Approaches in Psychology: Comparison of approaches.

The idea

Comparison is answered on criteria, never by placing two descriptions side by side, and the criteria are worth learning as a set. Nature and nurture: the biological approach is the strongest nature position and behaviourism the strongest nurture, with social learning theory and the psychodynamic approach interactionist. Determinism: biological, environmental, psychic and soft determinism respectively, against humanistic free will. Reductionism: biology reduces behaviour to genes and neurotransmitters and behaviourism to stimulus and response, while humanistic psychology insists on the whole person. Method: behaviourist, biological and cognitive research is nomothetic and experimental, psychodynamic and humanistic work idiographic and case-based. Then applications, drug therapy, token economies, cognitive behavioural therapy, psychoanalysis and counselling.

What earns the marks

• A stated basis of comparison, such as determinism or method, introduced before either approach is described.
• Nature and nurture positions assigned accurately, with the interactionist approaches identified as such rather than forced onto one side.
• Determinism contrasted in its specific forms, biological, environmental, psychic and soft, against humanistic free will.
• Reductionism against holism, with the level of explanation each approach works at made explicit.
• Nomothetic, experimental methods contrasted with idiographic case study methods, and the consequence for scientific credibility.
• Views of development: discrete stage theory in the psychodynamic approach against continuous learning in behaviourism.
• Applications matched to approach: drug therapy, systematic desensitisation and token economies, cognitive behavioural therapy, psychoanalysis and client-centred counselling.

Common mistakes and how to put them right

• Writing two separate descriptions and leaving the comparison for the examiner to infer, which holds the answer in the lowest band.

• Calling the cognitive approach deterministic without the qualifier.

  Put it right: It takes a soft determinist position in which thought is influenced but choice remains.

• Labelling the psychodynamic approach as pure nurture, when innate drives and the id are as nature-based as anything in the biological approach.

Exam tips

• Put a comparison connective in every paragraph, such as 'whereas' or 'by contrast', so the comparison is visible on the page.
• Two approaches compared on three criteria scores better than five approaches each mentioned once.
• Keep description concise and make each comparison explicit by applying the same criterion to both approaches.