“Foundations of Psychology”
By
Juan A. Correa
University of Miami
PSY 300
Amelia Salgado
“Foundations of Psychology”
Since the 19th century one of the problems had been finding which parts of the brain controlled or had the function of controlling our body. In the mid 1800’s Physicians discovered through research of head injuries that specific parts of the brain controlled speech and hearing. In the last two decades neuroscientists have come a long way in better understanding the intricate parts of the brain and how they come together to convey things like, feelings, thoughts and actions.
It is said that psychology is the combination of culture and biology, thereby to be able to psycho analyze someone one must understand the culture that the individual has been exposed to as well as their biological background. Understanding an individual and the circumstances that cause their action will allow for a more thorough scientific investigation of their mental processes and behaviors.
Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict believed that individual psychology is shaped by the individual’s backgrounds, cultures and beliefs. By studying the different behaviors from various parts in the world they discovered that upbringing plays a big part in the person’s psychological development.
The fact that psychology was born from the womb of philosophy is of no small consequence (Kowalski & Western, 2005). Psychologists believe that the human actions are determined in our brains by genetics and that they are influenced externally by our surroundings.
Thomas Kuhn (1970) believed that social sciences and psychology are separated in to specific schools of thoughts or_ perspectives_. These perspectives are divided in to four categories which are psychodynamic, cognitive, behaviorist and evolutionary.
In the Psychodynamic perspectiveis the dynamic interplay of mental forces, in other words, they are determined and influenced by our thoughts, feelings and...