Examining the Foundations of Psychology

Examining the Foundations of Psychology

Introduction

From the perspective of human biology, we can understand and analyze human brain based on different characteristics. Today, we know that an average brain of a person consists of millions of neurons. Neurons assist in transferring the information from one part to another under a process known as Synapses. These neurons help in transferring information between the brain and the entire nervous system. Neurons are organized in two different ways, and we call these two elements; lobes and Hemisphere. Typical brains consist of 4 lobes (frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe and temporal lobe), and 2 hemispheres: left and right. Biological science still considers human brain a complicated organ (Kowalski &Westen, 2011).

Therefore, to understand the human brain more clearly, one should examine it in terms of different function that it performs. On the other hand, information regarding the differences between the psychological and biological knowledge of a brain is limited. We know what part or portion of a brain performs what function, but we in actual do not know how our brain actually complete these tasks. From the biological perspective, a gap is present between different schools of psychology. Major school of thoughts simply considers brains as biological enteritis, and their main theories consider brain as an abstracted form of a human organ (Hergenhahn, 2009). However, other school of thoughts considers brains from a different perspective. According to them human brain is everything from a complex (but accessible) machine to a black box whose mystery can never be solved (Kowalski &Westen, 2011).

Discussion

Origin of Different School of Thoughts

Debate about the human mind and human behavior started from the origin of psychology as a separate field of study. Theories of psychology represent believe of different schools of thought in psychology. Wilhelm Wundt (founder of 1st psychology lab) advocated the first school of thought known as structuralism (Hergenhahn, 2009). Earlier, psychologists used to associate themselves with a single school of thought, but now, they have different perspectives or outlooks about the field of psychology. Psychologists are now acquiring knowledge from different schools of thoughts instead of sticking themselves with a singular perspective(Kowalski &Westen, 2011).

Behaviorist (Behaviorism)

In 1950, behaviorism was considered as a renowned school of thought. Ivan Pavlov, B.F. Skinner and John Watson are considered as the founder of behaviorism (Pavlov, 1927). Main focus of behaviorism was on the environmental forces (Skinner, 1938). According ...