PERSPECTIVES

Essay by LUNGAUniversity, Bachelor's April 2014

download word file, 5 pages 0.0

Student number: 748172

Course: Psychology

Course code: psyc 1009

Human behavior is determined by many different factors such as social factors, gender and evolution. Human behavior can be understood through different perspectives which include cognitive, behaviorist, biological, psychodynamic, socio-cultural and humanistic perspectives. This essay will look at Michael's behavior using the biological perspective as well as the behaviorist perspective, in doing so this essay will first outline each perspective namely the behaviorist perspective and the biological perspective, followed by their founding fathers. Michael's situation will be then discussed using the information provided in the outline of the perspectives. The perspectives will be then compared and contrasted after they have been discussed on their own and in relation to Michael's situation. The essay will then be concluded by stating if these perspectives have shown the result of Michael's behavior.

The behavior of human beings is determined by the environment in which they live in.

The behavioristic view emphasizes the observable behavior and the learning effects; it emphasizes more on the external influence of rewards and punishments (Coon & Mitterer, 2012, 32). Behaviorists believe that human behavior is learned from the times of childhood and it impacts on their behavior as adults. This approach focuses entirely on observable behavior and how the behavior is learned; therefore the behaviorist's argument is that, what people learn is what will determine their behavior. Pavlov came up with the classical conditioning where he demonstrated that salivation was produced by several innate reflexes, one of which prepares the food for digestion (Ellen, Claire, David, & Philip, 1992, 72). Pavlov used dogs to experiment learned behavior, before he gave the dogs food he would make a sound and then the food will follow, Salivation would be produced after the dog has tasted the meat. As time went by...