8. Comparisons of approaches

• Psychodynamic

  • Psychosexual stages of development are determined by age and Freud saw little further development after the genital stage
  • Behaviour is driven by biological instincts and drives - nature
  • Reductionist - influence of sexual drives and biological instincts
  • Psychic/hard determinism
• Behaviourist and SLT

  • No stage theories of development but instead see the process that underpin learning as continuous, occurring at any age
  • Nurture - babies are born with a 'blank slate'
  • Reductionist - breaks up behaviour into stimulus response units
  • Environmentally/hard determinism
• Biological

  • Genetically determined changes in a childs physiological status influence psychological and behavioural characteristics
  • Nature - behaviour is due to biological factors
  • Reductionist - explains behaviour at the state of a gene or neuron
  • Advocates biological/hard determinism
• Humanistic

  • The development of self is ongoing through life
  • Nurture
  • Holism
  • Free will
• Cognitive

  • Stage theories have contributed to the understanding of child development such as schema
  • Nature - innate behaviours but constantly refined through experience (nurture)
  • Accused of machine reductionism as it ignores human thought and emotion
  • Suggests we are 'the choosers' of our own thought and behaviour yet these choices can only operate within the limits of what we know/experienced