Lisa is a high school senior who has a negative outlook on life. She believes that odds are stacked against her and that a few powerful people get all of the advantages in life. She is sarcastic and has few friends. Recently, she ran for student government and didn't get elected. She claims the election was unfair and that the student government advisor purposely misguided her. Since then, she has stopped studying for her classes and attending school regularly. She had hoped to go to college next year, but she is now too depressed about her failures. She has become afraid her parents won't love her anymore. Describe the following perspectives and give an explanation of Lisa's problems from each of them. • Psychoanalytic • Social-cognitive • Humanistic • Behavioral Finally, which perspective do you think makes the most sense and why?

Psychoanalytic

Defined:

Freud's theory that human behavior is the result of interactions between the id, ego, and superego. In other words, behaviors are determined from past experiences that are in the unconcious mind.

Lisa's situation:

Perhaps Lisa had a difficult childhood and was never able to achieve what she wanted to regardless of how much she tried. After the situation with the election, she decided she would never be able to acheive anything and gave up.

Social-Cognitive

Defined:

Bandura's theory that people learn from one another by observation, imitation, and modeling.

Lisa's situation:

Perhaps Lisa had seen other people act in a similar manner when they did not get what they wanted. Lisa believed that she would never be able to obtain anything, just like them. Her attitude and her reaction after losing the election are byproducts of her seeing someone else act in a similar manner.

Humanistic

Defined

Maslow's approach emphasizes individual's inherent drive towards self-actualization or the process of realizing and expressing one's owns capabilities and creativity. Like Freud, he acknowledged the unconsious mind, but believed that people are well aware of their drives and motives.

Lisa's Situation

This is similar to the psycoanalytic theory, except she is aware of it. Lisa knew that her attitude and her limitations would affect the election. She attempted, but didn't think she would win. When she lost, she decided that she would never amount to anything and gave up.

Behavorial

Defined

A theory based on the idea that behaviors are acquired through conditioning, obtained through interactions with the environment.

Lisa's Situation

Lisa put in a lot of hard work to prepare for the election and when she lost she felt that she did all of the work for nothing. She may have believed this would always be the case and decided not to try anymore.

I think that the social-cognitive theory makes a lot of sense. Since she believed that odds were stacked against her from the start, perhaps she had experiences in her past where others acted the same way. Also, the ideas presented in the humanistic theory have merit if there were no other outside factors influencing her behavior. She just believed she wouldn't accomplish anything because life was stacked against her and gave up.