Issues and Debates Flashcards
What is free will?
We are responsible for our own actions, we have a choice in life
What is determinism?
We have no control over behaviour, everything in life is pre determined
What did Libet find and what does this support?
Brain activity
Found that the movement of the hand came first so this support determinism
Limitation of free will?
No true scientific evidence
What is hard determinism?
Behaviour is all pre-determined and free-will is non existent
What is soft determinism?
Where there is a cause of behaviour like environment or biological but
There is some decision making involved, doesn’t completely eliminate free-will
What is nature?
Innate characteristic - genes, hormones, brain structure
What is nurture? What did Lerner find as the contributing factors?
Experiences growing up
Mothers physical and psychological state during pregnancy
How do we measure nature vs nurture?
Twin/adoption studies
Concordance rates
What is the interactionist approach?
Nature & nurture both involved and work together
Two examples of interactionist approach?
Epigenetics
Diathesis - stress model
What is holism?
Human behaviour should be viewed as a whole integrated experience and not in separate parts
What is reductionist?
Reducing something to its simple parts
What is a causal explanation?
Where the cause and effect are clearly stated. In a test of difference
What is a nomothetic approach?
Collects quantitative data from large samples to establish general laws/patterns in behaviour
What is idiographic approach?
Collects qualitative data from in-depth studies of unique experiences of individuals
What are some ways to conduct a nomothetic approach?
Experiments, questionnaires with closed questions (yes or no)
What are the ways in which you can conduct a idiographic approach?
Case studies, questionnaire with open questions (long sentences)
What is socially sensitivity in research?
Findings in research that can harm and have negative implications on a particular group
What are the ways in which researchers can deal with social sensitivity?
The research question - really think about who the question can harm
Confidentiality and anonymity
Funding - how do they intend to use the findings
What is machine reductionist?
Reducing individuals to a computer
What is gender bias?
The differential treatment or representation of men and women based on stereotype
What is alpha bias?
Tendency to exaggerate differences between men and women (suggesting there is a difference)
What is an example of alpha bias?
Psychodynamic approach to offending behaviour
What is androcentrism?
Example?
A male-centred understanding of human behaviour
Zimbardo, Asch and Milgrim. Done on all men
What is beta bias?
A tendency to minimise differences between men and women
What is ethnocentrism?
Emphasising the importance of the behaviour from ones own culture
What did Heinrich find?
Found 68% of participants were Americans and 96% were from industrialised nations
What is cultural bias?
Tendency to judge all cultures and individuals the same
What is biological determinism?
Emphasis on behaviour being the result of biological factors, physiological factors (hormones and genes) and neurological (brain structure) are out of our control
What is environmental determinism?
Our behaviour is shaped by our experiences/environmental effects (conditioning and socialisation from teachers)
What is psychic determinism?
Free will is an illusion, our behaviour is governed by biological factors and instincts we have no control over
What are the ways of reducing cultural bias?
Carry out cross cultural research
Do not assume universal norms/standards
What is an example of ethnocentrism?
Strange situation - western culture
What are the strengths of the idiographic approach?
Focusses on the individual, can really explain behaviour and Illnesses if we look into someone
What are the negatives to the idiographic approach?
Not very scientific, can’t generalise to the whole population. OCD patients, be too time consuming to conduct individual research on every person
How has idiographic and nomothetic been used together?
Memory, Atkinson and shiffrin, multi-store model BUT KF (idiographic) showed us that these stores are too complicated which helped the development of baddeleys working memory model
What is biological reductionism?
Psychologists try to reduce behaviour down to one aspect and explain it using neurotransmitters, brain structure etc
What is environmental reductionism?
Can reduce simple behaviour down to simple stimuli - response associations
