AP Psych Unit 1.2: Schools of Psychology
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.
