In this essay I am going to contrast and compare three approaches in psychology which are behaviourist, cognitive, and humanist. I am going to show how these psychological approaches contribute to the understanding of the human mind and behaviour. Human mind and behaviour are affected during moments of transition and change. These are moments in which there is an alteration in an individual’s life. They can take a period of time to occur or can take place suddenly. Transitions happen during a period of time. The definition of the word transition confirms it.
It is definite as ‘the process or a period of changing from a state or condition to another’ (Hornby, 2005: 1631). To illustrate, there is a period of changes when individuals leave adolescence and become adults. That period of changes is a transition. Changes are more sudden, and when they occur something is changed. The same dictionary gives the following definitions for change: ‘to pass or make sb/sth pass from one state or form into another’ (Hornby, 2005: 243) or ‘to stop having one state, position or direction and start having another’ (Hornby, 2005: 244).
These definitions clearly show that a change is instantaneous, occurs in a very short period of time. For example, a sudden death of spouse or other person very close to a certain individual drastic changes the individual’s behaviour and way of life; get married also changes a person’s status instantly from the moment a couple is declared husband and wife they are not single anymore but married. Both transitions and changes make people experience different emotions. A person may either become stressed or even depressed, have negative feelings of him, or became withdrawn from others.
However that way an individual reacts will depend on the transition or change itself, and on the individual whom is going through it. Psychologists believe the way an individual reacts through a moment of transition or change can be explained after an analyse of the individual’s past experiences, knowledge, habits, social life, and culture, and application of an appropriated approach in psychology or a combination of approaches in psychology. I am going now to write about in what the perspectives consist, their founders, and how do they contribute to the development of the human mind and behaviour.
These perspectives have their limitations and advantages so that I’m going to mention them in order to compare and contrast the 3 perspectives. The first perspective I am going to analyse is behaviourism. Behaviourists believe that ‘psychology should only investigate observable behaviour’ (Hill, G. , 1998: 5) because for them we only need to concern ourselves in what is observable and measurable such as behaviour. They look in what way environment affects behaviour. ‘It purports to explain human and animal behaviour in terms of external physical stimuli, responses, learning histories, and (for certain types of behaviour) reinforcements.
Thus, they ignore anything related with mind/mental because it can not be seen. Their theory about to look only at behaviour because it can be studied brings an advantage to their approach for the reason that it is a scientifically proven approach. The basis for behaviourist approach itself is seen as a limitation, particularly by cognitive psychologists, because it overlooks emotional aspects, ignores the mental process involved in the process of learning, and disregards any human capacity to think.
The founder of this psychological approach is John B. Watson. He was a total empiricist – he believed knowledge is gained by our environment, since humans at birth are like a ‘tabula rasa’ or blank state in which experience write on to produce a person; and accepted emotions are caused by stimuli which lead to measurable responses that can be scientifically proven. Watson proved his believes with some experiments made. His well known Little Albert experiment with an 11-month-old baby, Albert, gave ‘evidence that emotion can be learned through classical conditioning …
They first tested Albert’s responses to white, fluffy objects … He initially showed no fear response to these’ (Williamson, M. , Cardweel, M. , and Flanagan, C. , 2007: 256) Then, Albert was shown a white rat at the same time Watson made a loud noise from behind. After that, whenever a rat was shown to Albert ‘this conditioned stimulus produced a conditioned response of fear. This study … provided evidence that even complex behaviours, such as emotions, could be learned through manipulation of one’s environment.
‘ (http://education. stateuniversity. com) Burrhus Frederick Skinner was other experimental behaviourist psychologist. He believed that humans are like machines and they have predictable responses to external forces. He demonstrated it with his operant conditioning experiment made on rats. His experiment conclusions were summarised in the following way: ‘learning occurs through reinforcement (positive or negative) which increases the likelihood that a behaviour will be repeated’ (Williamson, M. , Cardweel, M. , and Flanagan, C.
, 2007: 3) The fact of experiments like this have been carried out in animals is one of the biggest limitations in behaviourism. Human beings are far more complex than animals. To use animals to explain human behaviour is not too accurate because humans have much more ability to do things and use their free will. To illustrate, humans are able to negotiate or oblige their rewards or even to not accept to do what they were asked to do. An animal cannot do it. It also goes against Skinner’s belief the human responses can be predictable.
As I said, humans can reject a task or change the conditions involved in doing a task. In the other hand, the impact of Skinner’s findings on education system cannot be ignored. His theory of positive or negative reinforcement according with responses (Operating conditioning) has a big part on the motivation of students. For example, financial helps such as EMA, ALG, Maintenance grants provided in this country to students at colleges and universities motivates many people to get further/higher education.
According to the theory of reinforcement, these financial helps are positive reinforcements (rewards) for ‘good’ behaviours (get more educated). Social learning theory is another approach to behaviourism of Albert Brandura. It ’emphasizes the importance of observing and modelling the behaviours, attitudes, and emotional reactions of others. ‘ (http://tip. psychology. org) Brandura ‘pointed out that much of what we learn in the consequence of observation, indirect rewards/punishments and modelling. ‘ (Williamson, M. , Cardweel, M. , and Flanagan, C. , 2007: 246)