Psychology as a unit of study always seeks to provide answers to fundamental questions relating to why people behave or think the way they do. The different approaches employed to answer the questions arising from psychology are characterized into perspectives. These perspectives represent the underlying assumptions to the research questions and methods. According to these perspectives, psychology can be referred to as the study of human behavior and mental processes (Eysenck 1994). This paper seeks to explain how relationships begin, develop and maintains. It also compares and contrasts the impact of the psychological perspectives – biological, socio-cultural, psychodynamic, and cognitive and the learning perspectives – on behavior in love relationships, especially on spouses.
Romantic relationships are the most interesting, though most complicated. When such relationships are at their peak and at best, people usually envy the lovers, however, you would pity them when things fall apart. In the early stages of a love relationship, lovers tend to be so close to each other (Levine, David & Douglas 2005).
Biological perspective
In this broad psychological perspective, it is assumed that human behavior and thoughts have biological foundations (Eysenck 1994). This perspective encompasses investigations into biochemistry of behavior, which is associated with hormones and neurotransmitters, heritability and genetics, and the psychophysics of perception and sensation. Since this perspective depends on scientific methods, its investigations have limitation to controllable variables (Eysenck 1994). In relation to love, couples often tend to be close to each other, share their feelings with the expectation of reciprocation of such feelings, and care and be cared for by their spouses. For the above purpose to be complete, lovers need to be connected sexually to reproduce, which is the main purpose of getting married – to get children.
Cognitive perspective
The cognitive perspective of psychology provided explanations for human behavior in response to empty organism of behaviorism theory. This explanation suggested that human behavior is thoughtful at times and is controllable through processes. The greater part of the principles of this perspective maintain that human behavior is pre-meditated by thought processes such as attention and memory, language and attitudes, and belief systems (Levine, David & Douglas 2005).
Cognitivists believe that the premeditation of human behavior through significant conscious processes, value systems, intelligence and reason explain why people behave and think the way they do (Levine, David & Douglas 2005). They also believe that since these cognitive processes influence behavior, it is amendable and, therefore controllable. With regard to love relationships, cognitive perspective explains how they begin by explaining that people often pre meditate when they meet new people they are attracted to and before making a step of expressing their feelings, they will always weigh options involved in making such a move (Levine, David & Douglas 2005). According to this perspective, spouses identifying the importance and advantages they stand to gain in the relationship maintain love relationships. If one of them cheats and is identified, the other would think of the options, which include advantages and disadvantages of walking away. However, this can be controlled by apologies from the other partner.
Social and cultural perspective
This perspective in psychology, which is also referred to as socio-cultural perspective explains human behavior to be influenced by social factors and pressures, environmental indications and cultural contexts (Eysenck 1994). For instance, when in a football match, the behavior of the fans is predominated by crowd mentality. Human behavior is shaped by their environmental context. In the social component of this perspective, human behavior is also controlled by the perception of the authority in their social order. Social psychologist have established these forces to have a greater influence on the human thought processes and human behavior.
In a love relationship scenario, especially in married life, people would always choose to have such relationships with people that they share common cultural or social status. They are easily willing to marry people from their culture and those that belong to their social class than they are for the diverse cultures. A person in a higher social class will always want to marry from that class or even a higher one, but not a lower class. Love and marriage is also pegged on cultural diversities where a person’s choice of a partner is controlled by their cultural upbringing.
Psychodynamic perspective
This perspective has recently been the most popular of all other psychological perspectives. In Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality, there were assumptions that human motivation is controlled by conflicts arising between the instinctual and unconscious processes (Barcelona 2003). He named these as the Id, Ego and the Superego. This perspective of psychology incorporates all the social theories in psychology that view functioning of human being as based on the interaction of drives and forces within the individual. According to this approach, it assumes that behavior and feelings are affected by unconscious drives (Barcelona 2003). Other assumptions include rooting behavior on childhood experiences, all behaviors have a cause, and personality is made up of three parts.
The final assumption according to this perspective, behavior is motivated by two instinctual drives: Thanatos, which refers to the aggressive drive and death instinct and Eros, which is the sex drive and life instinct (Barcelona 2003). This approach defines love from the time when children grow, they develop love for the opposite sex parents and views the parents of the same sex to like them. When they finally become of age, they have clear distinctions of sex and would fall in love with the opposite sex (Barcelona 2003).
Learning perspective
This perspective asserts that the relatively permanent change in behavior result from the experiences that an individual goes through. In this assertion, it is assumed that there must be a continuing effect for a long period and that these learned behaviors can be modified. It also assumes that after learning takes place, something must change in their behavior. Finally, the changes that take place after the learning process help the individuals to cope with the changing conditions they encounter henceforth (Barcelona 2003).
In maintaining a love relationship, which is bound to have shortcomings, the individuals use the experiences they go through in their daily lives related to their love in solving issue that might break them apart. This help them in persevering in situations that would otherwise proved difficult in case they had not undergone similar ones. People may also learn from experiences they get from their previous relationships and use such to handle their current relationships. Experiences make people strong, especially when they are capable of handling these situations in a manner that is consistent with the issue at hand. As the saying goes, experience is the best teacher.
References:
Eysenck M. (1994), Perspectives on psychology: The principles of psychology series, ISSN 0965-9706. London: Psychology Press.
Levine M., David V. P. & Douglas D. P., (2005), Principles Of Community Psychology: Perspectives And Applications, 3rd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Incorporated.
Barcelona A., (2003), Metaphor and Metonymy at the Crossroads: A Cognitive Perspective, 2nd edition. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
