Question

What are the movements in psychology and what are the arguments of each?

Answer 1

Psychoanalysis

The psychoanalytic movement was pioneered by Sigmund Freud stressed on the subconscious mind. According to this school of thought, man’s basic instinct is to seek pleasure which is largely sexual in nature. He divided the subconscious in three parts: the id, the ego and the superego. The id is the primal part of the subconscious that seeks out these pleasurable activities, the superego is concerned with the ideal self, and the ego is the moral compass that moderates the desires of the id and the superego. Freud constructed the psychosexual stages of development based on the man’s desire for pleasure right from infancy and believed that addressing these issues would treat abnormal behaviour in adults.

Gestalt

According to the gestalt movement, the human mind interprets information through certain organizational rules, and uses these rule to make sense of information that is fragmented.

Behaviourism

The behaviourist movement was based on experiments carried out by B.F. Skinner. He conducted experiments on animals to demonstrate that certain behaviours are likely to be repeated based on the rewards associated with them. Behaviourists believed that observation of behaviour provided an insight into the inner workings of the human mind.

Humanism

The humanist movement is based on the studies of Abraham Maslow. Maslow developed the “hierarchy of needs” to exemplify the motivations behind human behaviour. According to Maslow, all humans want to reach self-actualization. However, humans have to satisfy needs in a hierarchy to reach self-actualization. As a result, human behaviour can be interpreted based on their position in the hierarchy of needs and the means that they go to, to fulfil these needs.