Psychology has been built on decades of research on behavior and mental processes, which makes it easy to get lost among so many approaches and concepts that cannot be understood without understanding the theories in which they are framed.
The different psychological theories try to describe different important aspects about our personality, our behavior, our cognitive development and our motivations, among many other issues. Next you can see some touches on the main psychological theories that have been sculpting what we know about the human mind.
1. Cartesian dualistic theory
The dualistic theory of René Descartes It establishes that the mind and the body are two entities of different nature, that the first has the power to control the second and that they interact with each other somewhere in the brain.
It is basically the transformation into theory of a type of philosophical position of dualism, one of whose greatest representatives is Plato. Although the theory of Cartesian dualism has been formally discarded decades ago, it continues to take new forms and remains implicit in the way much research in psychology and neuroscience is focused. Somehow, it “infiltrates” the thinking of many research teams without them realizing it, which is why it remains relevant despite being invalid.
The Gestalt psychological theory It deals with the way we perceive the outside world through our senses. Through the Gestalt laws, basically developed by German psychologists in the first half of the 20th century, the way in which perception is carried out is reflected at the same time that we give meaning to what is perceived, and not a thing after the other. You can read more about this theory in this article.
3. Behavioral stimulus-response theory
Behavioral psychology researchers who relied on operant conditioning BF Skinner defended the idea that the learning we do depends on the way in which certain behaviors are more or less reinforced by pleasant or unpleasant stimuli just after this behavior has been performed.
This theory was questioned by Edward Tolman, who in the mid-20th century demonstrated that learning could be carried out even if certain behaviors were not immediately rewarded, thus paving the way for the cognitive psychology that was to come in the 1960s.
4. Jean Piaget’s learning theory
One of the most important psychological theories on learning is the one based on constructivist approach of Jean Piaget This Swiss researcher believed that the way we learn consists of the construction of our own experiences, that is, what we experience is seen in the light of what we have previously experienced.
But learning does not depend only on our past experiences, but also on biological factors marked, among other things, by the life stage in which we find ourselves. That’s why he established a model of cognitive development stages, which you can read more about here.
While at the beginning of the 20th century many psychologists studied learning by focusing on the way in which individuals interact with the environment, the Soviet researcher Lev Vygotsky gave a social approach to the same object of study.
For him, society as a whole (although especially through parents and guardians) is a means and at the same time a learning tool thanks to which we can develop intellectually. You can learn more about this psychological theory in this article.
6. Bandura’s social learning theory
Throughout his research, Albert Bandura showed the extent to which learning is not something that occurs from facing challenges alone, but also takes place by being immersed in an environment in which we can see what others are doing and the results that others have by following. certain strategies. To learn more about this psychological theory, click here.
7. Cognitive dissonance theory
One of the most relevant psychological theories regarding the formation of identities and ideologies. The concept of cognitive dissonance formulated by the psychologist Leon Festinger, serves to explain the state of stress and discomfort that occurs when two or more beliefs that are perceived as contradictory to each other are held at the same time. To learn more about the topic, you can see these two articles:
8. Information processing theory
This theory is based on the idea that The mind works as a set of mechanisms that process sensory information (input data) to store a part of it in “memory stores” and, at the same time, transform the combination between this information about the present and information about the past into chains of actions, just as a robot would do.
In this way, our perceptions go through a series of filters until the most relevant data becomes involved in complex mental operations and, therefore, has an impact on the behavior that occurs in response to these stimuli. It is one of the most relevant psychological theories within cognitive psychology.
9. Theory of embodied cognition
The idea of embodied cognition initially proposed by the psychologist George Lakoff, can be classified as both a psychological theory and a philosophical approach that affects neuroscience. This theory breaks with the idea that cognition is based on brain activity and extends the matrix of thought to the entire body. You can read more about her here.
10. Rational choice theory
It is part of both the field of economics and cognitive psychology, so it can be considered an important representative of psychological theories. According to this idea, each individual makes decisions based on his own interests and chooses the options that he perceives as most advantageous (or least harmful) for himself from a rational criterion.
The rational choice theory It has had tremendous relevance in the social sciences, but it is increasingly questioned by new paradigms from which it is shown how common behavior classically considered “irrational” is in us.
