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Behavioral and Humanistic Psychology

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Behavioral and Humanistic Psychology
Behavioral psychology is a theory of learning based upon the idea that all behaviors are acquired through various conditioning. In my daily life, I went through a lot of conditioning in order to achieve the behavior that I have today. Since my early childhood, I have been told by my parents that hard work will always get you a good result. That statement seems familiar, isn’t it? Yes, it is one of the statements in behavior psychology specifically through Operant Conditioning. Every time my parents notice that I do a hard work (studying, running an errand, etc.), they will reward me with praises or any other incentives. In opposition, when it seems that I failed on my exams, they will punish me with taking away the incentives or no praises given. Grew up with that kind of “conditioning”, I adopted a specific behavior where hard work seems prevalent in my daily life.
In the other, humanistic psychology is more concerned on the basic goodness of human beings and positive human growth. My parents have influenced me in taking medical school since I graduated from high school. They “conditioned” and tried to convince me to take medical studies but still I prefer engineering than medical studies. Perhaps, their conditioning failed them? I do not know about that. But what I am sure about, for me, taking engineering is more positive for my growth as human being than taking medical studies. Perhaps, the environmental influences are stronger than the conditioning in this case. Or maybe I am in the Self-Actualization

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