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Origins of Psychology, Research Methods and the Brain

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Part I: Origins of Psychology

Within the discipline of psychology, there are several perspectives used to describe, predict, and explain human behavior. The seven major perspectives in modern psychology are psychoanalytic, behaviorist, humanist, cognitive, neuroscientific/biopsychological, evolutionary, and sociocultural. Describe the seven major psychological perspectives using two to three sentences each. Select one major figure associated with one of the seven major perspectives and describe his or her work in two to three sentences. Type your response in the space below.

Part II: Research Methods

Describe research methods used in psychology by completing the following table. After completing the table, select two of the research methods and compare and contrast them in your own words. Your response must be at least 75 words.

Part III: The Brain

Studying the functions and elements of the brain is essential to understanding human behavior. Watch the CyberPsych animation, The Brain, to research the brain in more depth. To access the animation:

1. Open WileyPlus by clicking on the rEsource link
2. Click on Read, Study, Practice
3. Select Chapter Two
4. Go to CyberPsych
5. Click on the animation titled The Brain

After watching the animation, use the animation and your text to answer the following questions:

1. Why do psychologists study twins? Why do psychologists study children who have been adopted? What can be learned from these types of studies?

2. What are the functions of neurotransmitters and hormones? How do they influence the brain and behavior?

3. What is neuroplasticity?

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Solution Summary

This solution describes the seven theories and a related key figure in modern psychology, e.g psychoanalytic, behaviorist, humanist, cognitive, neuroscientific/biopsychological, evolutionary, and sociocultural. It also helps with a research method worksheet. Finally, related to the animation, the three questions are addressed in some detail e.g. why psychologists study twins, children who have been adopted; the functions of neurotransmitters and hormones and how they influence the brain and behavior; and explains neuroplasticity.

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Part I: Origins of Psychology

Within the discipline of psychology, there are several perspectives used to describe, predict, and explain human behavior. The seven major perspectives in modern psychology are psychoanalytic, behaviorist, humanist, cognitive, neuroscientific/biopsychological, evolutionary, and sociocultural. Describe the seven major psychological perspectives using two to three sentences each. Select one major figure associated with one of the seven major perspectives and describe his or her work in two to three sentences. Type your response in the space below.

1. Psychoanalytic Perspective (psychoanalytic approach) focuses on the importance of the unconscious mind (not the conscious mind). In other words, psychoanalytic perspective dictates that behavior is determined by your past experiences that are left in the unconscious mind (people are unaware of them). This perspective is still based on Freud's psychoanalytic perspective about early experiences being so influential on current behavior, but the focus on sex is not as great.

Signmund Freud proposed a theory of personality development that centered on the effects of the sexual pleasure drive on the individual psyche. He propose five stages of development oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital) and at each stage, a single body part is particularly sensitive to sexual, erotic stimulation. These erogenous zones are the mouth, the anus, and the genital region. The child's libido centers on behavior affecting the primary erogenous zone of her age; she cannot focus on the primary erogenous zone of the next stage without resolving the developmental conflict of the immediate one. Freud's theory is an instinct theory, and a child has needs and demands at each stage, such as the need of the infant to nurse. Frustration occurs when these needs are not met; Overindulgence stems from such an ample meeting of these needs that the child is reluctant to progress beyond the stage. Both frustration and overindulgence lock some amount of the child's libido permanently into the stage in which they occur; both result in a fixation. If a child progresses normally through the stages, resolving each conflict and moving on, then little libido remains invested in each stage of development. But if he fixates at a particular stage, the method of obtaining satisfaction which characterized the stage will dominate and affect his adult personality (see more detail at http://www.freudfile.org/theory.html).

2. Behaviorism: The school of thought developed in response to Freud's foocus on unconscious processes. Instead it stressed the need for psychology to be an objective science. In other words, that psychology should be a science based on observable (and only observable) events, not the unconscious or conscious mind. This perspective was first suggested and propagated by John Watson in 1913, who wanted psychology to study only observable behaviors and get away from the study of the conscious mind completely. Watson's primary rationale was that only observable events are verifiable and thus, are the only events that can be proven false. This is an extremely important concept for science; without it, how can you ever find out what is true, false, real, or fake. For B.F Skinner see http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/skinner.html.

3. Humanistic Perspective is often referred to as the third force, which was developed in response to behaviorism and its focus on the environment as the prime determinant of behavior. It's main proponents are Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow (hierarchy of needs) that emphasized the human capacity for choice and growth. The overriding assumption is that humans have free will and are not simply fated to behave in specific ways or are zombies blindly reacting to their environments (behaviorism). Instead, humanists state that the subject matter or psychology (what psychology should focus on) is the human subjective experience of the world, how humans experience things, why they experience things, etc.

4. Cognitive Perspective is the psychological viewpoint that the focuses on the how people (and other animals) process, store, and retrieve information and how this information is used to reason and solve problems. Obviously, the part about reasoning is generally reserved for humans, although there is some argument concerning the possibility that other ...

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