Issues and debates

Question 1

What is universality?

Answer 1

an underlying human characteristic that can be applied to every human despite gender, culture, experiences and upbringing

Question 2

What is gender bias?

Answer 2

a study that may not capture the experiences of men or women but has tried to explain both genders. (usually women)

Question 3

What is androcentrism?

Answer 3

male behaviour is judged to be normal, if we look at the 20th century 100 most influential psychologists only 6 were women

Question 4

What is alpha bias?

Answer 4

research focuses on men and women and exaggerates the differences, an example is freuds psychosexual stages as after the phallic stage the boy has a stronger connection to the same sex than the girl meaning a girls superego should be worker

Question 5

What is beta bias?

Answer 5

studies that focus on similarities between men and women and minimises differencesfight and flight in men is more tend and befriend in women as they produce more oxytocin making them more likely to try and befriend the threat than fight or flight.

Question 6

afterWhat are issues with gender bias?

Answer 6

gender bias research promotes sexism
research that challenges gender bias may not be published.

Question 7

What is cultural bias?

Answer 7

all study findings are generalised despite only containing one or a few cultures.

Question 8

What is ethnocentricism?

Answer 8

is the judgement of cultures by the standards and values of another culture
such as the strange situation and different cultures raising kids differently meaning they would react differently if the study was done in a different country or culture

Question 9

What is cultural relativism?

Answer 9

the idea that norms and values as well as ethics and moral standards can only be meaningful and understood withing specific social and cultural contexts

Question 10

How do universality and cultural bias link?

Answer 10

henrich studied hundreds and hundreds of psychologist journals and found that 68% of studies were done in America and 96% came from industrialised nations meaning universality shouldn’t be applied to these studies especially due to difference in individualistic and collectivist cultures

Question 11

What are etic and emic approaches?

Answer 11

etic - looks at behaviours outside cultures and tries to class them universal
imposd etic- study in once culture and try to say findings will be universal
emic - behaviours inside a culture that are identified with it

Question 12

What is an issue with culture bias?

Answer 12

a lot of the main important studies have culture bias within them due to the collectivist vs indivdidualistic culture

Question 13

Issue with terms individualistic and collectivist?

Answer 13

14/15 studies comapring Japan and USA which are individualistic and collectivist? found that there is not much difference anymore meaning current psychological research hasn’t got too many concerns about culture bias.

Question 14

How has ethnic stereotyping affected psychology?

Answer 14

IQ tests in different countries have issues and someone who may be smart from a IQ in their culture may do poorly in another if the questions are from experiences or idioms from the culture.

Question 15

What is free will?

Answer 15

humanistic approach, humans choices are their own, environmental and biological choices do not have an influence

Question 16

What is determinism?

Answer 16

Hard determinism - all human actions have a cause either biological or environmental
Soft determinism - people have freedom to make choices but options are restricted

Question 17

What are the three types of determinism?

Answer 17

Biological - behaviour is due to our biology and genetic make up
Environmental - how what is around us affects our choices (reward punishment)
Psychic - unconscious decisions that have occurred from experience or childhood - choosing certain foods or avoiding them

Question 18

What is the practical value of free will?

Answer 18

even if we do not have free will the belief that we may have control over our actions
seen by Rebecca Roberts who studied that teens who believed in fatalism were more likely to have depression

Question 19

What is a limitation of free will?

Answer 19

Brain scans do not prove that we have free will but do provide support for determinism
unconscious brain activity occurred before the person made the conscious decision to move however this doesn’t mean there was no decision to act

Question 20

What is a limitation of determinism?

Answer 20

legal responsibility

Question 21

Is determinism beneficial?

Answer 21

determinism approaches is what helped psychology become a science as well as having real life applications

Question 22

What is nature nurture?

Answer 22

this is genetics vs how you are raised and educated, so someone with a family of convicted killers may be nurtured and have impulses to commit crimes but not act on them as their nurture is stronger than their

Question 23

What is diathesis stress model?

Answer 23

how genetic and environmental stress can lead to mental health conditions
like OCD being triggered through trauma and genetics
1960’s - schizophrenia
1980’s - depression

Question 24

What is epigentics?

Answer 24

these are lifestyles or events that can cause genes to turn on or off this is permanent and can be passed on, seen in WW2 when food was blocked for the Dutch women gave birth to underweight babies who grew up likely to develop schizophrenia

Question 25

What is heredity?

Answer 25

the genetic transmission of mental and physical characteristics from one person to another

Question 26

Does nature vs nurture have real world application?

Answer 26

yes does it have real world application, OCD is highly heritable mental disorder. .76 while this is high doesn't mean the person will develop the disorder as it can be prevented through manage stress - this gives prove for the diathesis stress model

Question 27

What is limitation for nature vs nurture debate?

Answer 27

nature vs nurture can not be pulled, Robert Plomin says that people pick a nurture (environment) that matches their nature aggressive people more likely to hang out with aggressive people as they feel comfortable with them and they make each other to develop this way.

Question 28

What are implications of the debate?

Answer 28

it brings in determinism and shows links to ethnicity, genetics and intelligence together however it also taken about behaviour shaping and that an aggressive child can become less aggressive if they hang out with children who are more gentle.

Question 29

What is holism and reductionism debate?

Answer 29

it helps understand human behaviour holistic is the whole - can not break down or no longer holistic reductionist - broken down and can keep broken down.

Question 30

What are the two types of reductionism?

Answer 30

Biological reductionism - genes, hormones tries to explain them environmental reductionism - behaviour through stimulus and experiences

Question 31

What is the practical value of the holism vs reductionism

Answer 31

holism lacks practical value as humans are complex and have lots of emotional values that need to be broken down to be understood

Question 32

What is a strength of reductionism and a limitation for holism?

Answer 32

they form scientific approaches and basis and these often need to be broken down to form the basis, take the Strange situation behaviour from the child was broken down into multiple parts

Question 33

What are two limitations of reductionism?

Answer 33

some social behaviour only makes sense in group settings like prisoners and guards no conformity gene which we know so can not be broken down to each person reductionism can oversimplify reducing validity,

Question 34

What is the idiographic approach?

Answer 34

Qualitative research - thematic analysis of interviews making generalisations seen with Freud and Little hans (humanistic and qualitative) understanding human behaviour than learn about laws of behaviour (individuals)

Question 35

What is the nomothetic approach?

Answer 35

quantitative research - hypothesis testing, statistical analysis seeks to quantify behaviour. sperry - split brain research (behaviourist and psychodynamic) human behaviour through development (wholes)

Question 36

What is a key difference between idiographic and nomothetic?

Answer 36

nomothetic looks at objectivity and believes law of behaviour is only possible if assessments are standardised and objective whereas nomothetic doesn't believe you can be objective and that individual experiences are more important

Question 37

What is a strength idiographic?

Answer 37

provides descriptions of individuals and this may complement nomothetic as can help understand many people with the issue

Question 38

What is a weakness of idiographic?

Answer 38

it is narrow and restricted and generalisations can not be made unless there are multiple examples difficult to build human theories without nomothetic research

Question 39

What is a strength of idiographic and nomothetic?

Answer 39

both fit within the aims of science, nomothetic is used in natural sciences, ie statistical testing idiographic is seen with triangulation and researchers looking at multiple studies

Question 40

What is a weakness of nomothetic?

Answer 40

it makes it harder to understand individual cases as understanding gets lost in generalisation say schizo 1% chance but doesn't tell us what it is like for people with it

Question 41

What is social sensitivity?

Answer 41

research that can have consequences for the participants say how depression affects memory if ppts are revealed may affect them

Question 42

What are the three implications of dealing with ppts?

Answer 42

research questions - narrows the focus - alternative relationships has heterosexual bias dealing with ppts - victims of domestic abuse in studies may relive stress or worry about people finding out how findings are used - may be used for prejudice US IQ tests to reduce migration to show people are smart enough

Question 43

What is a limitation with research design?

Answer 43

Burt's 1950 IQ test led to the 11+ but his work was later found fraudulent but it was too late to change, this was from poor research design

Question 44

What is a strength of research design/ social sensitivity?

Answer 44

homosexuality was seen as a mental disorder but due to research design by Kinsey it was proven to be normal

Question 45

Does ethical implications have real life application?

Answer 45

has issues with child care and crime seen with socially sensitive research as these need to be hidden factors if ppts are known so that they do not have issues in the real world