Welcome to a video introduction of the major perspectives in psychology. The main objective is to differentiate between the seven perspectives in psychology. We will provide an overview of the seven perspectives and the biopsychosocial perspective, which is an integration of all seven perspectives. Then we will finish with a set of review questions to check for understanding. Here we go! The seven major perspectives in psychology are the psychodynamic, behavioral, humanistic, cognitive, biological, evolutionary, and sociocultural viewpoints. We will cover each in order, starting with the psychodynamic. The psychodynamic perspective is one of the earliest in psychology. In the early 1900's, Sigmund Freud, pictured at the left, is credited with founding the psychoanalytic viewpoint, which was the precursor to the modern psychodynamic approach. The main emphasis of the psychodynamic perspective is to uncover the unconscious dynamics, motives, and conflicts in the mind. The word, unconscious, refers to aspects of our mind that we're not aware of. And they're often rooted in our early childhood. Freud saw dream analysis as one way to uncover that latent or hidden meaning from the unconscious. When trying to differentiate the psychodynamic from the other perspectives, look for key words, like the unconscious, or unresolved conflicts, and a focus on early or childhood experiences. Other words, like defense mechanisms and repression, also reflect the psychodynamic view. One way to think about the psychodynamic perspective is through road rage. Have you ever felt intense road rage or witnessed someone else's and wondered - what happened to them? Maybe in their past - perhaps their childhood - to cause them so much anger and so much rage? That's a psychodynamic question. The behavioral perspective rejected studying the unobservable, unconscious mind of psychoanalytic theory. The behavioral perspective is strongly associated with learning. Early behavioral psychologists like John Watson and B. F. Skinner, both pictured at the top left, studied how the environment shapes our objective, observable behaviors. They thought to make psychology a true science, we should only study behavior that we can see and measure. They often use animals in their research, such as rats and the pigeon that is pictured at the bottom left. The crux of the behavioral perspective is how we learn. Key words to remember for the behavioral perspective are learning, conditioning, which is a fancy word for learning, reinforcement and punishment. A simple example of the behavioral perspective shows how quickly we learn from experience. Why don't we touch a hot stove more than once? Because we learn from experience. In this GIF, it seems like the cat has learned this lesson before the young boy and tries to protect him from touching the hot oven. The humanistic perspective is sometimes called the third wave in psychology. It differed from the deterministic views of the psychodynamic and behavioral perspectives. Whereas psychoanalysts saw humans as controlled by unconscious early experience, and behaviorists saw humans as controlled by what they had learned from their experiences, humanists emphasized free will. In the 1960's, people like Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, both pictured at the top right, saw human nature as positive and seeking growth Or to be the best version of ourselves, which Maslow termed self-actualization. You may be familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and you've seen his pyramid before with self-actualization at the top and the lower needs below it. I found this fake version, bottom right, with WiFi as the most basic human need. Key words to look for in the humanistic perspective are self-actualization, free will, choice, positive growth, and unconditional positive regard, which means showing warmth to others without conditions. Humanistic psychologists want to encourage people to live their best lives, which led to the foundation of positive psychology. In this GIF, you can see Betty Boop dancing with their pals, clearing living their best lives. That's humanism. The cognitive perspective takes us back to the mind, but with a modern and experimental focus. It can be summarized in one word: thinking. Cognitive psychologists are interested in the mental processes used in thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating. The big difference between the cognitive and the psychoanalytic view is that the cognitive view is focused on conscious thought. Whereas behaviorists focused on things you could see, like observable behaviors, cognitive psychology refocuses on the covert, or the mind and thinking. The cognitive perspective uses key words, with versions of the words like think, thoughts, memory, the mind, attention, and information processing. The cognitive perspective often wants to know how our thoughts affect how we interpret different situations. So in this GIF prank, the floor of the elevator is a video screen, and the floor appears to drop while two men stand on it. Their interpretation of the falling floor causes them to jump back and grab the hand rails. It's their thoughts that are driving their actions. The biological perspective in psychology is sometimes referred to as the medical model, when talking about mental illness, or considered the neuroscience perspective, because of a heavy emphasis on the brain. Biological psychologists are interested in the genetics and physical body, especially the brain, just like this brain animation. They study the brain's specialized cells, or neurons, and neurotransmitters. Other key terms for the biological perspective are genes, the nervous system, and hormones. One important question for biological psychologists, which we'll cover in the unit on health, is "How does chronic stress impair our immune system?" Have you ever noticed that you're the most likely to get sick right around midterms or finals week? That's a contribution of the biological perspective. In a similar vein to the biological perspective is the evolutionary view. Evolutionary psychology is grounded in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, and Darwin is pictured at the left. The evolutionary perspective often seeks to answer the "why" questions about human thinking and behavior. They rely on principles, like natural selection, and adaptation. The roles of survival and reproduction in favoring some ways of thinking and acting over others. The key words here are versions of the words adapt, survive, reproduce, and natural selection. One applied "why" question is, "why do people get jealous?" What's the purpose? An evolutionary psychologist would question how jealousy might have been adaptive or useful for our ancestors to help them survive and reproduce. Jealousy might function to secure access to a mate or to ward off rivals. Jealousy is an emotion common across cultures, which suggests it might have an evolutionary basis. The last unique perspective is the sociocultural view. Influenced by sociology, the sociocultural perspective often takes a broader look at human behavior. They study how social interaction and culture influence behavior and mental processes. Key words to look for with the sociocultural perspective are society, culture, norms, social interaction, and social categories, like gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, or social class, and even religion or occupation. A sociocultural theorist would be interested in questions like, "how does poverty affect both health and mental illness?" In this GIF, you can see how the rates of poverty changed in the U.S. from 1998 through 2012. They increased dramatically throughout the South and parts of Appalachia. There is a relationship between these patterns of poverty and health and mental health outcomes. We've covered all the unique perspectives, and understandably, students often ask, "which one is right?" Well, there's no "right" or best perspective. The modern view and the one that most psychologists adopt for studying the complexity of human thinking and behavior is the bio-psycho-social model, which is also called an eclectic view. This model seeks to unify modern psychology by seeing all of the perspectives as interacting and interrelated. They see everything as connected. Now that we've covered all the individual perspectives and the biopsychosocial model, it's time to review. Which psychological perspective focused on conscious thought? The cognitive perspective, emphasizing thinking and thought processes. Which psychological perspective was interested in how people can achieve their full potential by making positive choices? That's the humanistic perspective with a focus on positive growth and free will. Which psychological perspective focused on the role of adaptive behavior? That's Darwin and the evolutionary view. Which psychological perspective would study how genes influence criminal actions? That's the biological persective with its focus on genetics. Which psychological perspective focused on the role of the environment shaping how we learn? That's the behavioral viewpoint, focusing on learning. Which psychological perspective seeks to integrate the approaches to better understand complex thoughts and behaviors? That's our integrative view, the bio-psycho-social model. Which psychological perspective examines unconscious conflicts from early childhood? That's the psychodynamic view. Which psychological perspective would investigate how social norms influence the amount of eye contact we consider normal? That would be the sociocultural view. And that concludes our review. I hope you found this helpful as a good way to review the seven major perspectives in psychology. The following are the image credits and then followed by some of the GIF credits. Thank you.