evaluation

• strength-nurture and nature


  takes into account of both sides of the debate.

  adult personality is the product of innate drives(nature)and childhood experiences(nurture).

  ID is the biological aspect of our personality.

  Psychosexual stages is nurture,fixation or overindulgence leads to predictable adult personalities.

  strength-ensures that all possible factors in behaviour are acknowledged and investigated
• Strength-Usefulness


  -highlights the fact that childhood is a critical period in development

  -Freuds view helped recognise that psychological factors can be used to explain physical symptoms.Eg-Psychoanalysis

  -helps understand mental health problems

  strength-real life applications,provides further evidence that the underlying principles are correct
• Strength-Reflects the complexity of human behaviour 


  holistic-it recognises that human behaviour is influenced by multiple factors that cant be separated.

  Improves on approaches that reduce explanations of human behaviour eg-behaviourist,believe that recovery from mental illnesses can be solved by re-learning.

  Uncovers deep meanings and acknowledges that understanding behaviour is a lengthy process

  strength-offers a better view of human behaviour than reductionism as it takes into account more factors and complex ones
• weakness-reductionist and oversimplified approach 


  some ways can be seen as reductionist.

  'mechanistic reductionism'-simplies complex human behaviour to the mechanics of the mind(tripartite personality)and early childhood experiences.

  ignores factors such as biochemistry and genetics.

  'refrigerator mother'-autism is withdrawal of lack of involvement,oversimplification of underlying processes of autism

  Weakness-explanation is too simplistic
• Weakness-Deterministic


  infant behaviour is determined by innate forces and adult behaviour is determined by childhood experiences.

  We have no free will in who we become or behave,our personality is predetermined by forces we cant change.

  However we are able to change the way we behave if we want to,gives people an excuse to behave unreasonably and that they cant be held responsible.

  Weakness-underestimates the uniqueness of human beings and their freedom to choose their own destiny.
• Weakness-Unscientific

  difficult to falsify,a good theory is one that can be tested to see if its wrong.

  Karl Popper argued that falsification is the only way to be certain,'an observation of a black swan is sufficient to refute that all swans are white'-You can only falsify a theory not prove it right

  Freuds views cant be falsified-all men have repressed homosexual tendencies cant be disproved,if you find a man who have no repressed tendencies then it could be argues they have them-its just repressed.

  difficult to generate testable hypothesis from freuds theory