Issues and Debates

Question 1

What is universality?

Answer 1

• Universality is when conclusions drawn from studies can be applied to everyone, regardless of time, culture or gender.
• Many dispute this claim by pointing to different biases in psychology.

Question 2

What is gender bias?

Answer 2

• Gender bias is when psychological research offers a view that does not justifiably represent the experience of both men and women.

Question 3

What is alpha bias?

What is an example of alpha bias?

Answer 3

• Alpha bias is a type of gender bias.
• This is when there is a misrepresentation of data because research exaggerates the differences between the genders.
• One example of alpha bias is research into relationship formation, which states that men need to impregnate as many women as possible to increase the chances of his genes being passed on, whilst women should focus on ensuring the survival of their few children; this promotes the idea that promiscuity is genetically determined in men and abnormal in women.

Question 4

What is beta bias?

What is an example of beta bias?

Answer 4

• Beta bias is a type of gender bias.
• This is when there is a misrepresentation of data because research minimises the differences between the genders.
• An example of this is in the fight-or-flight response, a study that was assumed to be generalisable to both men and women, however, research by Taylor et al (2000) suggested that women have a tendency to tend and befriend instead.

Question 5

What is androcentrism?

Answer 5

• Androcentrism is a possible consequence of beta bias.
• This is the idea that ‘normal behaviour’ is deduced from male-centred research.
• Therefore, behaviour which deviates from this, including female behaviour, can be seen as misunderstood or pathologised.

Question 6

What is a solution for gender bias?

Answer 6

• Worell (1992) put forward a number of criteria to ensure gender bias can be avoided in research:
• This includes women being studied within meaningful life contexts, women genuinely participating in psychological research, and diversity within groups of women should be examined.
• There should be more collaborative research methods that collect qualitative data.

Question 7

What are 3 negative consequences of gender bias?

Answer 7

• Psychology may be guilty of supporting institutional sexism, as male researchers are more likely to have their research published compared to female researchers.
• Gender biased research may provide scientific justification for the mistreatment of women, such as when ‘scientific research’ in the 1930s suggested that women with intellectual activity have lower chances to concieve.
• Gender differences are based on the essentialist view (gender differences are determined by nature), however, this may not be the case, as there are societies where men and women are both able to work and share child care.

Question 8

What is the largest demographic in psychology?

Answer 8

• In 1992, 64% out of 56000 psychology researchers were American.
• In 1991, 94% of psychology studies were conducted in North America.
• The largest demographic in psychology belongs to white American men.

Question 9

What piece of research evidence rejects universality in terms of culture?

Answer 9

• Milgram’s (1963) and Asch’s (1951) studies were originally conducted in North America.
• Different results were obtained when replicated in other parts of the world.
• Therefore, there are pieces of research that do not have universality as they cannot be generalised to other cultures.

Question 10

What is cultural bias?

How can this be reduced?

Answer 10

• Cultural bias is the tendency to judge people in terms of one’s own cultural assumptions.
• In order to reduce this, researchers should attempt to ensure they do not extrapolate findings or theories to cultures that are not represented in the research sample or assumes that there are norms that carry over between cultures.
• Researchers should be native to the culture being investigated and carry out a cross-cultural research rather than research with a sole culture. They must also be sensitive to social social norms when designing research.

Question 11

What is Ethnocentrism?

Answer 11

• Ethnocentrism refers to emphasising the importance of the behaviour of one’s own culture.
• In psychology, this states that behaviours of a certain culture are normal, and any culture with behaviour that deviates from these norms can be viewed as abnormal.

Question 12

What is an example of ethnocentrism in psychological research?

Answer 12

• An example of ethnocentrism in psychological research is in Mary Ainsworth’s strange situation. This assumes that a securely attached child would show moderate distress when their caregiver left them, and if this didn’t happen, the babies were insecure.
• Babies in Germany were found to show little distress when their caregiver left them. The ethnocentric view is to label the babies as insecure and their mothers as cold and rejecting, however, the babies behaviour could be German mothers encouraging independence

Question 13

What is cultural relativism?

Answer 13

• Cultural relativism 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.

Question 14

What are 3 points which emphasise cultural bias in psychology?

Answer 14

• Psychologists have referred to individualistic (mostly western, values personal freedom and independence) and collectivist cultures (such as India or China, places emphasis on the needs of the group). Tokano and Osaka (1999) compared the US and Japan, finding that there was no evidence of the traditional distinction between individualistic and collectivist cultures.
• Cohrane and Sashidharan (1995) found that African - Carribean immigrants are more likely to be diagnosed with mental illness, leading many to question the validity of the DSM and ICD for diagnosing individuals outside of the culture they were developed in.
• Some illnesses exist in cultures that don’t exist in others, such as brain fag in West Africa or koro in China.

Question 15

What evidence supports universality in terms of culture?

Answer 15

• The basic facial expression of each human is the same in all cultures and even in the animal kingdom.
• Interactional synchronicity between an infant and a caregiver can be observed in all cultures.

Question 16

How can culture bias be prevented?

Answer 16

• Culture bias can be prevented by using cross-cultural research.
• This shows that some knowledge and concepts are not shared by other people around the world.
• This increases the validity of psychologists and counters the charge of scientific racism made against some theories in the past.

Question 17

What is free will?

Answer 17

• Free will is the notion which suggests that human beings are self-determining and able to choose our thoughts and actions.
• The humanistic approach considers people to have free will.

Question 18

What is determinism?

What is hard/soft determinism?

Answer 18

• Determinism is the idea that our traits and behaviours are outside of our control. The two types of determinism are:
• Hard Determinism: Proposes that all a person’s traits and behaviours are entirely out of their control - everything we think, feel and do are dictated by external, uncontrollable forces we may not be aware of.
• Soft Determinism: Traits and behaviours are determined by internal or external forces but an individual can still exercise some control via thought processes. This is what the cognitive approach adheres to.

Question 19

Is science deterministic?

Answer 19

• Science is heavily deterministc
• This is because it seeks to determine whether the independent variable leads to changes in the dependent varaible.
• The goal is to be able to predict (and therefore control) human behaviour.

Question 20

What are 3 different variations of determinism?

Answer 20

• Biological determinism: Argues that all of our traits are governed by internal biological factors, such as genes, neurochemistry, etc. Furthermore, many brain processes are not under conscious control, such as the autonomic nervous system. Some behaviours are thought to be the result of hormones such as testosterone.
• Environmental determinism: Argues that traits and behaviours are governed by external forces, such as experiences, upbringing, etc. The behavioural approach argues that ‘choice’ is the sum total of reinforcement contingencies that have acted upon us throughout our lives.
• Phycic determinism: Argues that traits and behaviours are governed by unconscious instincts and drives. The psychodynamic approach argues that human behaviour is directed by unconscious conflicts repressed in childhood. Even an accident like a ‘slip of the tongue’ is explained to be caused by the unconscious.

Question 21

What are 3 strengths of determinism?

Answer 21

• It is fundamental to the scientific proccess of investigating causes of behaviour and predicting behaviour.
• Predictions of human behaviour have lead to the development of therapies such as psychotherapeutic drugs to manage schizophrenia.
• Chun Siong Soon et al. (2008) measured the brain waves of a participant asked to push a button with their left or right hand; brain imaging showed that they had subconsciously made their decision before they were consciously aware of it.

Question 22

What are 2 strengths of free will?

Answer 22

• Free will has more face validity, as everyday experience shows people exercising their free will.
• Roberts et al (2000) found that adolescents with the belief that their lives were determined by events out of their control (external locus of control) were less mentally healthy than those with a belief of free will (internal locus of control).

Question 23

What is the nature nurture debate?

Answer 23

• Nature: Nativist theory: knowledge and abilities are innate, and assumes that heredity, genes, hormones, etc are more important in determining someone’s characteristics.
• Nurture: Empricist theory: knowledge is derived from learning. Environmental influences are acquired through interactions with the environment. This assumes that a person’s experiences are more important in determining their charactersitics.

Question 24

What are 2 pieces of research evidence that supports nature?

Answer 24

• Biological approach: The concordance rates for mental disorders are higher in monozygotic (identical) twins at 40% than dizygotic (50% identical) twins at 7%, suggesting genetics (and therefore nature) is a major cause of mental disorders.
• Evolutionary explanations suggest a characteristic which promotes survival and reproduction is more likely to pass on to subsequent generations. Bowlby proposed that attachment is adaptive, as it means the infant is more likely to survive.

Question 25

What are 3 pieces of research evidence that supports nurture?

Answer 25

• The behavioural approach: behaviours are learnt through classical conditioning (attachment, phobias, etc.)
• Social learning theory: behaviours such as aggression is learnt through the observation of others.
• The double bind theory of schizophrenia suggests that it develops in children who recieve contradictory messages from parents, suggesting nurture is more important in determining characteristics.

Question 26

What are 3 weaknesses of the nature/nurture debate?

Answer 26

• Nature and nurture affect each other; Scarr and McCartney et al. (1983) found that a child will seek out experiences that suit their genes as they get older. Maguire et al (2000) found that London taxi drivers have larger hippocampi, which they were not born with.
• Diathesis Stress Models suggest that mental illnesses are caused by a genetic vulnerability, and only expressed when there is an environmental trigger, suggesting nature and nurture work together.
• Epigentics (change in genetic activity without changing genetic code) suggests that certain actions leave epigentic markers in our DNA, which may influence the genetics of our children (and maybe grandchildren). This suggests that there is a third factor in the nature/nurture debate; the experiences of the previous generation.

Question 27

What is reductionism?

What are the 3 levels of reductionism?

Answer 27

• Reductionism involves breaking down a complex phenomenon down into constituent elements. The argument here is that complex phenomena are best understood in terms of a simple explanation.
• Reductionism states that explanations for behaviour should begin at the highest level and progressively move lower:
• The highest level is cultural and social explanations of behaviour. The middle level is psychological (explanations of behaviour). The lowest level is biological explanations of behaviour.

Question 28

What are 2 variations of reductionism?

Answer 28

• Environmental reductionism: Behaviour can be reduced to a simple relationship between behaviour and events. For example, the mother provides food which is comforting, therefore she is percieved as a ‘loved one’.
• Biological reductionism: Behaviour can be reduced to neurons, neurotransmitters, hormones, etc. An example of this is schizophrenia being caused by excessive activity of dopamine, as drugs which block dopamine reduce schizophrenia symtoms.

Question 29

What is holism?

Answer 29

• Holism focuses on systems as a whole rather than constituent parts.
• This states that we cannot predict how a whole system will behave just from the knowledge of any individual components.

Question 30

What 2 approaches are examples of holism?

Answer 30

• The humanistic approach believes that the individual reacts as an organised whole as opposed to a set of stimulus-response links.
• The cognitive approach recognises the importance of understanding an entire system (memory).

Question 31

What are 2 strengths of reductionism?

Answer 31

• Biological and environmental reductionism can be viewed as scientific.
• Biological reductionism has led to the development of therapies, such as SSRIs in treating OCD.

Question 32

What are 3 weaknesses of reductionism?

Answer 32

• Some may argue that biological reductionism can lead to errors of understanding, as it is simplistic and it ignores complex interactions of many factors in determining behaviour.
• Research which supports environmental reductionism uses non-human animals; human behaviour may not be as simple as a scaled up version of dogs or rats.
• Wolpe (1973) treated a women with a phobia of insects with systematic desensitisation but found no improvement. He discovered that her husband had an insect nickname and the phobia was an expression of her marital difficulties. This suggests that environmental reductionism means the true meaning of a behaviour can be overlooked.

Question 33

What is the idiographic approach?

Answer 33

• The idiographic approach involves the study of individuals and the unique insight an individual provides.
• This is qualitative, as the focus is on studying unique individuals in depth rather than gaining numerical data from many individuals and determining average characteristics.
• It also employs qualitative methods such as interviews and case studies.

Question 34

What are 2 examples of the idiographic approach?

Answer 34

• Psychodynamic: Freud used case studies of his patients as a way of understanding human behaviour, such as the study of Little Hans.
• Humanistic: Humanistic psychologists are more concerned with studying the whole person and their own subjective experiences rather than what someone else might observe from their behaviour.

Question 35

What is the nomothetic approach?

Answer 35

• The nomothetic approach involves the study of a large representative sample, selected using random sampling, to collect a large amount of data to support a testable hypothesis.
• This approach seeks to formulate general laws of behaviour that apply to everyone.
• This method favours quantitative methods of research, as measures of dispertion, central tendency, graphs, etc require data from a large group rather than individuals.

Question 36

What are 3 examples of the nomothetic approach?

Answer 36

• Biological approach: Seeks to portray the general principles of how the body and brain works.
• Behaviourist approach: Produces general laws of human behaviour.
• Cognitive approach: Develops general laws of behaviour which apply to all people.

Question 37

What are 2 strengths of the idiographic approach?

Answer 37

• Provides rich and in depth information about single cases, which the nomothetic approach is unable to do.
• Uses case studies and interviews, which are scientific and evidence based

Question 38

What are 3 weaknesses of the idiographic approach?

Answer 38

• Not very scientific
• Unable to produce general predictions about behaviour
• More time consuming and expensive compared to the nomothetic approach; idiographic data collects a large amount of data from one person whereas nomothetic data collects a large amount of data from mutiple people, which is therefore quicker as a test or questionnaire serves well.

Question 39

What is socially sensitive research?

Answer 39

• Siber and Stanley (1998) state that socially sensitive research refers to research where the topic area may have implications to society or certain groups within society.
• This may lead to a change in the way these groups are treated or percieved.

Question 40

What did Siber and Stanley (1998) propose are the 4 aspects in the scientific research process that raise ethical implications in socially sensitive research?

Answer 40

• The research question: The researcher must consider the question carefully and not ask questions like ‘are there racial differences in intelligence?’
• The methodology used: The researcher must consider the treatment of the participants and allow them the right to confidentiality and anonymity.
• The institutional context: The researcher should be mindful of how the data is going to be used and who may be funding the research.
• Interpretation and application of findings: The researcher must consider how their findings may be interpreted and applied to the real world.

Question 41

What is a strengths of socially sensitive research?

Answer 41

• Socially sensitive research is good, as some groups in society have suffered from being excluded from research or misinterpreted when they have been included.

Question 42

What is a weakness of socially sensitive research?

Answer 42

• With socially sensitive research, there is the increased potential for a more indirect impact on the group that the participant represents - it is not sufficient to simply safeguard the interests of individual participants.

Question 43

How may the liklihood of mishandled data be reduced in socially sensitive research?

Answer 43

• In order to reduce the likelihood that data is mishandled, psychologists should be energetic in taking responsibility for what happens to their findings. They should be aware that the results of their research may lead to abuse or
  discrimination.