Modern Perspectives of Psychology

Modern Perspectives of Psychology

Slide One:

The perspectives of psychology analyze psychological phenomenon differently. This illustration of an angry interaction between a catcher and an umpire would be analyzed differently by a psychologist approaching it from the evolutionary perspective than one approaching it from the behavioral perspective.

The evolutionary perspective examines how the natural selection of traits promotes the continuation of the human species. A research question an evolutionary psychologist would research to analyze anger is, "how does evolution influence behavior tendencies?" In other words, what about the catcher's display of anger is influenced by generations of human experience? How does anger help protect the human species?

A person analyzing this interaction from the behavioral perspective would have a different focus to explain anger. A behaviorist would ask how do people learn to respond with anger in particular situations? What about anger acts as a reinforcer that causes the behavior to continue?

Slide Two:

Here we see a baby and a grandmother playing a game of peek-a-boo. The neuroscience perspective focuses on how the body and brain enable emotions, memories, and sensory experiences. A sample question a psychologist using the neuroscience perspective viewing this picture might ask is how does the baby's brain process depth cues provided by his sense of sight?

The cognitive perspective is interested in how we encode, process, store, and retrieve information. Why do children of this age typically enjoy this game? What does it reveal about how their thought-process works? As people develop with age and experience so does their cognitive functioning. In later lessons we will evaluate cognitive development and the varying objectives of peek-a-boo.

Slide Three:

The social-cultural perspective examines how behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures. For example social-cultural psychologist examine how we--as Africans, Asians, Mexicans, or North Americans are alike as members of one human family. What are common characteristics of old age in all societies? As products of different environmental contexts, how do we differ in our approach to aging? The behavior genetics perspective is concerned with how much our genes and our

? 2012 Aventa Learning

environment influence our individual differences. The behavior genetics psychologist might research how the health of people in their old age is influenced by their genetic heritage, or DNA, and how that heritage is influenced by each individual's surroundings, or environment. Slide Four: Psychology today favors a biopsychosocial approach to understanding human behavior and mental processes. You can see in this figure how biological influences, psychological influences, and social-cultural influences all affect how we function as humans. These different systems provide complementary outlooks known as levels of analysis to explain behavior. To use an example from animal behavior, why do Canadian geese migrate south in the winter? Is it because long distance flight enhanced their ancestors' survival and reproduction? Is it because their inner physiology drives them to do so? Is it because cold environments hinder food gathering during winter? These perspectives are complementary. In other words, there is a direct relationship between each factor. Together these factors are the biopsychosocial approach. These influences of biological, psychological and socio-logical factors complementarily explain why Canadian geese migrate south in the winter and why we humans behave the way we do.

? 2012 Aventa Learning

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