PSYCHOLOGIST’S PROFESSIONAL BEHAVIORS IN A SYSTEM OF CONTINGENCIES FOR ITS LEARNING

Abstract

The teaching of Psychology at the undergraduate level is a fundamental condition for the construction of the professional carrier of a psychologist, an important stage for exercising the skills required in the field. Such education depends on the identification, description and systematization of the behaviors that should be typical for this professional and, thus, should be established as the goals for teaching. It is also important to define, at least to some level, the basic conditions or the important contingencies under which these behaviors could be learned within the scope the undergraduate courses, as they are conceived in the Brazilian educational system. This work describes a project whose objective is to outline a system of behaviors that compose the professional profile of a psychologist and to suggest some basic strategies for teaching those behaviors within the context of the undergraduate courses in Psychology. The proposal of relevant behaviors should be based on the available knowledge regarding the psychological phenomena and the professional practices in this field. For this purpose, however, the knowledge has to be systematized and ranked and from it one could derive the behaviors that constitute or can constitute the exercise of the profession. This is an important condition for evaluating and testing the effectiveness (or validity) of the proposed behaviors and of the strategies for teaching them. The effectiveness of the Curricular Guidelines for the Teaching of Psychology will depend on these identifications and delimitations as a way to make possible the conditions for the implementation and evaluation of what they value most in the teaching of Psychology.Key Words: psychology teaching, behavioral goals, professional behaviors, professional competences, psychologist.