Biological Psychology Flashcards
What are the Issues and Debates in Biological Psychology Regarding Ethics?
- issues with obtaining informed consent from Raine’s and Dabbs et al’s Study
- confidentiality within adoptiom studies not maintained
- studying aggression links to brain damage
- protection of participants and risks when using brain scanning methods
- use of animals within biological psychology studies like Andy and Velamati
What are the Issues and Debates in Biological Psychology Regarding Practical Issues in the Design?
- issues with brain scanning methods like cost and effectiveness as PET Scans used in Raine’s study are not reliable because they only show up spontaneous activity
- difficult to measure the complexity of the brain through brain scans like in Swantaje’s Study, when MRI Scans were used
- no clear cause and effect conclusion as the results could be affected by extraneous variables like individual differences
- difficult to generalise rare samples like MZ or DZ Twins or Brain Damaged patients
What are the Issues and Debates in Biological Psychology Regarding Reductionism?
Only focuses on the biological causes of aggression and doesn’t take into account individual differences or the environment:
- Dabbs focuses on the hormonal explaination
- Dopamine Hypothesis focuses on the neurotransmitter explaination
- Raine focuses on the brain damage explaination
- Brendgen focuses on the genetics explaination
What are the Issues and Debates in Biological Psychology Regarding Comparisons of Ways of Explaining Behaviour Using Different Themes?
Different ways of Explaining Aggression:
- Freuds Psychodynamic Theory
- Evolution
- Hormones
- Brain Damage
- Social Learning Theory
What are the Issues and Debates in Biological Psychology Regarding Psychology as a Science?
Psychology is a Science:
- Synaptic Transmission
- Brain Scanning Techniques are all objective and scientific so it increases the credibility like in Raine or Swantaje’s Study
Psychology is not a Science:
- Freuds Psychodynamic Theory
- Use of Correlations as they do not give a clear cause and effect, scientfic conclusion
What are the Issues and Debates in Biological Psychology Regarding Culture and Gender?
- Hormonal differences between males and females which influence behaviour: males have a higher level of testosterone which makes males more aggressive than females
- Swantaje’s study was gynocentric
- All biological psychology studies are endrocentric
What are the Issues and Debates in Biological Psychology Regarding the Nature-Nurture Debate?
Nature:
- focus on brain structures
- focus on CNS
- explainations using hormones for aggression
- explainations using neurotransmitters for aggression
Nurture:
- environmental influences on aggression using Brendgen’s Study
- Freuds Psychodynamic Theory
What are the Issues and Debates in Biological Psychology Regarding How Psychology has Developed Overtime?
Development of Scanning Techniques leads to a Development of Knowledge:
- Trepanning: Making a hole in the skull
- 1950 PET Scans
- 1970s CAT Scans
- 1970s MRI Scans
- 1990s fMRI Scans
What are the Issues and Debates in Biological Psychology Regarding Social Control?
Using knowledge of brain functioning to control individuals:
- Raine’s Study shows that criminals have psychological abnormalities which need to be controlled
- Surgery of the Prefrontal Lobe to control anti-social behaviour
- Chemical Castration of Males: to block male hormones used for sex offenders
What are the Issues and Debates in Biological Psychology Regarding Psychological Knowledge within Society?
- Understanding Causes of Aggression To:
- help with treatments
- possible predictions of risk from a young age
- Understanding, explaining and treating drug addiction
What are the Issues and Debates in Biological Psychology Regarding Socially Sensitive Research?
- explaining to individuals they have brain abnormalities
- linking biology to a sensitive topic of aggression
- risks of confidentiality not being maintained
- linking intelligence to genetic factors can be seen as socially sensitive
