AO3: Debates and Issues Flashcards
1
Q
Ethical Implications: Psychologists should study socially sensitive topics
A
- Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory has negative social consequences as it implies mothers shouldn’t work because they need to care for their infants 24/7
- Hs ideas also led to modern attachment theory which explains how children should be cared for
- Socially sensitive research has its benefits even though it can be harmful as it allows society to learn lessons about inequalities that vulnerable groups in society face and how they can be reduced
- Socially sensitive research shouldn’t be avoided even if it has potential o cause harm
2
Q
Ethical Implication: Ethical Guidelines may not be currently adequate
A
- Ethical guidelines like the BPS code of conduct focus on protecting the immediate needs of participants (protection from harm, right to confidentiality)
- Sieber and Stanley said that research doesn’t just have to be aware of the harm it can cause to the participants but also the harm it can cause to society
- Sieber and Stanley offered ways to reduce the social sensitivity of research but ultimately, proper regulations need to be put in place
- The BPS should be able to oversee the the wider ethical implications that socially sensitive research brings
3
Q
Ethical Implications: Issues associated with considering Ethical Implications of Socially Sensitive Research
A
- In 1985, Ceci did a study and found ethical committees in the US were more likely to reject ethical approval for research if it was socially sensitive
- It is uncertain whether this is a good or a bad thing
- Preventing research on controversial topics isn’t necessarily a bad thing e.g not conducting research on the correlation between race and intelligence means that racists can’t use the findings as an excuse to be racist
- However, banning the study of certain topics can also be seen as a denial of freedom of speech and hinders psychologists in the pursuit of knowledge as the research may lead to more research with clearer benefits
4
Q
Free Will and Determinism: Strength for Free Will/Argument against Determinism - Free Will is Useful
A
- Throughout history, humans have been held accountable for their actions
- If we were to accept determinism as true then there wouldn’t be a point in holding people accountable for their actions as their actions would ultimately be out of their control
- Punishing criminal activity and the justice system would be pointless
- Humanistic approach has a similar idea - a belief in free will means that people have incentive to enact positive change in their lives
- However, these justifications don’t explain why free will is real, just why it’s important to believe it is
5
Q
Free Will and Determinism: Argument against Free Will/Strength of Determinism - Free Will lacks Scientific Credibility
A
- Science depends on a belief in materialism (the view that everything in the universe has a physical basis)
- Materialism challenges free will as if free will is interpreted similarly to an IMP then it means that the process of free will occurs in the brain
- The brain is physical so all of its actions must be consequences of physical processes like neurons and how they respond to environmental stimuli
- The idea that there is something that is independent of all physical things but works in a similar way to things seems scientifically impossible so believing in free will means rejecting the fundamental idea of science
- The only way to bypass this is believing in something non-physical that gives us free will (e.g. a soul) but that belief isn’t compatible with a belief in determinism so it wouldn’t be scientific
6
Q
Free Will and Determinism: Argument Against Determinism/Strength of Free Will - Determinism is Socially Sensitive
A
- Sieber and Stanley said that social sensitivity is when research or an idea could lead to negative social consequences for a specific social group
- A belief in determinism implies that people aren’t in control of their actions and therefore shouldn’t be punished for them
- This could a have negative impact on society people could potentially do things that harm others and use the argument that it wasn’t their fault as they aren’t truly in control of their actions
- A belief in free will means that people are held accountable for the bad things they do but determinism implies that people shouldn’t be
- Therefore an argument on determinism is that is it is socially sensitive so it could negatively impact society
7
Q
Nomothetic/Idiographic: Nomothetic can’t make predictions about specific individuals
A
- Research is done and data is collected to produce general laws that explain the norm for human behaviour, thoughts and feelings
- Not every person follows the norm so although general laws can be used to predict how a population will behave they can’t be used to predict the behaviour of specific individuals
- According to Gordon Allport this can only be done by describing the unique nature of an individual and this has to be done using qualitative data that the idiographic method collects via case studies
- Nomothetic approach can predict and explain behaviour of populations but not for individuals
8
Q
Nomothetic/Idiographic: Nomothetic has scientific credibility
A
- Some of the key features of science are the empirical method, objectivity, replicability and falsifiability
- Both nomothetic and idiographic use empirical method
- Nomothetic is more objective as quantitative data is collected and is analysed using statistics compared to the idiographic approach which collects qualitative data which requires high interpretation
- Nomothetic approach is replicable due to controlled conditions and operationalized variables compared to idiographic approach
9
Q
Nomothetic/Idiographic: Idiographic and Nomothetic are complementary not in competition
A
- Patient KF case study used the idiographic approach (done by Shallice and Warrington) and the finding was patient KF’s acoustic STM was more impaired than his visual STM which led to the challenge of 1 STM memory store
- An idiographic case study was used to to understand general laws meaning case studies can be used to critique general laws
- They can also suggest new areas of research for nomothetic research which can lead to new general laws
- Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages and using both together is more effective
10
Q
Gender Bias: Can cause social harm to men as well
A
- In 1978 Chodorow did research and concluded women are more relational than men
- This is an example of alpha bias as it suggests a distorted difference between men and women that could harm men as it presents women as having greater ability
- This could lead to social harm e.g. stigma towards men in more ‘nurturing’ jobs like childcare and nursing or reluctance for laws that allow men to care (like paid paternity leave)
- Alpha bias isn’t always directed at women but can still cause social harm
11
Q
Gender Bias: Challenge to Androcentrism and Gender Bias is Feminist Psychology
A
- Central assumption is biology plays a minimal role in determining differences between females and males
- Approach provides a way of challenging androcentric assumptions and gender bias in research as if ‘male’ and ‘female’ is socially constructed then ‘male’ behaviour can’t be the norm as it’s just as made up as ‘female’ behaviour
- Challenge to feminist psychology is it lacks objectivity as its goal is to use psychology to promote social change that will benefit women is political meaning it can’t be objective
- Feminist psychology says this critique is naïve as all research is influenced by social/cultural context so regular that is primarily androcentric can’t be said to be any more objective
12
Q
Gender Bias: Main issue with gender bias in research is the potential social harm to women
A
- Women are less likely to be diagnosed with autism as tools for diagnosing them were designed with men in mind as the existence of autism symptoms that are characteristically female aren’t taken into account
- Harmful as it leads to false account as it could lead to the claim that autism is more common in men when in reality, many women have gone undiagnosed.
- In general, it’s not harmful to assume that men and women have differences and similarities but they need to be acknowledged properly or it can inhibit social progress
- Therefore gender bias has the potential for social harm so psychologists should take measures to reduce it in their research
13
Q
Cultural Bias: Culturally/Ethnocentrically biased research can lead to social harm
A
- Robert Yerkes made an intelligence test to test US Army recruits which used a standard derived from middle-class American culture and this led to the belief other cultural groups were inferior
- This ethnocentric research fuelled racism and was used to justify discriminatory immigration laws
- Yerkes’ conclusion was wrong as later research showed test scores correlated with length of time in the US
- This shows the social harm ethnocentric research causes as it leads to false knowledge
- However Yerkes did his research in a time when racism was acceptable in the US modern research can learn from this and take measures to reduce ethnocentrism in their research
14
Q
Cultural Bias: An extreme position of cultural relativism can constrain psychological research
A
- Some cultural relativists argue since behaviour can only be understood using cultural context then psychologist shouldn’t look for universals and only look at behaviour in specific cultural contexts
- This rejection of universality undermines well-established findings (e.g. interactional synchrony or the limited capacity of short-term memory) and whole approaches (e.g. evolutionary psychology)
- Most researchers reject an extreme position of cultural relativism anyway
15
Q
Cultural Bias: A widespread problem in psychological research
A
- Henrich (2010) did research and found a randomly selected American college student was 4000 times more likely to be a participant in psychological research than a random non-Westerner
- Clearly shows psychological research has been conducted with a narrow cultural context but the findings are still presented as universal so psychological research has been mostly culturally biased this whole time
- However this research is more than 10 years old so it could have issues with temporal validity
- Moreover the research only focuses on the USA and not other countries in today’s society so the conclusions can’t be generalised to the rest of the world
