Issues and Debates

Universality: Any underlying characteristics of human beings that is capable of being applied to all,despite the difference in experience and upbringing. Gender and Culture bias threaten universality of findings.

Gender Bias: Bias towards gender; psychological theory or research may offer a views that does not justifabily represent the experience and behaviour of men and women.

Androcentrism: Male centered; when 'normal' behaviour is judged accoringly to a male standard.meaning female behviour is often judged to be 'abnormal'or'weak' in comprison.

Alpha Bias: When the differences between men and women are shown and may be exagerated either to higten the values of women or to devalue them.

Beta Bias: Theories that ignore or minimise differnces between the sexes.

Implications of gender bias: May create misleading assumtions about female behaviour, fails to challenge negative stereotypes and validate discriminatory practises. Carol Tavris found that for women within the workplace they 'feel normal to feel abnormal'. Gender bias in research is not just a methodological problem but may have damaging concequences which affect the lives and prospects of real women.

Sexism within the reasesrch process: A lack of women appointed at senior research levels means that female concerns may not be reflected in the research questions asked. In  a Lab experiment conducted by Nicholson (1995), female participants are placed in an inequitable relationship with a researcher who has the power to label them unreasonably. This found that psychology may be guilty of supporting a form of institutional sexism that creates bias in theory and research.

Reflexivity: Many modern researchers are begining to recognise the effect their own values and assumptions have on the nature of their work. Research from Claire Dambrin and Caroline Lambert (2008) include reflection on how their gender-related experiences influence their reading of events. Such reflexivity is an important development in psychology and may lead to greater awareness of the role of personal biases shaping research in the future.

Culture Bias: A tendance to ignore culture difference and interpret all phenomena through the lens of their own culture.

Ethnocentrism: The term used to describe the belief in the superiority of somebody's own ethnic and cultural group. Our own culture perspective is taken as a standard by which we measure other cultures.

Cultural Relativism: Behaviour cannot be judged properly unless it is viwed in the context of the culture in which it origniates.

Regonising it when it occurs- Smith and Bond (1998) survey of European textbooks on social psychology found that 66% of studies were American, 32% were European and 2% from the rest of the world. This means research is unrepresenttive of cultural groups. By apprechiating other groups,cultural bias can be overcome.

Psychologists making reference to 'individualistic-collectivist' distinction- Individulistic is associated with Western countries where as collectivist is associated with non- western countries, who place more emphasis on the needs of the group. This suggests psychological research should be culturally relative; behaviour can only be understood within the context.

Globalisation leading to simplistic distinctions no longer being applied- Takano and Osaka (1999) found that 14 out of 15 studied comparing USA with Japan found no evidence of differances between individualism and collectivism. This suggests that cultural bias in research is less of an issue than it once was.

Universal behviour can exist- Ekman (1989) suggests that basic facial expressions are the same all over the animal and human world. This has also been supported by Ainsworth, suggesting there are similarities in human attaachment. Human behaviour requires both study of universality and variety among individuals

Free Will: The notion that humans can make chocies are are not determined by biological or external forces. E.g. Approaches, humanistic approach claims we have free will.

Determinism: The view that an individuals behaviour is shaped or controlled by internl or external forces rather than an individuals need to do something.

Hard Determinism: Implies that free will is not possible as our behaviour is always caused by internal and external events beyond our control.

Soft Determinism: All events, including human behaviour, have causes, but behaviour can also be determined by our concious choices in the absence of coercion. In contrast with hard determinism.

Biological Determinism: The belief that behaviour is caased by biological influences that we cannot control. E.g. OCD being genetic.

Psychic Determinism: The belief that behaviour is caused by unconcious conficts that we cannot control.

Determinism For: Determinism is consistent with the aims of science. The value of research into human behaviour has led to the development of drug treatments, therapies and beavioural interventions that have benefitted many. E.g. Schizophrenia. This suggests that in least in terms of ment illness, behaviour would appear to be determined.

Determinism Against: Individual chioce is not the cause of behaviour. Determinism as an approach is unfaalsifiabe. It is based on the idea that causes of behaviour will always exist. This suggets that the determinist approach to human behaviour my not be as scientific as it first appears.

Free will For: Free will has high face validity. Research into people with high Locus of Control has suggested they are more mentally heathy. A study by Roberts et al. (2000) found that those who believd in fatlism were at a significantly higher risk fo developing depression. This suggests that even if we do not have free will, the fact we think we do may have a positive impact on mind and behaviour.

Free Will Against: Neurological studies of decision making have revealed evidence agaisnt free will. Studies by Benjamin Libet (1985) and Chun Siong Soon et al. (2008) have demonstrated that out brains pre-determine behvaiour before we are conciouisly aware of movements. This shows that even basic experiences of free well as determined.

Nature: the view that behaviour is the product of innate biological or genetic factors.

Nurture: the view that behaviour is the product of environmental influences.

Heredity: the process in which traits are passed down from one generation to the next.

Nature: Rene Descartes- Nativist (1596-1650)- some aspects of human behaviour are innate and hereditary.

Nurture: John Locke- Empiricist (1632-1704)- we are born as a blank slate at birth- experence dictates who we are and our behaviour.

For Nature: Natavists and the idea that our destiny is entirely controlled by our genes is very deterministic. It is based on other factors, not just nature. For example, the humanistic approach supports this using twin studies. This is good because biological determinism leads to drug treatment for OCD.

Against Nature: While psychologists seek to support the nature side of the debate with twin studied, these studies often ignore the effects of shared environments. E.g. Nestaldt- OCD twin study.

For Nurture: Behaviourists believ that our behaviour can be entirely shaped by nurture. This is supported by clasical conditioning- Pavlov and operant conditioning-Skinner. However it is argued that their research cannot be extrapulated to humans.

Against Nurture: Scarr & McCartney argue that environment and genetics interact in multiple ways and have proposed three different types of interaction; passive, evocative and active.

Reductionism: Analysing behaviour by breaking it down into its constituent parts. It is based around the scientific principle of parismony. All behaviour should be explained using the msot basic (lower level) principles.

Holism: Attempts to understand human behaviour can only be done by ananlysing the person or the behaviour as a whole rather than its constituent parts.

Levels of explanation:

Sociocultural: The influence of social groups on behaviour. Social Psychology: Confomity and Deindividualisation (Zimbardo) can only be examined in a group context, and cannot be examined by studying individuals alone.

Psychological: Social, cognitive, behavioural. Psychopathology: OCD can be explained in terms of operant conditioning. e.g. repetative behaviour acts as a negative reinforcement.

Biological: Neurochemistry, genes, brain structure. Psychopathology: OCD can also be explained at a biological level in terms of the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine.

For Reductionism: Scientists are drawn to reductionist explanations because it allows researchers to study the different factors that infleunce human behaviour in a controlled manner while establishnig casual relationships.

Against Reductionism: Biological reductionsism can elad to erros of understanding because it ignroes the complexity of human behaviour. E.g. ADHD treatment is complex and different with every patient.

For Holism:

Against Holism:

Idiographic: relating to the study or discovery of particular scientific facts and processes, as distinct from general laws. Focusing on the individual.

Nomothetic: relating to the study or discovery of general scientific laws.

Humanistic Psychology: Supporting Idiographic: Rogers and Maslow took a phenomenological approach, documneting experience of the individuals or 'self'. See themselves as 'antiscientific' and are concerned with unique experience on its own merit rather than coming up with general laws of behaviour.

Psychodynamic Approach: Supprting Idiographic: Freud used case studies with indiduals or small groups, not using scientific data. Case studies such as little Hans were favoued by Freud. he tried to geenrlise findings but did not work.

Behaviourist, Cognitive and Biological Aprroach: Supporting Nomothetic:Pavlov's dogs, memeory, brain scaning.

For Idiographic: In-depth qualitative data.

Against Idiographic: Narrow and restricted nature of work.

For Nomothetic: The procesees involved in this approach tend to be mroe scientific.

Against Nomothetic: Preoccupation on general laws has accused of losing sight of the whole person.

Social Sensivivity: Sieber and Stanley (1988): 'Studies in which there are potential consequences or implications, either directly for the participants involved in the research or for the class of individuals represented by the research'. Also identified 4 aspects of social sensitivity:

• The Implications: Wider effects should be considered- some research has been considered justification for prejudice or discrimination.
• Uses/Public Policy: The researcher should be mindful or how the data is going to be used and consider who is funding the research. How did the funder intend to use the findings?
• The Validity of the research: Findings which were presented as scientific and objective in the past turned out to be highly suspect or fraudulent.

The researcher must also focus on the research question carefully, the methodology used and ensure they consider the treatment of the participants and their right to confidentiality/ anonmymity.

Aronson (1999): States psychologists have a 'social responsibility' to conduct socially sensitive research.

Shaping Social Policy: Social sensitivity research has been used by the government to shape social policy. Cyril **** and the 11+ exam- used false data when presenting the 11+ exam which showed the inaccuracy of the exams.

Has been used to support discriminatory practices: Sterilisation in the 1920's/30's enacted legislation to ensure 'feeble minded' people did not have children/become a drain on society.

Scarr (1988): Argues that studies of underrepresented groups and issues may promote a greater sensitivity and understadning of these. This can help reduce prejudice and encourage acceptance.

Sieber and Stabley (1988): Warn that they way in which the research question is phrased and investigated may influence the way in which findings are interpreted.