Hello there psychology students and welcome to the Mr. Sin channel. Today we are going to start a review of AP Psychology by going over the different psychological perspectives that you need to know. Okay, so AP Psychology can be broken up into five different units, with each unit focusing on different aspects of psychology.
Now I hear some of you thinking, hey wait a minute Mr. Sin, you said there were only five units, yet this video clearly says this is unit zero. which I don't see on the graphics. What are you trying to pull here? And to that, I say, well, nothing. Here, let me explain and it'll all make sense.
Throughout all of these units, you are going to be utilizing different scientific practices and research methods. These concepts and themes are the foundation of the course. And to help make sure that you're familiar with these different practices, I'm going to break down each of the practices listed in the CED in what I'm going to call Unit 0. The goal of these videos is to help you familiarize yourself with these practices and concepts so that when they come up in your class and on the AP exam, you are familiar with them. All right, having said all of that, I think it is time that we start reviewing the different psychological perspectives. But first, make sure you go and get the guided notes that go along with this video.
You can click the description in the video to get the notes, which will help make sure that you keep your notes not only organized, but also make sure that you don't miss out on any of the important information in the video. Remember, if you truly want to learn psychology, you need to be active in your learning. It's not enough to simply just passively watch a video.
Now today, if you ask someone what they knew about psychology, they would probably give you an answer about people laying on a couch in a room and talking with a therapist about their life and their feelings. This comes from the psychodynamic perspective of psychology. This perspective was first developed by Sigmund Freud. It originally was called the psychoanalytic theory and is still practiced today. The psychodynamic perspective focuses on the unconscious mind and early childhood experiences.
Freud believed that people's personalities are shaped by unconscious motives and that we could better understand our subconscious by analyzing our dreams, speaking openly about our expressions, and trying to access our repressed memories and feelings. One of the ways Freud observed this was by using free association. This is when a word or image triggers another idea, word, or picture inside our head. For example, if I said the word large, what pops into your head?
This perspective is often used to explore deep-seated emotional issues, unresolved conflicts, and the impact of early experiences on adult personality. Our next approach to psychology came actually as a rejection to the psychodynamic approach. One major criticism with the psychodynamic approach was that it seeks to study something that is hidden and cannot truly be studied.
Psychologists such as John B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov, and eventually B.F. Skinner believed in an approach that would become known as behaviorism, which focuses on observable behavior. The behavioral perspective believes that psychology should be an objective science that focuses on studying observable behaviors without referencing the mental processes.
Since our mental processes cannot be be observed. Behaviorism emphasizes the role of the environment in shaping behavior through reinforcement and punishment. It also looks at how we observe other individuals and model our behavior off of their actions and consequences. This approach is often used in therapy and education to modify behavior through reinforcement and other conditioning techniques.
Up next we have the social cultural perspective, which focuses on a person's experiences and influences in their life. to better understand how culture shapes an individual. This approach observes how individuals'cultural norms, which are shared expectations and rules, often guide behaviors within a group. It also seeks to better understand how individuals'behaviors are shaped by other societal expectations and individuals. For example, many of us in the United States like to believe we're truly independent.
But how does our family, religion, food, music, our neighborhood, our school, our culture, or society shape us and how does that impact our decisions. In one way, this approach can be measured when looking at interactions we have with people and things around us, but can be difficult to measure the culture itself. This perspective often provides insight into different behaviors across different cultures. The next perspective is the humanistic perspective, which emphasizes our potential as humans to grow as individuals.
This was led by individuals such as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, who were both who believed that behaviorism was too limited in its scope and should instead focus on the potential growth of a person. This approach focuses on free will and is an optimistic approach that focuses on the differences of people and their growth and development. One thing to remember with the humanistic perspective is it emphasizes free will and a person's desire to move toward self-actualization. which is when an individual is motivated to strive to reach their full potential. This perspective is often used in therapy to help individuals achieve personal growth and improve self-esteem.
On the other hand, the cognitive perspective focuses on how we as individuals interpret, process, and remember information. Essentially, this approach focuses on our inner thoughts. This perspective emphasizes how people process and store information and how that influences the person's behavior. But similar to the other perspectives, here we are faced with the challenge of trying to study our thought processes in an objective and observable manner, which is essentially impossible.
Many of our thoughts may be flawed and could be based on limited life experiences or our emotions. We can see this perspective is often used in cognitive behavioral therapy. The next perspective is the biological perspective, which seeks to understand the links between our biological and psychological processes.
It focuses on the brain, neurotransmitters, hormones, and the nervous system's role in influencing thoughts and actions. Essentially how behaviors and mental processes are influenced by our nervous system. This perspective allows us to better understand different neurological conditions, mental disorders, and and the effects of medication on behaviors.
On the other hand, we have the biopsychosocial perspective, which focuses on the interconnectedness of the biological, psychological, and social factors in understanding behaviors and mental processes. Think of this as a combination of the sociocultural and the biological perspective. This perspective is often used in treatments as it encourages individuals to consider not just the biological aspects of a disease, but also the patient's emotional state.
state and social environment. Lastly, we have the evolutionary perspective, which looks at how natural selection and adaptation influence behavior. This idea was proposed by Charles Darwin, who argued that our behaviors and bodies were shaped through natural selection. This perspective can help us understand where certain behaviors such as fear responses come from.
All right, so I know that we went fast through all the different perspectives. So to make sure that you're truly understanding the different perspectives and more importantly, make sure that you can apply them to different behaviors and mental processes, I need you to go to my ultimate review packet and apply these perspectives to different real life scenarios. Don't worry, this is part of the free preview.
Just go to the ultimate review packet and click on the AP psychology packet. After you create an account, you can go to unit zero in the packet and practice applying these perspectives. Once you finish going through the different scenarios and figuring out which perspective would fit best, you can check out the answer key.
and read my explanations. Plus, you can also take the perspective practice quiz to make sure that you are truly understanding all of the different perspectives that we talked about in this video. Again, both the quiz and the practice scenarios are free to use today. Just click the link in the description of this video and sign up for the free preview.
Well, that's all we have time for today. Next time we will explore how different cultural norms, expectations, and biases influence research. As always, thank you so much for watching.
I am Mr. Sitton and I'll see you next time. online.