Psychology’s Three Main Levels of Analysis And Psychology’s Approaches

1. Objective: Analyze the major approaches to psychology including behavioral, psychoanalytical, cognitive and humanistic Psychology’s Three Main Levels of Analysis And Psychology’s Approaches Textbook: Myers’ Psychology-2011 Worth Publishers

2. Things to consider… • Each of us is a complex system that is part of a larger social system • Each of us is composed of smaller systems (our nervous systems and body organs) • Smaller systems are composed of even smaller systems (cells, molecules and atoms)

3. Why do grizzly bears hibernate? • Is it because their hibernation helped their ancestors to survive and reproduce? • Because their inner physiology drives them to do so? • Because cold environments hinder food gathering during the winter? • “Everything is related to everything else”

4. Levels of Analysis Together, different levels of analysis form a Biopsychosocial Approach: Considers the influences of biological, psychological and social-cultural factors Each level provides a valuable vantage point for looking at behavior, yet each by itself is incomplete

5. Biopsychosocial Approach • Psychological Influence: • Learned fears and other learned expectations • Emotional responses • Cognitive processing and perceptual interpretation • Biological Influence: • Natural selection of adaptive traits • Genetics predispositions responding to environment • Brain mechanisms • Hormonal influences Behavior or mental process Social-cultural Influence Presence of others Cultural, societal and family expectations Peer and other group influences Compelling models (such as media)

6. Psychology’s Approaches • Behavioral: How we learn observable responses • Sample Questions: How do we learn to fear particular objects or situations? What is the best way to alter our behavior (to lose weight or stop addiction)? • Cognitive: How we encode, process, store and retrieve information • Sample Questions: How do we use information in remembering? Reasoning? Solving problems?

7. Psychology’s Approaches • Humanistic: How we meet our needs for love and acceptance and achieve self-fulfillment • Sample Questions: How can we work toward fulfilling our potential? How can we overcome barriers to our personal growth? • Psychoanalytical (Psychodynamic): Unconscious mental forces direct our everyday behavior • Sample Questions: How can someone’s personality traits and disorders be explained in terms of sexual and aggressive drives or as the disguised effects of unfulfilled wishes and childhood traumas?

8. Example: Processing Anger • Behavioral: What social forces trigger anger or aggressive acts • Cognitive: Interpretation of a situation affects our anger and how our anger affects our thinking • Humanistic: How do angry feelings affect a person’s potential for growth and personal fulfillment • Psychoanalytical: An outburst as an outlet for unconscious hostility

9. Case Study: Andrea Yates http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=1736552n&tag=mncol;lst;1

10. The Case of Andrea Yates Answer the following questions to explain what you believe to be the causes of Andrea Yates’ murder of her children • How would you explain Andrea Yates’ behavior from a cognitive perspective?(private mental functioning) • How would you explain Andrea Yates’ behavior from a humanistic perspective? (needs for love and acceptance and achieve self-fulfillment) • How would you explain Andrea Yates’ behavior from a behavioral perspectives? (behaviors that were reinforced, punished etc. ) • How would you explain Andrea Yates’ behavior from a psychoanalyticperspective? (past experience in her life) • Martin Seligman has effectively argued that the individualism of American society plays a critical role in its accelerating rate of depression. What important principles this case might reveal?