Describe the origins of psychology and the major perspectives used to explain behaviour.

What this dot point is asking

Module 1 of the TASC course opens with where psychology came from and the competing frameworks psychologists use. This matters because the same behaviour can be explained in several valid ways, and a good answer names the perspective it is using.

From philosophy to science

For centuries questions about the mind belonged to philosophy. Thinkers such as Descartes debated dualism (the idea that mind and body are separate) and the nature versus nurture question of whether knowledge is innate or learned. Psychology became a separate discipline only when researchers began testing ideas empirically rather than by argument alone.

Wilhelm Wundt opened the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig in 1879, the date usually given as the birth of scientific psychology. Wundt used introspection (trained self-report of conscious experience) to break experience into its elements, an approach called structuralism. William James responded with functionalism, asking what mental processes are for rather than what they are made of.

The major approaches

Each perspective rests on different assumptions about the cause of behaviour:

• Biological approach: behaviour comes from genes, brain structures, neurotransmitters and hormones. It explains depression through low serotonin or aggression through the amygdala.
• Behaviourist approach: only observable behaviour can be studied scientifically, and behaviour is learned through conditioning (Watson, Skinner). The mind is treated as a "black box".
• Cognitive approach: the mind processes information like a computer, encoding, storing and retrieving it. It studies memory, attention and thinking using models and inference.
• Psychodynamic approach: Freud argued that unconscious drives and early childhood experience shape behaviour, with conflict between the id, ego and superego.
• Humanist approach: Maslow and Rogers stressed free will, personal growth and the drive toward self-actualisation, rejecting the determinism of the other schools.
• Sociocultural approach: behaviour is shaped by culture, social groups and norms, so the same act can mean different things in different societies.

Why several approaches survive

No single approach explains everything, so psychologists often combine them. The biopsychosocial model used later in the course (in health and wellbeing) is a direct example: it blends biological, psychological and social explanations rather than choosing one. This is called eclecticism.

Levels of explanation

A useful exam habit is to recognise that approaches sit at different "levels". The biological level looks inside the body; the cognitive level looks at mental processing; the social and cultural level looks outward to groups. Strong responses move deliberately between levels rather than treating one as the whole truth.

Putting it together

When you meet a behaviour in the exam, ask which approach a claim belongs to and what it assumes about the cause. Anchor your answer to the founders (Wundt for the science, Watson and Skinner for behaviourism, Freud for the psychodynamic view, Maslow and Rogers for humanism) so the marker can see you are using a defined framework rather than everyday opinion.