Question

The text (pp. 8-19) discusses six different perspectives in psychology and how each can attempt to explain a problem from a different angle. For this assignment you are going to think about how the different perspectives in psychology might try to understand a specific behavior. 1. Pick one of the following behaviors to analyze: ◦ Depression ◦ Love ◦ Anger 2. For each of the six perspectives in psychology write a brief explanation of the perspective and then describe how it might try to understand the behavior you chose. The six perspectives are: 1) psychoanalytic 2) humanistic 3) behaviorism 4) cognitive 5) behavioral and cognitive neuroscience 6) cultural

Answer 1

Depression :

1) Psychoanalytic view : The psychodynamic understanding of depression was given by Sigmund Freud and was further expanded by Karl Abraham is known one of the most important view of depression. That theory involves four key points: (1) disturbances in the child–mother relationship during the oral stage predispose to subsequent vulnerability to depression; (2) depression can be linked to real or imagined object loss; (3) introjection of the lost objects is a defense mechanism invited to deal with the distress connected with the object’s loss; and (4) because the lost object is regarded with a mixture of love and hate, feelings of anger are directed inward at the self.

2) Humanistic view : Humanists believe that all human species have their different needs.According to Maslow, 1962, the most important need in human life is self actualization need in which people lead a meaningful life.Thus anything that prevent us to fulfil that need cause depression.

3) Behaviourism : According to behaviourism,environment is the main agent to shape behaviour.So depression occurs due to that person's interaction with the environment.According to Lewinsohn, 1974,depression is caused by the removal of positive reinforcement from the environment.

The learned helplessness theory of depression connects depressive phenomena to the experience of uncontrollable events.Learned helplessness as applied to human depression, internal causal explanations are
thought to produce a loss of self-esteem after adverse external events. Behaviorists who subscribe to the theory stress that improvement of depression is contingent on the patient’s learning a sense of control and mastery of the environment.

4) Cognitive : According to cognitive theory, depression results from specific cognitive distortions present in persons susceptible to depression. These distortions, referred to as depressogenic schemata, are cognitive templates that perceive both internal and external data in ways that are altered by early experiences. Aaron Beck postulated a cognitive triad of depression that consists of (1) views about the self—a negative selfprecept, (2) about the environment—a tendency to experience the world as hostile and demanding, and (3) about the future—the expectation of suffering and failure.

5) Behavioural and cognitive neuroscience : Successful treatment of depression seems to be conditional upon a naturally associated volume increase in the adult hippocampus and electrically stimulating prefrontal regions implicated in associative processing make less severe depression symptoms.

6) Cultural : Surveys of major depressive disorder across diverse cultures have shown sevenfold differences in 12-month prevalence rates but much more consistency in female-to-male raho, mean ages at onset, and the degree to which presence of the disorder raises the likelihood of comorbid substance abuse.