Psychology

Experimental psychology sets up
experiments to see how individuals act

Clinical psychology develops programs
for treating individuals suffering from
mental illnesses & behavioural disorders
SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT IN PSYCHOLOGY
PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
Sigmund Frued

The mind is divided into 2 parts:

The conscious (part we’re aware of) and the unconscious
(part we are not aware of)
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Unconscious mind has more influence on
personality & behaviour
Can be further divided into 3 parts:
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The id encourages us to seek physical satisfaction
The superego prompts us to do the moral thing
The ego referees between the two and deals
with external reality
Psychoanalytic Theory – cont’d
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Believe that criminal behaviour is caused by frustration
stemming from early childhood experiences
By treating the unconscious mind, one can alleviate
neuroses (do this through dream analysis & hypnosis)
Many criminals and people with neuroses can be treated
successfully in this manner
Freud felt that individual sexual
satisfaction/frustration was the key element
in personality development
•Highly influential in psychology
•He emphasized individual counselling
•Formed the basis of modern clinical
psychology
Learning Theory

Humans born with little instinct but much
learning potential

Most human behaviour is learned

By controlling the way humans learn,
society can have a great influence on a
person’s personality
Ivan Pavlov


Experiments with
dogs showed that it
was possible to get a
dog to associate the
sound of a bell with
the arrival of food
At sound of bell, dog
would salivate in
anticipation
B.F. Skinner


Pigeons could be
trained to peck at a
particular coloured
disk to get food
rewards
Rats received food
rewards for pressing
a bar in a
complicated
sequences

this led theorists to believe that learning was a
stimulus-response effect (if correctly
stimulated, it will give the appropriate
response)

proposed that children who were brought up in
loving families would grow up to become
secure & loving adults
Alfred Bandura
- Bobo the Clown experiment

learning is a modelling
experience
(We tend to do what we
see)
Behaviourism – a sub school of thought within learning
theory
Use behaviour modification to create change
 Psychologists can predict & control or modify
human behaviour by identifying the factors that
motivate it in the first place
 Emphasis on the early childhood years, & on
the rules or practices parents use to raise their
children
 Child-rearing methods have a huge influence
on the character of individuals

John B. Watson
Founder of behaviourism
 Used animal experiments to determine whether
strict or flexible learning patterns are more
effective
 Children should be brought up using a
“scientific,” strictly scheduled, rules-based model

“ Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed,
and my own specified world to bring them up in
and I'll guarantee to take any one at random
and train him to become any type of specialist I
might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchantchief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief,
regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies,
abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I
am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so
have the advocates of the contrary and they
have been doing it for many thousands of years.
[Behaviorism (1930), p. 82
Benjamin Spock
Believed that a permissive approach to child
rearing would result in successful, welladjusted adults
 Encouraged parents to be loving, flexible, and
supportive
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