Debates

Question 1

3x strengths of reductionism

Answer 1

• psychological research is more scientific as it allows the researchers to test the impact on behaviour of one factor at a time
• highly controlled, therefore possible to draw more accurate conclusions
• highly controlled, more replicable (good as it enables us to establish a consistent effect)

Question 2

2x weaknesses of reductionism

Answer 2

• human behaviour often too complex to be reduced down to one explanation
• focusing on one variable means others may be left out
• highly controlled, therefore can lack ecological validity

Question 3

2x strengths of holism

Answer 3

• more complex understanding of behaviours
• research not limited to a single area or perspective within psychology so can consider different explanations for the behaviour being investigated

Question 4

2x weaknesses of holism

Answer 4

• can be difficult to pin down the factor that is having the biggest effect
• holistic explanations can only be verified by separating the different elements within them and testing them one by one to confirm that the factors they claim play a part actually do so; holism can then collapse back into reductionism

Question 5

Reductionist studies

Answer 5

Freud - explained Little Hans’ phobias and fantasies in relation to his theory of psychosexual development only

Question 6

Holistic studies

Answer 6

Piliavin et al. - draws on a range of different approaches to explain the helping behaviour of the Subway users; physiological and cognitive reasons

Question 7

3x strengths of ethical considerations

Answer 7

• participants treated with respect
• enhances the reputation of psychology as an academic discipline
• makes it easier for researchers to obtain participants for future studies if they know the previous ones were treated well

Question 8

2x weaknesses of ethical considerations

Answer 8

• can place limits on research - e.g. cannot use deception to increase the validity, cannot subject participants to harm for psychological purposes, must reveal true aim of study (unhelpful in situations such as Milgram’s study) by gaining informed consent
• can reduce the validity of a study if they know the aim - may lead them to behave differently to how they might have done if they were deceived

Question 9

Studies that were conducted ethically

Answer 9

Sperry - participants consented to be studied, were not deceived, harmed or unduly stressed by the experimental tests

Question 10

Studies that were conducted unethically

Answer 10

Milgram - participants did not give informed consent, were deceived as to the true aim of the study and deceived as they thought they were really shocking someone, put under enormous stress (14 displayed ‘definite signs of nervous laughter’ and 3 had ‘full-blown, uncontrollable seizures’, and were told in 4 different ways (prods) that they could not withdraw

Question 11

2x strengths of nature

Answer 11

• useful - be it only pointing towards genetic modification of biological interventions
• not ethnocentric - biological factors affect people anywhere

Question 12

3x weaknesses of nature

Answer 12

• limited usefulness - may not be possible to change a person’s nature
• reductionist - can mean missing out on the impact of nurture
• socially sensitive - identifying a problem about someone that they cannot change

Question 13

1x strength of nurture

Answer 13

• can be useful - e.g. in education or in changing the way a child is brought up

Question 14

3x weaknesses of nurture

Answer 14

• reductionist - can mean missing out on the impact of nature
• could be ethnocentric as nurture varies across cultures
• socially sensitive - leading children to blame their parents for the way they were brought up

Question 15

Studies relating to nature

Answer 15

Kohlberg - theory of moral development suggested that any individual is within a set of predetermined, innate stages, which, no matter what environment the child was brought up in, will remain invariant

Question 16

Studies relating to nurture

Answer 16

Blakemore and Cooper - research suggests that the physical environment a cat is brought up in will affect not only their behaviour but how their brains develop - shows how the orientation of visual neurons can be shaped by whether a cat is reared in an environment with vertical or horizontal stripes

Question 17

2x strengths of conducting socially sensitive research

Answer 17

• can answer important questions that improve our understanding of human behaviour
• can lead to practical applications that improve the quality of people’s lives

Question 18

3x weaknesses of conducting socially sensitive research

Answer 18

• can involve potential harm to participants
• can lead to people beyond the study being stigmatised
• insights the research provides can be used for negative purposes

Question 19

Studies that were socially sensitive

Answer 19

Milgram - study of obedience very socially sensitive, many participants sweated and laughed nervously, three had ‘full-blown seizures’ due to stress of experiment

Yerkes - research gave the idea that ethnicity is related to intelligence; socially sensitive claim to make. Suggests the idea that Yerkes did not approach the question with the care it required

Question 20

Studies that were not socially sensitive

Answer 20

Moray - very little in the study that could have had negative implications; participants not put under any undue stress or discomfort during the research

Question 21

2x strengths of free will

Answer 21

• not socially sensitive - people are able to control how they act, many like this
• useful - people can be held to account for the behaviours they carry out

Question 22

2x weaknesses of free will

Answer 22

• unscientific - is free will a way of explaining behaviour we can’t explain any other way?
• socially sensitive - people may find it uncomfortable being told they are responsible for how they choose to act

Question 23

2x strengths of determinism

Answer 23

• open to positive uses - if we know what causes a certain behaviour, we can make the behaviour occur again
• scientific - determinist explanations often arise from controlled experiments in which cause and effect has been established

Question 24

3x weaknesses of determinism

Answer 24

• open to negative uses - lawyers could use determinist explanations to get guilty people acquitted
• reductionist - may be that behaviour is not so easily explained
• socially sensitive - people may find it uncomfortable being told they are not in control of how they behave

Question 25

Determinist studies

Answer 25

Bandura et al. - suggests children are likely to be influenced by the ways in which the adults behave via a process of socially learned imitation

Loftus and Palmer - something as minor as the verbs used in questions about events we have witnessed can have a determining influence on what we remember

Question 26

Both determinist and free will studies

Answer 26

Milgram - saw normal people commit atrocious acts even though it was highly immoral - deterministic
However lends itself to the free will position as 35% of people did stop and refuse to continue with the experiment, showing we have control over our behaviours

Question 27

4x strengths of conducting scientific psychological research

Answer 27

• quantitative data is often gathered with can be analysed to see significant effects
• scientific research is less vulnerable to being affected by researcher bias
• controlled lab experiments can be conducted to see if findings are reliable
• scientific research typically involves the use of laboratory experiments that enable cause and effect to be inferred

Question 28

3x weaknesses of conducting scientific psychological research

Answer 28

• scientific research often lacks qualitative data which reduces its explanatory power
• scientific studies are often conducted in tightly controlled laboratory settings which can reduce the ecological validity of the findings
• research is often reductionist as it tries to test the impact of a single factor; as such, it can miss out other factors that might be involved

Question 29

Scientifically conducted psychological studies

Answer 29

Loftus & Palmer and Moray - controlled laboratory experiments which fulfil the scientific criteria of theory, control, evidence and replicability, which supports the claim that psychology is an academic discipline

Question 30

Unscientifically conducted psychological studies

Answer 30

Freud - no situation which could make it false (therefore not falsifiable), theories highly subjective, this is a case study so it cannot be replicated; has failed three criteria that would make it scientific

Question 31

2x strengths of situational

Answer 31

• helps us understand why people behave the way they do

- useful as we can alter behaviour by altering the situations that create it

Question 32

2x weaknesses of situational

Answer 32

• socially sensitive - could be used as a way of explaining away bad behaviour
• reductionist - misses out individual factors as an explanation

Question 33

2x strengths of individual

Answer 33

• helps us understand why people behave the way they do

- useful - could try placing people in certain jobs on the basis of their characteristics

Question 34

2x weaknesses of individual

Answer 34

• limited usefulness - cannot necessarily change their personality if this is the reason for something
• reductionist - misses out situational factors as an explanation

Question 35

Situational and individual studies

Answer 35

Milgram - situational: emotional stress and tension of situation and experimenter that made them obey. Individual: 35% still refused to continue despite pressure and stress to continue

PIliavin et al. - situational: people weren’t able to escape the setting, which could have caused them to act the way they did. Individual: people helped at different speeds, or didn’t help at all - differences in behaviour due to individual personalities