Psychology: The behaviourist and psychodynamic approaches
The Behaviourist approach mainly focuses on observable behaviour. Its main goal is the prediction and control of behaviour, “Behaviour is the way in which an animal or person behaves in response to a particular situation or stimulus” Oxford Dictionary, 2010). The behaviourist believes that we are all born with a blank slate and that the environment determines our behaviour. They also believe that it is essential to study both, human and animal behaviour and treat them equally in order to understand behaviour efficiently as there is little difference in the learning that takes place between human and animals (Moore, 2013).
Areas of Application
• Addiction • Language
• Aggression
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2012)
The Psychodynamic approach focuses on the individuals experiences, relationships and how they perceive the world. Psychodynamic psychologists believe that unconscious forces which we are unaware of determining our behaviour and that our behaviour is a reflection of earlier experiences which we may have had up until the age of five. Sigmund Fred proposed the idea that our personalities are shaped and motivated by subconscious and conscious forces, with a strong influence from childhood experiences. He believed that all behaviour has a cause or a reason and is determined by the personality which is made up of three parts, the id, ego and the super ego. The ego is said to be the part of the conscious mind which has constant conflict with the id and super ego which are parts of the unconscious mind, this conflict then determines our