Issues and Debates

(Gender Bias)How are most psychologists bias?

They are human, have beliefs and values that have been influenced by the social and historical context inwhich they lived. Many claim 'facts' about human behaviour is 'objective' and 'value free'

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(Gender Bias)What is meant by objective and value free?

Objective- not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts. Value free - free from criteria imposed by subjective values or standards.

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(Gender Bias)What is meant by universality?

Any underlying characteristics of human beings that is capable of being applied to all, despite differences of experience and upbringing. Gender and culture bias threaten the universality of findings.

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(Gender Bias)What is alpha bias and how does sociobiological theory of relationships so this?

Differences between genders are exaggerated. It explains human sexual attraction and behaviour through the principle of 'survival effiency'. Its in the males interest to impregnate women to increase chance of genes being passed on. Hormonal differenc

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(Gender Bias)What is beta bias and how is this shown in Zimbardos, Asch and Milgrams studies?

Differences between genders are underestimated, assume they will react the same. Zimbardo ignores there may be differences, creates problems when generalising, inaccurate beliefs. Asch assumes female will obey in the same way.

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(Gender Bias)What is androcentrism?

A consequence of beta bias where all behaviour is compared to males. Behaviour that deviates is judged as abnormal. Many feminist commentators objected to the diagnostic category premenstrual syndrome. PMS medicalises female emotions, male anger rati

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(Gender Bias)Why should we be concerned with gender bias?

Sexism lack of women at senior level jobs, female concerns not reflected. males work more likely to be published. Men lead research, women vulnerable. support institutional sexism

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(Gender Bias)Why shouldnt we be concerned with gender bias?

Picture is changing, reflexivity, recognising the effect of their own values, embrace it in a crucial and critical way. Dambrin and lambert, gender related experience, lack of women in executive position rather than just a male POV. greater awareness

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(Gender Bias)What is the problem with misleading assumptions?

Fail to challenge negative stereotypes, validates discrimatory practises, scientific justification to deny women a job or opportunity. 'normal to feel abnormal' damaging affect on womans real life and prospects.

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(Culture Bias)What do psychologists mean when they say they have uncovered universal facts?

Believe they have found truths that say something about people all over the world but infact the findings from studies only apply to the particular groups who were studied.

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(Culture Bias)What is ethnocentrism?

Judging other cultures by the standards and values of ones own culture which may lead to prejudice and discrimination towards other cultures

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(Culture Bias)How does Ainsworths study show ethnocentrism?

Critised as reflecting only the norms and values of american culture. identified the key defining variable of attachment types as the childs experience of anxiety on seperation. leads to misinterpretation of childrearing in other countries

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(Culture Bias)What is cultural relavitism?

Norms and values as well as ethics and moral standards can only be meaningful and understood within specific social and cultural contexts

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(Culture Bias)What is an etic approach?

Looks at behaviour outside of a given culture and attempts to describe those behaviours that are universal

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(Culture Bias)What is an emic approach?

Functions within or inside cultures and identifies behaviours that are specific cultures

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(Culture Bias)What is imposed etic?How is this demonstrated by ainsworth

Where a culture specific idea is wrongly imposed on another culture. imposed her own cultural understanding upon the rest of the world.

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(Free Will vs Determinism)What is free will?

As humans we are self determining, free to choose own thoughts and actions. Doesnt deny environmental and biological impact but says we are master of our own fate

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(Free Will vs Determinism)What is determinism and what are the two types?

Explains why no free will. Soft -acknowleges that all human action has a cause, but are able to have conscious mental control, cognitive. Hard - all human behaviour has a cause and it should be able to identify this

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(Free Will vs Determinism)What are the three types of determinism?

Psychic, Enviornmental, Biological?

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(Free Will vs Determinism)What is Psychic Determinism?

Sees human behaviour as something, unconscious conflicts suppressed in childhood. Freuds idea of 'slip of the tongue' suggests there is no such thing as an accident, even something so random can be explained by the underlying authority of unconscious

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(Free Will vs Determinism)What is Environmental Determinism?

Is the suggestion that all behaviour is ddown to conditioning , might think we act independantly but been shaped by environmental events.experience of 'choice' is sum of reinforcements. Parents show shaped by agents of socialisation

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(Free Will vs Determinism)What is Biological Determinism?

Emphasised by biological approach, suggests many of physiological and neurological processes are not under conscious control. automatic nervous system response to anxiety and stress, Testosterone in male aggression

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(Free Will vs Determinism)What is the case for determinism?

is consistent with aims of science, believes human behaviour is orderly, obeys laws and that the prediction and control of behaviour, lead to treatments, therapies, behavioural interventions in controlling and managing psychological illness.

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(Free Will vs Determinism)What is the case against determinism?

Hard is not consistant with the way in which legal system operates. COurt of law, offenders helf morally responsible for their actions. Is unfalsifiable in that it is based on the idea that causes already exist, may not. Not as scientific

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(Free Will vs Determinism)What is the case for free will?

Mkaes cognitive sense, face validity. internal locus of control tend to be more mentally healthy. A study of adolescents with a strong belief is fatalism, higher risk of developing depression. Believing in free will has a positive impact on mind

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(Free Will vs Determinism)What is the case against free will?

Decisions are made before we even know we have made them. Activity related to press a button occurs 10secs before participants are consciously aware of making a decision.

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(Nature vs Nurture)What is an interactionalist approach?

Provides us with the best comprise such as soft determisntic approach taken by social learning theory where enviro factors are key, we are free to choose who or what.

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(Nature vs Nurture)Nurture- What did Empiricists such as John Locke argue the mind is like?

A blank slate upon birth which learning and experience writes. Concept requires further clarification as 'the envrionment' is abroad and all encompassing concept. Lerner identified different levels of environment such as prenatal and postnatal.

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(Nature vs Nurture)Nature- What did Natavists such as Descartes argue?

Human characteristics are innate and a result of heredity. Heritability coefficent is used to assess heritability. The general figure for IQ is 0.5 suggesting genetics and environment are important factors of intelligence.

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(Nature vs Nurture)What are concordance rates?

Genetic similarity. Nature and nurture are closely intertwined that practically and theoretically makes little sense to seperate them.

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(Nature vs Nurture)What does the interactionist approach believe?

We should study how nature and nurture interact and influence. Attachment patterns between infant and parents are two way communication, childs innate temperament influences the way parent responds so in away nature creates nurture.

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(Nature vs Nurture)What is the diathesis stress model?

Models of mental illness which emphasis interaction of nature vs nurture. Suggets psychopathology is caused by biological/genetic vulnerability. only expressed when paired with biological or environmental trigger.

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(Nature vs Nurture) What are epigenetics?

Change in our genetic activity without changing genetic codes. happens through life, and is caused by interactions with environment - such as smoking. Leaves epigenetic marks on our DNA tells our body which genes to use and to ignore. may affectchild

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(Nature vs Nurture) Evaluation - What are the implications of natavism and empiricism?

Natavists = 'anatomy is destiny' inherited genetic makeup determines characteristics and behaviour, extreme determinist. Empiricists = any behaviour can be changed by altering environment. Behaviour shaping has had practical application

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(Nature vs Nurture)Evaluation - What is constructivism?

People create their own nurture by actively selecting environments that are appropriate for our nature, illogical and hard to seperate nature vs nurture influences on a childs behaviour.

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(Holism vs Reductionist)What is Holism?

Only makes sense to study an indivisible system rather than its constituent parts. Any attempt to break up behaviour is inappropriate as they can only be understood as a whole.

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(Holism vs Reductionist)What is Reductionism?

Human behaviour is best explained by breaking it down into smaller constituent parts. Based on Parsimony- all phenomena explained by the most basic principles.

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(Holism vs Reductionist)What are the levels of Reductionism?

socio-cultural - producing irrational behaviour. psychological - the experience of irrational thoughts. Physical - sequence of movements. Physiological - area of brain involved. Neurochemical - under/over production

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(Holism vs Reductionist)What is the biological type of reductionism?

based on premise we are biological organisms made up of physiological structures. Attempts to explain social and psychological phenomena at lower level.

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(Holism vs Reductionist)What is the environmental type of reductionism?

The attempt to explain all behaviour in terms of stimulus - response links that have been learnt through experience

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(Holism vs Reductionist)Evaluation - How is reductionist point of view a positive?

possible to break down target behaviours. conduct experiments and record them in away that is meaningful and reliable. behaviour established more easily. Recognises importance of biological explanations, alot of evidence such as serotonins importance

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(Holism vs Reductionist)How does the reductionist approach mean behaviour can be oversimplified?

doesnt consider other factors, leads to a lack of validity. Attempt, theories of cognitive functioning such as memory, perception and language created with little effort to combine theories which is an issue, behaviour is often a result of things

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(Holism vs Reductionist)How is a Holistic view more beneficial?

More of a complete understanding, reminds us whole isnt just a sum of the parts, combination cause behaviour. More reflective approach on human behaviour. Some may only appear in a group context, not understood at individual level.

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(Holism vs Reductionist)How is scientific testing not suitable when taking a holistic approach?

reliable research cant be gathered. Difficult establish how much each individual factor contributes to any particular behaviour , explanations are unsatisfactory. Vague and speculative as they become more complex. Lack emprical evidence

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(Ideographic vs Nomothetic)What is the ideographic approach?

attempts to describe the nature of an individual. Views people as unique entities, own subjective experience, motivations and values. Generally associated with qualitive data such as self reports.

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(Ideographic vs Nomothetic)What is an example of ideographic approach?

Humanistic approach, Rodgers and maslow were only interested in documenting conscious experience of ones self. 'anti-scientific' more concerned with unique experience than producing general laws.

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(Ideographic vs Nomothetic)What is the nomothetic approach?

usually involves large samples. studies human behaviour by the development of general principles. 'benchmark' where people can be compared.often reductionist and determinist. Highly scientific as they use controlled experiments

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(Ideographic vs Nomothetic)What are examples of the nomothetic approach?

Approaches that are reductionist, determinist and employ scientific methods. Hypothesis are rigourously tested, statistically analysed and general laws and principles are proposed and developed.

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(Ideographic vs Nomothetic) What is the case for ideographic approach?

Indepth qualitive methods, provides a complete and global account of individual. Compliments the nomothetic approach. Sheds further light on general laws or challenges them.Findings may reveal important insight about normal functioning, overall under

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(Ideographic vs Nomothetic)What is the case against Ideographic?

Narrow and restrictedd nature of their work. Many of freuds key concepts were largely developed from detailed study of single case. No Meaningful generalisation. No adequate baseline. Case studies least scientific, conclusions rely on subjective.

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(Ideographic vs Nomothetic)What is the case for nomothetic approach?

Processes tend to be more scientific, mirrorthose employed in natural sciences testing under standardised conditions, data sets that provide group averages, prediction and control. Scientific crediability

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(Ideographic vs Nomothetic)What is the case against nomothetic approach?

Preoccupation on general laws prediction and control has been accused of losing the whole person. Within psychology 1% risk of developing schizophrenia tells us little about what life is like. Lab studies, memory participants are treated as a scores.

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(Ethical Implications)What are ethical issues?

Arise when conflict between psychologys need to gain valid and valuable research whilst also preserving rights and dignity. Ethical guidelines-protect from any harm caused by research

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(Ethical Implications)What are three examples of the lack of control that psychologists have once its been published?

Little say on how findings are represented in the media. Cant control impact on public policy. How it may influenceon our perception of certain groups in society

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(Ethical Implications)Give example of one area of research that are likely to be subject to greater social sensitivity.

Studiesthat tackle taboo topics such as race and sexuality attract attention from from the media and the public at large.

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(Ethical Implications)Should psychologist avoid studying socially sensitive areas?

No they shouldnt shy away as some suggest psychologists have a social responsibility to carry it out

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(Ethical Implications)What are the three thing Sieber and Stanley identified that researchers should be mindful of?

Implications - wider effects of research, scientifc credence to prejudice and discrimination. Validity - findings are presented as objective and value free turned out to be highly suspect. User/public policy - Findings may be adopted

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(Ethical Implications)What are the benefits of socially sensitive research?

Studies of underrepresented groups and issues may promote a greater sensitivity, understanding. Reduce prejudice and encourage acceptance. Benefitted society, research into reliablity of eyewitness testimony, reduced miscarriages of justic in legal

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(Ethical Implications)What is the issue with framing the question?

Sieber and stanly warn the way in which questions phrased influence way in which findings are interpretted. Research into alternative relationship has been guilty of heterosexual bias. Approach research with an open mind, preconception challenged

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