Compare and Contrast Two Psychological Perspectives Essay

In the first chapter of her novel, Opening Skinner’s Box, Lauren Slater introduces B.F. Skinner, a neo-behaviorist who believed heavily in the power of reinforcement. He is most famous for his “Skinner boxes”, in which he would reward a rat with food whenever they accidentally pressed down on a lever. After a while, the rats would intentionally step of the levers, yet Skinner would alter the rate in which they received a reward for it, sometimes removing the incentives altogether. Skinner’s most significant discovery came from “variable schedules of reinforcement”, in which he intermittently rewarded the rats, where they would press the level but often walk away with nothing. By doing this, Skinner

Amanda is struggling with her relationship with her parents which is typical for adolescents. She wants to express herself through her clothing and her parents are trying to pressure her into dressing more feminine or more typical. They pick on her habits, such as burping, which are not seen as very lady-like. Amanda’s parents are also not very accepting of her sexuality. Whenever they seem to bring up the topic in conversation, both Amanda and her parents begin to argue. Her parents do not understand her, while her friends do. She feels unaccepted by her parents, which strengths her relationship with her peers and weakens the relationship with her parents.

This essay will explore and evaluate the purpose of behaviour management policies within educational settings. It will analyse developmental differences and environmental influences, which may affect both the cause and management of children’s behaviour in real life settings, linking to theories of leadership and behaviour management. Finally, this essay will conclude by reflecting upon the most effective methods and theories of behaviour management, in relation to children and adults within educational environments.

Behaviourism, also known as the behaviouristic approach is based on several underlying assumptions regarding methodology and behavioural analysis. Behaviourists believe that psychology should be seen as a science and therefore theories must be proved using controlled experiments whilst observing behaviour. Behaviourism is mainly concerned with observable behaviour rather than internal processes such as emotions. The psychodynamic approach to psychology is in complete contrast to that of the behavioural approach. Psychodynamic theorists look for the causes of behaviour in a dynamic interplay of inner motivational forces that often conflict with one another.

The primary standard of the behaviourist approach is that all behaviour is ought to be quantifiable in a quantitative way. Behaviour is ought to be studied objectively and variables ought to be operationalised so they are simplified and easy to measure. For instance, Bandura's work was done under lab conditions, a standout amongst the most scientific methods; whereby children were assigned to test conditions (aggressive group) or control condition (non-aggressive group). By changing the variables, Bandura could infer that hostility was because of the social learning hypothesis. On the other hand, the psychodynamic approach is not scientific as it is not testable, which makes it hard to falsify.

Two Approaches In Psychology In 1900, Sigmund Freud, a neurologist living in Vienna, first published his psychoanalytic theory of personality in which the unconscious mind played a crucial role. Freud combined the then current cognitive notions of consciousness, perception and memory with ideas of biologically based instincts, to make a bold new theory of psychodynamics. Freud's theory, which forms the basis of the psychodynamic approach, represented a challenge and a major alternative to behaviourism. Freud's theory of personality was based on the assumption that all our behaviour stems from the unconscious processes.

He removed the pellets as a reinforced and found that the rats would eventually stop pressing the lever. He also decided to reward the rats intermittently. He found that irregularly rewarded behavior was the hardest to eradicate. He was then able to explain why we do dumb things even when we are not consistently rewarded. Skinner’s experiments were amazing and disturbing at the same time.

The behaviourist perspective is an idea that we can understand any type of behaviour by looking at what the person has learner. This includes personality traits such as shyness, confidence, optimism or pessimism. Behaviourist psychologists explain all human behaviour as resulting from experience. Two key psychologists are Pavlov and Skinner, although these two theorists believed that different processes were involved, they both explained all types of behaviour as being the result of learning. This is everything from shyness to aggression and happiness to depression.

Schools are required to produce behaviour management policies, (DfES, 2007) to promote positive behaviour that extends from the individual to the whole school community. This not only reflects the rules within the classroom, but also creates an ethos within the wider school, thus setting high standards for behaviour. If the core rules are explicit and the children are encouraged to make a ‘positive contribution,’ (DfES, 2003) such as develop their own classroom charter, and then learning can be effectively facilitated with a consistent framework for behaviour. (Ellis and Tod 2009) Furthermore, Chaplain (2010) emphasises that if the teacher refers to the classroom rules frequently, and the procedures for behaviour are applied consistently then it can significantly reduce or even eliminate minor

Thereby, Skinner produced experiments whereby rats would navigate through mazes to achieve the goal of a box containing food. His interest was the behaviour of the rat, taking the right turn to achieve the desired result, food. To begin with the rats would take the wrong turn but with experience, they became more skilful. The rats learning behaviour was measured in two ways, firstly the length of time it took from start to end and secondly, the reduction in errors. This was a lengthy experiment which led Skinner to produce ‘the Skinner box’. Whereby, rats learnt to press a lever and pigeons learnt to peck a key in order to attain food, also known as behaviour shaping. This experiment lacks ecological validity as the animals are kept in a controlled environment which is dissimilar to their natural habitat. However, the results which were attained could not have been possible in natural circumstances. Skinner wanted to observe if behaviour could be learned through reaching a desired outcome such as positive reinforcement which needed to be

The psychologists all over the world uses different approaches for developing the desired methodologies for analysing their research. These different methodological approaches are humanistic and scientific approaches. It is said by different researchers that humanistic approach used for understanding the psychology focuses on the acceptance of free-will for reaching towards unique development of understandings that can be used for studying and controlling the psychology of human (Gerrig, et al., 2015). Still, there are different researchers who had opposed the use of humanistic approach for understanding the psychology of the living beings.

Skinner had a belief in the understanding that any behavior could be explained by any action undertaken and valence of equitable performance. Skinner introduced much easier and simpler explanations for the reinforcement experiments that were performed specifically on the lab rats and

Behaviourism refers to a psychological approach which explains human development in terms of how they learn from experience rather than a result of inborn tendencies or higher order thinking. Learning from experience moulds and shapes behaviour and personality. (A2Healthandsocialcarepg84) The behaviourist movement began in 1913 when John Watson wrote the article 'Psychology as the behaviourist views it. ' Other psychologists such as, Pavlov, Thorndike and Skinner also worked to develop behavioural theories of learning. (A2Healthandsocialcarepg84) They focused their explanations solely on behaviour, concerning what people do rather than what may or may not be going on in their minds. Behaviourists suggest that all behaviour is learned either through classical or operant conditioning. (PsychologyASpg.50)

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born in 1904 “Pennsylvania. After graduating Hamilton College, he wanted to become an author, but without any avail. Pavlov and Watson’s work encouraged him to attend Harvard graduate school where he studied behavior. “He made changes in the rate of behavior a standard measure of learning: made the individual, rather that the group, the object of experimental study; and suggested ways that a natural science of behavior could be applied to medicine, work, child rearing, education and other fields” (Learning and Behavior pg#136-137). Skinner worked with rats by placing them in boxes and providing them with different reinforcements. He would teach them a different behavior by providing obstacles in order to shape those behaviors. “Positive reinforcement strengthens a behavior by providing a consequence an individual finds rewarding” (simplypsychology.org). The reinforcement was the food “The rats quickly learned to go straight to the lever after a few times of being put in the box. The consequence of receiving food if they pressed the lever ensured that they would repeat the action again and again (simplypsychology.org).

Behaviorism explains human behavior based on principles of learning and adaptation derived from experimental psychology. Humanism explain abnormal behavior by looking at human behavior not only through the eyes of the observer, but through the eyes of the person doing the behaving. The scientific method is important in studying scientific behavior because it is used to confirm or disconfirm findings in psychopathology. Scientific methods were not often applied to the theories and treatments within a tradition, mostly because methods that would have produced the evidence necessary to confirm or disprove the theories and treatments had not been developed. Lacking such evidence, many people accepted various fads and superstitions that ultimately proved to be untrue or useless. Interpretations I received from the chapter is that abnormal psychology can form from many different experiences or environmental factors. There are different concepts to support these reasons but one model is the Freud’s structure of the mind. There are three major parts of function: the id, the ego, and the