Edward Murray Psychology

Psychology
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory conceived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav Jung, and Wilhelm Reich. Human behavior, experience, and cognition are largely determined by irrational drive. The basic tenets of psychoanalysis include: those drives are largely unconscious, Attempts to bring those drives into awareness meet psychological resistance in the form of defense mechanisms, Beside the inherited constitution of personality, one's development is determined by events in early childhood; Conflicts between conscious view of reality and unconscious (repressed) material can result in mental disturbances such as neurosis, neurotic traits, anxiety, depression etc., and the liberation from the effects of the unconscious material is achieved through bringing this material into the consciousness. Behaviorism, also called the learning perspective (where any physical action is a behavior), is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things that organisms doincluding acting, thinking, and feelingcan and should be regarded as behaviors, and that psychological disorders are best treated by altering behavior patterns or modifying the environment. The behaviorist school of thought maintains that behaviors as such can be described scientifically without recourse either to internal psychological events or to hypothetical events such as the mind. Behaviorism comprises the position that all theories should have observational correlates but that there are no philosophical differences between publicly observable processes (such as actions) and privately observable processes (such as thinking and feeling). Humanistic psychology is a psychological perspective which rose to prominence in the mid-20th century, drawing on the work of early pioneers like Carl Rogers and the philosophies of existentialism and phenomenology. It adopts a holistic approach to human existence through investigations of meaning, values, freedom, tragedy, personal responsibility, human potential, spirituality, and self-actualization. It believes that people are inherently good. Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all of the psychological variables that are measurable in a human being. The statement that others may be imagined or implied suggests that we are prone to social influence even when no other people are present, such as when watching television, or following internalized cultural norms. Cognitive psychology is a subdiscipline of psychology exploring internal mental processes . It is the study of how people perceive, remember, think, speak, and solve problems. Cognitive psychology differs from previous psychological approaches in two key ways; It accepts the use of the scientific method, and generally rejects introspection as a valid method of investigation, in contrast with such approaches as Freudian psychology, and it explicitly acknowledges the existence of internal mental states (such as belief, desire, idea, and knowledge and motivation). Developmental psychology is the scientific study of systematic psychological changes, emotional changes, and perception changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life span. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence , adult development , aging, and the entire life span. This field examines change across a broad range of topics including motor skills and other psycho-physiological processes; cognitive development involving areas such as problem solving, moral understanding, and conceptual understanding; language acquisition; social, personality, and emotional development; and selfconcept and identity formation. 3 major contexts to consider when analyzing child psychology are: social context, cultural context, and socioeconomic context. Developmental psychology includes issues such as the extent to which development occurs through the gradual accumulation of knowledge versus stage-like development, or the extent to which children are born with innate mental structures versus learning

through experience. Many researchers are interested in the interaction between personal characteristics, the individual's behavior, and environmental factors including social context, and their impact on development; others take a more narrowly-focused approach. Developmental psychology informs several applied fields, including:educational psychology, child psychopathology, and forensic developmental psychology. Developmental psychology complements several other basic research fields in psychology including social psychology, cognitive psychology, ecological psychology, and comparative psychology. I believe that developmental psychology is the most logical and I believe it is the one that explains behavior the best, because behavior (rather it is nature or nurture) is developed over time. At the beginning of this quarter I didn't know that the everyday things that we do could be put in a category and could be measured. I think learning the different types of psychology help me understand many behaviors and thoughts, and it could help other people understand also.