Issues And Debates

Question 1

What is universality?

Answer 1

The idea that there are a range of psychological characteristics of human beings that can be applied to all of us despite differences of experiences, upbringing, gender or cultural background

Question 2

What is gender bias?

Answer 2

Misrepresentation of the gender differences and similarities between males and females

Question 3

What is being androcentric?

Answer 3

Having a biased view, taking the masculine perspective with male behaviour as normal. Due to psychology being historically conducted by men and on male samples

Question 4

What is alpha bias?

Answer 4

Exaggeration of gender differences

Question 5

What is beta bias?

Answer 5

Minimisation of gender differences

Question 6

What is cultural bias?

Answer 6

Researchers judging other cultures from the researchers cultural perspective/value

Question 7

What is ethnocentrism ?

Answer 7

Researchers take their own cultural behaviour as normal

Question 8

What is cultural relativism?

Answer 8

Suggests behaviour can only be understood from the perspective of its cultural context

Question 9

What did Heinrich (2010) find?

Answer 9

Psychological findings are argued to be universal but are conducted on WEIRD participant. Western, educated, industrialised, rich, democratic. 68 percent of research subjects in a sample of hundreds of studies in leading psychology journals came from the United States, and 96% from western industrialised nations

Question 10

Gender evaluation in psychology?

Answer 10

Psychology is changing, with the increased prominence of female psychology researchers such as Loftus and ainsworth and the majority of influential historical studies now conducted controlling for gender. However, a significant amount of influential historical studies such as Asch and Milgram and Zimbardo only contained male participants

Question 11

do researchers represent cultural differences?

Answer 11

Some researchers are attempting to represent cultural differences in behaviours such as Buss including 37 cultures in his study on mate preferences. There is also an increase in indigenous psychology, with researchers from varying cultures investigating their own cultures

Question 12

Why does the majority of research take place in American colleges?

Answer 12

Easy to obtain the samples of American universities

Question 13

What is determinism?

Answer 13

Idea that behaviour is internal and/or external forces that we have no control over

Question 14

What are some deterministic forces?

Answer 14

Biological: genes, brain structure and neurochemsity

Envrionmental: conditional, social learning, cultural

Psychic: unconscious Freudian concepts such as the ID/ defence mechanisms

Question 15

What are hard determinists?

Answer 15

Suggests all events and behaviour can be completely described and predicted with no role for personal decision making (free will).

Question 16

What are soft determinists?

Answer 16

suggest there is still some role for conscious decision making as an expression of free will but behaviour are a result of personal conscious decision making in constrained by deterministic causal factors

Question 17

What is free will?

Answer 17

Idea that our decisions and behaviours are a result of personal conscious decision making in constrained by deterministic causal factors

Question 18

What is the scientific emphasis?

Answer 18

Emphasis on causal explanations depends on determinism. Using controlled conditions to demonstrate a causal relationship between manipulation of independent variables and changes in the dependent variable

Question 19

Validity of free will?

Answer 19

High face validity, personal experience suggests we make our decisions and act after conscious thought. However determinists argue this is an illusion and decisions are made before we are consciously aware of them.

Question 20

How does the criminal justice system use determinism?

Answer 20

Deterministic arguments for behaviour such as aggression has important implications for the justice system, undermining the principle that the individual is fully accountable for their actions.

Question 21

How do deterministic theories impact our understanding?

Answer 21

Correct child rearing, provision of education and blame for addiction

Question 22

Scientific approaches and determinism

Answer 22

Deterministic, behaviourist, biological, cognitive (soft), with only humanistic supporting free will, humanisms also rejects the scientific process suggesting free will is incompatible with science

Question 23

does high concordance rate indicate causality?

Answer 23

Not 100%, potentially soft determinism or multiple deterministic factors that have not been fully identified

Question 24

What does neurological research suggest?

Answer 24

Neurological EEG a research by Libert (1983) demonstrates brain regions decide to act before consciousness is aware of making the decision suggesting no free will. Has been backed up with FMRI, Hynes 2008

Question 25

What is the nature nurture debate?

Answer 25

Extent behaviour is determined by the influence of hereditary nature factors (genes) or environmental nurture factors (experiences and the relative importance/ combination of both

Question 26

What is nature?

Answer 26

Philosophical nativists such as Descartes assume biological heredity (genes) is more important in determining behaviour, that much of knowledge is present from birth (innate)

Question 27

What is nurture?

Answer 27

Philosophical empiricists such as Locke assume learning/environment is more important in determining behaviour, as knowledge come from interaction with the world. Mind starts as a blank slate or tabula rasa

Question 28

What view do most psychologists take (nature vs nurture)

Answer 28

Interactionist approach suggesting behaviours are due to the combination and interaction nature and nurture influences

Question 29

What does the interactionist approach include?

Answer 29

Diathesis stress models, due to genetic factor we are at risk/ predisposed to a disorder like schizophrenia, but environmental triggers must be present in order for it to develop. Epigenetics, genes are not always activated at birth.

Question 30

What do studies show about nature

Answer 30

Evidence for biological, evidence for biological origin of behaviour include genetic evidence for disorders like schizophrenia, evolutionarily arguments for mate preference and neurotransmitter (dopamine/serotonin) evidence for aggression

Question 31

What do studies show about nurture?

Answer 31

Origin of behaviour are social learning theory experiments such as banduras bobo doll and behaviourists studies on conditioning processes.

Question 32

How are both nature and nurture deterministic?

Answer 32

Differ in which factors they suggest control behaviour. Biological, for nature and environmental for nurture with no role for free will.

Question 33

How do twin studies support nature?

Answer 33

MZ a twins often show higher concordance rates than DZ twins for behaviour and disorders despite both sets sharing similar environments

Question 34

What is reductionism?

Answer 34

Explaining behaviour in terms of its fundamental constituent explanations, this is based in the scientific principle of parsimony, that simple explanations for phenomena (like behaviour) are preferable to unnecessary complexity

Question 35

What are biological reductionists?

Answer 35

Psychologists suggest the most important fundamental explanations for behaviour are physical biology such as presence of genes/neurotransmitters

Question 36

What are environments reductionists?

Answer 36

Behaviourists suggest the most important fundamental explanations for behaviour are simple stimulus-response mechanisms of reinforcement. With even complex behaviour being a series of S-R relationships

Question 37

What are levels of explanation in psychology?

Answer 37

Idea that behaviours can be explained form a lower/fundamental level, focusing on basic components. To explanations for behaviour including higher more complex explanations for behaviour including social cultural.

Question 38

What is holism?

Answer 38

Explaining behaviour using a range of variables across multiple levels including fundamental biological/environmental but also complex variables such how socio cultural experiences influence behaviour

Question 39

How has the reductionist approach helped mental health?

Answer 39

Led to highly effective treatments such as isolating neurotransmitters resulting in effective drug therapy (biological). Counter conditioning (environmental) from identifying S/R

Question 40

What do humanistic psychologists argue?

Answer 40

Humans cannot be reduced to simple bio-mechanistic processes. Holism appreciates interaction and complexity of human experience that is missed in reductionism.

Question 41

How is the cognitive approach reductionist?

Answer 41

Simplifies simple mental processes to simplistic theoretical models of information processing. Ignoring the complexity of mental processes interacting with each other.

Question 42

How is psychology viewed more seriously as a science?

Answer 42

When it takes a reductionist approach in identifying fundamental variables, allowing fro greater objective test ability/falsifiability using experimental techniques.

Question 43

How have reductionist approaches helped us understand behaviour?

Answer 43

Helped us understand the cause of human behaviour such as aggression, relationships and schizophrenia but explanations may lack validity due to lacking complexity and context.

Question 44

What are ideographic approaches?

Answer 44

Qualitative techniques to study the individual in depth. Focus is on describing the uniqueness of the subjects personal experience, not providing general laws or theories of human behaviour that apply to all. Research methods include case studies, unstructured interviews and observations

Question 45

What approaches use ideographic techniques?

Answer 45

Humanistic and psychodynamic use ideographic techniques. Humanists see each individual as fundamentally unique, suggesting it is meaningless to produce general laws of behaviour. Freud did produce laws of behaviour but created these from ideographic case studies such as Little Hanz. Others use case studies for theory generation

Question 46

What are nomothetic approaches?

Answer 46

Quantitative techniques to study populations, then using this data construct general testable theories/laws/classifications that apply to all. Scientific experimentation that is objective and controlled is primary research method. Data produced is assessed with inferential statistics before it is accepted.

Question 47

Which approaches are seen as nomothetic?

Answer 47

Biological, behaviourist and cognitive as they assume the same principles apply across all humans and have developed and tested their theories by replicable experimental techniques

Question 48

What is replication?

Answer 48

Nomothetic techniques with clear procedures are replicable. Using statistical methods psychologists are able to generalise findings and predict future behaviour and create reliable treatments.

Question 49

What is superficial?

Answer 49

Nomothetic criteria tested do not give a full picture of an individual. Two people with an OCD diagnosis are likely to have very different personal experiences even if they have the same gene in common

Question 50

What is hypothesis generation?

Answer 50

Ideographic case studies cannot demonstrate the validity of a hypothesis due to the small sample. However unusual cases can generate new interesting areas of research, or overturn old incorrect theories.

Question 51

What is subjectivity?

Answer 51

Ideographic researchers intensive data collection techniques such as longitudinal case-studies can result in the researcher losing objectivity and introducing bias into the interpretation of the data collected.

Question 52

What is complementary?

Answer 52

Th strengths of both methods mean each is more appropriate in particular research circumstances. Using idiographic can give depth and description to established nomothetic laws of behaviour that provides high predictive value.

Question 53

What are ethical implications?

Answer 53

Considering how the findings from psychological research could go on to actually influence the lives of the individuals studied, the subgroups investigated and wider society

Question 54

What would effects on participants be for ethical implications?

Answer 54

Taking part in the research was directly distressing, stigma from friends, family or the media.

Question 55

What are the effect of ethical implications on the wider public?

Answer 55

Could result in subgroups becoming stigmatised or negative changes in wider society’s behaviour. Biased reporting could misrepresent the findings. Findings could be used by governments to justify political decisions/laws that disadvantage groups. Funding for future psychological research could be affected.

Question 56

What is social sensitivity?

Answer 56

Sieber and Stanley (1988) studies in which there are potential social consequences of implications, either directly for the participants in research or the class of individuals represented by the research

Question 57

How can the researcher consider ethical implications?

Answer 57

Following ethical guidelines which includes:
Protecting participants - offering support and ensuring confidentiality
Conducing a cost benefit analysis considering if the potential long term benefits of the research outweigh any short term costs.

Question 58

Examples of socially sensitive studies/theories?

Answer 58

Bowlby, effects on working mothers
Diagnosis of mental health, do cognitive explanations blame the victim
Biological theories of crime and aggression giving excuses to criminals
Evolutionarily explanations for relationships, legitimising a gender double standard

Question 59

How can researchers deal with Sieber and Stanley’s implications?

Answer 59

Carefully choosing the research question, methodology, how the information is going to be used in the institutional context and interpreted by society. This is a process of reflexivity, the researcher carefully considering their own role, responsibilities and influential position.

Question 60

What can excessive concern lead to?

Answer 60

Avoiding topics such as ethnicity, gender and sexuality leading to these groups becoming under-represented in psychological research.

Question 61

How does not considering the public response lead to negative effects for psychology?

Answer 61

Research by milgram, Zimbardo and Harlow damaged psychology’s reputation and this can lead to less funding