Key assumptions of the five perspectives

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Can anyone tell me what the key assumptions are of a) Biological, b) Behaviourist, c) Cognitive, d)Humanist and e) Psychodynamic approaches? thanks

-- Laura (the_leaf_eater@hotmail.com), April 20, 2004

Answers

Not fair. The forum is not designed to answer questons easily available in your textbook. I recommend that you review your reading and your classnotes.

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@cox.net), April 20, 2004.

I've checked through all my notes and every book and web page i can find, but nowhere have I found a clear summary of what the key assumptions are- i need to know the key assumptions separate from the key concepts, and i cant find it anywhere

-- Laura (the_leaf_eater@hotmail.com), April 20, 2004.

Dear Laura,

Try accessing the following two pages for some of the 'intellectual pegs' you seem to be seeking:

http://www.comnet.ca/~pballan/Systems.htm http://www.comnet.ca/~pballan/Movements.htm

After that, if you are still serious about understanding 'where psychology has been and where it may be going' try reading the following three books in the order of their publication:

Munn, N.L. (1971). The Evolution of the Human Mind. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Flanagan, O.J. (1984). The Science of the Mind. Massachusetts: Bradsford Books.

Tolman, C.W. (1994). Psychology, Society, and Subjectivity: An Introduction to German Critical Psychology. London: Routledge.

Good luck with your efforts!

Cheers, Paul F. Ballantyne

-- Paul F. Ballantyne (pballan@comnet.ca), April 20, 2004.


Because these are each quite broad perspectives, there is no definitive set of assumptions that would capture the beliefs of all who stand (more or less) under one banner or the other. Very generally speaking, I would think the most basic assumptions would be evident from the name of each: biological psychologists believe that psychological processes can be explained by, perhaps reduced to, biological processes; behaviorists think that psychological process are best described by reference to overt behavior; cognitive psychologists believe that mental representations need be included in the explanation of (some important forms of) behavior; humanists believe that personal "meanings" and dignity need be respected in the study of people; psychodynamicists believe that the mind is divisible into distinct functions (e.g., id, ego, and superego) that work together (and against each other) to produce behavior.

-- Christopher Green (cgreen@chass.utoronto.ca), April 21, 2004.

Hi Laura, I concur with Christoper's comments, but will add a few additions of my own. First I want to mention that there is a certain amount of danger in some of the following generalizations, since individuals within a particular perspective can vary so much, and some assumptions that are common to a perspective may or may not be essential to the perspective. I think many and probably most (but not all) contemporary psychologists adhering to a biological, behavioral, cognitive, or psychodynamic perspective would agree with naturalistic, empirical, and monistic assumptions (the psychodynamic- empiricism connection and the monism connection in general are probably the weakest of those mentioned). Some of the humanistic psychologists would also hold these assumptions, but many would disagree with one or more of them. Humanistic psychologists also typically have a strong assumption that humans have free will and many assume that an individual has almost unlimited potential (i.e., assume less contraint from hereditary or environmental factors than most other psychologists). They are also less tied to traditional empirical methods and more likely to be open to parapsychology. The Psychodynamic psychologists typically assume that unconscious cognitive-emotional processes play a particularly important role in influencing us, there is a dynamic interplay of personality components, and defense mechanism are ubiquitious. Hope this helps and I have not done too much of your homework. Paul

-- Paul Kleinginna (pkleinginna@georgiasouthern.edu), April 21, 2004.


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