Compare and contrast the psychoanalytic perspective and the behavioral perspective

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

ANSWER:
?Freud’s focus on the unconscious was unique and led to his formulation of psychoanalytic theory. According to this theory, humans are similar to animals in that they possess basic sexual and aggressive instincts that motivate behavior. However, unlike animals, humans can reason and think, especially as they mature. In childhood we learn to use these conscious reasoning abilities to deal with and to suppress our basic sexual and aggressive desires so that we can be viewed approvingly by others. For Freud, the conflict between the conscious reasoning part of the mind and the unconscious instinctual one was key to understanding human behavior.
?
In the 1920s, in the United States, a growing number of psychologists believed that in order for psychology to be taken seriously as a “true” science, it must focus on observable behavior and not on the mind, a school of thought referred to as behaviorism. You can’t see the mind or what a person thinks; you can only see what a person does. Behaviorists believed that only overt, observable behaviors could truly be measured consistently from person to person. One of the most vocal proponents of this school of thought was American psychologist John B. Watson (1878–1958).