Download The Approaches Lecture

Unit 1: History, Approaches & Research Methods
Today’s Topic:
the APPROACHES
the psychological
APPROACHES
hand gestures
can help us to remember
the psychological approaches
PSYCHOANALYTIC /
PSYCHODYNAMIC
Ideas put forth by Sigmund Freud and other
Neo-Freudians.
Focuses on the ideas that:
• your early childhood plays a huge role in
shaping your personality.
• childhood traumas and experiences create
unconscious drives and conflicts that impact
individual personalities.
PSYCHOANALYTIC /
PSYCHODYNAMIC
– point behind you -- way back
 “My past, my unconscious, determines my behavior”
COGNITIVIST
• Focuses on mental processes (how we
encode, process, store, and retrieve
information).
• Believes that behavior is partially
governed by the ways we think and
interpret the world.
COGNITIVIST
– point to forehead
 “How I think determines my behavior”
HUMANISTIC
• Focuses on an individual’s free will
and potential for growth.
• Believes that behavior is determined
by each person’s capacity to choose
how to think and act which is dictated
by their perceptions of the world.
HUMANISTIC
– point to self
 “I choose how I behave”
NEUROSCIENCE /BIOLOGICAL
 Focuses on the belief that behavior is governed by
physiological responses like changes in brain
chemistry, brain structure, nervous system, etc.
NEUROSCIENCE /BIOLOGICAL
-pinky finger
 We are only starting to know just how much our brain,
genes, hormones… determine our behavior.
BEHAVIORAL
Focuses on:
• the importance of the external
environment in shaping behavior.
A behavior’s frequency is largely a
result of rewards and
punishments.
• the study of learning.
• experimental testing that is
observable.
BEHAVIORAL
– middle finger
 “My observable behaviors are reinforced or punished
and this is what determines my behavior.”
SOCIO-CULTURAL
 Focuses on how behaviors and mental
processes vary amongst the different
cultures of the world
 This is a more recent approach that came
about as people in different places came into
contact with each other more often
(globalism)
 Used to understand and predict behaviors
SOCIO-CULTURAL
– make “the world” gesture
 “My culture and social environment determines my
behavior “
EVOLUTIONARY
 believe that people change or perpetuate (continue)
behavior in order improve their chance to survive (and
therefore reproduce)
 Based on Charles Darwin’s theory of “survival of the
fittest” (Natural Selection) and Herbert Spencer’s
social Darwinism
EVOLUTIONARY
– opposable thumbs
 Our behaviors are the result of our innate need to
reproduce
Biological
(Neuroscience)
Behavioral
Cognitive
Humanistic
Behavior can be understood by describing
underlying biochemical and neurological
causes.
Interested in directly observable behaviors
that are the result of external stimuli.
Cognitive psychologists study thoughts &
processes (language, thought &
memory).
Views behavior as a product of free will
and opposed the determinism of
behaviorism & psychoanalysis.
brain, neurochemicals,
genes
reinforcement or punishment
our thoughts
I choose
Psychodynamic
(Psychoanalytic)
Human behavior is primarily determined by
unconscious processes. Stresses the
importance of early experiences in
determining later behavior patterns.
events from distant past;
unconscious
Social-Cultural
Human behavior is largely the result of our
social environments.
environment
Belief that our thoughts and behaviors are
the result of evolutionary selection
pressures.
natural selection
Evolutionary/
Sociobiological
Finding Nemo Activity
Start: scene 1 (show all)-- skip titles -- scene 2 - show until Mr. Ray swims away with the class
Start: Scene 16 (Sea Turtles) -- show until Crush says, "but when they know, you'll know -- you know?"