The Seven Perspectives and Subfields of Psychology
The seven major theoretical perspectives of psychology are the following: psychodynamic perspective, behavioral perspective , humanistic perspective, cognitive perspective, sociocultural perspective, bio-psychological perspective, and evolutionary perspective. These perspectives focus on early life experiences, behavior, goals set by people, thought processes, social and cultural factors, biology and genetics (Ciccarelli and White 2017). The seven major subfields of psychology are important to psychology because they use the perspectives to treat people that have mental or psychological issues.
The Seven Theoretical Perspectives
The first perspective, psychodynamic, is a more modern version of psychoanalysis. It was created by a gentleman named Sigmund Freud (Ciccarelli and White 2017). The theory he developed is still sometimes used by many professionals today for therapy. Over the years, his theory of psychoanalysis has been modernized. Currently, the main idea of his theory by definition is as follows: the unconscious mind and its influence over conscious behavior and on early childhood experiences, but with less emphasis on sex and sexual motivations and more emphasis on the development of a sense of self, social and interpersonal relationships and the discovery of other motivations behind a person’s behavior (Cicarelli and White 2017). Basically, this version means that there is more focus on the creation of a sense of self and the finding of motivations behind a person’s behavior than sexual motivations.
Behaviorism is also a perspective of psychology that has been around since the beginning. Discovered by BF Skinner, after John B Watson moved onto a new field, behaviorism is the focus on external forces that guide personality development (Ciccarelli and White 2017). An example of behaviorism is one that is relatable. An example is when kids cry for their mothers, and in return, would receive their mother’s attention. Therefore, children would notice that and anytime they wanted their mother’s attention would begin to cry.
The next perspective is the humanistic perspective or “humanism”. Humanism is referred to as the “third force” of psychology because it was a reaction to the first two perspectives: psychoanalysis and behaviorism (Ciccarelli and White 2017). The reason this perspective was a reaction was because professionals started to develop a theory that humans could control their own lives versus the ideas of sexual or guiding personality development that is seen in the psychoanalysis and behaviorism theories. Humanists believed that the whole point of humanism was to have free will, strive for self-actualization, and choose one’s own destiny (Ciccarelli and White 2017). The fathers of this view were Carl Rodgers and Abraham Maslow. Today, humanism is a form of psychotherapy that focuses on self-understanding and self-improvement.
The cognitive perspective can be considered one of the most important perspectives. This perspective focuses on the way people think, remember, store, and use information (Ciccarelli and White 2017). This perspective was formed during the 1960s, but was not a new idea. It had been around amongst the Gestalt psychologists who also saw this in their study of mental processes of learning (Ciccarelli and White 2017). The creation of many things such as computers and new biological discoveries all came from the study of thoughts. Also, stemming from the cognitive perspective is cognitive neuroscience. Cognitive neuroscience can be described as the psychical study of the brain and nervous system when involved in memory, thinking, and other cognitive processes (Ciccarelli and White 2017).
The sociocultural perspective is a more modern idea of psychology. This perspective focuses on relationship between behavior in society and culture (Ciccarelli and White 2017). This perspective is important because it focuses on the behavior of a person who is with a friend or in a crowd and behaves by the social norms, fads, or class difference. Cross-cultural research is also a part of this perspective. This research takes two cultures and studies them equally. This research helps them understand different behaviors amongst different cultures due to certain factors (Ciccarelli and White 2017).
Next is the bio-psychological perspective. This perspective focuses on the biological bases of behavior and mental processes. More specifically, it is the perspective that links animal and human behavior to events occurring in the body biologically (Ciccarelli and White 2017). Bio-psychology is a part of neuroscience and is often linked with the Cognitive perspective because of its study of the nervous system and its development.
The final perspective is the Evolutionary Perspective. This perspective is an extreme focus on biological bases of universal mental characteristics that humans have in common (Ciccarelli and White 2017). Its job is to identify simple mental characteristics like why humans lie, why humans fear something, or why humans love something. It also looks in to why these thoughts are common amongst humans. This perspective uses a specific description: “the mind is seen as a set of information-processing machines designed by the same process of natural selection” (Ciccarelli and White 2017).
The Seven Major Subfields of Psychology
Clinical psychology is the most significant subfield of psychology. Clinical psychology accounts for 34% of use amongst the 11 subfields. This subfield uses counseling and therapy methods done by psychologists to help diagnose people with psychological disorders. However, psychologists cannot prescribe medicine or medical therapies like a psychiatrist can (Ciccarelli and White 2017). Another subfield is counseling psychology. Counseling and clinical psychology have the same objective. Psychologists and or counselors both help people and attempt treat problems (Ciccarelli and White 2017). The only major difference between them is that counseling psychology deals with healthier people or people with less problems.
Developmental psychology is another important area of psychology, which focuses on change and development. Specifically, it studies how people think, how people relate to each other, and how people feel during their life (Ciccarelli and White 2017). The psychologists that study developmental psychology are mostly stationed in colleges and universities. They research areas of development, but they do not participate in giving therapy. Similarly, there is experimental psychology. This has many areas such as learning, memory, language, thinking, perception, and motivation. Psychologists study animals and humans to find out research in these areas (Ciccarelli and White 2017). Like psychologists in developmental psychology, experimental psychologists are outliers stationed in colleges in universities to conduct research or experiment.
An extremely important subfield due to some current events is social psychology. With our changing society, this subfield is becoming more and more prominent. Social psychology is the study of how human behavior is affected by other humans’ presence. A main study done by psychologists of this subfield would include why people are prejudice or why people show aggressive behavior (Ciccarelli and White 2017). Psychologists in this subfield preform their experiments in real world settings, instead of a setting such as a laboratory.
Next is personality psychology. This subfield studies the differences amongst people. Psychologists may look at hereditary as a reason of why people would have a different personality then someone else. They study how people are alike and different, and also study the similarities of people’s personalities (Ciccarelli and White 2017).
Lastly is psychological psychology. Psychologists in this subfield focus on the biological bases of behavior (Ciccarelli and White 2017). They study the brain and nervous system, and how chemicals or hormones affect human behavior. Many professionals refer to this field as neuroscience or biopsychology (Ciccarelli and White 2017). These psychologists work in a college or university setting.
Throughout this paper, the described perspectives and subfields show how important psychology is. Psychology is an everyday thing that helps people everywhere. It helps people get through rough times or through mental disorders. Without the research from the subfields listed above, the perspectives would not be able to help people. This paper proves that the subfields as well as the perspectives are extremely important to society.