Major Perspectives of Psychology and Examples

Introduction to Psychology 1 Assignment 4
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Part I: Psychology Perspectives
The four major perspectives of psychology include biological perspective, behavioral perspective, cognitive perspective, and humanistic perspective. The biological perspective focuses on the physical and biological bases of behavior (Fernald, 2017). It states that all human thoughts, behaviors, and feelings have a biological cause. Researchers consider this perspective one of the most significant psychological approaches because it involves the study of brain hormones, genetics, the nervous system, and the immune system (Giorgi, 2020). The theory behind the biological perspective is that most human behaviors are hereditary and have an adaptive function. An example of this perspective is a child having schizophrenia or any mental illness that originates from the family.
The behavioral perspective holds that behaviors are learned by interacting with the environment through conditioning. It specifically demonstrates how environmental factors (stimuli) affect observable behavior (response) (Fernald, 2017). Thus, behavior is simply a response to environmental stimuli. According to behaviorists, behavior can be studied systematically and objectively irrespective of internal mental states (Kalat, 2016). That is to say, any person, regardless of personality traits, genetic background, and internal thoughts, can undergo training to perform any task so long as the training is within the range of their physical abilities. It only requires the appropriate conditioning. An example of a behavioral perspective is a child who violently behaves because they spend quality time with a violent role model. In this case, the child learns violent behaviors by frequently interacting with a violent role model.
The cognitive perspective examines mental processes like memory, language, attention, and problem-solving. It involves cognition: the mental process by which people acquire knowledge. This perspective compares the human mind to a computer, arguing that the human mind functions like a computer because it acquires, processes, stores, and utilizes information like a computer (Fernald, 2017). This comparison has led cognitive psychologists to explain that memory consists of three stages; encoding, storage, and retrieval. The cognitive perspective is extremely scientific because it studies human behaviors using lab experiments (Giorgi, 2020). It is commonly used in cognitive therapy and eyewitness testimony. An example of cognitive perspective is being forgetful due to stress or weak retrieval cues.
The humanistic perspective examines an individual as a whole, focusing on the positive image of being a human. The underlying theory centers on the idea that all humans are unique and have the ability to ch...