Issues and debates Flashcards
What are the different levels of explanation that can be used in psychology ?
- Social-cultural context
- Psychological level
- Physiological level
- Neurochemical level
Define ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism involves evaluating other cultures according to the customs and standards of your own culture, leading to a bias whereby you view your culture as superior.
Define reductionism
The view that behaviour is better explained by breaking it down into simpler constituent parts.
Give a strength of holism
Holism is able to explain certain aspects of social behaviour
which reductionism could not. Examples of such are like
‘conformity to social roles’ in the Stanford Prison Study. Looking at the situation at a whole by watching the interactions between the prisoners and guards was important to understand behaviours such as deindividuation that took place. Holism is the approach taken to understand
behaviours of more wider social contexts.
Give an example of socially sensitive research that has had ethical implications.
Goddard (1917) did research which found IQ to be fully genetic. This led to eugenic procedures in the 1920s whereby the feeble minded were sterilised.
Compare approaches that are on opposite sides of the idiographic / nomothetic debate.
Idiographic:
Humanistic approach - Focused on the subjective experiences of one’s ‘self’ and each person’s individual ability to strive to achieve self-actualisation.
Psychodynamic approach - Freud’s use of cases studies emphasises the importance of individual experience.
Nomothetic:
Biological approach - Involves many lab experiments and brain scan evidence on many people whereby generalisation of human functioning have been made.
Behaviourist approach - Many experiments have been done on many animals - rats, pigeons etc where generalisable laws of learning have been developed from.
What is meant by cultural relativism ?
The idea that norms, values and behaviours and culturally specific and may not be universal. The aforementioned should be evaluated in the context of the culture in which they occur.
What is the difference between the emic approach and etic approach ?
Etic approach is when a researcher does an investigation in one culture but then tries to apply it to another, which is known as imposing etic. The etic approach is when the researcher conducts the studying the same culture which they are studying.
Describe universality.
Refers to when conclusions can be applied to everyone regardless of which place, culture or time a person is in.
Define determinism.
This is belief that behaviour is determined by external or internal forces acting upon an individual that is out of their control.
What is the difference between hard determinism and soft determinism ?
Hard determinism states that we have completely no control over what directs our lives whereas soft determinism states that our behaviour is determined by external or internal forces but at the same time we do have some control.
List three types of determinism.
- Biological: all behaviour is innate and determined by genes.
- Environmental: all behaviour is determined by factors outside the individual. Schools which adopt this approach include behaviourism and social learning theory.
- Psychic: behaviours the result of childhood experiences and innate drives, as in Freud’s model of psychological development.
Define free will
This refers to the ability to act at one’s own discretion, to choose to behave without being influenced by external forces.
Which approaches take the side of nurture in the nature-nurture debate ?
- Behaviourist
- Humanistic
- Social learning theory
- Psychodynamic (stance is a compromise between nature and nurture)
Describe the difference between nativists and empiricists.
Nativists are people who believe that all human characteristics are a result of heredity whilst empiricists are people that believe that all human characteristics are a result of the environment and experience.
Outline one problem associated with beta bias in psychological research.
Beta bias is when differences between the genders are minimised. This can lead to researchers forming invalid theories. For example with the fight or flight theory, research was done on males and it was assumed that it also applies to females but actually Taylor et al (2000) found that women have more of a tend and befriends response.
Define androcentrism
This is when behaviour is judged to be normal when compared to a male standard. This leads to female behaviour being judges as either ‘deficient’ or ‘abnormal’.
Describe a consequence of having gender bias in psychological research.
It can impact on females’ lives. Research where gender bias is involved can easily present scientific justification for denying women opportunities in the workplace and in society.
