Major humanistic psychologists such as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow believed that human beings were born with the desire to grow, create and to love, and had the power to direct their own lives. Man’s behavior, with all of its refinement and complexity, forms only a part of the behaviorist’s total scheme of investigation. The use of lab experiments reduces the ecological validity of the approach, as participants undergo complicated tests in an artificial environment.

The humanistic approach is thus often called the “third force” in psychology after psychoanalysis and behaviorism (Maslow, 1968). Comparative method: different species of animal can be studied and compared. This can help in the search to understand human behavior.In 1962, with the sponsorship of Brandeis University, this movement was formally launched as the Association for Humanistic Psychology. Personal agency refers to the choices we make in life, the paths we go down, and their consequences. Individuals are free to choose when they are congruent (Rogers) or self-actualized (Maslow). The cognitive approach in psychology holds that individuals are information processors where there is input, storage, and retrieval of data. How do computer models draw inferences about mental processes? Let's look at Newell's and Simon's (1972) General Problem Solver, one of the earliest computer models in cognitive psychology. They designed the program by gathering verbal reports and encoding a specific problem-solving approach in the program. Testing the program showed that the General Problem Solver and humans worked similarly in problem-solving. Watson and Rayner (1920) conditioned an orphan called Albert B (aka Little Albert) to fear a white rat.

The biological approach is firmly on the nature side of the debate; however, it does recognize that our brain is a plastic organ that changes with experience in our social world, so it does not entirely deny the influence of nurture. Pang hopes, she told the Guardian, to be “a voice for the neurodivergent community in shining a light on the fact that it’s OK to feel outlandish in a system that you’re basically allergic to, because you’re designed to make a new one”. We know so little about the brain and its functions are so closely integrated that brain surgery is usually only attempted as a last resort. Finally, these whole experiences should be looked at through introspection. Introspection is the careful searching of one’s inner subjective experiences. Humanism rejects scientific methodology:

The underlying assumption is that to some degree the laws of behavior are the same for all species and that therefore knowledge gained by studying rats, dogs, cats and other animals can be generalized to humans. The humanistic approach in psychology developed as a rebellion against what some psychologists saw as the limitations of behaviorist and psychodynamic psychology. How proteins, machine learning and molecular chemistry can teach us about the complexities of human behaviour and the world around us B.F. Skinner (1948) published Walden Two, in which he described a utopian society founded upon behaviorist principles.

Watson proposed that behaviors can be studied in a systematic and observable manner with no consideration of internal mental states. EEGs have been used to study sleep, and it has been found that during a typical night’s sleep, we go through a series of stages marked by different patterns of brain wave. It focuses on the present rather than dwell on the past unlike psychoanalysis. This therapy is widely used e.g. health, education and industry.The behaviorist approach has been used in treating phobias. The individual with the phobia is taught relaxation techniques and then makes a hierarchy of fear from the least frightening to the most frightening features of the phobic object. Jane Goodall (1957) began her study of primates in Africa, discovering that chimps have behaviors similar to all the human cultures on the planet.

However, there are methodological flaws that reduce the validity of twin studies. For example, Bouchard and McGue included many poorly performed and biased studies in their meta-analysis.Between 1920 and 1930, Watson was a prominent author, but behaviorism was a small (19%) slice of psychology. Larger clusters were mental testing and Gestalt psychology. Your day job is for a pharmaceutical company, but you also volunteer with one of the university teams that are working on Covid-19. How do you balance these roles?