Behaviorism, Cognitive and Humanistic All Summed Up
Janice M. Brown
Aspects of Psychology
Professor Trego
November 8, 2012

Behaviorism, Cognitive, and Humanistic

Behaviorism, cognitive and humanistic are all perspectives (or theories) of psychology. Behaviorism is a perspective that suggests that all behaviors are learned. What I mean by that is according to John B. Watson who founded the school of psychology, suggests the behaviors can be measured, trained, and changed. [ (Cherry, 2012) ] Based on article written by Kendra Cherry, behaviorism is a theory of learning based upon the idea that all behaviors are acquired through conditioning and there are two major types of conditioning which are Classical conditioning and Operant …show more content…

Maureen O’Hara, former president of the Association of Humanistic Psychology, explained it best in this statement, “As the world’s people demand freedom and self-determination, it is urgent that we learn how diverse communities of empowered individuals, with freedom to construct their own stories and identities, might live together in mutual peace. Perhaps it is not a vain hope that is life in such communities might lead to the advance in human consciousness beyond anything we have yet experienced.” [ (Cherry, Archive for the ‘Psychology of Education’ Category, 2012) ] Humanistic psychology remains quite popular today and has had major influence on other areas of psychology. One of the strong points of the humanistic perspective is that it take it takes environmental influences into account. Rather than focusing solely on our internal thoughts and desires. The downfall of this perspective is that the importance of individual experience makes it difficult to objectively study and measure humanistic. What we can rely on is the individuals own assessment of their experience. [ (Cherry, Archive for the ‘Psychology of Education’ Category, 2012) ]
What it all boils down to is this, behaviorism, cognitive, and humanistic all contributed to the understanding of the human mind and behavior. Each one deals with specific subtopics within the study of the mind, brain and behavior. Without these different branches of