Foundations of Psychology

Foundations of Psychology

Psychology stemmed from philosophy and is the scientific study of behaviors and metal processes. Some examples of these mental processes are the way one thinks, feels, and remembers. Psychology has my different schools of thought and perspectives. In this paper we will be discussing the major ones and the biological foundations of psychology that is linked to behavior.

There are six major different schools of thought and seven different perspectives. Psychologists rarely focus on one school of thought; instead they tend to stick more to their area of specialty or perspective. The six different schools of thought are structuralism and functionalism, behaviorism, psychoanalysis, humanistic psychology, Gestalt psychology, and cognitive psychology.

Structuralism was the first school of psychology. Structuralism is the school of thought that sought to identify the many components of the mind. Structuralism attempted to uncover the basic elements of conscious thought introspect. The concept of this was to breakdown metal processes to their basic elements.

Functionalism is the psychological school of thought that followed structuralism and moved away from focusing on the structure of the mind to a concern with how the conscious is related to behavior. It looks at how the mind affects what people do and focuses on the roles that mental processes play. This school of thought was influenced by the hard work of William James.

Behaviorism is a school of thought that came to surface the most in the 1950’s. This concept focuses on the idea that people are controlled by their environment and specifically that we are a result of what we have learned from our environment. Behaviorism is focus mostly on observable behavior. Ivan Pavlov and his classic experiment in train a dog to salivate every time the dog heard a bell, expecting food, played a major role in this school of thought.

Psychoanalysis is the psychological school of thought that was...