Behaviourism Vs Psychodynamic Psychology Essay

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Psychology can be approached in many different ways. Two of the most popular approaches are the behaviourist approach and the Psychodynamic approach. John B Watson was the key founder of the Behaviourist approach. He was deeply influenced by animal studies and felt that psychology could not rely on introspection but on observation. He used many different methods such as observation, testing methods, verbal reports and the conditioned reflex method. In contrast to behavioural psychology, psychodynamic psychology ignores the basis of science and instead focuses on trying to get 'inside the head' of individuals in order to make sense of their relationships, experiences and how they see the world. Holt et al. (ch.15) states that Psychodynamic theorists look for the causes of behaviour in a dynamic interplay of inner motivational forces that often conflict with one another. The first formal theory of personality was advanced by Sigmund Freud in the early twentieth century. Freud experimented with different…show more content…
This is when an organism learns to associate two stimuli such that one stimulus comes to elicit a response that was originally elicited only by the other stimulus. (Holt et al. 2012 Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behaviour ch.15). Classical conditioning was accidently discovered in 1860 by Ivan Pavlov. While looking at salivation in dogs in response to being fed, he noticed that his dogs would begin to salivate whenever he entered the room, even when he was not bringing them food. He learned that something’s do not need to be learned. In behaviourist terms, it is an unconditioned response. Pavlov developed this idea by observing that dogs have a natural reflex to salivation to food but not to bells. However when the bell was rang just before the dogs were fed, soon the bell began to make the dog salivate. This process of learning by association is the main idea behind classical

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