Issues And Debates Flashcards
How does psychology claim to have universality?
- The conclusions can be applied to everyone, anywhere, regardless of time, culture or gender.
- Psychologists claim that they discover facts about human beings, which are objective and not influenced by their own values.
- Many commentators dispute this claim.
What is gender bias?
Gender bias is when psychological research may offer a view that does not justifiably represent the experience of men or women (usually women).
What is alpha bias?
- Alpha bias is when there is a misrepresentation of behaviour because researchers overestimate/exaggerate the differences between the genders.
- These differences often devalue women in relation to men.
Example of alpha bias?
- Sociobiological theory of relationship formation.
- It argues that it is in a males’ interest to impregnate as many different women as possible to increase the chance of his genes being passed one.
- Women, it argues, should focus on ensuring the healthy survival of their relatively few children.
- The message is that sexual promiscuity in males is genetically determined, and females who engage in the same behaviour are going against nature and so are abnormal.
What is beta bias?
- when there is a misrepresentation of behaviour because researchers underestimate/minimise gender differences.
- This often happens when female participants’ are not included in a research study, but it is still assumed that the research findings can be applied to both genders.
Example of beta bias
- Fight-or-flight response, early research focused exclusively on male animals and is was assumed that there would be a universal response to a threatening situation.
- However, more recently, Taylor et al. (2000) have suggested that biology has evolved to inhibit the fight-or-flight response in women, who instead have a tendency to tend-and-befriend.
- Forming groups is a more effective way to ensure the survival of offspring than running away or fighting.
What is a possible consequence of beta bias?
Androcentrism
What is Androcentrism?
- If our understanding of what constitutes normal behaviour is being drawn from research that involves all male participants then behaviour which deviates from this standard is likely to be viewed as abnormal or even inferior.
- At best this leads to female behaviour being misunderstood, at worst pathologised (seen as a sign of mental illness).
Discussion that supports gender bias
+ Male researchers within psychology are still more likely to have their research published than female researchers, and research which finds gender differences is more likely to be published than research which finds no such difference. Psychology may be guilty of supporting a form of institutional sexism.
+ Gender biased research may provide scientific justification for denying women opportunities within society. In the 1930s ‘scientific’ research revealed that intellectual activity (such as attending university) would shrivel women’s ovaries and reduce their chances of conceiving.
+ Many of the gender differences reported over the years are based on the essentialist perspective: that gender differences are fixed and inevitable (essential) and determined by nature. This is not necessarily the case, in societies where men and women both go out to work and share child care and domestic chores, the psychological differences between men and women are far less.
Discussion that aims to overcome gender bias
- Many modern researchers have begun to recognise the effect that their own values and assumptions have on their work, Dambrin and Lambert (2008) included a reflection of how their own gender related experiences affected their reading of events when they investigated the reason for the lack of women in accountancy firms.
- Worell (1992) have put forward a number of criteria which should be adhered to in order to avoid gender bias in research: women should be studied within meaningful life contexts, women should genuinely participate in psychological research (not just be the objects of research), diversity within groups of women should be examined (rather than comparisons made between men and women), there should be more collaborative research methods used that collect qualitative data.
What is universality?
Researchers often claim to have discovered facts about human behaviour that are the same for all cultures
Cultural bias
Cultural bias is the tendency to judge people in terms of one’s own cultural assumptions.
Consequence of cultural bias
If the norm or standard for a particular behaviour is judged only from the standpoint of one particular culture then any cultural differences in behaviour will be seen as abnormal or even inferior.
How to reduce cultural bias?
- The researchers should not attempt to extrapolate findings or theories to cultures that are not represented in the research sample or assume that there are universal norms across different cultures.
- They should use researchers who are native to the culture being investigated, carry out cross-cultural research rather than research with a sole culture, and be sensitive to cultural norms when designing research.
Ethnocentrism
It is emphasising the importance of the behaviour of one’s own culture.
How does ethnocentrism relate to psychological research?
In psychological research this is communicated through a view that any behaviours that do not conform to the (usually Western) model are somehow deficient, unsophisticated or underdeveloped.
Example of ethnocentrism in psychological research
- Mary Ainsworsituation is an example of this, it assumed that a securely attached child would show moderate distress (separation protest) when their caregiver left them and that if this didn’t happen the child was insecurely attached.
- This means that German mothers were seen as cold and rejecting because their babies did not show this mild distress, when it could be interpreted as German mothers encouraging independence.
Cultural relativism
This is the idea that a behaviour can only be properly understood in the context of the norms and values of the culture in which it occurs.
Strengths of cultural bias occurring in psychology
+ Historically psychologists have referred to individualistic cultures and collectivist cultures. Individualistic cultures are mostly western cultures and supposedly value personal freedom and independence. Collectivist cultures, such as India and China, are said to place more emphasis on the needs of the group. Critics have argued that such a simplistic distinction is unhelpful and inaccurate. Tokano and Osaka (1999) found that 14 out of the 15 studies which compared the US and Japan had found no evidence of the traditional distinction between individualistic cultures and collectivist cultures.
+ Cochrane and Sashidharan (1995) found that African-Caribbean immigrants are seven times more likely to be diagnosed with mental illness. This has led many to question the validity of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM) and International Classification of Diseases (ICD) for diagnosing individuals who are born outside of the culture that they were developed in.
+ There are mental illnesses in some cultures that do not exist in others. For example, the term brain fag is used in West Africa to describe a person who is experiencing difficulty concentrating and thinking. In China a man who believes his penis is retracting into his body is diagnosed with koro.
Weaknesses of cultural bias occurring in psychology
- There is evidence that some human behaviours are universal. For example, the basic facial expressions for emotions such as happiness or disgust are the same in all cultures, and even in the animal kingdom (Ekman, 1989). Also interactional synchrony between an infant and their caregiver has been observed in many cultures.
- Cross-cultural research is one way to prevent cultural bias in psychology. This shows that knowledge and concepts that we take for granted are not shared by other people around the world. This not only counters the charge of scientific racism that has been made against some psychological theories in the past, it means the conclusions that psychologists draw are likely to have more validity.
What is free will?
The notion of free will suggests that as human beings we are essentially self- determining and able to choose our thoughts and actions.
Which approach considers people to have free will?
Humanistic approach
What is determinism?
Determinism is the general idea that our traits and behaviours are outside of our control, due to factors, either internal or external, over which we have no control.
What is Hard determinism?
- This proposes that all of a person’s traits and behaviours are entirely out of the individual’s control.
- Human behaviour has a cause and so it should be possible to identify these causes.
- Hard determinism assumes that everything we think and feel and do is dictated by forces that we cannot control, and might not even be aware of.
What is soft determinism?
This proposes that traits and behaviours are determined by external or internal forces but that an individual can still exercise some control via thought processes.
What approach adheres to soft determinism?
The cognitive approach
How is science heavily deterministic?
- By it’s search for causal relationships as it seeks to discover whether the independent variable (cause) leads to changes in the dependent variable (effect).
- If all variables are controlled except for the independent variable, this means that changes in the dependant variable must be caused by manipulation of the independent variable.
- Having a control group enables researchers to determine cause and effect.
- The goal is to be able to predict and control human behaviour.
Types of hard determinism?
- Biological determinism
- Environmental determinism
- Psychic Determinism
Biological determinism
- The biological approach argues that all of our traits and behaviours are governed by internal biological factors, like genes, neurochemistry, brain structure etc.
- There is no doubt that many of our physiological and neurological brain processes are not under conscious control – such as the autonomic nervous system during periods of stress and anxiety.
- In addition, lots of behaviours, characteristics (such as mental disorders) are thought to have a genetic basis and research has demonstrated the effect of hormones (such as the role of testosterone) in aggressive behaviour.
Environmental determinism
- The idea that traits and behaviours are governed by external forces, such as experiences, upbringing, learning, schools, parents, peers etc.
How does the behavioural approach relate to environmental determinism?
- The behavioural approach holds that our experience of ‘choice’ is merely the sum total of reinforcement contingencies that have acted upon us throughout our lives.
- Although we might think we are acting independently, our behaviour has been shaped by environmental events as well as agents of socialisation.
Psychic determinism
The idea that traits and behaviours are governed by unconscious instincts and drives.
How does the psychodynamic approach link to psychic determinism?
- The psychodynamic approach sees human behaviour as determined and directed by unconscious conflicts, repressed in childhood.
- There is no such things as an accident, according to Freud, and even something as seemingly random as an innocuous ‘slip of the tongue’ can be explained as being caused by the unconscious.
