A2 - Issues and Debates

Question 1

What is alpha bias?

Answer 1

Where the differences between two groups of people are exaggerated

Question 2

What is beta bias?

Answer 2

Where the differences between two groups of people are ignored

Question 3

What might occur because of alpha bias?

Answer 3

A theory might appear to value one group of people over another, for example Freud saw femininity as failed masculinity

Question 4

What might occur because of beta bias in research?

Answer 4

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

Question 5

What is Universality?

Answer 5

The ideal situation where a theory recognises the difference between two groups of people, but does not value one group over another

Question 6

Why might the fight of flight theory show a beta gender bias?

Answer 6

It assumes the system is the same for men and women, whereas women can often use a “tend and befriend” mechanism

Question 7

Examples of Alpha Bias

Answer 7

Kohlberg’s theories of moral development, males have stronger justice orientated morality, which he believed was superior, as opposed to care-orientated morality

Question 8

Example of Beta Gender Bias

Answer 8

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.

Question 9

Why might it be difficult to remove gender bias from psychological experiments?

Answer 9

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.

Question 10

What are the aims of “Feminist Psychologists”?

Answer 10

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.

Question 11

What is the Emic Approach?

Answer 11

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

Question 12

What is an Etic Approach?

Answer 12

This approach tries to explain universal behaviours that are not culturally specific. This is often done by gathering results across cultures and comparing them

Question 13

What is an imposed etic?

Answer 13

Where a researcher thinks that they have created an etic approach, but have actually created an emic approach

Question 14

An example of an imposed etic

Answer 14

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

Question 15

How can you correct an imposed etic?

Answer 15

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

Question 16

What is intracultural bias?

Answer 16

The assumption that the culture as a whole will all display the same behaviours

Question 17

How could you overcome cultural bias?

Answer 17

Using indigenisation psychologies, employing psychologists from other cultures to adapt research resources, instead of just one researcher studying several different cultures.

Question 18

What is a large cultural issue with psychology in Europe?

Answer 18

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

Question 19

Define Biological Determinism

Answer 19

The idea that your behaviour is affected solely by your biology, eg genes or neurotransmitter levels

Question 20

Define Environmental determinism

Answer 20

The idea your behaviour is determined solely by your learning and your experience, eg exposure to violent role models

Question 21

Define Psychic Determinism

Answer 21

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

Question 22

What is the Humanistic Approach?

Answer 22

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.

Question 23

What does “moral responsibility” mean?

Answer 23

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.

Question 24

Which study suggests that we have free will, as biological change occurs before conscious change?

Answer 24

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.

Question 25

What did Chun Siong Soon et al (2008) find about free will?

Answer 25

There were changes in the prefrontal cortex of participants up to 10 seconds before they were consciously aware of the decision to act.

Question 26

What did Trevena and MIller (2009) find that supported determinism?

Answer 26

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.

Question 27

What did Dennet (2003) find about an error with determinists?

Answer 27

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

Question 28

Define ‘Nature’ in the nature-nurture debate

Answer 28

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

Question 29

Define “Nurture” in the nature-nurture debate

Answer 29

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

Question 30

Which side of the the nature-nurture debate does Watson’s “little Albert” study support?

Answer 30

Nurture

Question 31

Caspi found that those with the MAOA-L variant were only more aggressive if mistreated as children.what approach does this study support?

Answer 31

An Interactionist approach

Question 32

Which side of the n-n debate does Gottesman’s family studies of aggression support?

Answer 32

Nature. Concordance rates are higher in MZ twins than DZ twins

Question 33

Which type of family study eliminates a large amount of environmental influence?

Answer 33

Adoption studies

Question 34

What is the interactionist approach?

Answer 34

The theory that behaviour is down to a mix between genes and the environment

Question 35

What is the diathesis stress model?

Answer 35

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

Question 36

Define Gestalt Psychology

Answer 36

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

Question 37

Define experimental reductionism.

Answer 37

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.

Question 38

Define biological reductionism

Answer 38

Any explanation which assumes all human behaviour can be explained through biological means, such as genes or hormones

Question 39

Define Environmental Redcuctionism.

Answer 39

The assumption that all human behaviour can be explained through stimulus-response links and learning, eg behavioural explanation of phobias

Question 40

What is the lower level of explanation?

Answer 40

biological explanations of our behaviour

Question 41

What is the middle level of explanation?

Answer 41

Psychological explanations of behaviour

Question 42

What is the higher level of explanation?

Answer 42

Cultural and social explanations of our behaviour

Question 43

What is reductionism?

Answer 43

An approach which breaks down a behaviour and focuses on a single aspect of it

Question 44

Why might reductionism have practical applications?

Answer 44

It can lead to effective treatments, such as serotonin treatment that simply alter serotonin levels, and can impact disorders such as depression

Question 45

What might make research socially sensitive?

Answer 45

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.

Question 46

Who identified 4 aspects of a study that could potentially become socially sensitive?

Answer 46

Sieber and Stanley (1988)

Question 47

What are the 4 aspects identified in Sieber and Stanley (1988)?

Answer 47

The research question
Conduct of research and treatment of participants
The institutional context
Interpretation of findings

Question 48

Why might the research question be socially sensitive?

Answer 48

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

Question 49

Why might the conduct of research and treatment of participants be socially sensitive?

Answer 49

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.

Question 50

How might institutional context lead to ethical implications?

Answer 50

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

Question 51

Why might interpretation and application of findings have ethical implications?

Answer 51

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.