Humanistic Perspective Study

Rachel Danzig AP Psychology Dr. Eisen August 20, 2015 I. Psychology’s History A. Psychology’s Roots 1. Prescientific Psychology a. Socrates and his student Plato stated that the human mind is separate from the body and our knowledge is born within us b. Aristotle, Plato’s student, disagreed, concluding that knowledge can not be preexisting and we grow it from our experiences within our memories c. In the 1600s Rene Descartes believed that the mind can survive the body’s death and our brain holds animal spirits in its fluid and flow from the brain through nerves enabling reflexes d. In 1620 Francis Bacon established that humans functioned around order and patterns e. Adding to Bacon’s ideas was John Be a smart test-taker i. Take time to read prompts, questions, and organize your points III. Careers in Psychology A. What Psychologists in Various Professions Do and Where They Work 1. Basic Research Subfields a. Cognitive Psychologists look at biology and the correlations with memory, perception, memory, and judgment, and they can work as professors, or specialists in schools or businesses b. Developmental Psychologists study research changes due to age in regards to behavior, they can work in educational and school psychology or gerontology c. Educational Psychologists are involved in psychology pertaining to learning i. Provide ways to improve learning environments or methods ii. Could be employed by the government or employee training programs d. Experimental Psychologists work in research institutions, businesses or government facilities and study behavior in animals and humans to gain, in their subfield, scientific information for future useable data e. Psychometric and Quantitive Psychologists study data and methods to gain psychological knowledge i.

Roger’s Humanist Theory believes, “That humans are innately good and that they are growth oriented,” (Nye, pg. 105, 2000). Due to the fact that this theory has the belief that individuals are inherently good, Beth’s negative behaviors are not part of her personality, but formed out of her early childhood environment. The Humanistic approach also states, to reach self-actualization, the environment surrounding an individual must be nurturing (Sougstad, Humanistic Psychology, 2018); Beth was not afforded with this type of environment, explaining her negative and harmful behaviors towards her family. In addition, the Humanistic Theory also concludes, “Humans basically need and want both personal fulfillment and close, intimate relationships with others,” (Nye, Pg. 98, 2000). Referring back to Beth’s early childhood environment again, the lack of an appropriate, intimate and caring relationship between her and her biological parents left her without the needed environment to fully develop.

Theoretical orientation is the concept of providing practitioners with theory based framework .The purpose of the theory is to help guide the social work professional in a setting while intervening with individuals, families and treatment. Theoretical Orientation also help the social worker to work with the clients to set their goals and ackwlodge certain techniques you may use while using a specific theory. In this reflection paper I will deliberate on developing a Theoretical orientation, Exploring your theoretical orientation, Integrating your theoretical at your field placement, and Task group techniques.

There are four main perspectives in psychology. These are known as; biological perspective, learning perspective, cognitive perspective, and sociocultural perspective. Each perspective aids in the understanding of human behavior. However, not one perspective can explain all of human behaviors. This is due to each perspective playing different roles in ones behavior. To fully understand human behaviors scientist must understand the four perspectives.

Psychology is the scientific study of how human think, how they feel about issues and their behaviour in this research we will learn the meaning of perspectives in Psychology, dwelling on the biological and behavioural approach, I will discuss the difference and commonalities between the two perspectives.

To understand a behavior is hard .. because of the complexity and the richness that has any behavior apart ...but and because every human has live different experiences that make him unique .That's the main reason that we have different approaches on Psychology. One perspective is the biological that is based in materialism ,that means material possessions make us happy and an indicator of personal success. There two primary concerns of the biological approach,the one is about the nervous system and the working on this because there is complex of neurons that enables the senses, controls the body function, and is associated with mental events. The second is the role the heredity takes place in behavior .. The transmission of characteristics

Cognitive theory emphases observations that can be used to understand what and how people learn and how they take control of their own behaviour. (Ormrod, 2008)

According to Wagner, humanistic approach is primarily a reaction to the two major views of humanity which are the Freudian perspective and the behavioral perspective thus humanitaristic approach is the “third force”.

In modern psychology there exist many different psychological approaches studying human behavior with each one focusing on specific aspects to study, employing differing methodologies. Two major approaches (perspectives) are the psychodynamic and behavioral perspectives. Both perspectives attempt to decipher human behavior, but they examine it from quite different views. The behavioral perspective explicitly considers psychology as a science and employs scientific and objective methods of investigation. It assumes that behavior, good or bad, is learned and the environment is the primary factor affecting learning. It focuses on events that can be observed rather than emotions and strongly associates response to specific stimulus (Hooley,

The main idea of the behaviourist approach is that we can understand types of behaviours by looking at what a person has been taught and what they have learnt. This can also include personality traits e.g. shyness, confidence, optimism or even pessimism. Psychologists have explained that all behaviours result from past experiences and how we are brought up and even the family background. The two main psychologists in this case are Ivan Pavlov who talks about classical conditioning

There are four Major Theoretical Perspectives of Social Psychology. The first is Sociocultural where an individual’s behavior is influenced by their surroundings. Second, is Evolutionary, this is how an individual’s psychological traits contribute to survival. Another theoretical perspective is known as Social Learning, which explains how an individual’s past experiences will drive them to either perform a task or not, depending on whether they experienced positive or negative reinforcement. Finally, comes Social Cognitive perspective which describes how an individual will choose where to focus their attention in a given situation.

Six Perspectives of Psychology provided invaluable information, which we as individuals constantly apply to our daily lives. However, I was intrigued by Humanistic Psychology. This theory was presented by the author as the positive self within ourselves that constantly strive to survive, regardless the obstacles or past experiences (Fernald, 2008).

Cognitive psychology is one of the very important areas in psychology. It is concerned with mental processes, such as how people think, learn, perceive and remember. In certain situations, an individual’s memory can seal someone’s faith. If a person has been present to a crime, their perception and their memory are seen as crucial to identifying the person who has committed the crime. Before DNA analysis found its way into courtrooms in 1986, eyewitness testimony was seen as the most persuasive form of evidence. Despite the fact that there have been many advances in technology of forensic science, eyewitness testimony is still the most persuasive form of evidence. People believe an eyewitness 80% of the time. We have troubles identifying an accurate (believed 68% of the time) and inaccurate testimonies (believed 70% of the time).

In 1913, the behaviorist movement began with the studies of John Broadus Watson (1878-1958), a pioneering figure in the development of the psychological school of behaviorism. He published an article entitled ' 'Psychology as the behaviorist views it ' ' in which he had the impression that psychology shouldn 't deal with what the people say that they think or feel, in other words, he reduced and dehumanized the human mind and its consciousness. To put it differently, he asserted a claim that the study of the human mind would be concerned only with people 's actions and behavior. Watson 's work relied upon the experiments of Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936), a Russian Nobel laureate psychologist who had worked on animals ' responses to conditioning. For instance, in his best-known experiment, Pavlov rang a bell and then gave a dog some food. After repeating this pairing several times, the dog eventually treated the bell as a signal for food and began salivating in expectation of the treat, but having said that the dogs still produced saliva, when he rang the bell without bringing any food. At this time, they had been 'conditioned ' to salivate well every sound of a bell with the

Cognitive psychology is the study of how people perceive, learn, remember, and think about information. It is concerned with how we attend to and gain information about the world, how the information is stored and how we solve problems, think and formulate languages. It further deals with perception of information, understanding, thought and formulation and production of an answer.