Essay Main Theories of Each School of Psychology - 1085 Words

The four major Schools in psychology are Behaviourism, cognitive, psychoanalytic and biological. Many different psychologists have different assumptions and ideas about the way in which psychology developed. And the main theories of each school of psychology, will be developed further in this essay. Behaviourism was firstly introduced by John B Watson and started around 1913. It is the idea that all behaviours are learnt, and humans are subject to stimulus and response. It also suggests that humans do not possess any freewill. Behaviourists believe that mental processes should not be studied as they cannot be observed. The concept of operant conditioning was introduced by B.F Skinner. This is the idea that humans learn through†¦show more content†¦Pavlov demonstrated this by conducting an experiment on a dog where the dog eventually associates the presentation of food, with the ringing of a bell. 1 Cognitive is another school of psychology introduced by a Swiss philosopher and psychologist named Jean Piaget. He spent most of his time studying children, and came to the conclusion that children do not think the same way as adult’s do2. Cognitive psychology refers to a variety of mental activities, and explains human behaviour as a result of how the mind works. The psychoanalytic approach is a school of psychology which focuses on unconscious mental processes, early childhood experiences and the Psychosexual and psychosocial stages of development. According to Freud, we have 3 main parts that make up our personality and these are the id, ego and superego. The id is otherwise known as the pleasure principle and responds to demands such as warmth and sexual gratification. (Reference from text book) Freud believed that this is the unconscious component of our personalities. The ego, is a part of the id which takes reality into account from a young age. The ego is the conscious part of our personality and is logical and understands the demands of reality. The superego develops through socialization and morality and can sometimes be linked to the conscience as it helps us to make rational decisions and strives for perfection. 3 Freud believed that there are five stages of psychosexualShow MoreRelatedCompare and Contrast Structuralism and Functio nalism1310 Words   |  6 PagesCOMPARE AND CONTRAST STRUCTURALISM AND FUNCTIONALISM In my opinion both of the theories structuralism and functionalism involved the study of the human mind and how it works and they were both concerned with the mind at the conscious level. 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