Issues and debates Flashcards
What does bias undermine in psychology?
their claim to universality
What is universality?
an idea that conclusions drawn can be applied to everyone anywhere regardless of time or culture.
What is alpha bias?
when psychological research emphasises the differences
What is an example of alpha bias?
Freud’s theory of the psychosexual development. In the phallic stage, both genders develop a desire for the opposite-gender parent. Boys develop a strong castration anxiety which is said to be resolved when they identify with their fathers. Girls’ identification with their mothers is said to be weaker so their superego is weaker. This suggests that females are morally inferior than males.
How does the psychodynamic approach favour women?
Nancy Chodorow suggest that daughters and mothers have a greater connectedness than with their sons due to biological similarities. Therefore, women develop better abilities to bond with others and empathise.
What is beta bias?
When psychological research ignores or undermines the differences
When does beta bias occur?
when we assume research findings apply equally to both men and women even when women are excluded from the research process
What is an example of beta bias?
The fight or flight response- research has favoured using male animals as female behaviour is affected by regular hormonal changes due to ovulation.
How was the fight or flight responses’ beta bias challenged?
Taylor et al. claimed that women use the tend and befriend respond. Oxytocin is more plentiful in women so they respond to stress by producing more. This reduces the fight or flight response.
How does beta bias affect men?
Attachment- research assumes that emotional care is solely provided by mothers but research of the role of the father shows otherwise.
What are alpha and beta bias consequences of?
androcentrism
What is androcentirsm?
male-centred. when normal human behaviour is judges based on a male standard.
How does androcentrism affect the way we understand women’s behaviour?
it makes us misunderstand it, and at worse, pathologies it.
Androcentrism- PMS
females object this diagnostic category as it medicalises female emotions, such as anger by explaining them in hormonal terms. men’s anger is seen as a rational response to external pressures (Brescoli and Uhlmann)
Evaluate gender bias in psychological research-limitations
1) Biological or social explanations? - Maccoby and Jacklin found through several gender studies that girls have a superior verbal ability as boys have a better spatial ability. However, Joel used brain scans and found no diff in brain structure and processing. The prior data was popularised as it fit social stereotypes of both genders.
* *HOWEVER, this doesn’t mean we should avoid studying the gender diff in the brain. Ingalhalikar found that females have better connections between the hemispheres which explains why they are better at multitasking.**
2) Promotes sexism in research- women are underrepresented in uni department. Although psych’s undergrad intake is mainly women, the lecturers are more likely to be men (Murphy et al). Research is more likely to be by men.
3) Gender-biased research- research challending biases may not be published. Formanowicz et al analysed 1000+ articles relating to gender bias over 8 yrs. Found that research on it is funded less and is published by less prestigious journals. A consequence is fewer scholars are aware and can’t apply it to their own work.
Joseph Henrich et al.- culture bias
reviewed 100s of studies in leading psych journals and found that 68% of ppts were from the US, and 96% from industrialised nations
Arnett-culture bias
found that 80% of ppts were undergrads studying psych
What is ethnocentrism?
a belief in superiority of one’s own cultural group
What is an example of ethnocentrism in research?
The strange situation- it only reflects the norms and values of Western society. The ideal/secuare attachment type is when babies show moderate distress when left by their mothers. However, this misinterprets child-rearing practices other countries. E.g. Takashi found that Japanese children show considerable distress upon separation, classifying them as insecurely attached. But it is due to the fact that they are rarely separated.
What is an etic approach?
when a behaviour is looked at from outside the given culture and attempts to describe those behaviours as universal.
What is an emic approach?
looking at behaviours from inside the culture and identifying them as specific to that culture.
What is an example of imposed etic?
- Ainsworth’s study
- How we define abnormality
Berry- culture bias
He argues that psych is guilty of imposed etic when they actually came about through emic research inside a single culture.
Therefore, psychologists should be more mindful of cultural relativism and recognising this is a way of avoiding culture bias.
What is cultural relativism?
what they discover may only make sense from the perspective of the culture within they discovered
Evaluate culture bias in research- Limitations
1) Most influential studies are culturally-biased- e.g. Asch anf Milgram both used US ppts only. Replications of these studies produced diff results. For example, Asch replications in collectivist cultures found significantly higher conformity rates (Smith and Bond).
* *HOWEVER, it it argued that the individualist-collectivist distinction no longer applies. Takano and Osaka found that 14/15 studies comparing the US and Japan found no evidence of it.**
2) Ethnic stereotyping- Gould explained how the 1st intelligence tests led to eugenic social policies in the US. Psychologists used WWI to conduct the 1st tests on army recruits. The test was ethnocentric. South-eastern Europe and African- Americans slowed the lowest. This led to racist discourse as well as less opportunities.
Evaluate culture bias in research- strengths
1)The emergence of cultural psychology- cultural psychologists strive to avoid ethnocentric assumptions by taking an emic approach and using local researchers using culturally-based techniques. Cross-cultural research tend to focus on 2 countries and not 8 or more.
Define free will
the notion that humans can make choices and their behaviours aren’t determined by biological or external forces
Define determinism
the view that an individual’s behaviour is shaped by internal or external forces rather than their own will
Define hard determinism
the view that all behaviour is caused by something and free will is an illusion
Define soft determinism
the view that behaviour may be predictable but there is also room for personal choice from a limited range of possibilities
What are the 3 types of determinism?
biological, environmental and psychic
Examples of biological determinism
the influence of the ANS on the stress response or the influence of genes on mental health
What did B.F Skinner say about free will and determinism?
free will is an illusion and that behaviour is a result of conditioning e.g. environmental determinism
What was Freud’s view on free will and determinism?
free will is an illusion and he emphasises the influence of biological drives and instincts. he saw behaviour as determined by the unconscious conflicts, repressed in childhood.
Evaluate free will and determinism- strengths
-Free will has its practical value as we exercise it freely everyday. Even thinking we do is good on our mental health. Roberts et al. looked at adults with a strong belief in fatalism and found them to be significantly at risk of depression.
Evaluate free will and determinism- limitations
1) Brain scan evidence doesn’t support free will, but rather determinism- Libet et al. study
* *However, just because the action comes before the conscious awareness doesn’t mean there was no decision to act- it just took time to reach awareness. Our conscious awareness of the decision is simply a read out of our unc. decision making.**
2) The law (limitation for det., strength for free will)- the legal system sees offenders as responsible for their actions. The defendant exercised their free will,
What did Libet et al. find?
-Instructed ppts to flick their wrist while he measured their brain
-Ppts had to say when they felt the conscious will to move
Found that the unconscious brain activity came around half a second before the conscious brain
Attachment type- nature/nurture
- Bowlby claimed by its determined by the continuity of parental love (nurture)
- Kagan proposed that the baby’s innate personality (temperament) also affects it (nature)
- Nature creates nurture
What is the interactionist approach?
the view that both nature and nurture work together to shape human behaviour
What is the diathesis-stress model?
the view that behaviour is caused by a biological or environmental vulnerability which is only expressed when coupled with a biological or environmental trigger e.g. OCD
What is epigenetics?
a change in our genetic activity without changing the genes themselves. Aspects of our lives leaves ‘marks’ on our DNA which switches genes on or off. These changes may go on and influence the genetic codes of our children and late generations.
How does epigenetics affect the nature-nurture debate?
it introduces a third element of the life experiences of previous generations.
Descartes- nature debate
argued that all human characteristics are innate
John Locke/ empiricists- nurture debate
the mind is a blank state and is shaped by the environment
How is nature and nurture measured?
by using a correlation coefficient of concordance.
IQ’s heritability
0.5- half of it is determined by genetic factors, half by the environment
Evaluate the nature-nurture debate- strengths
1) Use of adoption studies- if the adopted child is similar to their adopted parents, then environment is a bigger influence and vice versa.
* *However, this approach may be misguided as nature and nurture aren’t to be separated. Plomin said that nurture is created by actively selecting environments appropriate to your nature. (niche-picking)**
2) Support for epigenetics-In WWII, Nazis starved the Dutch. Susser and Lin found that pregnant women during this famine gave birth to low eight babies that were 2X more likely to be schizo when they grow up,
3) Genetic counselling- real world application as OCD is a highly heritable mental disorder with a rate of 0.76. They can now receive advice on the likelihood of developing it and how it can be prevented.
What is the holistic approach?
it looks at a system as a whole and sees any attempt to subdivide behaviour into smaller units as inappropriate.
What is reductionism in psychology?
it seeks to analyse behaviour by breaking it down into its constituent parts. it is based on the scientific principle of parsimony (all phenomena can be explained using the simplest principles)
What are the levels of explanation in psychology?
different ways to explain behaviour, some more reductionist than others. e.g. OCD can be understood at a socio-cultural level (it interrupts social relationships) and psychological level (it causes anxiety)
What is biological reductionism?
it is based on the premise that all behaviour is at some level biological
What is the environmental (stimulus-response) reductionism?
the attempt to explain all behaviour in terms of S-R links that have been learned through experience. this reduces behaviour to basic elements e.g. the learning theory of attachment reduces the idea of love to classical conditioning.
Evaluate holism and reductionism approach- Limitations
- Holism approach lacks practical value
- Some behaviours can only be understood at a higher level, this challenges reductionism
Evaluate holism and reductionism debate- strengths
-reductionist approaches often form the basis of a scientific approach
How is it a limitation that the holism approach lacks practical value?
- holistic accounts of human behaviour tend to become hard as they become more complex
- if it is accepted that many factors cause a behaviour then it is hard to know which is most influential and to prioritise as the basis of therapy
How is it a limitation of reductionism that some behaviours can be only understood at a higher level?
-often social behaviour that only emerge within a group context and can’t be understood in terms of individual group members
How is it a strength that reductionist approaches is often the basis of a scientific approach?
in order to conduct well-controlled research, we need to operationist the variables to make it possible to conduct experiment or record observations in a way that is objective or reliable.
HOWEVER, they have been accused of oversimplifying complex phenomena, leading to reduced validity. reductionist explanations can only ever form part of an explanation.
