Seven Schools of Psychology

There are seven schools or approaches to psychology, each with different focuses. These include:

• Behavioral Perspective

• Biological Perspective

• Cognitive Perspective

• Humanist Perspective

• Psychoanalytic Perspective

• Social-Cultural Perspective

• Evolutionary Perspective

Behavioral Perspective

• Focuses on observable behaviors over feelings.

• Deals with how we learn, and believes we behave in ways because we have been conditioned to do so. We have to recondition in order to change.

• B.F. Skinner and Ivan Pavlov are pioneers of behavioral perspective.

Biological Perspective

• Refers to the function of brain and body chemistry.

• Deals with transmission of messages through the mody and how it is linked to moves and motives.

• Have to change body chemistry in order to change behavior.

Cognitive Perspective

• Thought process or thinking EVERY TIME you see it

• Focuses on how we think or encode information

• Cognitive therapy attempts to change the way you think

Humanist Perspective

• Focused on spirituality and free will.

• Strive to be best with “self actualization” Happiness is defined by the distance between our “self-concept” and “ideal self”.

• Abraham Maslow developed a hierarchy of needs and Carl Rogers was a promoter of love and acceptance towards others.

Psychoanalytic Perspective

• The prefix “psycho” is “unconscious”.

• Focuses on the unconscious mind.

• We repress many real feelings and aren’t aware of them.

• In order to improve, we have to address the true feelings we have.

• Sigmund Freud was the largest influence in psychoanalysis, along with Carl Jung.

• Typically can deal with childhood.

Social-Cultural Perspective

• Much of your behavior and feelings are dictated by the culture that you are living in.

Evolutionary Perspective

• Focuses on Darwinism - we behave the way we do because we inherited the behaviors.

• They must have ensured our ancestor’s survival if we inherited that behavior.