I need help from someone who is more knowledgeable than I am about it. I am going to compare and contrast Freud and Watson, and their beliefs of psychoanalysis and behaviorism, repsectively.
Freud believed that our behavior is a result of the subconscious and is ingrained at birth. Everyone has an Oedipeus Complex which drives them.
Watson believed our behaviour is the result of our environment shaping us. Associations shape our reactions.
Now, for the question. How can I draw a comparison between the two beliefs? Behaviourism is different from psychoanalysis because it believes that we learn all of our reactions. In contrast, psh\ychoanalysis relies on the thought that we all have been born with reactions, and that our subconscious rules us.
Can anyone help me? I am just a little confused, I don’t want anyone to actually do my homework. Hope this makes sense!
Perhaps you could select certain types of neurotic behaviors and then for each example contrast how someone using psychoanalytic or behavioral analysis would approach resolving the problems.
Freud posited that we go through stages in development–oral, anal, latency, genital and that during these stages we are confronted with challenges–hunger, anger, molestation, and so on, which shape our personalities, depending how they are resolved. It’s all about appetites, conflicts, disappointment, trauma, unfulfilled desires. Psychoanalysis was developed primarily to deal with hysteria, a condition that seems to have disappeared from society. So it could be argued that psychoanalysis, by becoming popular, much discussed, and an integral part of society, has changed the modern world.
In its pure form, behaviorism is more mechanistic. You receive rewards for this or that, thus increasing the likelihood that you will repeat those behaviors. The simpler and less mentally mediated a behavior, the better it responds to conditioning. Complex, cerebral issues respond less well. Alcoholism and pedophilia have not responded as you might expect to behavioral therapy. The red-light camera you may have read about in the newspaper are the modern equivalent of aversive therapy. If you run a red light, you get a $50 ticket. People have responded with rage to this machine that shapes behavior. When people recognize the rules of the game of behaviorism, they generally become cynical if they can cheat the game or enraged if they cannot. Since the relationship between therapist and patient seems devoid of human values, patients feel no compunction about sidestepping punishment or claiming unearned rewards.
There are six major approaches to modern psychology. One, behaviorism, as discovered by James Watson, and psychoanalysis, made popular by Freud, are two that will be compared in this essay.
Watson said that human behavior is due in part to the environment and associations one has in early childhood. One creates associations between cause and effect by a system of rewards and punishments. If something negative is done, it is punished. A child therefore learns not to do such actions. If an action is positive, the child is rewarded. It is this response to stimuli and the reaction to the response that make up the basis of behaviorism. However, positive and negative actions are not universally set, and what one group or culture may find bad, another may exalt. This unevenness leads to the varied types of people making up our society.
It is the belief of psychoanalysis that humans go through different developmental stages just as they go through physical changes. These stages pose challenges, rewards, cravings, needs, wants, and disappointment. When a child is growing up, desires are centered on different parts of the body depending on the stage at which they are developing.
Both beliefs center around the idea that the conscious mind is not in control of behavior. Cognitive thinking plays a very small role in development. In behaviorism, an environment shapes the subconscious to indulge in and avoid certain actions based on experience or learned fears. Psychoanalysis says that at different times our mind wishes to indulge in different things, and what someone may relish at one stage they may abhor at another. The conscious mind has little to do with these wants, and serves only as a way for the subconscious to sate itself.
Behaviorism and psychoanalysis are two very important parts of psychology. In many ways, they are different. However, they also share certain fundamental traits, such as the overriding of the conscious mind. Neither belief is better than the other, and both play a role in modern diagnoses.
Rather than the grade, which doesn’t tell me much, how about posting specific comments the teacher has? That way i can decide whether i agree with the teacher’s judgment.
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”