Comparison of Approaches

• what are the areas we can focus on to compare approaches?

  • basic assumptions/features.
  • research methods.
  • where it sits on the debates, e.g. holistic vs reductionist, deterministic vs free will, nature vs nurture.
  • whether it's empirical or not.
  • applications- theoretical and practical.
• how do the approaches differ?


  1. different underlying assumptions about behaviour.
  2. different ideas about what is deemed to be the appropriate subject matter for psychology.
  3. different approaches use different research methods.
  4. the position take in the debates in psychology: nature/nurture, idiographic/nomothetic, free-will/determinism, holism/reductionism.
  5. they differ in the role they see psychological playing in the real-world.

  another area of disagreement here is whether theory or application is more important. (e.g. in the form of therapy)
• what effect do the methods used have on the approach itself?

  epistemology = study of the basis, nature and origins of knowledge and the limits of human understanding.

  • methods used determine the knowledge about that is collected by that particular approach.
• what debates does the humanistic approach align with?

  both nature and nurture, idiographic, free-will, holism.
• what debates does the psychodynamic approach align with?

  nature and nurture, idiographic, determinism, reductionism
• what debates does the cognitive approach align with?

  nature and nurture, nomothetic, soft determinism, some free will, reductionism.
• what debates does the biological approach align with?

  nature, nomothetic, determinism, reductionism.
• what debates does the behavioural approach align with?

  nurture, nomothetic, determinism, reductionism.
• what debates does the Social Learning Theory align with?

  • nurture, nomothetic, both determinism and free will, reductionism.
• which approaches have views on development?

  • psychodynamic
  • cognitive
  • biological
  • humanist

  (similarity)
• views on development:

  • psychodynamic- has the most coherent theory on development, though no development beyond the teenage years (weakness).
  • cognitive- has theories involving the development of more complex schema as we get older.
  • biological- maturation is linked w/ physiological changes that affect psychological and behavioural changes.
  • humanist- sees development of the self as ongoing throughout life (always striving to self-actualise).
• what approaches do not offer views on development?

  • behaviourist
  • SLT

  do not offer coherent stage theories of development but see learning as continuous and occuring at any stage in life.

  at younger ages reinforcement is more powerful but any age can be reinforced.
• reductionist approaches:

  top 2 - behaviourist/biological

  • behaviourist- breaks down complex behaviour into "stimulus-response" for testing.
  • biological- only explains behaviour at the genetic or neurological level.
  • psychodynamic- often reduces our behaviour to drives or instics, does also look at theory of personality more holistically.
  • cognitive- accused of machine reductionism by presenting people as info processors.
  • SLT- reduce our complex learning behaviour to imiation and modelling, though they do consider cognitive factors (don't study them though).
• what approaches follow hard determinism?

  • behaviourist
  • biological
  • psychodynamic
• what approaches follow soft determinism?

  • cognitive
  • SLT