7 Major Perspective in Contemporary Psychology

1. Psychoanalytic/psychodynamic (unconscious):

• People's actions are determined by the way their thoughts, feelings and wishes are connected in their minds
• Many occur outside of conscious awareness
• The mental processes may conflict, leading to compromises among competing motives (ID 'now', ego 'reasoning', superego 'conscience'
• Sigmund Freud emphasised on unconscious mental forces
• Many of the associations between feelings and behaviour or situations that guide our behaviour are done unconsciously
• Uses dreams, free associations, sexuality, subconscious mind (Allowing patient to talk without guidance or influence)

2. Behaviour (learning):

• Focuses on the way objects or events in the environment come to control behaviour through learning (E.g. Classical or Opperant Conditioning)
• B. F. Skinner observed that behaviour can be controlled by environmental influences that either increase (reinforce) or decrease (punish) their likelihood of occurring
• Uses observations of environment and is focused on the short term change

3. Humanist (individual):

• Focuses on the individual and assumes people are motivated to reach their full potential
• Carl Rogers' client-centred therapy emphasised conscious, goal-directed choices and the need for individuals to realise their true potential in order to self-actualise
• As this perspective focuses on self-actualisation it does not account for people in third-world countries and is biased to Western culture.

4. Cognitive (thought/memory):

• Focuses on the way people perceive, process and retrieve information
• Rene Descartes' early philosophical questions led many cognitive psychologists to emphasise the role of reason in creating knowledge
• Modern-day cognitive psychologists use experimental procedures to infer the underlying mental processes in operation
• When talking about language, Noam Chomsky took the side of nature believing that the rules of grammar is innate
• James Wilson-Miller created the Koori IQ test in 1982 to show that IQ tests were culturally biased

5. Neuroscience/Biopsychology (physical):

• Examines the physical basis of psychological phenomena such as motivation, emotion and stress
• Aristotle determined that there was a connection between the psychological states and physiological processes

6. Evolutionary (evolved):

• This perspective argues that behavioural tendencies in humans have evolved because they helped our ancestors to survive and rear healthy offspring
• It supports Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection - the most adaptive behavioural traits are those that helped our ancestors adjust and survive in their environment

7. Sociocultural (societal):

• Tries to distinguish universal psychological processes from those that are specific to particular cultures
• Lev Vygotsky that the environment and all its factors had a great impact on the development of higher order functions