There are seven different approaches to psychology: biological, behavioral, psychodynamic, humanistic, cognitive, evolutionary, and sociocultural. The two that will be further explained in this paper is the behavioral and the humanistic perspectives. The behavioral approach focuses on how the environment affects a human's and an animals observable behavior. On the other hand, the humanistic approach has the power of one’s destiny in the people’s hands rather than the environment. To begin with, the behaviorist perspective is different than the other approaches because it is strictly about how a person is controlled by the environment, and is based on only what behaviorists can observe. There are two main processes to this approach:
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It also focuses on the person as a whole. This approach is very interesting because it does not focus on behavior, the unconscious, thinking, or even the human brain. It focuses on how people react to certain events. A few examples of this is if someone is going through a midlife crisis, and gets personally motivated to find something to do that has a purpose, such as, hobbies, a helpful cause, or making a new friend. Another one is if a family or a couple is going through a rough patch and chooses to go to counseling to figure out the problem’s roots to help save that relationship. An important aspect of the humanistic perspective is to focus on strengths rather than faults; therefore, people feel more satisfied with life. A common denominator with everything listed in this paragraph is self help, which is a major aspect of this approach. Between this two perspectives, there are many similarities and differences. A similarity is both have a variable that affects a human’s behavior. In humanism it is emotions and in behaviorism it is the environment. One of the differences is behaviorists have logical explanations behind the theories that were observed, whereas, humanism goes beyond observable behavior and thinks about the emotional aspects of being a human. Another difference is humanism goes against behaviorism’s concrete idea that humans are controlled by the environment, and instead believes humans have free
It also focuses on the person as a whole. This approach is very interesting because it does not focus on behavior, the unconscious, thinking, or even the human brain. It focuses on how people react to certain events. A few examples of this is if someone is going through a midlife crisis, and gets personally motivated to find something to do that has a purpose, such as, hobbies, a helpful cause, or making a new friend. Another one is if a family or a couple is going through a rough patch and chooses to go to counseling to figure out the problem’s roots to help save that relationship. An important aspect of the humanistic perspective is to focus on strengths rather than faults; therefore, people feel more satisfied with life. A common denominator with everything listed in this paragraph is self help, which is a major aspect of this approach. Between this two perspectives, there are many similarities and differences. A similarity is both have a variable that affects a human’s behavior. In humanism it is emotions and in behaviorism it is the environment. One of the differences is behaviorists have logical explanations behind the theories that were observed, whereas, humanism goes beyond observable behavior and thinks about the emotional aspects of being a human. Another difference is humanism goes against behaviorism’s concrete idea that humans are controlled by the environment, and instead believes humans have free