Issues and Debates Flashcards
What is universality and what is it challenged by?
-The idea that the findings in psychology studies can be applied to everyone
-Gender and Cultural Bias challenges universality
What are the two forms of gender bias?
-Alpha Bias
-Beta Bias
What is Alpha Bias and what is the problem with Alpha Bias ?
-A form of research that highlights the differences between men and woman
- Problem = tends to give a view that exaggerates the differences
What is an example of alpha bias research and why ?
-Freud’s theory of psychosexual development:
-Boys and Girls both go through the phallic stage where they grow a desire for opposite sex parent.
-For Boys this leads to castration anxiety and is resolved when they identify with their father, but a girls identification with their mother is weaker due to their superego being weaker.
This therefore suggests girls are morally inferior to boys
What is Beta bias and what is the problem with the research?
Research that focuses on similarities between girls and boys
-Minimises and ignores the differences between the boys and girls
What is one example of beta bias research?
-research on the fight/ flight response favoured male participants due to females mood being affected by hormonal changes
-This simply ignores differences between the two genders and suggests they both react the same
What research by Shelley Taylor (2000) disputed that males and females react the same in fight and flight scenarios?
-Taylor suggested that women have a tend to befriend response due to higher levels of oxytocin than men
-Women’s oxytocin is released in stressful situations which leads to a tend to befriend response being emitted.
What is Androcentrism and what problem does this cause?
-It is when behaviour is judged according to the male standard
-This means female behaviour is judged to be atypical or not normal by comparison
What is one example of Androcentrism in psychology?
-The pathologised nature of premenstrual syndrome
-Feminists have objected to this on the grounds that it medicalises females emotions by explaining these in hormonal terms, whereas males anger is seen as a rational response to pressure (Brescoll and Uhlmann)
What limitations are caused by Gender Bias?
-Biological vs social: Maccoby and Jacklin (1974) presented that females have better verbal abilities and men have better spatial abilities and suggested these were hardwired into the brain to fit gender stereotypes. This was opposed by Daphna Joel who found that there were no such differences in brain processing or structure. This suggests there should be wariness of accepting research as biological facts when they are better explained by stereotypes.
-Sexism in research: Murphy (2014) found lecturers of psychology were more likely to be men. This means more research is conducted by men and disadvantages women participants. Nicholson (1995) suggested a male researcher may expect a female participant to be irrational and unable to complete complex tasks which leads to women under performing in studies. Therefore, findings often have gender bias
-research challenging gender bias may not be published: Formanowicz analysed more than 1000 articles relating to gender bias in 8 yrs. Found research on gender bias is less funded and published by less prestigious journals. Consequently, less people know or apply it to their work.
What is Cultural Bias?
-A tendency to interpret all phenomena through the lens of one’s own culture, ignoring the effects of cultural differences might have on behaviour
What was outlined by Henrich (2010) in his metaanalysis of studies
-Henrich analysed 100s of studies from leading psychology journals:
-68% of research participants came from USA
-96% were from industrialised nations
What are WEIRD samples and why was it coined by Henrich ?
-coined by Heinrich as this described the people most likely to be studied by psychologists
Western
Educated
Industrialised
Rich
Democratic
What is Ethnocentrism?
-Is a form of extreme cultural bias where people believe their culture is superior to others
What is one example of ethnocentrism in a research study?
Mary Ainsworth strange situation(1970) :
-They conducted research on attachment type suggesting ideal attachment was some distress upon mothers exit (secure attachment).
-This led to misinterpretating of child-rearing practices in other countries which is clear when Japanese children were found to be insecurely attached due to considerable distress.
What is cultural relativity?
- The idea that norms,values, ethics and moral standards can only be meaningful and understood within specific social and cultural contexts
What did John Berry (1969) distinguish between etic and emic approaches?
-Etic = looks at behaviour from outside a given culture and attempts to describe findings as universal
-Emic = looks at behaviour within a given culture and identifies behaviours as specific to this culture
What issue does imposed etic propose?
-It suggests behaviours, concepts and models are universals when they came from research that comes from a single culture
What is one strength of cultural bias in psychology?
-Emergence of cultural psychology: Dov Cohen (2017) said cultural psychology of how people shape and are shaped by their cultural experience. Cultural psychologists avoid ethnocentric assumptions by taking an emic approach and conducting research from inside a culture often alongside local researchers using culturally-based techniques. This suggests modern psychologists are aware of the dangers of cultural bias and strive to avoid it.
What are the limitations of cultural bias in psychology?
-Ethnic stereotyping: Jay Gould (1981) explained how the first intelligence tests led to eugenic social policies in the US. Psychologists used ww1 to pilot their first IQ tests on 1.75 million army recruits and many of the items were ethnocentric (e.g knowing the US presidents) and results from Africa and Europe were poor. This was used to inform racial discourse rather than critique the test. This illustrates how cultural bias can be used to justify prejudice and discrimination.
-Classic studies: influential studies in psychology are culturally-biased. e.g. both milgram and Asch studies were conducted using US participants only. Replications of these studies in different countries produced rather different results – Asch-type experiments in collectivist cultures found significantly higher rates of conformity than in the US. This suggests social influence topics should only be applied to those in individualist cultures.
-However: in the age of media globalisation the distinction between individualistic- collectivists no longer exists . Takano and Osaka (1999) found that 14/15 studies that compared US to Japan found no evidence of individualism or collectivism and described the distinction as lazy and simplistic. This suggests cultural bias is less of a problem now.
What is the free-will vs determinism debate?
-This debate highlights whether behaviour is because of free will or is a product of set internal/ external influences that determine what we do
What is free will?
- suggests humans are self-determining and are free to choose their own thoughts and actions
-It does not deny there are biological and environmental forces but claims we are able to reject these because we are in control of behaviour
What is Determinism?
-Proposes that free will has no place in explaining behaviour
What 2 sides of determinism are there and what do they do?
-Soft Determinism: William James (1890) suggested scientists can explain what determines our behaviour but this does not detract from the freedom we have to make conscious causes
-Hard Determinism(fatalism): suggested that all human behaviour is caused and we should be able to identify its causes. This concludes that everything we do is dictated by internal/ external forces we cannot control
What are the types of determinism and key points of them?
-Biological determinism: Biological approach suggests that our biology determines our behaviour e.g. effect of genes on mental health
-Environmental determinism: Skinner suggested free-will is an illusion and said behaviour is due to conditioning. Therefore, although we think that we are acting independently our choices are the sum of reinforcement contingencies.
-Psychic determinism: Freud believed that free will is an illusion and emphasises thae influence of biological drives. He saw human behaviour as being determined by conflicts and repressed childhood. Freud’s “slip of the tongue” which seem random are explained by Freud as unconscious desires.
What are the strengths for free will vs determinism?
-Practical value of free will: Thinking we do exercise free choice can improve mental health even if it does not. Rebecca Roberts (2000) study looked at adolescents who had a strong belief in fatalism. The study found that these adolescents were at significantly greater risk of developing depression. Therefore, people who hold an external locus of control are less likely to be optimistic. Therefore, even if we do not have free will, believing that we do has a positive impact on behaviour.
What are the limitations of free will vs determinism?
-The Law: A limitation of determinism (and strength of free will) is the position of legal system on responsibility. Fatalism suggests that every behaviour is that individual choice is not the cause of behaviour. This is not consistent in the court of law, as offenders are held responsible for their actions. The main principle of the legal system is that the defendant exercised their free will in committing a crime. Therefore, determinist arguments do not have real-world value.
-Research evidence: One limitation of free will( and strength of determinist) is that brain scan evidence does not support it. Libet (1983) instructed participants to choose a random moment to flick their hand. Participants said when they felt the conscious will to move. Libet found that unconscious brain activity leading up to the conscious decision to move came around half a second before the participant consciously felt they had to move. This suggests that our basic experiences of free will are determined by a brain before awareness.
-However, this does not prove that our actions are determined by the brain as it is expected for there to be time before the action came into conscious.
What is the nature-nurture debate about?
-It is concerned with the extent to which aspects of behaviour are a product of inherited or acquired characteristics from the environment
What is a) the example of the nativist and b) what did they argue?
a)Rene Descartes
b) Nature: All human characteristics are innate and that psychological factors such as intelligence or personality are determined by biological factors
What is a) the example of the empiricist and b) what did they argue?
a) John Locke
B) They argued that the mind is a blank slate at birth
a)Who identified the different levels of the environment and b) what were some of the factors?
a) Richard Lerner identified the different levels of the environment
b) Prenatal factors such as Smoking (physical influence) or music (Psychological influence) and postnatal factors such as childhood conditions
What is concordance?
-The correlation coefficient
-It is the degree that two people are similar on a particular trait
-it provides an estimate about the extent to which a trait is inherited-hereditary
a)What is the general heritability figure of IQ and b) what does this mean ?
a)0.5 (50%)
b) 50% of a persons IQ is determined by genetic factors
What is the interactionist approach?
-It is the relative contribution of nature and nurture on how they interact to cause behaviour
a)What is the hereditability figure and concordance of eye colour and b) what is the significance of this
a)0.8
b) Even simple physical traits such as eye colour are still influenced by the environment
What is the diathesis stress model and give an example?
-Suggests behaviour is caused by a biological or environmental vulnerability (diathesis) which is only expressed when coupled with a biological and environmental trigger
-a person may have a genetic vulnerability for OCD but it is only triggered when a person experiences a traumatic experience
What is epigenetics and an example?
-The change in our genetic activity without actually changing the genes themselves
- For example, smoking changes our DNA which explains why problems do not stop after you stop smoking
-Changes in genes are passed onto offspring
