COMPARISONS BETWEEN APPROACHES

Question 1

Psychodynamic approach

Answer 1

• psychic determinism (unconscious mind)
• idiographic ( uses case studies, allows rich detail + interpretation of individuals behaviour)
• nomothetic (establishes general theories of personality + development)
• reductionist (explains behaviour in terms of repressed trauma)
• holistic (tripartite personality theory interacts between ego, mediating between id + super ego)
  *nature(id contains innate drive ,urges for instant gratification)
  *nurture(repressed childhood trauma)
• Not scientific (isnt objective based on empirical evidence)

Question 2

Behaviourist approach

Answer 2

• environmental determinism
• Nomothetic (everyone learns the same way, general laws of behaviour)
  *reductionist (explains behaviour as stimulus + response)
  *nature (innate instincts + reflexes)
  *nurture (learnt through operant + classical conditioning)
  *very scientific (experiments involve high level of control, studies directly observable)

Question 3

Cognitive approach

Answer 3

• determinism (external stimulus + mental processes)
• free will (applied to CBT, patient learns to change mental processes)
• nomothetic (cognitive models generalise to everyone)
• reductionist (explains behaviour using theoretical models)
  *nature
  *nurture (build schemas of the world from experiences, affecting how we interpret new info)
• scientific (highly controlled lab experiment)

Question 4

Biological approach

Answer 4

• biological determinism (genes/alleles)
  *nomothetic (universal laws for how biological factors affect behaviour)
• reductionist (explains all behaviour in terms of biological factors)
  *nature (genotype)
  *nurture (environment)
• very scientific (uses empirical methods to study cause + effect relationships between biological factors +behaviour)

Question 5

SLT

Answer 5

• Environmental determinism
• free will (mental processes)
• nomothetic (everyone learns through same learning mechanisms)
• reductionist (less than behaviourist approach as it includes mediational processes)
  *nature (innate instincts/reflexes)
  *nurture (learn through operant/classical conditioning)
• very scientific (uses empirical methods to study cause +effect relationships between observing + imitating behaviour)

Question 6

Humanistic approach

Answer 6

*free will
*idiographic (everyone is unique, cant generalise theories of behaviour)
* Holistic (doesn’t break down behaviour into simpler components)
* Nature/ Nurture (doesn’t reduce behaviour down to any explanation)
* not scientific (rejects using scientific method for psychology)