Behaviourist Approach To Health Essay

416 Words2 Pages

The extent to which psychologist have reached a consensus as to why people engage in activities detrimental to their health will be addressed using psychological debates in relation to health.
Psychodynamism opined by freud(1856 1936) supported by Erickson(1950)explains how complex behavior manifest as primitive biological drives and irrational human behavior.
Behaviourist approach postulates that human behavior is determined by response to stimulus.Behaviorism uses two approaches of learning which are Classical conditioning (pavlov 1901) and operant conditioning through posititive and negative reinforcement as opined by thorndike(1874) that habits are characterized by learning and repetition(Marcus,Munafor Albery(2008) Mans health beliefs,behavior in …show more content…

Morrison and Bennet(2012) empharsised that at an early age children and young adults just love to hang out,thereby acquiring bad unhealthy livestyles,also mentioned that babies of young smoking mothers tend to become emotive examples of passive smoking. Freuds model of personality,Eriksons psychosocial development and Anna Freuds(1936) defence mechanism can be summarized by Oedipus complex and Electra complex in children. Behaviorist Pavlov explained classical conditioning as anxiety in man while gambling,substance mis use explains operant conditioning. Psychological debates can be based on freewill versus determinism,mind versus body nature versus nurture.Regarding mind versus body,Gross(2015) cited Watson(1878~1958) that mans nature was dualistic,citing what causes mental illnesses like dementia. Nurture assumes that man is being influenced by its environment while nature believes that mans genetic makeup has a great influence on why man behaves the way they