Barron's AP Psychology 5th Edition Unit

Psychoanalytic Perspective

The psychoanalytic perspective, as described previously, continues to be a part, if a controversial one, of modern psychology. Psychologists using this perspective believe that the unconscious mind—a part of our mind that we do not have conscious control over or access to—controls much of our thought and action. Psychoanalysts would look for impulses or memories pushed into the unconscious mind through repression. This perspective thinks that to understand human thought and behavior, we must examine our unconscious mind through dream analysis, word association, and other psychoanalytic therapy techniques. A psychoanalytic psychologist might explain that an introverted person avoids social situations because of a repressed memory of trauma in childhood involving a social situation, perhaps acute embarrassment or anxiety experienced (but not consciously remembered) at school or a party.

Biopsychology (or Neuroscience) Perspective

Biopsychologists explain human thought and behavior strictly in terms of biological processes. Human cognition and reactions might be caused by effects of our genes, hormones, and neurotransmitters in the brain or by a combination of all three. A biopsychologist might explain a person’s tendency to be extroverted as caused by genes inherited from their parents and the genes’ effects on the abundance of