Theories in Psych: Psych 101

B. F. Skinner

American psychologist and behavioralist who believed free will was an illusion and conditioning determined the behavior of a being.

Sigmund Freud

Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychodynamics, developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association

Cognitive behaviorism

Behaviorist: The belief that learning experiences and our environment shape and influence our thoughts, and thus how be behave.

Behavioral modification

Behaviorist: a treatment approach, based on the principles of operant conditioning, that replaces undesirable behaviors with more desirable ones through positive or negative reinforcement .

Behavior Genetics

Biological: a field in which variation among individuals is separated into genetic versus environmental components.

Evolutionary psych

Biological: a theoretical approach to psychology that attempts to explain useful mental and psychological traits—such as memory, perception, or language—as adaptations, i.e., as the functional products of natural selection.

Behavioral Neuroscience

Biological: the application of the principles of biology to the study of physiological, genetic, and developmental mechanisms of behavior in humans and other animals.

Gestalt psychology

Cognitivist: a branch of psychology that tries to understand the laws of our ability to acquire and maintain meaningful perceptions in an apparently chaotic world.

Cognitive Neuroscience

Cognitivist: an academic field concerned with the scientific study of the biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental processes.

Wilhelm Wundt

German physician, physiologist, philosopher, and professor, known today as one of the founding figures of modern psychology. Founder of structuralism.

Self‐Actualization

Humanist: The purpose of life, the realization or fulfillment of one's talents and potentialities, especially considered as a drive or need present in everyone.

Personal growth

Humanist: the growth and enhancement of all aspects of the person, the feelings the person has about himself or herself, and their effectiveness in living.

Free will

Humanist: the idea that we are able to have some choice in how we act and assumes that we are free to choose our behavior, in other words we are self determined.

Positive Psych

Humanist: the scientific study of the strengths that enable individuals and communities to thrive.

Defense mechanism

Psychodynamic: an unconscious psychological mechanism that reduces anxiety arising from unacceptable or potentially harmful stimuli.

Free association

Psychodynamic: the mental process by which one word or image may spontaneously suggest another without any apparent connection.

Ivan Pavlov

Russian physiologist known primarily for his work in classical conditioning. Utilized the ideas in behaviorism to condition a dog to drool at the sound of a bell.

Norms

Sociocultuaralist: the accepted standards of behavior for any given group

Social psychology

Sociocultuaralist: the branch of psychology that deals with social interactions, including their origins and their effects on the individual.

Socialization

Sociocultuaralist: the lifelong process of inheriting and disseminating norms, customs, values and ideologies, providing an individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within society

Biological Psychology

The application of the principles of biology to the study of physiological, genetic, and developmental mechanisms of behavior in humans and other animals.

Functionalism

a method of psychology that believes that mental states (beliefs, desires, being in pain, etc.) are constituted solely by their functional role.

Structuralism

a method of psychology that focuses on the brain in terms of the simplest definable components and then to find how these components fit together to form more complex experiences as well as how they correlated to physical events.

Humanism

a psychological perspective that emphasizes the study of the whole person, ultimately believing that man is good and there is meaning to existence

Cognitivism

a psychological perspective that states the way people think impacts their behavior and therefore cannot be a behavior in and of itself. Humans are viewed like a computer and thus are information processors, so learning is the major focus.

Socioculturalism

a theory used to describe awareness of circumstances surrounding individuals and how their behaviors are affected specifically by their surrounding, social and cultural factors.

Psychodynamics

the interrelation of the unconscious and conscious mental and emotional forces that determine personality and motivation.

Behaviorism

the theory that human and animal behavior can be explained in terms of conditioning. Humans are born into the world a blank slate and developed through positive and negative reinforcement.