Approaches to Psychology

For the behaviourist, learning is obtained through the operation of conditioning and the linking of a stimulus with a response. These stages of psychosexual development include the oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latency stage and the genital stage. Behaviour is determined by the pursuit of things that have been positively reinforced in the past, for instance an athlete will compete because he/she is praised for winning. Both approaches have been modified and built on by theorists and researches critical of the original theories, thereby making a huge contribution in the process. Thorndike who built puzzle boxes for cats in 1898. The behavioural approach is reductionist it reduces the complexity of human behaviour to a few principles of learning. Watson believed that the majority of all behaviour is learned after birth and that learning is obtained through the operation of conditioning, and the linking of a stimulus with a response. Many psychologists regard the aims of behavioural psychology, to predict and control, with suspicion. Freud theory is built on the studies of neurotic Viennese women and is therefore not valid when assessing healthy women or for that sake in assessing men. Children are very similar to one another, and tend to develop in the same way. In 1920 Watson and Rayner conducted an experiment with Little Albert an 11 month old baby where the UCS was a hammer striking a steel bar behind Albert’s head. Eysenck a behaviour therapist regards the little Albert experiment as a demonstration of how all phobias are acquired in everyday life. ‘Little Hans’ was Freud’s only child patient and Freud cited his case studies of ‘Little Hans’ as supporting his Oedipus complex four years after he had formulated his theory. The most important of these stages is the phallic stage during which all children experience the Oedipus complex.