comparison

• Real world application

  • Behaviourism - Token economy
  • Social learning theory - how children learn
  • Cognitive approach - Treatment of depression, AI, robots, improving eyewitness testimony
  • Biological approach - Treating OCD with drugs
  • Psychodynamic approach- Psyhcotherapy
  • Humanistic approach - Rogerian therapy and Malsow's hierarchy of needs to explain motivation
• Well controlled research

  • Behaviourism - lab studies
  • Social learning theory - lab studies
  • Cognitive approach - lab studies
  • Biological approach - precise and objective methods like scanning techniques
• Nature v nurture

  • Behaviourism - Nurture as babies are 'blank slates' and learn through reinforcements
  • Social learning theory - Nurture as slt believes we learn through observation and imitation
  • Cognitive - Both as schema is innate but develops through experience
  • Biological - Both due to genotype and phenotype
  • Psychodynamic - Both as behaviour is driven by instincts but also parents relationship is key
  • Humanistic - Nurture as society has impact on a person's self-concept
• Reductionism

  • Behaviourist - behaviour is broken into stimulus and response
  • Social learning theory - recognises cognitive factors interact with envronment
  • Cognitive approach - computer analogy ignores important roles like emotion
  • Biological - explains behaviour at level of the gene or neuron
  • Psychodynamic - reduces behaviour to biological drives
• Determinism

  • Behaviourism - environmentally determined by external forces
  • Social learning theory - Influenced by environment
  • Cognitive - choosers of our behaviour but only within the limits of what we know (soft determinism)
  • Biological - behaviour is directed by innate influences (genetic determinism)
  • Psychodynamic - unconscious forces drive our behaviour (psychic determinism) which are rationalised by our conscious minds.
  • Humanistic - human beings have free will and are active agents who determine their own development.