AO1

• reductionism - behaviour is best explained by breaking it down into smaller constituent parts, a lower level of explanation
• wundt - conscious experience to feelings and sensations (introspection)
• biological approach: attempts to explain social and psychological phenomena at a lower biological level, all behaviour can be explained through neurochemical, neurophysiological, evolutionary and genetic influences
• behavioural approach: explain all behaviour in terms of S-R that we learn through experiences - built on environmental reductionism, study observable behaviour only and break complex learning into simple links through S-R in lab settings
• holism is the idea that any attempt to break up behaviour and experience is inappropriate as these can only be understood by analysing the person or behaviour as a whole 'whole is greater than the sum of its parts', higher level of explanation
• humanistic psychology investigates all aspects of the individual, and recognises interactions between people are important
• social influence: Zimbardo's SPE looked at the behaviour of individuals in a social context
• social psychology looks at behaviour of individuals in a social context, group behaviour may show characteristics that are greater than the sum of the individuals which comprise it
• levels of explanation suggests there are different ways of viewing the same phenomena in psychology eg OCD, producing behaviour eg repetitive hand washing (socio-cultural context), obsessive thoughts (psychological level), hypersensitivity of basal ganglia (physiological level), underproduction of serotonin (neurochemical level)
• interactionist stance: diathesis-stress model, disorders seem to come about as the result of a predisposition (often genetic) which is triggered by some stressor (experience)
• Gender schema theory is reductionist, neglects importance of bio factors, assumes all behaviour is created through cognitive means: Alexander et al found babies display gender-typical behaviour from 3 months of age showing gender is programmed into the brain suggesting factors other than gender schema eg biology influence gender development and that an interactionist explanation would be more appropriate
• Kohlberg's theory is holistic - combines cog, soc learning and bio theories and describes how once a child reaches gender constancy they identify and imitate a same sex role model