Outline the key features of two different approaches to Psychology and comment on their strengths and weaknesses. You may choose any two approaches from: Biological; Behaviourist; Cognitive; Psychodynamic; Humanistic.
There are a number of different approaches to psychology, two of them being the behaviourist approach and the humanistic approach. Behaviourist approach was the primary paradigm in psychology between 1920s to 1950s. It was mainly concerned with the way we act due to our environmental circumstances. At the time not many ‘psychologist felt comfortable with the existing approaches’ (pg.278, Glassman & Hadad), and because of this the humanistic approach was formed. In this essay I am going to outline the key features of each approach and their advantages and disadvantages.
The behaviourist approach mostly focuses on the relationship between observable behaviour and environmental events, as opposed to internal events. Behaviourists believe that behaviour is determined by the environment which we live in, which provides stimuli that we respond to. A stimulus is measurable factor which may have an effect on behaviour. Behaviour is then measured by the way a person would respond. For example a mother leaves her 2 month old baby in a room and the baby starts crying. The stimuli in the situation would be the mother leaving and the response is the baby crying. Many would argue that the baby crying would be a natural response, something that is in all humans. However behaviourists dismiss the idea of humans and animals having an innate desire to act in a certain way. They believe that as we develop, we learn how to behave/react in certain situations. Learning in behaviourism is explained by two processes: classical conditioning and operant conditioning.
Classical conditioning is the ‘study of learning which involves reflex responses, in which a neutral stimulus comes to elicit an existing reflex response’ (pg.107, Glassman & Hadad), the process of learning by association. It was founded by the Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov demonstrated his theory by using dogs. He had discovered that dogs salivated when shown food. With the use of a bell Pavlov had conditioned the dogs to associate the ringing sound with food. Originally the food was the unconditional stimulus (something which triggers a natural response) which had caused the salvation - the unconditioned response (a response triggered by a specific stimulus). The bell had become the neutral stimulus. As it had made the dog salivate it became a conditioned stimulus and the salvation was now a conditioned response. Behaviourists believe that by decreasing the frequency of a conditioned response it would slowly disappear. This is known as extinction. Pavlov had now proved the behaviourist theory that behaviour is learned. Behaviourist also believed that a conditioned response can be decreased and with time it would slowly extinct. However a previously extinguished response can be recovered if it is not exposed to the conditioned stimulus. This is known as spontaneous recovery.
The second process to learning is operant conditioning. ‘It is the form of learning concerned with changes in the emitted responses as a function of their consequences’ (pg.107, Glassman & Hadad). It is the process where behaviour is reinforced both positively and negatively. People learn new behaviour through the consequences of their actions. This process was founded by the famous American psychologist Burrhus Frederic Skinner. He first tried to tackle the law of effect principle developed by Edward Thorndike which showed that ‘that responses closely followed by satisfaction will become firmly attached to the situation and therefore more likely to reoccur when the situation is repeated’. If a person was to act in a certain way and the consequences were negative they are unlikely to repeat the same action again. For example if someone was to commit a crime they would be
