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Psychology > ISSUES AND DEBATES > Flashcards

ISSUES AND DEBATES Flashcards

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1
Q

Define Androcentrism

A

Centred or focused on men, often to the neglect or exclusion of women

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2
Q

Define Alpha bias

A

A tendency to exaggerate differences between men and women

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3
Q

Define Beta bias

A

A tendency to ignore or minimise differences between men and women

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4
Q

Define Gender bias

A

The differential treatment or representation of men and women based on stereotypes rather than real differences

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5
Q

Define Universality

A

The aim to develop theories that apply to all people, which may include real differences

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6
Q

Give an example of alpha bias in psychological research

A
  • Sigmund Freud’s theories reflected the culture in which he lived
  • Men were more powerful and more well-educated + superior to women
  • Freud viewed femininity as failed masculinity
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7
Q

Give an example of beta bias in psychological research

A
  • Research on fight-or-flight
  • Biological research is usually conducted with male animals because in females the variations in hormone levels would make the research more difficult
  • Assumed that male-only samples wouldn’t matter because what is true for males would be true for females
    ^— assumed fight-or-flight response is universal
  • Taylor et al. (2000) challenged this, suggesting females produce a tend-and-befriend response
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8
Q

State the issue with universality in psychological research

A
  • Would be wrong to try to eradicate gender differences as a way to resolve the gender bias issue
  • This approach of universality is an example of beta bias itself
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9
Q

Define cultural bias

A

The tendency to judge all people in terms of your own cultural assumptions | Distorts or biases your judgement

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10
Q

Define ethnocentrism

A

Seeing things from the point of view of ourselves and our social group. Evaluating other groups of people using the standards and customs of one’s own culture

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11
Q

Define cultural relativism

A

The view that behaviour cannot be judges properly unless it is viewed in the context of the culture in which it originates

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12
Q

What is the term coined for people most likely to be studied by psychologists?

A

WEIRD

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13
Q

What does WEIRD stand for?

A

Westernised, Educated people from Industrialised, Rich Democracies

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14
Q

Give an example of ethnocentrism is psychological research

A
  • Mary Ainsworth’s (1970) Strange Situation
  • Conducted research on attachment type, suggesting the ‘ideal’ was the secure attachment type (was common in WESTERN samples)
  • Lead to misinterpretation of child-rearing practices elsewhere which were seen to deviate from the Western ‘norm’
  • Japanese infants more likely to be classified as insecurely attached (Takahashi, 1986)
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15
Q

What is an etic approach?

A

Looks at behaviour from outside of a given culture and attempts to identify behaviours that are universal

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16
Q

What is an emic approach?

A

Emphasises the uniqueness of every culture and looks at behaviour from inside of a particular cultural system and attempts to identify behaviours that are specific to that culture

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17
Q

Give an example of an imposed etic in psychological research

A
  • Mary Ainsworth’s (1970) Strange Situation

Studied behaviour inside one culture (America) and then assumed their ideal attachment type (and method of assessment) could be applied universally

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18
Q

Define determinism

A

The view that an individual’s behaviour is controlled by either internal or external forces. Means that behaviour should be predictable

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19
Q

Define free will

A

Each individual has the power to make choices about their behaviour

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20
Q

What are the three types of determinism?

A
  • Biological determinism
  • Environmental determinism
  • Psychic determinism
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21
Q

What are the two degrees of determinism?

A
  • Hard determinsm
  • Soft determinism
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22
Q

Define hard determinism

A

The view that all behaviour can be predicted and there is no free will. The two are incompatible

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23
Q

Define soft determinsm

A

A version of determinism that allows for some element of free will

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24
Q

What is meant by biological determinism?

A
  • Research into the human genome is producing increasing evidence of genetic influences on behaviour
    ^— more likely our behaviours are determined by our genes
    e.g. particular genes discovered in people with high intelligence - IGF2R gene (Hill et al., 1999)
  • Genes influence brain structure and neurotransmitters such as serotonin + dopamine that are often implicated in hehaviour
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25
Q

What is meant by environmental determinism?

A
  • Behaviourists believe all behaviour is caused by previous experience (classical + operant conditioning)
    e.g. phobias
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26
Q

What is meant by psychic determinism?

A
  • Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of personality suggests that adult behaviour is determined by innate drives and early experience (internal + external)
  • Behaviour is driven by libido
  • If any stage of development is frustrated or overindulged (external) then libido remains tied to the relevant erogenous zones
27
Q

What is the relationship between scientific research and determinism?

A
  • Scientific research is based on the belief that all event have a cause
  • An independent variable is manipulated to observe the causal effect on a dependent variable
28
Q

What approach believes in free will?

A

Humanistic approach

29
Q

How is the humanistic approach associated with free will?

A
  • Maslow + Rogers argued that self-determination was a necessary part of human behaviour
    ^— without, healthy self-development and self-actualisation are not possible
  • As long as an individual remains controlled by other people or other things, they cannot take responsibility for their behaviour and therefore cannot begin to change it (Rogers, 1959)
30
Q

Define nature

A

Behaviour is seen to be a product of innate (biological or genetic) factors

31
Q

Define nurture

A

Behaviour is a product of environmental influences

32
Q

State examples of the nature debate

A
  • Biological approach
  • Cognitive approach (with some influence of environment)
  • Psychodynamic approach (nature AND nurture)
33
Q

Outline one genetic example of the nature debate

A
  • Family, twin + adoption studies show that the closer 2 individuals are genetically, the more likely that both of them will develop the same behaviours
  • Concordance rate for schizophrenia is approx. 40% for MZ + 7% for DZ
    ^— closer similarity for individuals with the same genes shows that nature has a major contribution to the disorder
34
Q

Outline one evolutionary example of the nature debate

A
  • Principle that a behaviour or characteristic that promotes survival and reproduction will be naturally selected
    ^— because these behaviours are adaptive and genes for that behaviour/characteristic will be passed into future generations

E.g. Bowlby (1969) proposed attachment was adaptive because it meant an infant was more likely to be protected + more likely to survive
^— attachment promotes close relationships which would foster successful reproduction

Attachment behaviours naturally selected, which can only be done through genetic mechanisms

35
Q

State examples of the nurture debate

A
  • Behaviourist Approach
  • SLT
  • Humanistic approach
  • Psychodynamic approach (nature AND nurture)
  • Cognitive approach (mainly influenced by nature though)
36
Q

Outline one behaviourist example of the nurture debate

A
  • Behaviourists assume that all behaviour can be explained in terms of experience (e.g. BF Skinner used classical + operant conditioning to explain learning)
  • E.g. behaviourists suggested that attachment could be explained in terms of classical conditioning (food is the mother who feeds the baby) or operant conditioning (food reduces the discomfort of hunger and is rewarding)
37
Q

Outline one SLT example of the nurture debate

A
  • Bandura was less extreme than traditional behaviourism
  • Proposed behaviour is acquired through learning, adding vicarious reinforcement
  • Also suggested biology had a role to play
    ^— e.g. the urge to behave aggressively might be biological, but the way a person learns to EXPRESS anger is acquired through environmental influences
38
Q

Outline one interactionist example of the nature-nurture debate

A
  • Phenylketonuria is caused by a pair of defective genes (nature)
  • However, this is only a risk if the child consumes dairy products (nurture)
39
Q

What is nature-nurture debate?

A

Argument as to whether a person’s development is mainly due to their genes or to environmental influences

40
Q

Define holism

A

An approach that perceived the whole experience rather than the individual features and/or the relations between them

41
Q

Define reductionism

A

An approach that breaks complex phenomena into more simple components, implying that this is desirable because complex phenomena are best understood in terms of a simpler level of explanation

42
Q

Explain the levels of explanation in relation to reductionist explanations

A

Reduction is approach suggests explanations begin at the highest level + progressively look at component elements

Highest level - cultural + social explanations of how our social recoups affect out behaviour
Middle level - psychological explanations of behaviour
Lower level - biological explanations of how hormones and genes affect our behaviourists

43
Q

Name the types of reductionism

A
  • Biological reductionism
  • Environmental reductionism
  • Experimental reductionism
44
Q

Outline biological reductionism

A
  • All animals are made up of atoms - so human behaviour must be explainable at this level
  • Biological psychologists reduce behaviour to the action of neurons, neurotransmitters, hormones, etc
  • Mental illnesses are popularly explained like this
    ^— e.g. schizophrenia suggested to be caused by excessive activity of the neurotransmitter dopamine because drugs that block this neurotransmitter reduce the symptoms of
45
Q

Outline environmental reductionism

A
  • Behaviourist explanations suggest all behaviour can be explained in terms of simple stimulus-response links (i.e. behaviour can be reduced to a simple relationship between behaviours and events in the environment

E.g. behaviourist explanation for attachment - complex emotion of attachment is reduced to a set of probabilities the mother is likely to provide food which is reinforcing (reduces comfort)
^— she is a rewarding individual and becomes a ‘loved one’

46
Q

Outline experimental reductionism

A
  • Reducing complex behaviours to isolated variables is useful for conducting research
    ^— underlies the experimental approach where behaviours are reduced to operationalised variables that can be manipulated and measured to determine causal relationships
47
Q

State types of holism

A
  • Gestalt psychology
  • Humanistic psychology
  • Cognitive psychology
48
Q

What is Gestalt psychology?

A
  • ‘Gestalten’ means ‘the whole’ in German
  • Approach favoured by group of German psychologists in 1st part of 20th century
  • Focused especially on perception, arguing that explanations for what we see only make sense through a consideration of the whole rather than the individual elements
49
Q

Outline humanistic psychology as a holistic approach

A
  • Humanistic psychologists believe that the individual reacts as an organised whole, rather than a set of stimulus-response (S-R) links
    ^— What matters is a person’s sense of unified identity, and thus a lack of identity or a sense of ‘wholeness’ leads to mental disorder
50
Q

Outline cognitive psychology as a holistic approach

A
  • Memory is complex - recently understood by connectionist networks
    ^— each unit (e.g. neuron) is linked to many other units
  • Links develop through experience + are strengthened or weakened
  • Holistic because the network as a whole behaves differently than the individual parts
    ^— Linear models assume the same of the parts equals the whole
51
Q

What is the idiographic approach?

A
  • Focuses on the individual and emphasises uniqueness
52
Q

What is the nomothetic approach?

A

Seeks to create general laws of behaviour to generalise to the wider population
‘Nomos’ from Greek meaning ‘law’

53
Q

Describe the idiographic approach to psychological investigation

A
  • Uses qualitative data
  • Makes use of case studies, unstructured interviews + thematic analysis
    ^— studies unique individuals in depth
54
Q

Outline an example of the idiographic approach

A
  • Sigmund Freud used case studies of his patients to understand human thought - LITTLE HANS
  • Contains 150 pages of quotes recorded by HAns’ father + desc. of Hans’ life events
55
Q

Describe the nomothetic approach to psychological investigation

A
  • Uses quantitative data (numbers - measures of central tendency + dispersion, graphs + statistical analysis
  • Seeks to make generalisations or develop laws about large numbers of people
56
Q

Outline an example of the nomothetic approach

A
  • Biological approach portrays basic principles of how the body + brain works
    ^— tends to just study men +assumes that the same processes would occur in women (e.g. fight or flight)

WHICH IS ALSO BETA BIAS

57
Q

What is socially sensitive research?

A

Research that may have direct social consequences for the participants in the research or the group they represent

58
Q

State the four aspects Sieber & Stanley (1988) identified as ethical issues with social consequences

A
  • The research question
  • Conduct of research and treatment of participants
  • The institutional context
  • Interpretation and application of findings
59
Q

Explain ‘the research question’ as an ethical issue which may occur

A
  • Asking the research question may be damaging to member of a particular racial group or sexual orientation
    ^—appears to add scientific credibility to prejudice
60
Q

Explain the ‘conduct of research and treatment of participants’ as an ethical issue which may occur

A
  • Main concern is the confidentiality of the information obtained
61
Q

Explain ‘the institutional context’ as an ethical issue which may occur

A
  • Research may be funded and managed by private institutions who may misuse the data or may misunderstand the data that is produced
    ^— media may obtain reports of such research and misreport the findings
62
Q

Explain ‘interpretation and application of findings’ as an ethical issue which may occur

A
  • Research findings may be used for purposes other than originally intended
63
Q

List the 10 types of ethical issue identified by Sieber & Stanley

A
  • Privacy
  • Confidentiality
  • Valid methodology
  • Deception
  • Informed consent
  • Equitable treatment
  • Scientific freedom
  • Ownership of data
  • Values
  • Risk/benefit ratio
64
Q

Outline one example of research that is socially sensitive

A
  • IQ tests were developed by psychologists + subsequently used to identify individuals with lower IQs and have them sterilised to prevent the spread of their genes

Psychology (19 decks)

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