The 7 Most Important Perspectives in Psychology (Made Simple) (2023)

perspectives in psychology

Psychology is the study of how people think and behave. Many psychologists have defined and presented different perspectives on the interests and explanations of human behavior. From this rationale, many perspectives in psychology emerged.

Starting from Aristotle to modern timesDefinition of Psychology, no single perspective has emerged as the correct way to look at human behavior and mental processes. Today, the viewpoints of the founders of psychology have become so mingled that they no longer exist as a separate school of thought.

The major perspectives in psychology that have emerged are cognitive, behavioral, psychodynamic, humanistic, biological, sociocultural, and evolutionary.

1. Cognitive Perspective

One of the most important psychological perspectives is the cognitive perspective of psychology. It focuses on processing, organizing, storing and retrieving information and deals with the higher mental processes like thinking, memory, etc.

The cognitive perspective is the newly developed area that explains human behavior that was developed in the 1960s. The most important contributions to this perspective are George Miller (1920), Jerome Bruner (1915) and Ulrich Neisser (1928).

Cognition includes the higher intellectual process such as perceiving, believing, thinking, remembering, knowing, deciding and so on. The word "cognito" means "I think". Cognition is a mental process whereby information is acquired, processed, transmitted, stored, retrieved and used. It examines thinking, how we know and understand words, solve problems, make decisions, use language, communicate our thoughts to others.

For example, if someone stops us on a freeway and we think they need help (their car broke down), we might stop offering help and remind ourselves that someone in a similar situation helped us before.

On the other hand, if we think he's planning to rob at gunpoint or remember a bad accident with a similar situation, we wouldn't help him. This suggests that cognition helps to analyze the situation. From this perspective, cognition plays a crucial role in controlling behavior.

2. Behavioral Perspective

Another important psychological perspective is the behavioral perspective of psychology. It is based on observable behavior without giving importance to mental processes such as thinking, emphasizing that learning plays a key role in controlling and influencing all behaviors.

The behavioral perspective of psychology suggests that only demonstrated behaviors are observable and not mental processes. It was J.B. Waston who introduced the idea of ​​behaviorism, the work of Ivan Pavlov that influenced him.

Watson then opined that human behavior can be measured by observable behavior and not by studying the mind or consciousness. He shaped and practiced these principles for animals, which were later opened up to humans.

Later, B.F. Skinner, one of the greatest contemporary psychologists, followed these psychological perspectives. Skinner uses behavior in a very simple way. He used to cure diseases and change the behavior of animals in a variety of environments. Skinner's principles are also used to train dolphins, seals, and other animals found in the circus or in the home.

3. Psychodynamic Perspective

Sigmund Freud developed the psychodynamic technique used to study abnormal behavior. Freud believed that at the root of psychological problems are sexual and aggressive motives that remain at the unconscious level of the mind.

The term psychodynamics is used because these unconscious motives and conflicts influence our behavior even though we are unaware that they exist. They reveal themselves in disguised, symbolic ways, such as in dreams, in slips of the tongue, and sometimes in psychological problems.

Freud also focused on early childhood, emphasizing that early experiences have a major impact on personality development. The psychodynamic perspective is widely known for treating maladaptive behavior by bringing the unconscious causes of stress to the conscious level.

4. Humanistic Perspective

It emphasizes human mental health through psychotherapy and focuses on human free will, values ​​and goodness.

The humanistic perspective of psychology was developed by Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Viktor Frankl in the 1950s and 1960s. This perspective has a very different view of the human being than the perspectives of psychoanalysis and behavioral psychology.

This perspective focuses on freedom in controlling human behavior. According to this, every person is a unique individual and experiences the world differently. One of the key humanistic principles is that all human beings have a fundamental strong innate tendency to grow and improve to reach their full potential and a desire to take control of their own lives.

Humanistic psychologists are the "least scientific" of all perspectives on psychology. The principle they focus on is very difficult to study scientifically because it is characterized by philosophical aspects of human life.

5. Physiological or biological perspective

It mainly focuses on the physiology involved in all forms of behavior and mental processes. Uses research tools to study the workings of the brain and nerve impulses, primarily focusing on the role of heredity in normal and abnormal patterns of behavior.

All human behavior is associated with physiological changes in the body. The interrelationship between body, behavior and mental processes is the focus of the biological perspective. ThephysiologicalPerspective describes the role of nerve cells in various aspects of a person's behavior related to emotion, reasoning, problem solving, intelligence, speech, etc.

Physiological psychologists have studied the influence of heredity on personality traits and abilities in recent years. They also focus on behavioral genetics to determine how much genes and environment influence individual differences.

In particular, Karl Lashley focused on the continuous activity of the brain and its interaction with the environment and a dynamic network of interacting systems. Lashley emphasized fatigue, lower motivation and poor memory as the three factors most important in forgetting.

6. Evolutionary Perspective

It focuses on how natural selection favors traits that promote the continuation of one's genes. How does evolution affect behavioral tendencies, and how does that behavior or structure help adapt to the environment?

An evolutionary perspective is based on the work of Charles Darwin (1859), who popularized the theory of evolution nearly 150 years ago. The evolutionary perspective focuses on the role of physical structure and behavior in the process of an organism's adaptation to the environment.

Darwin popularized the three basic components of variance, heredity and selection in his theory of evolution.

• Variation refers to the fact that organisms belonging to a particular species vary in different ways. Every human being has individual differences varying in shape, size, intelligence, personality, health and so on.
• Inheritance refers to the fact that some of these variations can be passed from generation to generation
• Selection refers to the particular behaviors that organisms have adapted to best suit their environment.

7. Sociocultural Perspective

The focus of the sociocultural perspective is on how behavior and thinking varyacross different cultures.

The way people socialize and develop from infancy to old age is explained through a psychological perspective known as the sociocultural perspective. Sociocultural psychology explains how our personalities, beliefs, attitudes, skills, and values ​​are shaped by our culture, ethnicity, gender, religion, and other important sociocultural factors.

Sociocultural aspects deal with how people interact, are interdependent and coordinate with one another to influence and be influenced by one another.

Diploma

These 7 perspectives of psychology are recognized as a suitable means of understanding human beings' diverse characters, needs, styles, development and many things. By including one or two perspectives, one can understand why and how people behave the way they do.

These perspectives are effective ways to understand different problems of people, which can be beneficial for various scholars, researchers, psychologists and students.

However, it cannot be said that these 7 perspectives are only the perspectives of psychology. Rather, psychologists are increasingly busy exploring many more possible perspectives today, and perhaps many more perspectives in the future, that will also help to better understand people, us, or human nature.

Related