Top 10 psychological theories

What are the most influential theories in the science of behavior?

Psychology has been built on decades of research on behavior and mental processes, so it is easy to get lost among so many approaches and concepts that cannot be understood without understanding the theories in which they are framed.

The main theories in psychology

The different psychological theories try to describe different important aspects of our personality, our behavior, our cognitive development and our motivations, among many other issues. Below you can see some you can see some brushstrokes about the main psychological theories that have been that have been sculpting what we know about the human mind.

Cartesian dualistic theory

The dualistic theory of René Descartes 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 encephalon.

It is basically the transformation into theory of a kind of philosophical position of dualism, one of whose major representatives is Plato. Although the theory of Cartesian dualism has been formally discarded decades ago, it continues to adopt new forms and to be implicit in the way in which much research in psychology and neuroscience is approached. Somehow, it "infiltrates" the way of thinking of many research teams without them realizing it, so it remains relevant even though it is not valid.

2. Gestalt Theory

The Gestalt psychological theory deals with the way we perceive the outside world through our senses. Through the laws of Gestalt, developed basically by German psychologists in the first half of the twentieth century, it reflects the way in which perception takes place at the same time that we give meaning to what we perceive, and not one thing after the other. You can read more about this theory in this article.

3. Stimulus-response theory of behaviorism

The researchers of behaviorist psychology who relied on B. F. Skinner's operant conditioning by B. F. 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 challenged by Edward Tolman, who in the mid-20th century demonstrated that learning could take place 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 of learning is based on the constructivist approach of Jean Piaget. constructivist approach of Jean Piaget. This Swiss researcher believed that the way in which we learn consists of a self-construction of our own experiences, i.e., that what we experience is seen in the light of what we have experienced before.

But learning does not depend only on our past experiences, but also on Biological factors marked among other things by the stage of life in which we find ourselves. That is why he established a model of stages of cognitive development, which you can read more about here.

5. Lev Vygotsky's sociocultural theory

While at the beginning of the 20th century many psychologists studied learning by focusing on how individuals interact with the environment, Soviet researcher Lev Vygotsky took a social approach to the same object of study.

For him, society as a whole (although especially through parents and guardians) is both a means and a learning tool through 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 to what extent learning is not something that occurs from facing challenges alone, but also takes place by being immersed in an environment where we can see what others do 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 concerning the formation of identities and ideologies. The concept of cognitive dissonanceformulated by the psychologist Leon Festingeris used 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 subject, you can see these two articles:

• Cognitive dissonance: the theory that explains self-deception.

• How do cults react when prophecies are not fulfilled?

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) in order to store a part of it in "memory stores" and, at the same time, transform the combination (input data) to store part of it in "memory stores" and, at the same time, transform the combination of 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 pass through a series of filters until the most relevant data become involved in complex mental operations and, therefore, come to have an impact on the behavior that is produced in response to these stimuli. This is one of the most relevant psychological theories within cognitive psychology.

9. Theory of embodied cognition

The idea of embodied cognitioninitially proposed by the psychologist George Lakoffcan be classified as both a psychological theory and a philosophical approach affecting the neurosciences. This theory breaks with the idea that cognition is based on brain activity and extends the matrix of thought to the whole body as a whole. You can read more about it here.

10. Rational choice theory

It is part of both the field of economics and cognitive psychology.It can therefore 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 he perceives as most advantageous (or least harmful) for himself based on rational criteria.

The rational choice theory has had a tremendous relevance in the social sciences, but it is increasingly questioned by new paradigms that show how frequent is in us the behavior classically considered "irrational".