Introdution to Psychology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Introdution to Psychology - Essay Example It is essential to have a clear idea about these five main approaches (also called perspectives) in psychology in order to comprehend the vast and vital role of this scientific study in human life and the different areas of life and work. Significantly, an approach may be comprehended as a perspective or view that involves certain assumptions or beliefs about human behaviour and it is essential to comprehend the various methods of these approaches. In a close understanding of these approaches to psychology, it becomes evident that that every approach incorporates several different theories within it which share various common assumptions. "Most psychologists would agree that no one approach is correct, although in the past, in the early days of psychology, the behaviourist would have said their approach was the only truly scientific one. Each approach has its strengths and weaknesses, and brings something different to our understanding of human behaviour. For this reasons, it is impo rtant that psychology does have different approaches to the understanding and study of human and animal behaviour." (Approaches to Psychology). ... Significantly, the physiological approach to psychology assumes that biology is the underlying aspect of human behaviour and it has reductionist and deterministic functions. The reductionist approach is concerned with the explanations at a more basic level, whereas the deterministic approach assumes that behaviour is directly determined by biology. The physiological and biochemical changes in human beings come under the subjects of study in the physiological approach to psychology and it is a productive as well as popular approach to psychology. The physiological approach to psychology is productive in the sense that it has provided explanations in a range of areas of psychology, such as the mental health, individual differences, and social behaviour, and has given therapeutic interventions in psychology including drug treatments for depression. As a popular approach to psychology, it has caught the public imagination and the genetic theories of this approach offer a handy framework for understanding ourselves. The behaviourist approach to psychology is an important approach which rejects the investigation of internal mental processes, emphasises the examination of observable behaviour as well as the importance of the environment. According to this approach, behaviour can be comprehended as the result of learned associations between stimuli and responses to these stimuli and the main theories include the classical conditioning theory of Pavlov and the Operant conditioning theory of Skinner. "Behaviourism is concerned with how environmental factors (called stimuli) affect observable behaviour (called the response). The behaviourist approach proposes two main processes whereby people learn