In psychology, there are five perspectives which help us to make up explanations for different behaviors or reactions of people. They are biological, behavioral, cognitive, psychoanalytic and phenomenological perspective.
In the following essay, I am going to explain the five perspectives in five familiar behavioral patterns. In case 1, most college students will feel anxiety when they take a test. This can be explained by cognitive perspective. Cognitive perspective focuses on mental processes, that is the things happened in our mind which is not observable. As most college students have quite a lot to study for the tests, and our short-term memory is limited.
Thus, they cannot memorize all the materials, so they will feel anxiety. Furthermore, students will expect their results would be bad, so they feel anxiety when they take a test. In case 2, a large number of people are so fearful of snakes that we would consider them to have a phobia. This case reflects the behavioral perspective. Behavioral perspective focuses on observable activities, stimulus and response.
According to case 2, the stimulus will be snakes and the response will be phobia. But how can the fear of snakes turn into a phobia? If the reaction of snakes fear is first rewarded, their behaviors will be reinforced and thus they will be more likely to express their fearful responses. For example, a girl first sees a snake and then she screams and cries. Her mother comforts her and gives her a sweet.
In this case, the girl is rewarded and her response will be reinforced. In case 3, students pay large amounts of money and put up with considerable hardship to attend college. This reflects the phenomenological perspective. According to this perspective, self-actualization is emphasized.
People will act out to work towards an individual’s full potentials. Students need to study hard in order to enter the university and have a degree so that they can have personal growth. Although they need to put up considerable hardship, they realize that it is the only way to develop their potential. In case 4, some individuals engage in high risk behavior such as sky diving, rock climbing, and hang gliding.
This can be explained by psychoanalytic perspective. The basic idea of psychoanalytic perspective is that our behavior stems from unconscious processes. Everyone has some impulses that are inborn, which is forbidden by society. Therefore, they are repressed to the unconsciousness. Although people are unaware of those impulses, they do affect people’s behavior.
The impulses are not disappeared, but just expressed in other behavior such as dreams, symptoms of mental illness and speech. In this case, the individuals are affected by the unaware desires and motivations. Lastly, many teenagers seem to rebel against their parents. This reflects the phenomenological perspective.
Just like case 3 from the above, teenagers may want to develop their full potential, but are blocked by their parents. The only way to explore their potential is to rebel against their parents.
