humanistic ao3

• Ignores cultural differences 

  • The needs may be different or in a different order depending on the country 
  • Cultural bias(beta) -the humanistic approach would be applicable to individualist cultures more than to collectivist cultures, differences are minimised and they assume all cultures are the same
  • Studies have confirmed differences in how people may define the categoriesFor example in china belonging needs were found as more fundamental than physiological needs
  • Therefore it lacks populational validity
• • part one
  • HA uses concepts which can't be measured scientifically. For example terms eg self actualisation and congruence are vague and can't be operationalised,
  • Humanistic psychologists have rejected the scientific method they saw it as dehumanizing and unable to capture the richness of conscious experience. all means we can't test the vailidity of these theories, or use them to make predictions about behaviour (little empirical evidence)
• Humanism is it is a more holistic approach as it doesnt break down complex behaviour into one fundamental factor,whilst approaches like biological and behavioural are criticised for simplifying the complexity of human behaviour  The ha argues subjective experience can be understood by studying whole person taking into a range of influences on behaviour.

  demonstrates it takes into account the complexity of humans.  

  strengthens the validity of the theory

  • however with such a broad approach this can compromise the validity of the theory as it is more difficult to collect empirical evidence
• part two

  • Some studies shown personal growth as result of having humanistic counselling but these do not show objective evidence that the therapy was the cause of these changes
  • This hinders the approach as it cannot be scientifically measured and the validity of the approach is reduced.