Psychological Theories | Question and Answer

Running head: PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES
PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES
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PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES1
Answer 1:
Psychodynamic and psychoanalytic theories describe the conflicts in individuals created
by internal biological drives, unconscious motives as well as the past events and society norms.
As Freud had theorized, the unconscious drives human behaviour. It is like an iceberg that means
that vast part of information is unknown to human beings as they are stored in the unconscious
(Cherry 2015). However, the approach shifted from psychodynamic approaches to social
cognitive theories that gave more importance to learning that relied on achieving mastery in a
task. The theory proposed by Albert Bandura emphasized that the personality was influenced by
the role of cognitive and affective variables that also included self-regulatory mechanisms
needed by an individual to guide their behaviour (Bandura 2014). Social-cognitive theories
emphasise on the cognitive processes like thinking and reasoning that help in the development of
personality. Such cognitive process help people into learning such behaviours that are central to
shaping one’s personality. Cognitive-affective model proposed by Walter Mischel argued that
the personality of an individual was not governed by the traits only; an individual’s behaviour is
dependent upon the needs of the situation (Cherry 2015). He argued that personality was
influenced by both the internal traits and the external factors surrounding an individual. The way
an individual, thinks, perceives and reacts to the situation is the determining factor that shapes
the personality of an individual.
Answer 2:
Habituation is a process in which response to stimuli is decreased due to repeated
presentations of the stimuli (Blumstein 2016). It is a process that occurs within the nervous
system. It is a common form of learning where it allows an individual to neglect the inessential
stimuli and focus on the more important ones’. There are two theories that lay down the process