What is Psychology?
People have been studying psychology for over one hundred years, and yet some do not know what it is or how psychologists study it. Most psychologist will do tests on their subjects to see how the mind works with their body. In this reading, one will learn about the seven different approaches to psychology and what they think psychology is to them. Many people believe they know and understand what psychology is. However, most of the time they only know about a small section, and not all parts. Knowing all parts of psychology helps humans understand themselves from a different perspective. The basic definition of psychology when searched in the dictionary is “the science of the mind and mental processes”, but this is just one of the numerous definitions.
According to the psychologists in the biological approach, they assume that certain behaviors are caused by activity in the nervous system. According the to article, it says “many biopsychologists also agree that because the development of the brain is determined by the genes a person inherits, that behavior may be influenced by genetic factors” (Sammons 1). The biological approach seeks the mental side of actions. Some neuropsychologists would say that psychology is the scientific study of the human mind. It actually is the only approach where psychologists will look at thoughts and behaviors from a physical point of view. A majority of biopsychologists believe that behavioural characteristics have explanations that relate to evolution. The main focus of their studies is relating the brain to behaviours, so they look at different brain areas that control different sections to help them see what parts do what. Some of the biopsychologists look at genetics to see why people behave the way they do. So, biopsychologists would define psychology as the study of applying biology to the study of developmental mechanisms of human behavior.
The evolutionary approach to psychology examines psychological structure from a modern point of view. So, they study things from our ancestors who are much different than us, and compare our actions to them to see a change in behaviors over time. They have studies that say that selflessness can be inherited through genes because of people from the past who were isolated in Africa. The article states “A genetic mutation produced a single tribesman who was naughty, not nice. He had a simple prime directive encoded in his DNA: Look out for number one.The tribesman had selfish genes”(Gottschall 1). This shows that one bad gene can change history, now this family will have the selfishness gene. The fact that our ancestors were isolated means that in our genes we could be more selfless than others. That is something we cannot control, which is why psychologists are so interested in it. Studies show that the human brain has many functional mechanisms that have evolved from natural selection. Natural selection is where organisms that are better adapted for the environment will survive better than the weaker ones. Some of the things that our ancestors did for survival has adapted with us to create the people we are today. The evolutionary scientists would say that psychology is the study of comparison of human nature from the past to the present.
The psychodynamic approach to psychology is the study of the mind through conscious and unconscious thoughts and actions. Psychotherapy is talking therapy, which helps the people talk out their issue and learn new ways on how to solve them. According to Sigmund Freud, the first psychologist to make the original psychodynamic theory, the unconscious mind is the primary source of human behavior. The past is also a major influence for actions because it shapes our personality. For example, if someone was abused as a child, it was so traumatic that their brain stored the memory in their unconscious mind. As adults these people might be angry or full of rage and cannot figure out why when really it is their unconscious part of the brain making the actions justifiable. Events that happen in childhood can be stored in the unconscious mind and cause issues in the future. These people would most likely say psychology is the study of our hidden and unhidden thoughts turning into our most recent actions.
The behavioral approach to psychology is when people learn from their environment. They are conditioned or unconditioned to act a certain way. The article gives an example, “Ivan Pavlov conditioned dogs to salivate everytime a bell rang because he used food and a bell many times together” (Mcleod 1). The dogs were conditioned to salivate because everytime they heard the bell they thought of food. This was called classical conditioning and the other is called operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is when behavior can be explained by one’s motive. For example, B. F. Skinner did this with a rat. He had treats, and all the rat had to do was pull a lever to get them. The rat was motivated by the treats, so they pulled the lever to receive them. This approach is normally the one people think about when thinking of psychologists being in a lab. The behavioral psychologists view on what psychology is would be the study of actions that can be manipulated or altered through experiments.
The cognitive approach to psychology is when people do their actions based on thinking, learning, and their memory. Cognitive psychologists try to process what goes through the inside of people’s minds.When people follow through with actions based on their thoughts or their memories, it means that they are the most connected with themselves. They believe that if they listen to their thoughts, then the outcome will work out in their favor. Psychologists compare human and computer processing because they both have so much information and are very similar. “By describing thinking as information processing, cognitive psychologists are making a comparison between minds and computers” (Sammons 1). This is important because the minds and computers both have good similar characteristics, such as inputs, outputs, memory storage, and a limited capacity for their amount of information being processed. Without the understanding of the mediational process, psychologists would not have a complete understanding of human behaviour, which is super important. Mediational processes occur between stimulus and response. So, cognitive psychologists believe the definition of psychology would be the study of human behavior based on the inner workings of the brain, such as the thoughts.
Humanistic approach to psychology is when one looks at the whole individual and stresses concepts like free will. The humanistic approach is very spiritual because of all the beliefs it has. This approach developed as a rebellion of limitations on psychology. This approach emphasises the personal worth of an individual. Humanistic psychology is a very hopeful approach because it can study the hardships and how every individual goes through them and gets over them. The definition of psychology would be the study of humans based on their own beliefs and how they think their actions can reflect on their self actualization.
The sociocultural approach is when one looks at how people act and behave based on their culture around them. Socio-culture psychologists look at human behavior influenced by others and the social context in which this occurs. They will look at factors that make us behave in a certain way with others. It is said that interactions with others affects our perception and even the manner in which we make our decisions. An example of this approach is if a caucasian family teaches their children racism, the children will most likely grow up having these racist thoughts. The kids might realize when they are older that these thoughts are wrong, but they were taught from a young age and do not know better. The definition of psychology would be the study of human actions based on their culture.
Overall, all of these approaches have different meanings of psychology. However, they all have a common ground of how important it is to study humans because the more they know the better it is for all of us in the long run. The biological approach to psychology studies behaviors in the nervous system relating to actions, the evolutionary approach studies ancestors actions relating how how we act today, the psychodynamic approach is the study of unconscious and conscious thoughts in our minds and how we use them to do actions, the behavioral approach studies conditioning relating to body reaction, the cognitive approach studies actions based on thinking and memory, the humanistic approach studies the individual human and what they do based on just them, and the sociocultural approach studies behavior based on the people around them. Obviously, none of them study the exact same thing, but they study the human and actions. Psychologists have to go through many experiments to find out certain things about humans, which is a lot of hard work. However, in the end everyday psychologists help the world out with new discoveries everyday. Psychologists know what they are doing and although every definition was different, the more one knows about all types of psychology and the approaches, the more one can define psychology for themselves.