major theoretical perspectives in developmental psychology
Evolutionary/Sociobiological perspective
The Evolutionary/Sociobiological perspective in psychology argues that social behaviors developed through genetics and inheritance. It emphasizes the role of biology and gene transmission across generations to explain current behavior.
Learning Perspective
The basic concept of this perspective is that positive responses would be triggered by good stimuli while negative responses would could from bad stimuli. Actions that would produce positive results tended to repeated, while those that led to negative results tended to be avoided.
Adversaries to this approach were disgusted by the concept that humans did not think or feel, but only thought that they did. Non-behaviorists and behaviorists parted company. Behaviorists believed that feelings could not explain behavior. Out of behaviorism came the social learning theory, which taught that in addition to behavior, imitation and observation led to learning.
Cognitive Perspective
The cognitive perspective of psychology focuses on the thought process.
The Essay on Humanistic / Phenomenological Perspective in Psychology
Explain the key concepts of the humanistic/phenomenological perspective. To what extent are these concepts derived from other perspectives and other social sciences?The humanistic perspective was founded by Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. The humanistic psychologists believe in the growth potential of healthy individuals and believe that people must strive for self-determination and self- ...
The objective of cognitive psychology is to understand how perceptions and interpretations relate to behavior. Why is that one person will turn to violence when insulted while another person will make excuses for that person rather than acting violently. Through the use of computers, research data can be further analyzed to discover the thought process used in behavior and in some instances, programs can even be written to help understand how humans will react in certain situations.
Psychodynamic Perspective
The goal of psychoanalysis is to dig into the unconscious to find the source of the disturbances. Concerned more with therapy than scientific observation and research, psychodynamic mental health clinicians probe the mind to find events, usually from childhood, that manifest feelings of fear, violence, love, etc. Aggressive feelings, or even sexual feelings, are located in this unconsciousness; and regardless of what a person does, they will come out during normal activities. By finding the root of these feelings, it can be understood why a person may act the way that they do. Also by discovering these events, it may be possible to help people channel the energy in a positive way or solve the problem.
Social-cultural Perspective
Social-cultural perspective concentrates on an individual’s or individuals’ culture or society rather than the individual. To understand why people tend to show certain behavior traits, mental health clinicians look at what effects the person’s surroundings might have on their thought process. Some of the questions pondered are if a person behaves a certain way to be accepted or commits an act because it is accepted amongst their society.
In this perspective violence does not reside in instincts or brain waves, but instead, in cultural rules and political arrangements.
I am interested in the Learning Perspective as BF Skinner is very influential with this perspective. He has held my attention since I learned of his “Skinner box”.
The Essay on First Person Perspective Narrator Reader
When writing literature, authors will adapt points of view to mold the perceptions of their readers. Three points of view that authors use to draw readers into their works of fiction are the limited perspective, the first-person perspective, and the objective perspective. Three stories will be examined and critiqued for their use of these narrative techniques. Of the three perspectives that will ...
Skinner is probably the best known psychologist in the behaviorist tradition. He proposed the theory of operant conditioning. He spoke only about the strengthening of responses, not the strengthening of habits and used the term reinforcer instead of reward.
Skinner’s most fundamental principle is his law of conditioning: “A response followed by a reinforcing stimulus is strengthened and therefore more likely to occur again. ” A second principle was his law of extinction: “A response that is not followed by a reinforcing stimulus is weakened and therefore less likely to occur again. “
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behaviorism
