Compare the Behaviourist and Psychodynamic Approaches to Psychology
Before comparing the behaviourist and the psychodynamic approaches to psychology it is important to familiarise oneself with the background details of each approach. First the identification of each of their methods of investigation is essential. John B Watson (1878-1958) is thought to be the founder of behaviourism. Behaviourism is concerned with the aspects of the human behaviour that can be observed and measured. Watson believed that people are born with a certain amount of reflexes and the person’s behaviours are the result of their environment. This type of approach uses statistics from lab experiments which have been carried out using variables and measurements to support their theories. An example of a lab experiment carried out in order to support the behaviourist perspective was the ‘Little Albert’ experiment (Watson & Rayner, 1920). “Psychodynamic psychology ignores the trappings of science and instead focuses on trying to get ‘inside the head’ of individuals in order to make sense of their relationships, experiences and how they see the world.” (McLeod, 2007). The founder of psychodynamic psychology, Sigmund Freund believed that our behaviour as adults is rooted in our childhood experiences. He also believed that our behaviours and feelings are strongly affected by our unconscious mind (McLeod, 2007). Unlike behaviourism, the research methods used in this type of
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The case study method was often inaccurate and after the re-examination of Freud’s work it was found that he had distorted some results