• John B. Watson: Watson pioneered the historic perspective of behaviorism, believing that the field should focus more on behavior than consciousness. He believed conditioning would form the basis of behaviorism.
• B.F. Skinner: Skinner took over the field from Watson, continuing research in classical conditioning while also developing his own theory—operant conditioning.

• classical conditioning: the basis of behaviorism, and belief that all behaviors are a result of a stimulus-response relationship.
• operant conditioning: the theory that behaviors that are followed by “pleasurable” consequences are reinforced and conditioned.

Psychological perspective that focuses on the influence of social interactions, society, and culture on an individual’s thinking and behavior; in psychopathology, approach that examines the impact of social interactions, community, and culture on a person’s thinking, behavior, and emotions.

Unofficial Definition:

Psychological perspective that focsues on how people's culture and social settings infleunce them

Founding Fathers:

Lev Vygotsky is where most of sociocultural psychology comes from. He came up with the idea that learning is a social process, and that people are influenced by their culture, caregivers, peers, and parents in developing higher-order functions.

Buzzwords:
"bystander effect" - a psychological phenomenon originally researched by John M. Darley and Bibb Latané that describes how people are less likely to help someone in need when others are present

"social role" - the expected behavior of someone in a social situation

Strengths:
Explains and considers the complicated relationship between the individual + groups

Weaknesses:
Limited solid evidence and doesn't really consider individual differences and approaches

Behavior:

A man moves to a foreign country with very different customs and social norms than he is used to. At first he struggles to fit in and is considered by himself and others to be an outsider, but over time he gradually starts to assimilate into the rest of the society he is involved in

Informal: Tries to explain shared mental traits among humans.

Founding Fathers: Uses strategies from Charles Darwin’s natural selection theory such as having humans solve problems that earlier humans faced, like hunters. The mind in these theories is known as an information processing machine.

Buzzwords: “Evolutionary psychologists” study the origins of human behavior, and when they notices changes in behavior such as “adaptive behavior” they can figure out how and why it happens.

Strengths: Related to other perspectives like sociocultural or biopsychological. Is able to track behaviors and figure out how they adapt.

Weaknesses: Can’t explain things that are psychological like relationships.

Behavior: Early humans coming into contact with poisonous, bitter plants and then their offspring do not like these plants, and avoid them completely.

Informal: This perspective focuses on biological and internal reasons for behavior, like brain function and genetics.

Founding Fathers: Research from Breedlove and Grimbos shaped this perspective by relating sexual orientation to a baby’s exposure to testosterone in the womb and birth order of males. Flint and Munafò used this perspective to figure out how people could develop schizophrenia due to biological factors.

Buzzwords: ”Heredity” is significant in this perspective because it looks internal, biological factors, and people are more likely to develop certain behaviors if they have a certain gene passed down to them.

Strengths: This perspective looks at biological factors to explain behavior such as hormones, heredity, brain chemicals, tumors, and diseases.

Weaknesses: Does not take into account relationships, conditioning, or someone’s motivation in relation to their behavior or mental events.

Behavior: A person that inherits variants of certain genes from their parents, that can cause removing connections between neurons, are more likely to develop schizophrenia.

• Abraham Maslow: Maslow was one of two founding fathers, and his main contribution to the field was developing a hierarchy of needs to explain human motivation.
• Carl Rogers: Rogers, the second of the founding fathers developed the theory of Unconditional Positive Regard, in which he explained that children learn through accepting and understanding things unconditionally.

• free will: the freedom to choose their own destiny. These choices will shape the path someone takes in life.
• self-actualization: the final goal of the humanistic perspective which means striving to reach one’s full potential.