A2 - Issues and Debates Flashcards
What is alpha bias?
Where the differences between two groups of people are exaggerated
What is beta bias?
Where the differences between two groups of people are ignored
What might occur because of alpha bias?
A theory might appear to value one group of people over another, for example Freud saw femininity as failed masculinity
What might occur because of beta bias in research?
Behaviour in one group of people might be ignored, in favour for a “universal” rule. This may lead to one group of people seemingly being at a ‘higher risk’ for a mental disorder
What is Universality?
The ideal situation where a theory recognises the difference between two groups of people, but does not value one group over another
Why might the fight of flight theory show a beta gender bias?
It assumes the system is the same for men and women, whereas women can often use a “tend and befriend” mechanism
Examples of Alpha Bias
Kohlberg’s theories of moral development, males have stronger justice orientated morality, which he believed was superior, as opposed to care-orientated morality
Example of Beta Gender Bias
Knowledge of fight or flight is based entirely on male behaviour, but applied to both genders
Testosterone and serotonin have been linked with aggression, but only in men. Mann studied the effect of reduced serotonin on aggression in men (via a drug). Found increased aggression in the men but not the women.
Why might it be difficult to remove gender bias from psychological experiments?
Rosenthal (1966) found male experimenters would act more friendly to female participants than male ones, placing bias on the experiment.
However many psychological experiments rely on some form of communication between an experimenter and a participant, so it would be difficult to remove the bias.
What are the aims of “Feminist Psychologists”?
They aim to redress the balance by recognising biological differences between men and women. Eg, not assigning a value to one gender’s performance over another, and trying to identify possible social and cultural reasons for a difference, and correct those if needed.
What is the Emic Approach?
An approach aiming to explain a behaviour that is culturally specific, rather than a universal law of human behaviour.
Often an approach used by an “outsider” of that culture
What is an Etic Approach?
This approach tries to explain universal behaviours that are not culturally specific. This is often done by gathering results across cultures and comparing them
What is an imposed etic?
Where a researcher thinks that they have created an etic approach, but have actually created an emic approach
An example of an imposed etic
Mary Ainsworth’s Strange Situation Method assumes that secure attachment is the ideal, whereas insecure attachments are deviants from this one, and that that is universal across all cultures
How can you correct an imposed etic?
Buss (1989) carried out surveys across cultures to discover mate preferences, but he employed people in each culture to translate the words and ideas in the survey to their own culture
What is intracultural bias?
The assumption that the culture as a whole will all display the same behaviours
How could you overcome cultural bias?
Using indigenisation psychologies, employing psychologists from other cultures to adapt research resources, instead of just one researcher studying several different cultures.
What is a large cultural issue with psychology in Europe?
Henrich (2010) found that 67% of participants in psychological research were American psychology students, so it is a massive beta bias to assume this research can be applied both to other cultures, as well as to western culture as a whole
Define Biological Determinism
The idea that your behaviour is affected solely by your biology, eg genes or neurotransmitter levels
Define Environmental determinism
The idea your behaviour is determined solely by your learning and your experience, eg exposure to violent role models
Define Psychic Determinism
The idea that your behaviour is controlled by your innate drives (the Id) and the effects your early experiences had on the development of your Ego and Superego. Eg developing an anally retentive personality from the Anal stage of the psychosexual stages of development
What is the Humanistic Approach?
The idea of “self determinism” where you are in control of your actions. People have an innate tendency to strive for self-actualisation, but can exercise their free will to reach these needs.
What does “moral responsibility” mean?
The assumption that we are in control of our actions, so if you commit a crime, you are responsible for it. This is why young children and the severely mentally ill are tried differently to healthy adults.
Which study suggests that we have free will, as biological change occurs before conscious change?
Libet (1983), who asked participants to press a button whenever they felt like it, and register when they felt the urge to do so. They found that the participants registered brain activity (which was being monitored) before they consciously registered the urge to act.
What did Chun Siong Soon et al (2008) find about free will?
There were changes in the prefrontal cortex of participants up to 10 seconds before they were consciously aware of the decision to act.
What did Trevena and MIller (2009) find that supported determinism?
They repeated similar studies to Libet (1983) and found that the biological changes were actually just a readiness to act, rather than deciding to act.
What did Dennet (2003) find about an error with determinists?
He claims that chaos theory (aka the butterfly effect) explains that a small changes to a biological situation could have unprecedented changes that can’t be predicted, so no definite causal links can be made, only ones of probability
Define ‘Nature’ in the nature-nurture debate
All of our innate behaviours and tendencies, for example the fact that we are genetically coded to develop in certain ways. It assumes our genotype will become our phenotype
Define “Nurture” in the nature-nurture debate
This refers to our experiences since birth, we may be genetically coded, but according to the nurture debate it is our experience which moulds us
Which side of the the nature-nurture debate does Watson’s “little Albert” study support?
Nurture
Caspi found that those with the MAOA-L variant were only more aggressive if mistreated as children.what approach does this study support?
An Interactionist approach
Which side of the n-n debate does Gottesman’s family studies of aggression support?
Nature. Concordance rates are higher in MZ twins than DZ twins
Which type of family study eliminates a large amount of environmental influence?
Adoption studies
What is the interactionist approach?
The theory that behaviour is down to a mix between genes and the environment
What is the diathesis stress model?
The theory that there can be a variation in the level of genetic predisposition, which is inherited, but it takes our experiences to determine whether this behaviour manifests itself or not
Define Gestalt Psychology
The view that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, in human behaviour this means that our processes are too complex to understand fully when separated to parts, and need to be studied as a whole
Define experimental reductionism.
The assumption that when carrying out an experiment with more than one level of independent variable, everything else will remain constant, thus any change in DV must be de to a change in the IV rather than a more complex participant change.
Define biological reductionism
Any explanation which assumes all human behaviour can be explained through biological means, such as genes or hormones
Define Environmental Redcuctionism.
The assumption that all human behaviour can be explained through stimulus-response links and learning, eg behavioural explanation of phobias
What is the lower level of explanation?
biological explanations of our behaviour
What is the middle level of explanation?
Psychological explanations of behaviour
What is the higher level of explanation?
Cultural and social explanations of our behaviour
What is reductionism?
An approach which breaks down a behaviour and focuses on a single aspect of it
Why might reductionism have practical applications?
It can lead to effective treatments, such as serotonin treatment that simply alter serotonin levels, and can impact disorders such as depression
What might make research socially sensitive?
Research that suggests one group is more effective at a task than another, such as memory or IQ, or that a behaviour could lead to a negative impact psychologically, such as Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis suggesting mother’s shouldn’t be working.
Who identified 4 aspects of a study that could potentially become socially sensitive?
Sieber and Stanley (1988)
What are the 4 aspects identified in Sieber and Stanley (1988)?
The research question
Conduct of research and treatment of participants
The institutional context
Interpretation of findings
Why might the research question be socially sensitive?
By posing a research question, you can give scientific credibility to an idea, even if the results are negative, which may be controversial. Eg researching a link between homosexuality and IQ
Why might the conduct of research and treatment of participants be socially sensitive?
The most important ethical consideration is confidentiality of information. Particularly if dealing with a socially sensitive issue it is important that you cannot accidentally cause harm to participants.
How might institutional context lead to ethical implications?
Research has to be funded somehow, sometimes a private institution with an interest in getting particular results. They may manipulate results or only published positive results, leading to a skew in results
Why might interpretation and application of findings have ethical implications?
Even if research is conducted ethically, it may be reported or applied in an unethical way, such as findings of an ethnicity difference in IQ could be applied as a value judgement over one ethnicity.
