[britchick]

Which area of psychology to you feel makes most sense to you/seems to provide the best explanation for most areas? Obviously in psychology more than one explanation is usually required in order for the explanation to be sufficient, and explanations vary between certain fields, but if you had to choose one general approach for the purpose of this poll, which would it be and why?

[Fuzzpig]

I think this is too difficult to answer really. I see the cognitive neuropsychological area at being the most suited to explain certain conditions like Blindsight or hemispatial neglect, but I don't think they're there yet in being able to explain obedience or something similar.

...although, I suppose even things like altruism can be explained by neuropsychology (or neuroscience) if you believe that the anticipated release of a chemical in the brain is enough to make you behave in a certain way. But then you lose a large section of the ability to manipulate that behaviour from a social perspective, which is what psychology aims to do too.


Hmm.


And then, I can't explain what circumstances a child can find himself in would be most likely to bring out deviant behaviour if I only looked into the neuropsychological basis of what could make a child predisposed to that.


So really I'm inclined to say neuropsychology, yet realise that it's near useless in many predictive, rehabilitative and manipulative settings without bringing in most, if not all, aspects of psychology.

[britchick]

For me I've always been absolutely fascinated by the evolutionary approach, but I think the behavioural approach is very influential. I'd be interested if anyone votes psychodynamic - if so I would love to hear their reasons!

[Miracle Day]

A mixture of them all.