Name: ______/ Introduction to Psychology
Date: ______/ Mr. LaBrache

Current Perspectives in Psychology:

The End of the Slideshow

IV.Psychology’s Current Perspectives

  1. Neuroscience (brain)
  2. Focuses on how the body and the brain enable emotions
  3. They will ask questions like…
  4. How are messages transmitted in the body?
  5. How is brainchemistry linked with moods and motives?
  6. Behavior genetics
  7. They focus on how much our genes and our environments influence our individual differences
  8. They seek to find out…
  9. To what extent are psychological traits such as intelligence, personality, sexual orientation, and depression attributable to our genes?
  10. Are any of these things more linked to our environment?
  11. Humanistic
  12. Their primary focus is on reaching one’s full potential by meeting a hierarchy (tiered level) of needs
  13. They wonder how…
  14. …Self worth, realizing one’s full potential and self esteem affect our behavior?
  15. Psychodynamic
  16. This perspective studies how behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflict
  17. They will ask things like…
  18. “How can someone’s personality traits and disorders be explained in terms of sexual and aggressive drives or as disguised effects of unfulfilled wishes and childhood traumas?”
  19. Behavioral / Learning
  20. They focus on how people learn observable responses.
  21. They are curious to answer…
  22. “How we learn to fear particular objects or situations?
  23. What is the most effective way to alter our behavior, say to lose weight or quit smoking?
  24. Cognitive
  25. They focus on how we encode, process, store and retrieve information
  26. They will seek to find out…
  27. How do we use information in remembering? Reasoning? Problem solving?
  28. Social-Cultural
  29. They pay attention to how behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures
  30. They will ask something like…
  31. How are we – as Africans, Asians, Australians or North Americans – alike as members of human family?
  32. As products of different environmental contexts, how do we differ?
  33. Evolutionary
  34. Their primary focus is how does natural selection and evolution influence behavior and personality
  35. They might ask something like…
  36. Why are facial emotions inherited?

Key Terms:

  • Psychology
  • Structuralism
  • Introspection
  • Functionalism
  • Longitudinal research
  • Gestalt
  • Psychodynamic perspective
  • Cognitive perspective
  • Humanistic perspective
  • Neuroscience perspective
  • Social-cultural perspective
  • Evolutionary perspective
  • Sigmund Freud
  • B.F. Skinner
  • Abraham Maslow