Difference Between Psychoanalytic & Social-learning Theories

A Topic For The Students Of MSc Mass Communication & MSc Sociology.

Psychoanalytic Theory:
                                        Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is the founder of psychoanalytic theory. This theory assumes that every person has a given amount of vital psychic or mental energy called libido energy. The libido, the source of this psychic energy and the various channels through which it is expressed, are of utmost important to personality development. It claims, the mind is divided into two parts, the conscious and the unconscious. The mind is like an iceberg, with the conscious part represented by the portion of the iceberg above the water. That part of the mind of which the individual is aware includes all the information that can be recalled from memory, but even so is much smaller than the unconscious. The unconscious part of the mind consists of emotions, desires, instincts, and knowledge of which the person is not aware. Yet it has an influence on individuals' behavior.

Social-Learning Theory:
                                          There are a large number of theories based on the principles basic principles of social-learning theory but for our purpose we will present the basic principles of social-learning theory from which the more specific theories have been derived. Behaviorism is the traditional term used for social-learning theory. Social-learning theory argues that theories of human behavior must be built on observable events and processes and reject unobservable mentalistic concepts and processes such as the id, ego, repression and  so on. This theory does not deny the existence of such processes but argues that, because they are unobservable, they are useless in explaining human behavior. Rather, relationships between observable conditions in the individuals' environment and observable behaviors are the subject matter of the social learning theory.