Foundations of Psycology

The Foundations of Psychology Examination

The Foundations of Psychology Examination

To examine the foundations of psychology a clear identification of the majors schools of thought are researched to find a complete description of their underlying assumptions. The four major schools of thought are psychodynamics, behaviorist, cognitive, and evolutionary. Each of these theories and perspectives are analyzed subjectively and shown that through the interrelationship of these primary schools of thought combined with the primary biological foundations of psychology evolution, genetics, and the brain are linked to behavior.

Psychodynamic Perspective

The first major school of thought in psychology is the Psychodynamic perspective. This perspective originated by Sigmund Freud in the early twentieth century with the belief that all psychological cognitions that control ones behavior begin and primarily are unconscious, thus consciousness is the manifestation of these thoughts or the final stage (Kowalski, & Westen, 2011). The primary goal of psychodynamics is determine the variables that motivate and control human behavior, thus this theory was considered highly respected by psychologists and scholars and maximized its prominence in the 1940s and 1950s, thus suffering slow declines in its validity hear after. Today this theory is still used with more complex methods of interpretations to build on Sigmund Freud's theory to meet the psychological evidence found through case studies for this theory in the past century (Cortina, 2010).

Behaviorist Perspective

The behaviorist perspective is the second major school of thought in psychology discussed in this document. The focus of this theory is the relationship between the environment and the test subjects. B.F. Skinner a pioneer for validating this theory proposed that behavior is a series of conditioned responses learned by events and expectations of one's environment and...