A03 humanistic

• POINT: A strength of the humanistic approach is that it is not reductionist

  EVIDENCE: For example, other approaches see behaviour as either simple stimulus-response units (behaviourism), mental processes (cognitive approach) or physiological process (biological approach)

  EXPLAIN: The humanistic approach, on the other hand, promotes the idea of holism which means behaviour can be understood by considering the whole person

  LINK: Therefore, this increases the validity of the approach as it considers meaningful human behaviour within a real-world context
• POINT: However, because it is holistic it also means it is not very scientific.

  EVIDENCE: Reductionists approaches are more scientific because they reduce behaviour to independent and dependent variables

  EXPLAIN: In humanistic psychology, you cannot break down behaviours to single variables and measure them

  LINK: Therefore this suggests that the humanistic approach is lacking in empirical evidence to support its claims
• POINT: Another strength is that the humanistic approach is optimistic

  EVIDENCE: For example, humanistic psychologists sees all humans as good, free to achieve their potential and in control of their lives

  EXPLAIN: This is in contrast with other approaches which focus on the negatives, such as the psychodynamic approach viewing humans as slaves of their past

  LINK: Therefore, this suggests that humanistic psychology is able to offer a positive and optimistic view on human behaviour compared to other approaches.
• POINT: A final limitation is that this approach may be culturally biased.

  EVIDENCE: For example, a lot of the concepts (such as individual freedom, autonomy, personal growth) are associated more with individualistic cultures in the Western world (e.g. USA/UK).

  EXPLAIN: On the other hand, collectivist cultures (e.g. India) focus more on the needs of the group, community and interdependence.

  LINK: Therefore, this suggests that humanistic psychology does not apply universally and only applies to the cultural context in which it was produced.