Schools of Psychology: by Dr. Navin Kumar

Schools of Psychology
By
Dr. Navin Kumar
Psychology: The Early Days
 Curiosity about psychology has likely been
around as long as humanity. However, the
scientific study of psychology began only
about 100 years ago.
 Roots in philosophy and physiology
 Philosophy: the use of logic and speculation
to understand the nature of reality,
experience, and values
 Renes Descartes: 17th century French
philosopher, focused on distinction
between mind and body
 Physiology: the study of the biological
workings of the body, including the brain
The Dawn of Psychology
 Early psychologists were more interested in
understanding perception, memory, and
problem-solving rather than behavior.
 Wilhelm Wundt: set up the first psychology
laboratory in Leipzig, Germany (1879)
 structuralism: the school of psychology that
sought to identify the basic elements of
experience and to describe the rules and
circumstances under which these elements
combine to form mental structures
 the first formal movement in psychology
Structuralism
 introspection: the primary
research tool of
structuralists
 means “looking within”
 thinking about our
mental processes, and
then reporting them
 But not every mental
process is available to
everyone... (Kulpe, 1913)
 Observations based on
introspection could not be
replicated; theories
collapsed.
From Structuralism to Functionalism
 The difficulties faced by structuralists led to
the rise of functionalism
 Functionalism: the school of psychology that
sought to understand the ways that the mind
helps individuals function, or adapt to the
world
 structuralism: “the psychology of the is”
 What are the mental processes? How do they operate?
 functionalism: “the psychology of the is-for”
 Why do humans think, feel, and behave like they do?
Functionalism
 driven by desire to
apply psychological
principles,
particularly in
education
 strongly influenced
by Darwin (survival
of the fittest;
adaptations)
 laid groundwork for
psychological
research on animals
Functionalism
Your walking on a sidewalk when
suddenly a car comes hurtling
towards you out of control.
Are you afraid?
Why?
Do you see the car and mentally become afraid leading

to your heart racing, hands sweating and an impulse
to run?
Or…
Functionalism
…continued
Do you first become physically afraid
with heart racing, hands sweating
which leads into you becoming
mentally afraid?
This concept of environment versus

cognition is the cornerstone of the
Functionalist Approach.
Functionalism
 William James focused on the
functions of mind and behavior.
 Functionalism
 which was the study of the function

rather than the structure of
consciousness, was interested
in how our minds adapt to our
changing environment
Behaviorism
 the school of psychology that focuses on how a specific
stimulus (object, person, or event) evokes a specific
response (behavior in reaction to the stimulus)
 heavy emphasis on observable behavior
 much easier to study than concepts such as
motivation, emotion, intelligence, etc.
 Some behaviorists (B.F. Skinner) even argued that
mental processes don’t exist!
 ex. saying that you “like” dogs refers to an
unobservable mental process
 Instead, you approach dogs, pet them, protect them,
etc. because these responses have become
associated with the stimulus “dog”
 cut out the middle man of mental processes...
Behaviorism
 Using the principles of reinforcement and
punishment, behaviorists conducted a great
deal of formative research on learning and
associations.
 Lasting impact on the field of psychology, but
the pendulum has swung back from such
extreme perspectives...
 Today, psychologists acknowledge the role of
behaviorist principles in determining our behavior,
but also focus on the mental processes that drive
such behaviors.
Gestalt Psychology
 “gestalt” = German for “whole”

 Gestalt psychology: an approach to understanding
mental processes that focuses on the idea that the
whole is more than the sum of its parts
Gestalt Psychology
 Our brains organize incoming information into perceptual units

(a whole formed from individual parts)
 pragnanz: German for “conciseness”
 We tend to order our experience in a manner that is regular, orderly,
symmetric, and simple.
Gestalt
What do you see here?

Gestalt psychology: emergence
Psychodynamic Theory
 Sigmund Freud (1856-
1939)
 Viennese physician
specializing in neurology
 Psychodynamic theory:
a theory of how
thoughts and feelings
affect behavior; refers
to the push-and-pull
interaction among
conscious and
unconscious forces
 based on the notion that the mind is not a
unitary construct
 Instead, Freud believed that there are separate
components of the mind, some of which are
unconscious.
 outside conscious awareness and not able to be brought
to consciousness by will
 Freud believed that many of our unconscious
urges are sexual and/or aggressive in nature.
 Because these urges are often unacceptable at a
conscious level, we banish them to our
unconscious.
 The ideas of conscious and unconscious
psychology led to the development of
psychodynamic theory.
 Greek: psyche (“mind”) and dynamo (“power”)
 Behavior is the product of the push-and-pull
interaction between conscious and
unconscious forces.
 ex. People who wash their hands compulsively
might be trying to wash away the “dirt” of their
unconscious desires.
The Psychodynamic Approach
Key features (1):
 Mind has 3 parts: conscious, unconscious and preconscious
 conscious: thoughts and perceptions
 preconscious: available to consciousness, e.g. memories
and stored knowledge
 unconscious: wishes and desires formed in childhood,
biological urges. Determines most of behaviour
 Personality has 3 components - id, ego & superego
 id: unconscious, urges needing instant gratification
 ego: develops in childhood, rational. Chooses between id
and external demands
 superego: conscience, places restrictions on behaviour
Key features (2):
• Freud’s ‘mental
iceberg’ view of
the mind
Key features (3):
Psychosexual stages of development
 Develop through stages in childhood
 Oral (0–18 months)
 Anal (18 months–3 years)
 Phallic (3–6 years)
 Latent (6 yrs–puberty)
 Genital (puberty onwards)
 At each stage, libido is focused on different part of body
 Failure to progress (fixating) causes neuroses
Key features (4):
 Ego mediates conflict between id, ego, superego
 defence mechanisms include repression,
displacement, denial, reaction formation
 repression pushes stuff into unconscious, but it
exerts influence from there, may cause problems
 Cure neuroses by bringing material from unconscious
to conscious
 free association
 dream analysis
Evaluation:
Significant impact:
• theories of personality, motivation, development
• therapeutic techniques in clinical and counselling psychology
• captured the popular imagination, providing an accessible
framework for everyday understanding
Unscientific?
 methodologically poor
 untestable (e.g. concept of denial)
Limited impact on scientific psychology
Humanistic Psychology
 School of psychology that emphasizes
nonverbal experiences and altered states of
consciousness as a means of realizing one’s
full human potential
 Importance of love, belonging, human
potential, and self-esteem.
 Abraham Maslow
 Not mainstream, more a cultural and spiritual
movement.
Definition
 Human capacity for choice and growth.
 Humans have free will
 Not fated to behave in specific ways.
 Subjective experience of the world--how
humans experience things, why they
experience things, etc.
Humanistic Psychology
 Emphasizes the study of the whole
person.
 Behavior is determined by perception of
world around him.
 Not a product of their environment
 Internally directed an motivated to fulfill
their potential.
According to humanistic
psychologists, we are motivated not
merely to survive, but to become
better and better.
This process is called self-actualization.

Origins
 Middle ages
 Began in the 15th century
 Modern humanistic psychology
emerged in the mid-1950’s.
Evolution
 Humanistic psychology emerged in the
mid-1950’s and complemented
behaviorism and psychoanalysis with its
focus on the individual as a whole
person.
 Continued to grow in the second half of
the 20th century
Thank you

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Schools of Psychology

Do you see the car and mentally become afraid leading

This concept of environment versus

 which was the study of the function

 “gestalt” = German for “whole”

 Our brains organize incoming information into perceptual units

What do you see here?

This process is called self-actualization.

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