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Foundations of Pyschology

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Foundations of Psychology This paper will identify the major schools of thought in psychology and examine their major assumptions. The two beginning schools of thought were structuralism and functionalism. The major schools of thought in psychology are the psychodynamic, behaviorist, cognitive, and evolutionary perspective. This paper will also identify the primary biological foundation of psychology linked to behavior. These primary biological foundations are the central nervous system and the behavioral genetics.
Psychodynamic Perspective The Psychodynamic perspective is a school of thought that was initially developed by Sigmund Freud. This perspective focuses on three main points. The first point is that an individual’s actions are determined by the way thoughts and emotions are connected in the individuals mind. The second point is that most of the mental events happen outside of conscious awareness. The third point is that the mental events that happen tend to conflict with each other. Many psychologists disagree with this theory because there is nothing that relates scientifically. The psychologists that agree with this theory are working on incorporating the concepts into scientific psychology (Kowalski & Weston, 2011).
Behaviorist Perspective The behaviorist perspective focuses on what is common between the environmental events and the actual observable behaviors. “According to behaviorist, scientific knowledge comes from using experimental methods to study the relationship between environmental events and behavior (Kowalski & Weston, 2011).” Some behaviorists believe that conscious thought is not able to be studied using science because only the individual can access them to report. B.F. Skinner came up with a systematic approach that showed how a subject could be controlled by their environment by using reinforcement and punishment.

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