Foundations of Psychology
Foundations of Psychology
L R Juneaux
07/24/2013
PSY/300
Psychology is one of the core studies of the human being, which include investigating of behavior and mental processes. Many processes have to happen before one can even think a single thought. A specific stimulus through sensory organs, nerve interactions, and sorting through the brain are just a few processes that occur. Psychology is one of the most complex areas of study. In this paper, I will identify the major schools of thought and examine their major underlying assumptions as well as identifying the primary biological foundations of psychology in reference to behavior. Within psychology, to better debate and mediate through theories, there were categories or schools of thought, which summed up specific processes and areas of psychology. The first major school of thought was to be structuralism. This school of thought maintained its’ focus and studies on mental processes, which were broken into more specific and basic components. Edward Titchener, the researcher who developed structuralism, believed that by using a method of introspection, he could take these mental processes from the conscious mind and figure a way to break them into simpler processes, or an easier and basic idea. Along with structuralisms’ dominance in psychology is another school of thought called functionalism. Similar to the process of structuralism, which focuses more on the inner contextual ideas, functionalism focuses on what the ideas create in terms of functioning. Functionalism takes the processes and looks at how each of these causes a person to act. William James, one of the brilliant minds who founded functionalism, focused more on explaining in depth about a person’s functioning ability rather than describing what it would look like. The next school of thought is behaviorism, which focuses on the theories that external forces creates the way a person may act, rather than being a product of inner
L R Juneaux
07/24/2013
PSY/300
Psychology is one of the core studies of the human being, which include investigating of behavior and mental processes. Many processes have to happen before one can even think a single thought. A specific stimulus through sensory organs, nerve interactions, and sorting through the brain are just a few processes that occur. Psychology is one of the most complex areas of study. In this paper, I will identify the major schools of thought and examine their major underlying assumptions as well as identifying the primary biological foundations of psychology in reference to behavior. Within psychology, to better debate and mediate through theories, there were categories or schools of thought, which summed up specific processes and areas of psychology. The first major school of thought was to be structuralism. This school of thought maintained its’ focus and studies on mental processes, which were broken into more specific and basic components. Edward Titchener, the researcher who developed structuralism, believed that by using a method of introspection, he could take these mental processes from the conscious mind and figure a way to break them into simpler processes, or an easier and basic idea. Along with structuralisms’ dominance in psychology is another school of thought called functionalism. Similar to the process of structuralism, which focuses more on the inner contextual ideas, functionalism focuses on what the ideas create in terms of functioning. Functionalism takes the processes and looks at how each of these causes a person to act. William James, one of the brilliant minds who founded functionalism, focused more on explaining in depth about a person’s functioning ability rather than describing what it would look like. The next school of thought is behaviorism, which focuses on the theories that external forces creates the way a person may act, rather than being a product of inner
References: PSYCHOLOGY: THE STUDY OF MENTAL PROCESSES AND BEHAVIOR. (2010). Cherry, K. (2013). Major schools of thought in psychology. Retrieved from About.com: http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/schoolsthought.htm