The approaches in psychology

• Approaches in Psychology include:

  • psychodynamic approach
  • learning approach/ behaviorism
  • Humanistic approach
  • cognitive approach
  • biological approach
  • <please learn how cool bodies approach psychology>
• The psychodynamic approach - behaviour is driven by our personality- ID, EGO, SUPER-EGO. Driven by sex and aggression. we are unaware of the unconscious part of the mind but it influences all our behaviours.
• Freud and Little Hans- little Han's phobia of white horses linking to the Oedipus complex.
• What are the approaches in psychology?


  psychodynamic,learning, Humanistic, cognitive, biological
• Leaning Approach/ behaviourism- all behaviour is learnt, so can also be unlearnt. we can learn indirecly and directly through observing others. It is the oldest experimental approach.
• Albert Bandura Aggression in children- looked at whether children learnt aggression from adult role models using a bobo doll and an unfamiliar adult.
• Humanistic approach- concerned with self-actualisation. studies the "well" human behaviour rather than the "sick". belief in free will and there is no pre-determination. Anti-scientific.
• Maslow's Hierarchy of needs - in order for human beings to achieve self-actualisation all the lower levels of the hierarchy need to be in place first.
• Cognitive approach- behaviour largely explained in terms of internal mental processes. abnormal behaviour is due to abnormal processes.
• Baron-Cohen's study of autism and theory of the mind.- impairments experienced by many with autism, can be explained by a lack of theory of mind. He tested adults with and without autism and found the ability to read the mental state of another person was impaired by autism.
• Biological approach - all that is psychological is first physiological. behaviours have a biological/physical cause. studies the brain, genes, nervous system, hormones and pathology.
• Raine's study of the brains of murderers - compared the brains of criminals with the brains of non-criminals. used scientific scanning techniques whilst carrying out tasks. areas of the brain related to reward, emotion and self-control differed in murderers.