Psy/300

Foundations of Psychology

Veronica King

PSY/300

February 02, 2015

Lillian Fillpot

In this paper I am going to identify the major schools of thought in psychology and examine their major underlying assumptions, and identify the primary biological foundations of psychology linked to behavior. There are six major schools of thought in psychology. All academic discipline from literature to sociology and theology has competing theories or schools of thought, perspectives from the study. Psychology studies the mind and there are hundreds of theories and sub theories.(classroom.synonym.com) Functionalism is one of the most influential of them all , it describes the thoughts and what they do with asking how it is done. The minds of these functionalist is like a computer, and the processes has to be understood as if you were looking at the software of a computer, to see what it does; and noting really knowing the hardware. According to Gestalt psychology there is a certain way that the human mind works and it is by interpreting data though rules, different laws, and turning partial information into a whole.

Psychoanalysis theory is another that Sigmund Freud originated, and this explains human behavior by looking at the mind subconsciously. (classroom.synonym.com) Freud compared the human mind and pleasure with sex and feels as if this is the root of human development. He also spoke about the development of children, and how they discover pleasure as a baby by being breast feed and defecating; these acts we considered abnormal by adults. In the 1950’s there were experiments done with animals such as pigeons and rats by B.F.Skinner to show that there would be certain types of behavior if these animals were associated with food, which is the thought of behaviorism. It is believed that if you observe certain behavior and not analyze how the inner mind works give you the key to psychology state certain behaviorist. By doing...