issues and debates

Question 1

free will and determinism

Answer 1

free will
-humans make own decisions
-not determined by internal/external factors
- e.g humanistic

AO3
:) reflects everyday experiences (face validity)
:( brain studies revealed evidence against (Libet and Soon, brain scan when decision making shows brain activity 10s before participant noted being consciously aware)

determinism
-all behaviour determined by internal/external factors
-soft determinism, acknowledge free will e.g slt
-hard determinism, no free will e.g behaviourist
-biological, psychic and environmental determinism

AO3
:)consistent with aims of science
:( inconsistent with legal system, works as alibi
:(not falsifiable, states causes will always be there even if not found so therefore cannot be proven wrong

scientific emphasis on causal explanations
-all behaviour has a cause
-similar to hard determinism
-lab studies can demonstrate these
-causes of behaviour explained by general laws/principles

Question 2

reductionism vs holism

Answer 2

reductionism
-behaviour best understood when broken down into individual parts
e.g biological into genes

-levels of explanation
-social and cultural, psychological, biological

AO3
:)scientific credibility
:(lack of validity as oversimplifies complex structures

Holism
-behaviour best understood as a whole
e.g humanism

AO3
:)explains aspects of social behaviour e.g within a group setting such as deindividualization
:(impractical due to being vague and unscientific

:)both dsm

Question 3

nature vs nurture

Answer 3

nature
-inherited influences
-human characteristics are innate (Descartes)
e.g biological

AO3
:)biological determinism

nurture
-environmental influences
-birth- mind = blank slate and with age it gets written on
-Locke, Skinner
e.g behaviourists

A03
:(environmental determinism

Interactionism
-considers both nature and nurture and how they interact together
-both internal/external factors
-epigenetics (change in genetic activity without changing genetic code, happens through lifetime) e.g Dias an Ressner, gave mice shock when exposed to smell, gradually mice showed fear to this smell, mices offsping too had fear to this smell

Diathesis stress model
diathesis + stressor = behaviour
e.g crime gene + exposure to criminals = crime

AO3
:) relates to other debates e.g determinisms
:) maguire (interactionist)
:) treatments
:(concordance rates

Question 4

idiographic and nomothetic

Answer 4

idiographic
-idios= private
-focus on individual and their own experiences
-case studies e.g little Hans
-unstructured interviews
-qualitative data

AO3
:)rich data e.g HM
:(unable to generalise

Nomothetic
-nomos- laws
-general laws and principles we can apply to everyone
-lab studies/structured interviews
-quantitative data

AO3
:)scientific due to standardised procedures
:(loss of whole person, people treated like a set of scores

Question 5

gender bias

Answer 5

-treating one gender different to another
-universality, characteristics/behaviours applied to all
-alpha bias, exaggerates differences
-beta bias, minimises differences
-androcentrism, judge behaviour according to male standard

AO3
:( sexism/misleading assumptions about women, allows for prejudice (Dalton, menstrual cycle= low IQ)
:) understanding gender bias leads to reflexivity, leads to greater awareness BUT male dominated field
:(researcher bias, nicer to females
:) equal playing field

Question 6

culture bias

Answer 6

-Interpret behaviour through lens of certain culture
-ethnocentrism, judge other cultures based on our own
-cultural relativism, ideas only relative to culture they are formed in e.g ss or definitions of abnormality

Berry
emic- within culture and applied to specific culture

etic- study outside of culture but described as universal (imposed etic when research came about through emics)

imposed etic- behaviour seen in one culture and assumed for all e.g SS

AO3
:( cross cultural research prone to demand characteristics due to unfamiliarity
:) cross cultural research challenges western assumptions
:) recognition of culturally relativism, imposed etic, should assume no such thing as universal behaviour
:( globalisaation, monoculture
:( racism

Question 7

ethical implications

Answer 7

-socially sensitive
(most likely to have ethical implications)
-Aronson, psychologists have duty to conduct socially sensitive research
-Sieber and Stanley, need to consider
1ethics (individuals, group, society)
2use/policy
3validity/objectivity

AO3
:) benefits, promotes understanding which can reduce prejudice
:)understands damage, Packard- coca-cola sales increased after prodcuts flashed on cinema screen too quickly for audience to be aware (later revealed these findings were made up)
BURT 11+
:(used for social control, 1920/30s us states legalised compulsory mass sterilisation, judged on those ‘feeble minded’ and a drain to society e.g drug addicts
:(costs and benefits can be hard to predict