Three Major Perspectives in Psychology - Essay Example

The Social Origins of Illnesses: A Functionalist Approach Sociology examines how the society evolves and how the people in it interact with one another. It also answers essential questions on why the world is the way it is. Sociologists look at societal developments in different lenses and paradigms. These paradigms, also known as theoretical frameworks are essential in approaching the different needs and issues of a particular society. For sociologists, the society evolves in different manners which cannot be explained by one paradigm alone. This is the reason why scholars develop different perspectives in answering the persistent questions in the society regarding the different areas of its existence and development. These perspectives show the same problems in the society but offer contrasting views on how to solve them (Vandelay, 2009). Health hazards are always present in the society since the beginning of time. They are part of the world as much as much as the tiniest organisms are. Although they are infamous because of their effects to humanity, nobody could totally get rid of illnesses. Even scientists who have been studying about illnesses for hundreds of years already could not answer all the questions regarding the causes, symptoms and solutions of some of the illnesses that threaten human existence. But man does not seem to give up easily, as time passes by, more and more attempts to answer essential questions regarding the origins of illnesses have been done. There are some scientists who explain the origins of illnesses as an accumulated result of environmental threats, personal defects and incapability to adapt to the environment. This view has been supported in the work of Boaz (2009). Because of illnesses, some if not all of functions of a person is hampered. And this is where it gets really detrimental. Once a person suffers from an unknown illness, its either he lives or he dies. Although doctors could well explain the biological causes of most of the diseases using experiments, scholars think that there are a lot of other reasons why diseases exist. People have different levels of immunity from illnesses, but this is not the main reason why people suffer greatly from diseases which have been solved by other scientists already. Some people wonder why these illnesses still exist. Perhaps the best way to analyze the reason behind the existence of these illnesses is to look at the social roots of these illnesses. Some scholars say that the answers in today’s biological issues are social in nature. This means that society has a say in whatever biological health hazards exist in the world today. The great thing about this analysis is that it does not limit people in discovering the issues behind illnesses as stated in the article entitled Three major perspectives in Psychology (Anon., 2009). There are different social theoretical paradigms present in the society nowadays, social scientists, specifically sociologists support this claim. It is of great importance to understand the different contexts of these paradigms. There are different sociological theoretical perspectives. First is the functionalist theory. It is the theory that says that all the institutions in the state are interdependent with each other. This means that institutions like church, school and even the family are interconnected with each other. The function of one affects the functions of others. An individual could be shaped by one institution and later be affected by another. What is important in this particular theory is its capability to analyze the different problems of the society itself. There are reasons why people in a society suffer from different problems. Functionalist theory analyzes that these problems are not simply because of the health hazards in the society. Moreover, the sociological perspectives of the reason for the existence of illnesses should be asked, if not blamed for all the institutions in that certain society. Functionalist perspective is a deductive theory which means that it takes the general problem and it chunks the problem down to the smaller level institutions. Second, there is the conflict theory. The conflict theory is a very familiar activity which is based on Marxist perspective. Marx, the famous author of communist manifesto argues that the problems of the state, including the health hazards present in it should be blamed to the differences in economic statuses and opportunities available for the people in a society. It is important to look at the Marxist perspective as a theory that aims to look at the fault of the system as that of the disparity in wages and of course, purchasing capability. The last perspective that scholars usually use is the symbolic interactionism. This is the perspective which calls for thinkers to analyze the dynamics of the society in a way which interprets the people’s behaviors and the interpretations they give to these behaviors. Of the three primary sociological lenses, it is best to look at the roots of illnesses by using the structural functionalism approach. It is of great importance for people to understand that society works in a pattern and in a one big dimension which is life’s existence. People need to understand that the key to the developmental process of an individual is his or her capability to adjust to the changing environment. Functionalism explains the social origins of illnesses in three levels of analyses (Muhammad, 2007). First, the functionalist thinkers believe that functionalism best explains why there are rich and why there are poor in the society. Marxism and conflict theory could well expound on the question but the functionalist gives more emphasis on the individual rather than the bigger universal picture in which the Marxism focuses on. Difference in economic opportunities is often blamed on the bigger societal structure but some people have undermined the idea that the individual is the first and foremost affected by changes in the bigger setting of the society. This means that the human person must be the one whom the state should give focus on regarding economic developmental opportunities. Sometimes, the state fails to see its faults of not presenting more opportunities for individuals by trying and trying to solve the bigger picture. What it has undermined is that there are those who are not aware of the economic opportunities present to them. They are the ones who do not know that there is a life better than what they have in the status quo. What is the advantage of the structuralist-functionalism in this context? It looks into the mechanism in which the state shapes the individual. The society thinks that so long as it gives education to its people, then it could suffice already to all the needs of that individual. The society then fails to analyze that with lesser opportunities to grow, the individual is more exposed to illnesses and diseases which cannot be answered by traditional health medicines alone. In the advent of globalization, the answer to some of the persistent health problems in the society could only be seen in the urban areas. These are the areas in which the society is prohibiting other people in the state to be at. This setting is so dangerous because the structures of the society itself are giving people the limitations to go out and seek for greater opportunities. Example of which is how most indigent people are not given the proper training of the institutions in the society to adapt into the changing tides of the world order. The society through its institutions should make the individual competitive. A flaw of an individual is a flow of the society itself (Sedia, 2007). Second, the society must be the one to govern the people according to modernization and technological innovations. If the state and the society fail to educate the people then ignorance comes in the way. Ignorance has been the reason for a lot of state failures. There are people who think that so long as they eat three times a day then they would be okay. This is just a faulty perspective because there are more to life than eating three times a day. The Functionalist approach answers ignorance in a macro and micro level perspectives. On the macro perspective, the state fails to defeat ignorance of the people by making them aware of what’s happening around them. When people of Africa were invaded by a major plague brought upon by the European conquerors, Africans could not do anything about it because they did not know how to solve a very simple illness – Malaria. Using the functionalist lens, scholars could then assume that the society has failed to give importance on defeating the ignorance that prevailed Africa during those times. Even after the European conquerors have invaded Africa, they did not teach Africans how to prevent the deaths because of illnesses. For the conquerors, diseases are a good way of threatening to people to submit to them. Of course, the conquerors had the vaccine for that. This is a complete example on how a society could have saved itself from diseases. If Africans during the time were not ignorant of the Malaria disease then perhaps through proper medication, most of the people in Africa would not have died (Hui, 2005). People died because societal institutions were not present during the time. Perhaps even if societal institutions were present, people would still die because of the lack of knowledge regarding certain diseases. The threat now to the society is that other aspects of the state are affected like economics, military, etc. This happens when people are so concerned with answering one problem of the society which could have been solved easily by defeating ignorance. Because of this, other illnesses have developed in the society too; sickness which should have been preempted already by the society if not because of the advent of ignorance due to malfunctioning social system. The best way to solve and preempt problems is to empower the people which could only be possible by looking at the every aspect of human life. This is what functionalism tries to solve when it deals with the every perspective of human existence. It solves not just the economic problem of the world but it also answers the question on, ‘what makes humans so busy that they forget about treating their illnesses?’ The third and the final focus of functionalism is the idea of faulty or corrupt society. Structural functionalist thinkers believe that the people are inherently intelligent and that the people’s intelligence could be used to answer a lot of things in the world. What’s stopping humans is that faulty system of governance of its leaders. There are leaders in the modern world whose policies are self-serving. There are already health hazards in the society but leaders seem to pay small attention toward these issues. Leaders of some of the poorest states even back in the time of antiquity gives so much emphasis on foreign relations like economic ties and military capability by jeopardizing the fact that the people in the domestic level are dying because of viruses that threaten the civilization’s existence. This is particularly dangerous. Mismanagement is one of the reasons why some of the viruses have not been killed by the scientific community of a particular society. Leaders tend to pay so much money to those people who would keep them in office such as the military commander, economic adviser, etc. Not all viruses are so strong that they could kill humans. There are viruses which eventually grew and developed because the governments of countries do not pay attention in solving these viruses. It is a major threat for the government not to give the right budget allocation for these kinds of problems in the society (Nagourney, 2010). When examining societal dynamics, it is a must to look at society not in distinct characteristics but as a one major concept of reality. Illnesses would always be present in the state and they could only be solved by positive interaction between societal institutions. Social institutions are the hands of the government in forming the individuals to properly adjust according to their state roles and for them to effectively defeat threats in that society. Of course, this would only be possible if the institutions are helping each other in a positive way. However, no matter how efficient institutions are if the government does not support these institutions, then no change will happen in the society. It is best to keep in mind that the government makes the society stable and if the government is corrupt, the people need to do a lot of things just for them to adapt to the society in general. This scheme is already burdening the citizens of a society which are supposed to be looking for solutions to problems such as diseases and the like. Functionalism, unlike the two other lenses of sociological perspectives, answers the problems of human existence and origins of illnesses in a holistic manner. Reference List Anon., 2009. Three major perspectives in Psychology. [Online] Available at: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/Three-Major-Perspectives-in-Sociology.topicArticleId-26957,articleId-26837.html [Accessed 30 August 2010]. Boaz, N. T., 2009. Evolving health: the origins of illness and how the modern world is making us sick. [Online] Available at: http://www.free-ebook-download.net/medical-book/10840-noel-t-boaz-evolving-health-origins-illness-how-modern-world-making-us-sick.html [Accessed 28 August 2010]. Hui, W., 2005. Marrying Buddha. London: Robinson Incorporated. Muhammad, S., 2007. Theory of Functionalism in Education Psychology. [Online] Available at: http://research-education-edu.blogspot.com/2009/01/theory-of-functionalism-in-education.html [Accessed 31 August 2010]. Nagourney, A., 2010. Massachusetts race tests staying power of democrats. [Online] Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/us/politics/17massachusetts.html?_r=1 [Accessed 31 August 2010]. Sedia, E., 2007. The secret history of Moscow. Timonium, Maryland: Prime Books, Inc. Vandelay, A., 2009. Sociological Perspective: Functionalism. [Online] Available at: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1330486/sociological_perspective_functionalism.html [Accessed 29 August 2010]. Read More