Evolutionary, Cognitive, and Psychodynamic Approaches in Psychology - Essay Example

? Compare, Contrast & Evaluate three psychological approaches December 10, Compare, Contrast & Evaluatethree psychological approaches Psychology is considered to be one of the most practical & interesting fields of study. It is basically the study of human behavior regarding different situations, i.e., how a person or a group of person react while facing a particular kind of situation. By studying the behaviorism, human psychology can be well understood effectively. Hence by studying a variety of cases, psychologists become able to drive a generality about human behavior & find the ways of treatment of different psychological problems. They try to understand one’s problems by studying his/her social, physiological & mental backgrounds so that they can treat him/her with their best possible solutions. As it is correctly termed as “the study of soul”; psychology is not limited to the treatment of different mental problems but it is also useful in the assessment of different kinds of human activities. Psychologists explore every side of one’s personality in depth; emotions, personality, perception, behavior & attitude with others & also the personal relationships which influence our lives very much. Some psychologists also treat their patients by exploring their unconscious mind through which they become able to get an insight into patient’s thoughts & motivations. It is due to the psychologists & psychiatrists that today many aspects of human behavior have been observed & their treatment is being done with psychotherapy & other counseling meetings. Since the development of psychology as a field different from philosophy & science, many different psychologists have put forth their theories or research work using psychology in their own way for treatment of such cases. These theories are known as psychological approaches, which provide an explanation about a peculiar subject from the point of view of a psychologist. It is not necessary that the particular approach is the one & only solution of a certain kind of situation; other theories can also be applied to test whether they work in that particular situation or not. Hence there are many different schools of thought in psychology developed by different psychologists. Over all, there are seven different theoretical approaches in psychology, namely evolutionary, biological, behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, psychodynamic & sociocultural approaches. There are psychologists who adapt one approach at a time to describe their theories, others may combine one or more approaches. The evolutionary approach is derived from Darwin's theory of Evolution, which says that human beings have instincts in themselves to determine the best or the fittest for them, like the Natural selection & Sexual selection which come within a human being since birth. Also there is a concept of Survival of the fittest, which explains that nature has shown many of its different aspects, sometimes it is mould but sometimes it becomes very harsh, like extreme hot or cold, excessive rains & floods etc. then in such circumstances only those who are the strongest & have enough will to survive pass through, but those who are physically weak & leaves themselves into the hands of nature are destroyed completely. Those who survive are the most likely ones who continue themselves & pass on their genes to their offspring. The Behavioral Approach is the one which regards with the social learning & its outcomes. It is actually related with how much a particular person is sensitive to his/her circumstances & how he/she reacts during pleasure moments & during a situation of shock or disappointment. In contrast to this approach, the humanism considers to study the whole personality rather than focusing on a particular behavior at a particular time or situation. It focuses on human issues like growth, death, loneliness, identity, will power etc & tends to use a subjective approach. It is of the use of treatment of criminals & persons having personality disorders. There is a Gestalt psychology which says that the human mind and behavior are same aspects & thus behavior should not be considered elementarily rather it should be taken as a complete description as humans are a complete entity themselves. Among the above mentioned approaches, the behavioral, cognitive, humanistic & psychodynamic approaches fall in the category of clinical psychology; a method to treat patients by having a verbal conversation with them. When anyone suffers from a mental problem like depression or schizophrenia, the biological approach is first followed in the treatment. The physical or biochemical aspects are viewed in order to determine the nature of depression, followed by a cognitive approach to look into the social & environmental causes of the depression. Then if necessary, a psychoanalytical approach may be followed in order to determine patient’s thoughts which are the main cause of such problem. People who commit suicide or tend to self-punish are a subject of behavioral & social approaches, so that the psychologists know the reason why such kind of incident occurs & how they can be avoided. Hence there are different approaches which can be followed in the treatment of different kind of cases according to the circumstances (What is Psychology?: Approaches to Psychology By Social Studies School Service). Behaviorism Behaviorism or Behavioral psychology; was a dominant psychological approach during the era of early 20th century introduced by an American psychologist John Broadus Watson. He called himself a behaviorist & conducted research on the behavioral sciences regarding humans & animals. He proposed that the behavior shown by anyone is the impact of the surroundings or of the environment in which one lives & has been brought up. The surroundings have certain condition or constraints which make a human being behave like in a way under the impact of these conditions. The behaviorism school of thought further states that behavior is a consequence of circumstances & it is not concerned & related with internal mental states like thoughts, perception, memory, intelligence etc. The Classical conditioning of behaviorism explained that all behavior is governed by the interaction with various circumstances & the conditions in which one is surviving. The environment has a very strong effect on everyone & it directs our behavior. There have been enough laboratory experiments on different animals to prove this approach. Even John Watson has shown his famous but controversial Little Albert Experiment to prove this notion by showing the brain of a developing child & his behavior with respect to his surroundings. The stimulus which is generated by the environment affects our mind either grimly or happily & we always behave according to the situations we have faced in our past. Behaviorists believe that all psychological disorders can be treated by changing the environmental factors which influence so much on our lives. They say that the entities of internal mind are cannot be taken as scientifically & thus cannot be studied as an individual problem. They reject any idea of consciousness & proposed that unawareness lies within ourselves & we are under its influence which is taken by our surroundings (Watson. 1970). Although such ideas were highly opposed by critiques like Noam Chomsky & others by saying that behavior only can never be an enough factor in treating psychological problems. They purposed a cognitive approach that they thought would be a greater helping hand in terms of understanding human mind along with solving the internal mental problems individually & effectively. Cognitive approach The approach that deals with the human mind & its processes related to thinking, perception, memory, attention, learning, decision making etc. It also concerns with one’s intelligence & ability to conceive & imagine any idea or visualization & to the ability of problem solving while facing any situation which is not so much favorable. This approach of psychology is also related to other fields like philosophy & neuro science as it covers a vast area in psychology. The approach started in around 1950s when there has been research started on the complexities of mind & several theories have been developed. Before this, many other schools of thought in psychology have been presented which are related to cognitive psychology. There is structural psychology; also known as the structuralism or the experimental psychology, proposed by a German physician Wilhelm Wundt, who introduced the concept of a laboratory setting & thus is known as the "father of experimental psychology". He suggested that a psychological patient can be treated by breaking down mental processes into the basic components of which they have been made. There is functional psychology; which totally oppose the structuralism & says that psychology has its own values & a patient’s mind can be used to benefit him. The founder of this school of thought was an American philosopher, scientist and psychologist William James. This approach is also termed as one of the experimental approaches in psychology & the cognitive approach developed from here. Since the cognitive science & cognitive psychology are inter related, hence it covers the vast area of mind & intelligence & to the concept of information handling & processing. It was developed actually against the previously formulated approaches & it developed the use of scientific logics & methods rather than the introspection of mind or the study of general behavior, by acknowledging the concepts of desire & motivation. It is a kind of total scientific approach which use computation techniques of breaking down a problem into smaller pieces & than solve them one by one in steps. It says that by using this method, human cognition can be revealed fully & also individual entities of thoughts & processes can be easily well understood too. (Costall and Still, 1987; Dreyfus, 1979; Searle, 1990). In the early 1900s till 1950, there was a dominancy of behaviorism since there was no place for logics & scientific methods in the minds of that time’s people. They considered it against the religion & were strongly against of such kind of ideas. Moreover, the behaviorism had made a strong place of it as it also simplified many a problems relating to society & environment. In behaviorism, there was no concept of internal mental processes like perception, memory etc rather it tackles with the subjective only, but it had some issues like lack of concept of internal memory & thus it made no contribution in describing the relation of human mind & the performance & eventually failed to describe the learning process (Tinklepaugh, 1928; Chomsky, 1959). Hence the behavioral approach in understanding psychology lost its effectiveness & the cognitive approach came into lime light as a scientific psychology. Now cognitive psychology is termed as a separate branch which is taught as a separate subject in world’s renowned institutes & universities. The Cognitive approach has proved itself very successful in a variety of cases & its research has produced an excess amount of algorithms & principles. The computer itself is a great invention using this approach. Other electronics products which use a user defined interface system are very much a byproduct of this science & psychology. The cell phone technology, artificial intelligence, softwares which make the task more easier & efficient; these all have come from an infrastructure based on cognitive science (Lin Lu, Anne Dosher. 2007) Psychodynamic Approach Austrian physician Sigmund Freud deduced the method of psychodynamics or psychoanalysis, which is the most applicable & well known of all times. He developed several theories regarding human psychology which includes the intense topics like unconscious mind, repression, memories, conscience, instincts, ego, pleasure & drive etc. With the help of these theories, he became able to deduce a clinical method called psychoanalysis, particularly for the treatment of psychopath patients, which include a proper sitting with the analysand (patient) & a comprehensive dialogue between him & the psychoanalyst. This process not only helped in psychopathology but also inspired many other developments in psychotherapy, like the treatment for multiple personality disorders which also arise due to some sort of psychological trauma. According to Freud, human mind is like an iceberg with only its tip above the surface, which is the unconscious. The remaining whole iceberg is the huge amount of desires one has in his/her entire life & which drives a human being with motivation. He also said that human personality constructs of the id, ego and the superego. The most basic & primitive part of our personality is our id which maneuvers according to the pleasure activities and when it finds the required pleasure, it simply hunt for immediate satisfaction. Ego is considered to be purely objective & it acts as a command & control centre of our personality. It uses the defense mechanism to protect anyone from anxiety & depression whenever the memory or the unconscious retrieves something unpleasant or undesirable. The superego is some kind of conscience which behaves like a judge & makes standards, rules & moral values for an individual human being. Whenever a person does something wrong or bad, the superego generates feelings of guilt & shame or vice versa. Early childhood development era of a person performs a great role in this manner as his/her behavior depicts the experiences of childhood. Freud named this time as “the psychosexual years of development”. (Sigmund Freud.2011) Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis gains much fame when it was named as “the interpretation of dreams”. That was the time (1900) when mostly people do not give much importance to dreams, but when Freud started interpreting dreams as a combination of events occurred to someone in his/her past. Ancient interpreters take dreams to be a prediction for the upcoming events in the future. Thus Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis mainly revolves around finding out or realizing the cause of disturbance by judging the past experiences from the unconscious part of the patient’s memory. By studying many different cases, he generalized the fact that the attitude of a person in a society or behavioral aspects of every human being are steered by his emotional state which is buried deep into his unconscious (Robert Bocock. 1983). Conclusion Different psychological approaches are very useful in finding the cause of several human related problems in our society & are also very effective in terms of their treatment. In this regard, the behavioral, cognitive & the psychoanalytical approaches are considered very effective & useful. These three have basically nothing in common, particularly the behavioral & the cognitive one as they are totally opposite to each other, but each of them has its own significance in psychology. We can neither decline the concept of behavior completely, nor can we oppose the concept of cognitive science as it has been very useful for us since invention, also the psychodynamic approach is very useful in determining the cause of any kind of bizarre behavior & may lead to powerful consequences. Bibliography WATSON, J. B. (1970). Behaviorism. New York, W.W. Norton. (STERNBERG, R. J., & MIO, J. S. (2009). Cognitive psychology. Australia, Cengage Learning/Wadsworth. Zhong-Lin Lu and Barbara Anne Dosher. Cognitive psychology (2007), BOCOCK, R. (1983). Sigmund Freud. Chichester, E. Horwood. HOLT, R. R., & FREUD, S. (1989). Freud reappraised: a fresh look at psychoanalytic theory. New York, Guilford Press. Read More