IB Psychology

Evaluating Perspectives.

The challenge of this essay topic is cogently describing the links that you see as existing between historical and cultural factors and the perspective you are writing about. Here a number of suggestions:
1. Historical factors can directly influence psychologists. A good example is Freud and you could argue that the death and destruction of World War One confirmed Freud’s pessimistic view of human nature and influenced the development of his concept of Thanatos.
2. You can describe the spirit of times and suggest that the questioning of the meaning of life and of the goodness of society that was such an integral part of the 1960s in American is reflected in the way Humanism also questioned the purpose of psychology and the nature of people.
3. Your word choice is crucial so that you do not make simplistic statement that this historical and cultural factor caused this or that.
Avoid sentences like:The invention of the computer gave rise to the Cognitive Perspective.
The “can do” attitude of the USA at the turn of the century caused behavioralism to rise.
Freud did not understand women so he invented penis envy.
Darwin lead to the Biological Perspective.

Instead use words like:influenced … provided ideas adopted by… the spirit of times influenced… ideas present at the time… the invention of the computer provided a metaphor for the …… psychologist of this perspective appear to been influenced by ….. this factor contributed to the rise of this perspective …. the perspective rose to importance at a time when … many of the ideas were reflected… the ideas/spirit of the times permeated this perspective.. a perspective rose to prominence.
Suggested Outline:
1. Brief introduction that briefly describing the the central ideas of the perspective and establishing when it rose to prominence and when it lost its importance. Introduce the factors you will focus upon.
2. First body paragraph outlining the factor and linking it to the perspective.
3. Second body paragraph outlining the factor and linking it to the perspective.
4. A one sentence concluding thought: How did this perspective contribute to our search for insights into human behavior?