Comparison of approaches

• What do the approaches say about free will and determinism? (1)

  • Biological approach is strongly deterministic, believing our behaviours our generated from biological roots and therefore outside of conscious control
  • Behaviourists are deterministic, arguing behaviour is due to a stimulus/response reaction and our past experiences
  • Social learning theory argues for a level of choice in whether we imitate or not but can still be dictated by experience
  • Cognitive approach is soft deterministic as our processing is determined by schema but argues for an element of free will as cognitive therapy requires wilful engagement to change thoughts
• What do the approaches say about free will and determinism? (2)

  • Psychodynamic approach is psychic determinist as their core assumption believes behaviour is dictated by our unconscious mind which we have no control over
  • Humanistic approach is the only one to fully advocate for the existence of free will and the idea that we choose our path in life
• What do the approaches say about the nature-nurture debate? (1)

  • Biological approach is on the nature side, believing behaviour is passed on through an individual's genetic makeup but does acknowledge environmental influence through phenotypes
  • Learning approaches are extremely nurture, believing everyone is born free of predispositions and it is their environment that forms behaviour, with no acknowledgement of innate or inherited capacities of an individual as it is learned from role models
  • Cognitive approach is more nurture but accepts both sides - acknowledging innate thought mechanisms but also the role of our environment in shaping thought processes as processing is based on experience
• What do the approaches say about the nature-nurture debate? (2)

  • Psychodynamic approach is interactionist - argues for the existence of innate drives represented by the id but parenting styles can also affect the formation of other personality elements
  • Humanistic approach is interactionist, arguing against the nature-nurture debate for trying to make universal generalisations which individualism is at odds with - there is an innate desire for self-actualisation but the environment can aid or help that process
• What do the approaches say about holism and reductionism? (1)

  • Biological approach is biologically reductionist, explaining behaviour as due to genetic, physiological or biochemical cause
  • Learning approaches are experimentally reductionist for focusing on stimulus-response connections and scientifically isolating elements of behaviour
  • Cognitive approach is experimentally reductionist by isolating cognitive processes to test yet lacks validity as this wouldn't happen in the real world
• What do the approaches say about holism and reductionism? (2)

  • Psychodynamic approach is more holistic in believing all elements of an individual's behaviour should be taken into account and doesn't employ scientific methods of investigation into behaviour
  • Humanistic approach is holistic, rejects reducing behaviour to specific elements and believes individuals should be regarded as a whole as well as rejecting scientific method
• What do the approaches say about idiographic and nomothetic approaches? (1)

  • Biological approach is nomothetic as it works on the idea that we share common physiology and biochemistry and these differences explain variance of behaviour between people, used to test general theories
  • Learning approaches are nomothetic, seeking to establish general laws of behaviour for learning processes
  • Cognitive approach is nomothetic due to the focus on scientific study of underlying cognitive processing that can be generalised to all humans
• What do the approaches say about idiographic and nomothetic approaches? (2)

  • Psychodynamic approach has elements of both - focuses on each child's unique childhood using case studies (idiographic) but generalises our innate drives to everyone (nomothetic)
  • Humanistic approach is firmly idiographic, seeing no merit in trying to generalise one individual to another and focuses on the uniqueness of each individual
• What do the approaches say about scientific methods? (1)

  • Biological approach uses the most scientific research methods, including measurement of biochemicals, brain scanning, etc.
  • Learning approaches use methods like examining observable behaviour and are more objective in the sense they have no interpretation but cognitive element of SLT is not observable so is seen as less scientific
  • Cognitive approach is reliable and scientific due to well-controlled lab experiments, but thoughts are not directly observable so are arguably biased
• What do the approaches say about scientific methods? (2)

  • Psychodynamic approach is much less scientific as we cannot measure the unconscious mind scientifically, and things like dream analysis are subjective methods which require interpretation
  • Humanistic approach does not believe scientific measurement of behaviour is appropriate, believing humans are unique individuals and there is no point measuring them generally