Issues and Debates

Question 1

Free will and Determinism
-Determinism definition

Answer 1

-Determinism proposes that all events, including human action, have no to little control over behaviour
-Behaviour is determined by causes regarded as external to the will
-Most/all of psychology believes in determinism

Question 2

Free will and Determinism
-Free will definition

Answer 2

-Free will suggests that we have full choice over our actions without influence or manipulation
-Free will is very hard to test (scientifically)
-It is not empirical
-Humanism is the only branch that believes in free will. It believes we have ‘personal agency’, the ability to make up our mind irregardless of influence

Question 3

Free will and Determinism
-Hard Determinism

Answer 3

-Hard determinism is completely determined by factors outside of a persons control
-For example, humans have no free will. They do not choose mental illnesses, as no humans would freely choose to have schizophrenia. This means they are determined due to the surrounding factors of an individual and others, such as genetic inheritance/genes

Question 4

Free will and Determinism
-Soft determinism

Answer 4

-It is human behaviour which is generally determined by factors outside of their control but they have the option to exercise free will in certain situations
-For example, conformity could be regarded as being a soft determinist due to the illusion of choice in an environment that does not constrain our behaviour.

Question 5

Free will and Determinism
-Biological determinism

Answer 5

-Behaviour is the result of internal processes; genetics, brain physiology and biochemistry
-Genetics are difficult to ignore. Genes do not cause behaviour, however they increase the likelihood of behaviour
-E.g. lots of dopamine causes schizophrenia (biochemistry is deterministic)

Question 6

Free will and Determinism
-Environmental determinism

Answer 6

-Our behaviour is caused by our physical environment
-Parents play a large role in our development and behaviours
-E.g. The participants in Asch, Milgram and Zimbardo largely acted out of pressures from their environments. Their environment determined their behaviour.

Question 7

Free will and Determinism
-Psychic determinism

Answer 7

-Our behaviour is caused or determined by our unconscious mind. This links to the psychodynamic approach
-E.g. Freud argued that every behaviour has an internal cause and that behaviour was initiated in a part of our mind that we cannot access

Question 8

Free will and Determinism
-Scientific emphasis on causal explanations

Answer 8

-This refers to Psychology’s tendency to observe one variable affecting another
-Determinism is scientific. It allows you to clearly see one variable affect the other (empiricism)
-One of the basic principles of science is that every event in the universe has a cause and that causes can be explained using general laws
-Causal explanations are established with the following criteria:
1. All variables, such as confounding and extraneous variables, are controlled for
2. Any differences in the DV’s must therefore be down to the IV’s
3. As a result, researchers can then infer that the IV clearly affected the DV

Question 9

Holism and Reductionism
-Reductionism definition

Answer 9

-It is the idea that when a complex behaviour is reduced down to a single variable cause, you are reducing behaviour down to it being cause by one thing
-If the behaviour is suggested to be caused by a single variable = reductionism

-Reductionism works on the idea of parsimony which argues, by Morgan (1903), that there was no need to explain behaviour in terms of complex processes and that explanations should be made as simple as possible

Question 10

Holism and Reductionism
-Holism definition

Answer 10

-It is the idea that behaviour should be viewed as complex and viewed as a whole part not as separate parts
-When several levels of explanation are used for a human behaviour

Question 11

Holism and Reductionism
-Levels of explanation in psychology

Answer 11

-The notion of ‘levels of explanation’ suggests that there are different ways of viewing the same phenomena in psychology. The reductionist approach argues explanations begin at the highest level and progressively reduce to consider behaviours at component elements

Highest level -> Cultural and social explanations of how our social group effects our behaviour. Memory is influenced by cultural expectations
Middle level -> Psychological explanations of behaviour. Psychological factors influence memory e.g. elaborative rehearsal
Lower level -> Biological explanations. Biological aspects like genes and hormones affect our behaviour and influence memory

Question 12

Holism and Reductionism
-Biological reductionism

Answer 12

-Biological reductionism is based on the premise that we are biological organisms made up of physiological structures and processes
-Because of this, behaviour is always at some level biological and can be explained through neurochemical activity, neurophysiology and evolutionary influence. This also means that biological measures can be used to record behaviour
-Biological reductionist measures include; biochemistry, genetics and neuroanatomy

Question 13

Holism and Determinism
-Environmental (stimulus-response) reductionism description

Answer 13

-The behaviourist approach is built on environmental reductionism:
1. It suggests that only observable behaviour should be studied, and that all behaviour can be broken up into stimulus-response links that take place in a person’s environment and that these are also measurable within a laboratory
2. Because of this , behaviourists do not recognise psychological levels of explanation, such as the role of mental cognitions.
-An example of S-R reductionism is that when a snake comes towards you, you run away. We haven’t all had close contact to a snake but we know to remove ourselves so that we don’t get bitten (biological preparedness)

Question 14

Holism and Determinism
-Environmental (stimulus-response) reductionism methods

Answer 14

-2 environmental reductionist methods;

1. Social learning theory. Children will copy the behaviour of their role model (often a same-sex parent)
2. The mother becomes the conditioned stimulus who becomes associated with the pleasure from feeding. The child therefore feels pleasure when near the mother. This leads to attachment

Question 15

Nature v Nurture debate
-Nature definition

Answer 15

-Nature refers to all of the genes and hereditary factors that influence who we are - from our physical appearance to our personality characteristics
-Nativism -> The nature side of the debate
-Plato and Descartes suggested that certain things are inborn, or that they occur naturally regardless of environmental influences

Question 16

Nature v Nurture debate
-Nurture definition

Answer 16

-Nurture refers to all the environmental variables that impact who we are, including our early childhood experiences, how we were raised, our social relationship, and our surrounding culture
-Empiricism -> The nurture side of the debate
-Tabula rasa (a blank slate at birth) was created by John Locke

Question 17

The Nurture v Nature debate
-Introduction

Answer 17

-The debate has adapted from nature v nurture, to how much nature and nurture is responsible for our behaviour
-The interactionist approach has developed from the argument and is the view that both nature and nurture work together to shape human behaviour and account numerous factors (e.g. environment, genetic inheritance etc)

Question 18

The Nurture v Nature debate
-The relative importance of heredity and the environment

Answer 18

-Heredity refers to the genetic transmission of mental and physical characteristics from one generation to another
-Environment is any influence on human behaviour that is non-genetic (this may range from prenatal influences in the womb to cultural and historical influences in society)
-Epigenetics -> small changes make large differences
-The Heritability Coefficient -> It is used to assess heredity. It is a numerical figure ranging from 0 to 1.0 which indicates the extent that the characteristic has a genetic basis (a value of 1 means it is entirely genetically determined). An example is that the general heritability for IQ is accepted to be 0.5, suggesting that both genetics and the environment are important factors that influence IQ

Question 19

Nature v Nurture debate
-The interactionist approach

Answer 19

-The diathesis-stress model is a model of mental illness that influences the interaction of nature and nurture influences. The model states that both a genetic predisposition to a mental disorder and environmental stressors are necessary for a condition to affect an individual
-What is inherited in some cases of mental disorders is a predisposition to be vulnerable to it, not the disorder itself
-Epigenetics refers to a change in our genetic expression without changing our genetic code. It is a process that happens throughout our life and is caused by interaction with the environment
-Aspects of our environment and lifestyle (e.g. smoking, diet) leave epigenetic marks on our DNA. These marks tell our bodies which genes to use and which to ignore

Question 20

Gender and culture in psychology
-Universality and bias

Answer 20

-Universality refers to when research assumes the findings can be applied to both genders equally, or to all cultures equally
-There are 3 types of bias; androcentrism, alpha and beta bias
-Androcentrism -> This refers to theories which are centered on males or focused on males only. This can occur if all male samples are used in research and then a theory is generated from research which is applied to both genders
-Alphas bias -> This occurs when the differences between men and women are exaggerated
-Beta bias -> This occurs when the differences between men and women are minimised (Rosenthal 1966 reported that male experimenters were more pleasant, friendly, honest and encouraging with female than male participants- this concludes that male and female subjects may, psychologically, not be in the same experiment at all.

Question 21

Gender and culture in psychology
-Cultural bias

Answer 21

-Culture bias -> The act of interpreting and judging behaviour and psychological characteristics of one culture by holding them to the standards of your own
-Ethnocentrism -> Inappropriately generalising the values and research findings of one culture to another without bothering to test other cultures (can cause cultural bias)
-An etic approach may amplify cultural bias. This is where research is carried out across cultures in order to discover what elements of a behaviour might be universal (e.g. Berry). Berry argues that psychology is often guilty of making imposed etic, developing universal models and theories of human behaviour which come about through studying 1 specific culture
-Yerkes research that skewed African-American intelligence in WW1, lead to many African-Americans being refused promotions

Question 22

Gender and culture in psychology
-Cultural relativism

Answer 22

-Cultural relativism is the belief that you need to consider the behaviour being studied and the context it is in
-One way to overcome the problem could be to employ an emic approach, to help reduce cultural bias
-It refers to research that aims to study human behaviour in 1 culture, without applying the behaviour elsewhere
-A problem with this is that it is very hard to get a true understanding of the culture if you are not a member of it, especially when carrying out experiments where there is limited contact, and usually a small sample e.g. Fiji men prefer larger women, which is unknown about if you’re not from Fiji

Question 23

Idiographic and Nomothetic approaches
-Intro/basics

Answer 23

-The debate refers to the question about whether psychology should focus its attention on the individual or people in general
-Should psychology aim to produce generalities against which people should be compared or measured or should it be concerned what makes people unique

Question 24

Idiographic and Nomothetic approaches
-The idiographic approach

Answer 24

-This approach attempts to explain the nature of individuals. It argues people should be studied as unique entities, each with their own subjective experiences, motivations and values that contribute to individual development
-The idiographic approach is normally associated with methods that produce qualitative data, such as; non-numerical data, verbal expression (thoughts and feelings) and results can be produced as quotes
-You cannot make generalisable laws with this approach

Question 25

Idiographic and Nomothetic approaches
-The nomothetic approach

Answer 25

-The main aim of the nomothetic approach is to produce general laws of human behaviour. They can provide a benchmark against which people can be compared, classified or measured
-From this, future behaviour can be predicted and even controlled
-According to Radford and Kirby (1975), the nomothetic approach has produced 3 general laws in psychology:
1) Classifying people into groups
2) Establishing principles of behaviour that can be applied to people in general
3) Establishing dimensions along which people can be placed, compared, measured
-The approach is normally associated with scientific methods that produce quantitative data and aim to study large numbers of people, in order to establish ways in which people are similar

Question 26

Idiographic and Nomothetic approaches
-A combination approach

Answer 26

-Rather than saying idiographic and nomothetic approaches are mutually exclusive, it is the view of many psychologists that many behaviours and issues must be considered from both perspectives
-Million and Davis (1996) suggest that research should start with a nomothetic approach and, once general laws have been produced, the focus should switch to an idiographic approach to develop out understanding and theories

Question 27

Ethical Implications of Research and Theory
-Ethical implications, guidelines and issues

Answer 27

-The ethical implications of psychological research are concerned with the way research impacts directly on those who participate in studies, as well as the wider impact of the research findings on specific societal groups participants represent, and wider society itself. Ethical implications can impact wider society in terms of; the rights of people in the research and the impact on wider society (the influencing of public policy and the way certain social groups are treated or the perception of certain groups of people)
-Ethical guidelines -> Rights to withdraw, debriefing, protection from harm, deception, informed consent, confidentiality, lack of right to withdraw
-An ethical issue arises when there is conflict between what a researcher wants to do and the rights/protection of the participants e.g. a lack of informed consent, deception, issues with protection from harm

Question 28

Ethical Implications of Research and Theory
-Social sensitivity

Answer 28

-Sieber and Stanley (1988) define socially sensitive as; ‘studies in which there are potential consequences or implications, either directly for the participants involved in the research or for the class of individuals represented by the research’
-Examples of socially sensitive psychological research;
1. Fallon -> A neuroscientist who discovered that individuals who demonstrate psychopathic personality traits display low patterns of brain activity in their frontal lobes
2. The schizophrenogenic mother

-Sieber and Stanley identified 4 aspects in the research process that could bring about social consequences;
1. The research question -> Asking a research question may be damaging to members of a particular group because it appears to add scientific credibility to prevailing prejudice
2. Conduct of research and treatment of ppts’s -> The researcher needs to consider the treatment of the participants and their right to confidentiality and anonymity
3. The institutional context -> The researcher should be mindful of how the data will be used and who is funding the research
4. Interpretation and application of findings -> The researcher needs to consider how their findings might be interpreted and applied in the real-world

Question 29

Ethical Implications of Research and Theory
-BPS guidelines

Answer 29

-The BPS also outline the following 4 ethical principles of research, which researchers must adhere to:
1. Respect -> Showing respect for the participants, treating them well, protecting them from harm
2. Competence -> Improving professional knowledge, writing reports clearly
3. Responsibility -> Taking responsibility for poor study practices
4. Keeping to the professional standards of the field and having strong moral values

Question 30

Gender and culture bias
-Research support

Answer 30

-Ainsworth only looked at attachment types in 100 American families
-Milgram researched American participants
-Beck and Ellis researched American norms to depression
-Zimbardo researched conformity of roles in American ppt’s

Question 31

Free will and determinism
-Research support

Answer 31

-Free will -> Humanism strongly believes in free will (the only approach to do so). Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow believe that free will and is necessary to achieve self-actualisation. Humanism believes we have personal agency, the ability to make up our mind irregardless of influence
-Determinism -> Environmental determinism. The ppt’s in Asch, Milgram and Zimbardo largely acted out of pressures from their environments. It could be argued that they wouldn’t have normally acted like this, but their environment determined their behaviour

Question 32

Nature and nurture
-Research support

Answer 32

-Nature -> Evolutionary explanations of human behaviour exemplify the nature approach in psychology. The main assumption underlying this approach is that it any particular behaviour has evolved because of its survival value
-Nurture -> The behaviourist approach is an example of the nurture position in psychology as it assumes that all behaviour is learned through the environment. An example is the social learning of aggression, using the bobo doll. The SLT proposes that much of what we learn is through observation and vicarious reinforcement.

Question 33

Holism and reductionism
-Research support

Answer 33

-Reductionism (environmental) -> A snake phobia can be explained as learned through explanation of a snake bite, where fear and pain are associated with the snake, so they will, in future, avoid snakes
-Holism -> Family dysfunction as a reason for schizophrenia is more holistic. It includes; schizophrenogenic mother, double-bind hypothesis and high-expressed emotion

Question 34

Idiographic and nomothetic
-Research support

Answer 34

-Idiographic -> Unique individuals allow us to study problems we could not create on a mass scale e.g. Phineas Gage or Eve White
-Nomothetic -> This approach creates practical applications through its assumption that what is found in small samples can be applied to wider populations e.g. through studying a small schizophrenic sample and creating drug therapy

Question 35

Ethical implications and social sensitivity
-Research support

Answer 35

-Social sensitivity -> The schizophrenogenic mother. Cold and distant mothers towards their children were thought to cause schizophrenia, however this is seen as socially sensitive as it is offensive
-Ethics -> The American Psychological Association (APA 2001) reported that ethical committees approved 95% of non-sensitive proposals that didn’t include ethical problems whereas ‘sensitive’ proposals were only approved about 50% of the time. This demonstrates an avoidance with offensive proposals to avoid criticism of studies.