AP Psych

Tusow

Causes of Behavior: A Case Study

Billy was the third child of loving but busy parents. When he was growing up, he
thought that his parents favored his older siblings. When Billy was four, his
parents divorced, and he remained with his father. His brother and sister moved
with his mother to a distant city. Billy rarely saw them. Feeling inadequate in
raising his son alone, Billy’s father responded by providing the child with costly
toys and frequent trips to amusement parks. As Billy grew older and attended
school, he had trouble focusing and was taken to a doctor for an appraisal of his
abilities and disabilities. Billy’s medical evaluation showed symptoms of
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, but Billy’s father dismissed the
diagnosis. Because of these difficulties in school, Billy had trouble making friends
and was ridiculed by his classmates. This diminished his self-confidence. By the
time Billy was an adolescent, he had difficulty forming lasting relationships
despite his expertise in athletics. He was capable of high academic achievement,
but his grades were below average. Teacher reports frequently cited his excessive
need for attention. Personally, he felt lost and doomed to failure.

Psychoanalytic Approach
Name of person/people who would be analyzing Billy from this approach:
Medication

What is the basic cause of Billy’s problems?

The basic cause of Billy’s problems is dealing with the separation of his parents.

Behaviorist Approach
Name of person/people who would be analyzing Billy from this approach:
Therapist
What is the basic cause of Billy’s problems?
Less attention towards him as compare to his older siblings.

Humanist Approach
Name of person/people who would be analyzing Billy from this approach:
Parents

What is the basic cause of Billy’s problems?

Less attention of his parents though he is emotionally damaged

Cognitive Approach
Name of person/people who would be analyzing Billy from this approach:
ADHD medication

What is the basic cause of Billy’s problems?

The basic cause is low self-esteem and the way he believes people think about him
in school.

Biological Approach
Name of person/people who would be analyzing Billy from this approach:
Parents

What is the basic cause of Billy’s problems?

The basic cause of Billy's problem is the environment he grew up in and learned
from. Since he grew up in an unstable environment, he is now unstable as well.

Evolutionary Approach
Name of person/people who would be analyzing Billy from this approach:
Father

What is the basic cause of Billy’s problems?

Come from divorced parents, living alone with father

Taking into account all of these approaches/perspectives, which do you think gives
us the best explanation of Billy’s behavior? Why?

Psychoanalytic Approach:
According to Psychoanalytic Approach, early life experiences are a source of Personality
development. When the therapist analyses Billy from the Psychoanalytic approach, he will
realize that Billy was at first not given enough attention by his parents. And after that he was left
without his siblings and his mother. And his father instead of showering Billy with love was
showering him with money. This caused Billy to have mental disabilities that reduced his ability
to make friends and form meaningful relationships. Now Billy can go to therapy to repair his
subconscious and raise his self-confidence again. According to Psychoanalytic approach, Billy’s
subconscious needs to be re-trained in order to convince Billy of his self-worth and personal
value. In addition to that, Billy’s mind needs to be trained to understand the importance of focus
and making lasting relationships.
After taking in account all of the approaches, I think the Psychoanalytic Perspective gives the
best explanation of Billy’s Behavior. The reason is that psychoanalytic approach takes account
both, Billy’s Behavior and his past experiences and his present behavior. Other than that
psychoanalytic gives a proper treatment and a way to solve Billy’s issues and help him lead a
normal life. However other perspectives cannot be ignored too as they also give great insight.
Some of which I am going to mention below:
Cognitive approach
Cognitive approach focuses on the importance of storing, receiving and processing information.
This approach uses thinking, reasoning and language to understand human behavior. According
to the Cognitive Approach, Billy has thought his entire life that he is a lesser child as he did not
get complete attention from his parents and his siblings. These thoughts carried in his teenage
and he developed ADHD and lacked self-confidence which resulted in a lack of interpersonal
relationships. According to cognitive approach. Billy’s brain needs to stop getting fed negative
thoughts and sentiments and needs positive reaffirmations so that his brain processes the positive
things that he is capable of. However this approach is not very practical because his father and
his school friends along with his teachers will have to change the way they behave with Billy
which is not very easy.
Biological approach
Biological Psychology focuses on how the chemicals and reactions inside the nervous and
endocrine system of a human impacts his behavior. The biological perspective will not focus on
Billy’s Childhood but focus on his disease which is ADHD. Billy had shown symptoms of
ADHD since his childhood and always had trouble focusing in school and making lasting
relationships but yet Billy excelled at sports. If Billy remains untreated he will continue suffering
from short attention span and will lack good relationships which will negatively affect his life.
Billy’s father ignored the diagnosis of ADHD. Billy needs to see a psychiatrist who can prescribe
him the required treatment or the medication for his ADHD. This will help his brain focus and
improve the quality of his life.
The Biological approach also explains Billy’s behavior very well and gives a practical solution to
his problems but the problem with this approach is that it ignores his past experiences and the
behavioral changes associated with his life experiences.
Behavioral approach
The Behavioral approach will focus on how Billy’s current behavior is being reinforced or
punished. Billy’s father is giving him expensive toys and taking him on trips which is reinforcing
his behavior and this would encourage him to continue behaving in the same manner. But on the
other hand his classmates are ridiculing him and choosing not to be his friends. This is like
punishing him for his behavior. Billy is also trying to seek attention from his teachers but it is not
clear if his teachers are punishing him (by ignoring him, for example) or rewarding him (for
example, spending time talking to him). According to the behavioral perspective, His father and
his teachers need to come up with a way to reward his good actions in a way to reinforce them.
For example give him a certain number of tasks in return for something that he wants. This is
just one example of how behavioral perspective can be used by parents or teachers.
Humanist approach
The humanist approach is not a good approach for diagnosing problems. However the parents of
Billy can look at Billy from a humanist approach. They can see how Billy is emotionally
damaged yet his parents gave him less attention. Their parents can use the Humanist approach to
convince Billy that he can grow and changed. The humanist approach can help tap into the
potential of Billy that he has the capability for high academic achievement. Or maybe Billy has
not yet been exposed to a subject in which he can shine, like computer science. His teachers may
also figure out a way to help him maximize his potential in athletics as well.
Evolutionary approach
The Evolutionary approach is also not very good for diagnosing problems with an individual.
However as Billy is living with his Father, his father can use this approach for focusing on Billy.
Billy has divorced parents and is living with one parent. Having divorced parents usually
mentally effects children. His father is showering him with money instead of love as he is busy.
However expensive toys and trips cannot help compensate for lack of time, attention and love.
Hence his father should take out time and spent time with his son and talk to him often. His
father should also allow Billy to spend time with his mother as love of both parents is important.
Moreover Billy should be made to spend time with his siblings even though they don’t live
together.
Conclusion:
After taking in account all of the approaches, I think the Psychoanalytic Perspective gives the
best explanation of Billy’s Behavior. The reason is that psychoanalytic approach takes account
both, Billy’s Behavior and his past experiences and his present behavior. Other than that
psychoanalytic gives a proper treatment and a way to solve Billy’s issues and help him lead a
normal life.