There are several major schools of thought in psychology; they are structuralism, psychodynamic, behaviorism, evolutionary, and cognitive perspectives. Each of these schools range in areas of the human mind, for example sensation, emotion, the brains computer-like response to their functions, healing the mind with probing of problems and motives, the importance of values and intentions, and the internal representation of the world.
Structuralism is the area of psychology that studies the elements of consciousness. Basically, the conscious experience can be broken down into the most basic conscious elements. This can be compared to the way physical phenomenon, which can be viewed as consisting of chemical structures, and then it can be broken down into its basic elements. To break down the normal conscious experience into its basic elements there is a process that one needs to go through, one would use a method called introspection. This process entails a person identifying an object in basic terms, for example referring to a dog as furry, kind, playful, instead of saying the dog is a dog. If the person refers to the subject by its own name (the dog is a dog) it can be referred to as a “stimulus error. In simpler terms, structuralism is used to identify objects and experiences based on perception and not what it actually is.
Behaviorism relates to how a person becomes the way they are, through environment and observation. The way a person learns to behave is based on the things that surrounded them as they grew up and the events that they witness. Locke referred to the brain at birth as being a blank slate, saying that actions are learned and not mannerism that we are born with. This is the way in which we learn what is right and what is wrong, by the responses that we get when we behave in a certain way. For example, if we cheat on a test and we get caught and get in trouble, we are more than likely to never cheat again. This is because we learn that our behavior is associated with a negative response. The same can be said about the positive things that we do, for example, if we do well on a test and we are rewarded, we will try to do well every time to receive a reward.
The cognitive perspective is based on the way that we identify, process, and retrieve information. Basically, our brains can be compared to computers, we have room to store information and ways to retrieve information. Human memory systems encode the information that we receive and then stores the information allowing us to retrieve the information based on different mental programs that we have. The coding systems can affect how we recall information, making everyone a little different from the next person.
Evolutionary perspective believes that our behavioral tendencies evolved because they are things that allowed our ancestors to survive and produce healthy offspring. There are certain adaptive traits that are generally passed to their offspring. These are natural selections because those that do not possess are less likely than those that do possess them are not as likely to survive and reproduce. The book used an example explaining how rock pocket mice and the peppered moth both adapted to their environment to hide their presence and make them less noticeable to predators. The same can be said for the way humans evolve to blend in with their environments, whether it be in physical appearance or personality styles.
Psychodynamic perspective has three main premises: firstly that our actions are defined as the thoughts, feelings, and wishes are all connected to our minds. Secondly, these mental events typically occur outside our conscious awareness, and lastly, these processes might conflict with each other, forcing one to compromise among our competing movies. The psychodynamic approach tells us that some of the feelings that we have and some of the responses that we make are tied to our unconscious motives. Though we are not aware as to what is causing these issues, we know that they are present. What does this mean for our actions and how we feel? We might have blocked motives, though we are not consciously aware that we are blocking ourselves from success. At times, we cannot explain why we feel the way that we do, for example, a parent dies and we feel guilt. There might be an underlying issue that is causing this reaction that we are not consciously aware of.
There are different primary biological foundations of psychology that are linked to behavior. The neurons take care of the sensory part of the nervous system, carrying and transmitting sensory information to and from different parts of the body. There are three different kinds of neurons: sensory, motor, and interneurons.
The peripheral nervous system carries messages to and from the central nervous system through sensory receptors located in the different parts of the body. This part of the system takes care of the necessary functions of the body.
The central nervous system deals with the brain and spinal cord; this area also controls the vital functions of the body. This area also deals with visual and auditory functions as well as our different behaviors, such as our eating, sleeping, and sexual activities. Essentially, the central nervous system deals with all of our functions.
Last, we have genetics and evolution which deal with our psychological attributes, such as our intelligence or personality. All of our behaviors have proven to adapt over time and are beneficial to our survival and reproduction.
All of our actions are caused by different factors, whether they are personality traits caused by evolution or traits that we have learned from our environment. Each reaction and response can be contributed to different types of actions in our head. Sometimes we find that there are different causes for why we do what we do and what the causes are. We all respond in different ways, we just have to search to see what the factors really are.
