Role of Learning and Memory in the field of psychology

Role of Learning and Memory in the field of psychology

Introduction

Definition of psychology is changing over the years. Current view regarding the definition of psychology is it is a science of human behavior. Psychologists draw introspective reports and further they draw inferences regarding internal process of human beings (Eysenck, 2004). Hilgard pointed out clearly that psychology is the study of mental activity. He redefined psychology as it is the study of behavior. Finally, he concluded that it is the study of human behavior. He elaborated further information that is obtained from experiments can be generalized into human experience, and animal behavior is the interests of psychologists as to study the experiment son animal subjects. He defined psychology as the study of behavior and mental process (Sevilla, 2008).

There are different perspectives of psychology that defines psychology in their own terms. Biological psychology explains that behavior is genetically inherited. The effect of chromosomes and hormones on the human brain it affects human behavior. Biological psychologist explains the behavior in terms of neurology. Many biological psychologists explained abnormal psychology in terms of neurology as schizophrenia is affected by dopamine level (Mcleod, 2007). Another perspective is of cognitive psychology. The founder of cognitive psychology was Wilhelm Wundt. Cognitive psychology revolves around what is going on in our minds. It is a mental process from which knowledge is acquired. The cognitive functions include learning, memory, perception and attention. Another perspective is of behaviorism behavior is learned through environment. Environmental changes can affect behavior of an individual. Behaviorism believes in scientific methodology. Behaviorism gave the idea of classical and operant conditioning in the learning process. According to them everything is learned from the environment and one can learn and unlearn things from the environment (Mcleod, 2007).

Another perspective is of psychoanalysis. The idea was launched by Freud. He believed that childhood has an impact on adult behavior. He gave the idea of the unconscious mind and freewill. He gave the concept of unconscious mid, free associations, dream analysis and hypnosis. He believed that Id, ego and superego work internally within the person's decision making. He has also given the aspects of psychosexual stages. It affects the adult's personality. He has over emphasized the role of sexuality in social relationships. It is viewed as human behavior and observation. The person is behaving in the manner they are doing so. In humanism individual has freewill to adopt any changes in life. The perspective is of humanistic psychology. Rogers and Maslow was the key person admired in this perspective. It depicts the happiness and wellbeing of an individual. It explains that human has the ability to achieve the thing that is desired and move towards attaining the level of achievement that is called self actualization (Mcleod, 2007).

An overview of all perspective gave the idea that it is necessary to understand that the perspectives of psychology are neither right nor wrong. Each approach focuses on behavioral and psychological ...