a child learning can be influenced by their childhood experience.
If the child did not feel like he/she can trust a person it would to them withdraw from society and end up hating the parents. This shows that childhood is a critical period in one’s life. For the child to hate the parents the memories in the pre-conscious part of the mind would have been revealed and people will remember the bad childhood memories. This approach can be improved by making sure that it does not only focus on how the psyche and the psycho sexual stages influence behaviour. However, it can considered factors such as bio chemistry and genetics.
According to this approach people may behave the same ways as adults have the tendency of using the same defence mechanism (www. thestudentroom. co. uk). The humanist approach is a psychological approach that emphasizes the study of the whole person. Humanistic psychologists look at human behavior not only through the eyes of the observer, but through the eyes of the person doing the behaving. This approach was developed by two psychologists Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. Abram Maslow’s believed that every individual is seeking to become the best we can be spiritually, intellectually, emotionally and socially.
He developed a hierarchy of needs and it included the different needs that a person will need when growing up according to the importance. The hierarchy of needs illustrated that the basic needs should be met before reaching to the next level. For example, for an individual’s love and emotional needs to be met the basic physical needs and safety and security needs should be met. Maslow believed that the most important need is self-actualization. Self actualisation is when the person reaches the point of achieving full potential ((Stretch et al, 2010).
Carl roger was interested in the concept of self-concept. Self-concept is the way a person see him/herself. Self includes how we see ourselves biologically and physically. Self-concept starts to develop from an early age. This is so because of a child is being constantly told that he/she is naughty. This can have a negative impact on their self-concept as they we start to see their selves the way they are being portrait as. On the other hand if a child is praised it encourages the child to work harder in order to achieve a certain goal they have set out for their selves (Stretch et al, 2010). P2) The humanistic approach can be used to explain how staff is trained to understand the importance of unconditioned positive regard in working patients and clients. Unconditioned positive regard is when a person stays positive about a situation and does not concentrate on the bad side of the story unconditioned positive regard can be shown when a nurse comforts a patient when they are feeling down and shows empathy. This is very important to show this kind of attitude as it creates a better professional relationship between nurse and patient. (P3)
Humanistic approach can be of value when providing counseling services in a social care setting. This approach can be used to show empathy when a counselor is counseling a patient. Rogers has used this approach as a way for people to understand another person not only on an intellectual; level but also on an empathic understanding. When a counselor is able to understand another person’s emotions and feelings they are able to help the client. For example, when a therapist is counseling an alcoholic the therapist is able to find a way to help the client by understanding the causes of the drinking.
It might be because of a childhood event that has affected the clients’ life. (M1) The human approach focuses on how people learn from being given the free will and ability to change. This approach has been seen to be very effective as it helps people with less severe problems. The importance of the ,Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is to give people the learning direction as it looks at the different step a person much go through in order to reach a point of self actualisation and at this step the person is able to be fulfilled as they have achieved the goals they wanted.
However, consequences of unconditional positive regard are that the person feels free to try things out and make mistakes, even though this may lead to getting it worse at times. People who are able to self-actualize are more likely to have received unconditional positive regard from others, especially their parents in childhood. As the approach only focuses on helping people with severe problems it can be improved in order to meet ability to help those with more sever personality or mental health pathology. This approach does not include people with severe mental health problems (www. allpsych. om). The cognitive approach was developed by a Swiss psychologist called Jean Piaget. The cognitive approach focuses on understanding the cognitive processes such as attention, memory, perception, information, processing, problem solving, thought and language. In simpler term it is the study of how people perceive, remember, think, speak and solve problems. Jean came to a conclusion that cognitive development is achieved by going through 4stages (Stretch et al, 2010). Stage 1 sensorimotor stage- this stage happens between the ages of 0- 2 years. At this stage the child learning is limited.
The child only learns through using they sense. This is why it is called the sensorimotor stage at the child uses their senses in order to do motor skills such as using reflexes such as the protective reflex. These reflexes are used in order for them to adapt to the world. Objects and events can be mentally represented by the child (sometimes called object permanence this stage comes to an end when the child starts to learn how to use his/her memory and language (www. simplypsychology. org). Stage 2 pre-operational stages- this stage happens between the ages of 2 to 7 year.
This is the stage when children start to apply their skills of language (www. simplypsychology. org). Stage 3 concrete operational stages- this stage happens between the ages of 7 to 11 years. This is when individuals start to think abstractly and make rational judgments even though their rational thinking is restricted to realistic situations (www. simplypsychology. org) Stage 4 formal operational stage- this stage happens at the age of 11 and going on. This is when an individual is able to think logically and use hypothetical thinking (www. implypsychology. org). George Kelly was a developed the theory called the Psychology of Personal Constructs. This theory looks at a person as a scientific making prediction about ones future, while testing them and when necessary the records are meant to revise in order to develop new evidenced. Interpreting and being mindful of reality and the environment is considered as construct. For example, when a person has HIV/ AIDS they may withdraw their selves form any social activities as they may see it as the end of world and they nothing to live for.
However, the may not feel that way at take it a positive ways in which they can educate other people so that they do not make the same mistake as she did. He believed that people do not necessarily have to learn from their past experience (Stretch et al, 2010). (P2) Cognitive approach can be sued to explain how irrational thoughts experienced by people suffering from eating disorder. This perspective relates to the situation. For example, when a person who has an eating disorder he/she can find themselves fighting against the disorder.
The individual needs is based on trying process the thoughts to need to control, need to be thin and also a need to feel that they are happy being thin. This perspective is based on how the individual wants to live their lives and be happy the way they are than pleasing other people. However, the way a person can see their selves and think about themselves can happen because of the bad experienced which are leading to the person having eating disorders(Stretch et al, 2010). (P3) The principle of cognitive behavior therapy can help an individual dealing with feelings of depression.
The cognitive behavioral therapy is a form of talking therapy based on cognitive therapy and behaviour therapy. It emphases on how people think about the things going on in your life, attitudes and how this impacts on the way you behave and deal with emotional problems. It then looks at how you can change any negative patterns of thinking or behaviour that may be causing you difficulties. This approach is used as a way which is used to help people cope with their thoughts and behaviour.
This therapy will help the person to solve their problems in terms of feelings. For example, when dealing with a person who feeling depressed the counsellor can first look for the cause of the person feeling depressed. Then the counsellor is able to relate to the cognitive approach in encouraging the person to be more positive(Stretch et al, 2010). (M1) The cognitive approach has been successful is explaining learning. This is so because the cognitive approach has been useful is contributing to most of the types that are being used.
The success of the approach has comes form the fact the approach helps people to improve their cognitive processes such as language and memory. The cognitive behaviour help people to understand what goes on in peoples mind. For example, the cognitive approach helps understand different people’s behaviour and thoughts of a person who it autistic. Furthermore the cognitive approach helps people who work with people who have difficulties in learning language as it provides different strategies to tackle the problem.
The cognitive approach has become the leading approach in psychology particularly since it has become allied with neurology. The cognitive approach is now called the cognitive science. This is so because this approach has been able to provide a very refined understanding of how the brain processes information. However, the cognitive approach does not fully does not include other factors that can influence a person’s thoughts such as ecological validity which is the environment. The behaviour that this approach focuses on is not the behaviour that would happen in everyday situations (www. olah. co. uk). This approach can improve by addressing reasons being a personality characteristic. According to the cognitive approach people think the same because the approach applies a nomothetic approach which includes studying a group of people. The biological approach (maturational theory) is concerned with how our genetic inheritance, evolution of the human species and the nervous system (both central and peripheral) affect how we think, feel and behave. Arnold Gessell was a very influential person in the field of development. He developed the maturation theory.
Arnold Gessell described the maturation theory as “A highly biological theory that regarded child development as an evolutionary approach where there is a genetically determined series of events that unfold automatically. It is believed that development has a biological process that occurs in predictable stages over time”. (www. maturationtheory. gov. uk) As Arnold believed that development happens with a series of maturation, his belief has been explained by how uterus develops in the womb. The stages are as follows * Heart forms first and at the same time the rudimentary nervous system. Bones and muscles develop * Then the organism develops into a completely working human life form. * When a persons genes allow the person to become who he/she is destined to be with the influence of the environment providing support in the unfolding skills. (Stretch et al, 2010). Genes are also influential when it comes to person behaviour. Other behaviours are caused by certain genes disorders. For example the Huntington disease which is caused when one of the parent’s genes is dominates. Any one of the parent can pass the disease to the child.
Disorders caused by genes are very influential to the person behaviour. Another example, autism is also a genetic condition than can alter a person’s behaviour. Peoples with autism develop behaviour traits. These behavioural traits include repetitive motor movements such as rocking and hand flapping, avoid physical contact and also challenging behaviour including throwing things around when distressed(www. chw. org). There are more common disorders that are not genetically determined; however they have chances of leaving people vulnerable when it comes to developing the disorder.
In order to find out the contribution of genes on behaviour there have been twin studies which have been carried out. Two types of twins were used monozygotic (100% of sharing of genetic material which results in the pair being identical) and dizygotic (50% of sharing genetic material which will result in the twins being fraternal). In order to show that genes are influential, Ritvos study showed that out of 23 pairs of identical twins 22 of the twins were autistic and 4 out of 17 pairs of fraternal twins were autistic. This shows that genes are influential (Stretch et al, 2010).
The endocrine system influences ones behaviour. The endocrine system has to parts to it the central nervous system and the autonomic nervous system. The central nervous system consists of the brain and the spinal cord. The autonomic nervous system is associated with the endocrine system and it is divided into two systems. The sympathetic nervous system which is responsible for speeding up during response in activity and the parasympathetic nervous system that calms down the system. (Stretch et al, 2010). The autonomic nervous system produces effects by releasing hormones.
These hormones are released from the endocrine glands which are stimulated by the system. There are different hormones that are released that alter behaviour. For example, testosterone which is hormone released in the testicles can cause a person to be aggressive. (P2) When a person is working a night shift they tend to find it difficult to stay awake when they are working. When the night shift is over the person goes home with intention of getting some rest however the person will find it hard to sleep. This happens because of the disruption to the circadian rhythm which is the rhythm of a day.
The person’s behaviour is affected by the circadian rhythm. When a person is working at night his/her body temperature is low which will cause the person to be less alert. However, if the person is working during the day their temperature is normal which will cause the person to be more alert. The brain is influential to this process. In the brain there is a part called the pineal gland. This gland is responsible for producing a hormone called melatonin. When it gets darker, melatonin production is high because the pineal gland is triggered by the brain to produce higher levels of melatonin.
When it is not dark the gland reduces the production of melatonin. The levels of melatonin can affect the person at a night shift because at night the levels of melatonin productions are high and this will cause the person to feel sleepy. This affects the person’s behaviour as the person is not alert when they are mean to be (Stretch et al, 2010). (P3) The biological approach is very important because it explains the importance of understanding the concept of circadian rhythms. Circadian rhythm is a roughly 24 hour cycle in the physiological processes of living beings.
It is important as is determines the sleeping and eating patterns of an individual. The manager of a workplace is advised to have knowledge of biological rhythms. This knowledge will help the manager to take into consideration of the hours a person works. With the knowledge of the circadian rhythm the manager is able to draw up a pattern of shift work that is able to help the worker to have even sleep so that when they are working the are alert. For example, the manager may assign the worker with three days of week and two days off during the week (Stretch et al, 2010). (M1) The approach has been successful in explaining learning.
The biological approach explanations have been variable as they are best on scientific research which can be measured tracked and examines. The effectiveness of the biological approach has been proved by psychosurgeons who were able to see the functioning of the brain by removing a part of a functioning brain. This process has been used by psychologists to prove that certain parts of the brain are associated with aggression. The researches that are carried out are scientifically reliable as they fulfil the aims of scientific research which is to conduct objective, well controlled studies and, ideally, to demonstrate causal relationships.
The strength of the biological approach is that it lends itself to scientific research that can then be used to support biological explanations. The biological approach is also determinist and this is an advantage because the approach is able to know what sets our behaviour and how we able likely to treat people with abnormal behaviour. The strength of the biological approach is that it is determinist and provides explanations about the causes of behaviour so that we can use such understanding to improve people’s lives.
For example, if mental illness is caused by biological factors, then we can treat mental illness using biological methods such as medication. The biological approach can be improved in order to consider individual approach as this approach only looks at nomothetic approach. This is a weakness as people do not necessary behave the same way. for example, when coping with stress conditions women normally react by seeking social contact and support from other female friends whereas keep it to themselves(www. oxfordschoolblogs. co. uk). (M2 and D1)
The approaches I will be focusing on are the behaviourist approach and the psychodynamic approach. Both of these approaches can help with a health and social care setting. The behaviourist approach looks at hoe different people are influenced by the environment. As psychology is a scientific study, behaviorist, as a psychological perspective it obtains its evidence relating to the basis that behavior can be learnt. The behaviorist approach has seemed to work when explaining people’s behavior as the experiment that Skinner and Pavlov evidently showed that behavior can be learnt.
The psychodynamic approach explains how ones past experience can affect a person’s behavior in the future. The past experience is stored in the unconscious part of the psyche and the memories sometimes leak causing to affect the person’s behaviour. For example, when a person was abused when they were young and this will cause the person to develop behavioural traits with include being withdrawal to the society or become abusive too. The approaches can be used within a health and social care setting in order to help individuals.
For example, the behaviourist approach can be used when helping people to overcome a phobia and also to changes ones eating behaviour. When dealing with people who have phobias, the behaviouristic approach uses a classical conditioning. By this the approach uses a procedure which help the person overcome their fear. For example, a child who has a fear of going through a surgery procedure can overcome this fear by creating a hierarchy of fears. The hierarchy will show the least feared and most feared procedure. When this is done the person is able to relax and et over their fear because this procedure helps a person achieve a state of deep relaxation. This approach changes the aspect of fearing something by replacing it with the state of relaxation. When a person is at the hospital they can been shown how the procedure is going to happen and this will help the person relax as they will know exactly what is going to happen to them. When helping people with bad eating habit. The behaviourist approach explains how positive role models are influential. For example, Jamie Oliver has helped people start eating healthy by re-introducing freshly cooked school meals.
His suggestion was taken seriously as there are more chances that the public will listen to what a celebrity say compared to an ordinary person. The psychodynamic approach can be used when understanding challenging behaviour and also understanding anxiety and finding ways to cope with it. When helping a person with challenging behaviour it is important to understand first what is going on in the psyche of the person by making an assumption that the behavioural trait is due to the symptoms of what is happening in the unconscious mind.
For example, when helping a person who is aggressive, in order to understand what is going on a person might make an assumption that the person grew up seeing his/ her parents fighting. When a person is anxious they may understand it by making an assumption that it is caused by what is happening in the unconscious mind for example an event that has happened before. The person can use the psychodynamic approach to manage anxiety by relating to one of the defence mechanism such as denial. The approach has similarities and difference.
The approaches both have similarities. One of the similarities is that both of the approaches are both deterministic. They are deterministic because they are based on the principle that something apart from organism is responsible for its behavior. For example behaviourist approach is based on previous experiences such as punishments and the psychodynamic approach is based on it’s typically tension between conflicting forces such as the id and superego. Another similarity is that both of the approaches (www. ngfl-cymru. org. k). The approaches have differences. The behaviourist approach focuses on how behaviour is learnt and the psychodynamic believes that behaviour is not learnt. The behaviourist shows how behaviour is learnt through explaining the operant and classical conditioning whereas the psychodynamic explain that behaviour is not learnt and ones behaviour is caused by forces in the unconscious part of the psyche. Another difference is that the behaviourist approach is based on scientific experiment and the psychodynamic is unscientific.
The explanation for this difference is that the behaviourist approach explained is theory by using experiments which were observed, measured, and manipulated whereas the psychodynamic approach was not based on a scientific experiment which could be observed, measured, and manipulated(www. ngfl-cymru. org. uk). The strength of the behaviourist approach is that is that it focuses only on behaviour that can be observed, measured and manipulated. Therefore, this approach has proved that experiments under laboratory conditions can explain behaviour through observing, measuring and manipulating.
The behaviourist principles of learning have been, and continue to be, tested in the laboratory where learning can be objectively measured. For example, the experiment that was done by Ivan Pavlov was successful on explaining how people learn and how they behaviour because the experiments results were valid as there were scientifically based. The other strength of the behaviourist approach is that the behaviourist approach concentrates on the present and current behaviour rather than exploring a person’s past or their medical history (www. ngfl-cymru. org. uk).
This is a strength of the approach because when it comes to determining a persons behaviour, by looking at their past experience may not be helpful as the person may not remember the past events that might contribute to their behaviour. However the approach has got weakness. The behaviourist approach has been criticised for determining ones behaviour by using an experiment of animals. This is a weakness as animals do not necessarily behave as humans. Due to this it is hard to say that the behaviourist approach has been successful in explaining how people behave as the finding of the experiment are hard to generalise.
The other weakness of the behaviourist approach is that the approach does not focus on how the complexity of the psyche contributed to learning. This approach has been criticised by the cognitive and the humanistic psychologists because it does not look at how the brain can be influential to determining a person’s behaviour (www. pages. 123-reg. co. uk). The strength of the psychodynamic approach is that this approach was able to provide an important insight into how a person’s past experiences can affect their adult personality.
For example, the Freud’s theory on personality suggested that if a baby is weaned too early, according to the oral stage, there are chances that when the baby grows up to an adult he/she is going to pessimistic or sarcastic. The other strength of the psychodynamic approach is that the approach has explained about defense mechanism that every individual can use. These defence mechanism arise naturally when a person feels that they are being threatened of their superego is on demand. For example, if a person is going through a hard time they can use denial as a defense mechanism as it can help the person to refuse to experience the pain.
However the psychodynamic approach has got weaknesses. One of the weaknesses is that the approach is reductionist. Due to this it only relies on a basic set of structures that attempt to simplify a very complex picture. This is a weakness because there are other aspects that can influence ones behaviour for example genetics. Another weakness of the psychodynamic approach is that it can not be proved wrong. Any theory for it to be successful it should be able tested that it can be wrong; however the psychodynamic approach can not be tested. Freud view can not be tested if they are false.
For example, Freud viewed that all men have repressed homosexual tendencies cannot be disproved. It is hard to find a man who has no repressed homosexual tendency, if a person could find any man who had no repressed homosexual tendency then it could be argued that they have them, it’s just they are so repressed they are not apparent. In other words, the prediction cannot be falsified. Overall, both of the approaches have similarities, differences, strengths and weaknesses. Despite the weakness both of the approaches have been successful in explain how each of its approach can determine how behaviour can be influenced.
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