Psychology

As described, there are 10 different perspectives of early psychology. These

perspectives are: Structuralism, functionalism, Gestalt psychology, Behavioral,

psychodynamic, humanistic, physiological, evolutionary, cognitive, and cultural and

diversity. I will only be looking at three of these perspectives still in common use today

here is a summary of each.

The behavioral perspective "focuses on the observable behaviors; thus it does not

speculate about mental processes such as thinking." (Davis and Palladino, 2005).Unlike

the other approaches, the behavioral perspective accentuates how it is important to learn

and understand and doesn't focus on coconscious. B. F. Skinner, a well known

psychologist, was a strong advocate of this thinking. He has since been called the

"greatest contemporary psychologist" (Fowler, 1990). Skinner basically took an easy

angle on his methods. "Behavior changes as a result of consequences (Bjork, D. W.,

1997). When it comes down to it, Skinner teaches basic skills.

When applying this type of psychology to young children you will see immediate

results and these can be long standing results. However, in young children, this method

will not give the parent ay idea of the motivations or thoughts behind that bad behavior.

Only reinforcing the correct behaviors will do nothing to help parents or teachers better

understand the feelings of the child or the internal factors that have contributed to this

behavior. Behaviorism works well in conjunction with the other theories below to help

parents and teachers gain a more complete understanding of not only their children’s

behaviors but “why” they choose to behave in a certain way.

The humanistic perspective "emphasizes free will and an individual’s control of

their own behavior." (Davis and Palladino, 2005).This was more of a human approach to

psychology which was to look at and study humans by the choices they make. Laboratory

specimens can not possibly equate to what a human can achieve deeming any laboratory

experiment illogical. Instead of developing principals about their theories, they concluded

that each individual is their own being. Humanistic psychologists believe in the inherent

“good” nature