Issues And Debates Flashcards
Nature vs nurture A01
-The nature nurture debate refers to the extent to which a persons development is due to innate, inherited factors or to our environmental influences
-For example if our behaviour is a result of nature; it means it is seen as a product of inherited, innate, biological, genetic or evolutionary factors
-Whereas if it is a result of nurture it is seen as a product of our experience in the environment
Nature vs nurture A01- nature
-nature is the view that behaviour is the product of unique biological genetic factors
-Scientists on the nature side of the debate argue human behaviours are innate as a result of heredity and are referred to as nativists
-A key focus of research of nativists has been on the genetic inheritance
-This has been studied using family and adoption studies
-for example, schizophrenia, I said to have a genetic component
-Research found a concordance rate of 40% in MZ twins and 7% in DC twins suggest suggesting that nature is a powerful contributing factor in schizophrenia
-Similarly Huntington’s disease is a genetically transmitted disorder that usually emerges between the ages of 1350 although it can appear at any time since the genetic cause is innately present
-Additionally another area of interest is the evolutionary approach
-They argue that any behavioural characteristic that is adaptive will be naturally selected for
-This is because jeans for that behavioural characteristic will be passed down on to subsequent generations
-For example, Bowlbys mono Tropic theory where the attachment gives a survival advantage and the attachment to a particular caregiver is seen as having a central importance to a child’s development
Nature vs nurture A01 nurture
-scientist on the nurture side are referred to as empiricists
-This perspective suggests that humans are born without any innate behaviour and that the mind is a blank slate on which experiences are written
- The focus on the role of nurture is a key part of the behaviourist approach and the social learning theory
-For example, Bandur’s Bobo experiment
-Children were seen to be more likely to hit the bobo doll when they witnessed adults hitting the doll and being rewarded for hitting the doll
-Likewise, when the adult was not rewarded for hitting the doll, the children were less likely to also hit the doll
-The actions of the children was shown to be down to environmental factors which supports the nature side because the behaviour of the children has changed as the result of their surroundings
Nature vs nurture interactionist
-nature nurture Me or be seen as working alongside one another
-Because they are so closely into twine, it makes little sense to try and separate the two
-As such the focus on the nature nurture debate has changed in recent years and psychologists are more likely to ask what the relative importance of heredity and environment is in terms of how we think and behave
-The interaction approach is the view that both nature and nurture work together to shape human behaviour
-For example, the diathesis stress model suggests that although we might genetically inherit the vulnerability to a certain disorder this must also then be triggered by an event which we experience
-as a result, it is a combination of both in nature and nature which is used to explain the onset of illness
Nature vs nurture A03 criticism from nativist
-It’s been criticised for the ethical implications it raises regarding race and intelligence
-For example in 1917 Henry Goddard issued IQ tests to immigrants as they arrived in the USA
-He concludes from these tests that the major majority of Russians Jews Hungarians and Italians were ‘ feeble minded’
-Also in 1952 William Shockley court controversy by suggesting that there was a genetic reason as to why black people in America scored lower on IQ test than white people
-This suggests that taking a purely nativist stance when conducting research in a socially sensitive area such as race it can have a negative impact on peoples lives
-This stance ignore the environmental factors that contribute to the behaviour is being studied for example the opportunities for education and learning that still exist in these communities
Nature vs nurture A03 taxi drivers further complicates
-The debate is further complicated by the suggestion that nurture can affect nature
-For example in Maguire et als study of London taxi drivers
-maguire studied the brains of London taxi drivers and found a larger volume of grey matter in the mis posterior hippocampus
-An area of the brain associated with spatial awareness
-Which these skills are needed for by taxi drivers when they are learning and completing the knowledge exam
-There was a positive correlation between increasingly pronounced changes and in increasing length of time that individuals had been taxi drivers
-This demonstrates the interactionist nature of imperialism and nativism and gives further reasons as to wide influence of the two cannot be separated
-Suggesting that learning from the environment come from very early age and through our lives influence are internal biology
Nature vs nurture A03
-The interactionist approach is best illustrated by the genetic disorder PKU
-PKU is caused by the inheritance of two recessive genes one from each parent
-People with PKU are unable to break down the amino acids which build up in the blood and the brain causing mental retardation
-However if the child is diagnosed early, they are placed on a low protein diet for the first 12 years
-This helps to avert this potential lifelong disorder
-Therefore the disorder PKU (nature) is not expressed because of an altered environment
For example, the low protein diet (nurture)
Nature vs nurture A03
-however a problem with the interactions approach is that it’s unclear exactly how nature and nurture interact
-Whilst there was clear evidence to suggest that some sort of underlying vulnerability coupled with stress can increase the chances of certain behaviours developing E.G schizophrenia
-We do not fully understand the mechanisms by which these factors interact to produce these affects
-This suggests that the interactions approach is limited in its ability to explain human behaviour
Free will and determinism A01-
-Free well is the view that people are in control of their own behaviour
-It does not completely ignore the role of biology or environment but instead suggests that we override these factors
-The view is advocated by humanistic psychologist like Rogers and Maslow
-The humanistic approach adopts a Freewill perspective for example Rogers client centred therapy suggests that people are free to change their lives by choosing to see their situation differently
-Illustrates his belief in free well as he thinks the client discovered their own solutions to the problems therefore making their own choices on how to grow and develop as an individual
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Free will and determinism A01
Determinism proposes that we do not have conscious control over our thoughts and behaviour and that instead our behaviour is controlled by internal or external factors acting upon us
-hard determinism is the view that forces outside of our control have complete authority over behaviour
-Soft determinism opposes this few and suggest that we are constrained by these forces but only to an extent as there is an element of freewill in behaviour.
-determinism comes in many forms
-For example, biological determinism which claims we are entirely determined by genetic factors
-For example research has shown that 1st degree relatives of schizophrenia have a higher chance of developing the disorder as well
-psychic determinism claims that behaviour is a result of childhood experiences and innate drives
-For example Freud model of psychological development suggests that gender differences are required during the phallic stage of development
-Environmental determinism claims that behaviour is caused by experiences learned through classical and operant conditioning
-For example, phobias can be learnt by classical conditioning
Free will and determinism A03- determinism strength, practical application
-what advantage of determinism is it has led to a number of practical applications?
-For example, it has allowed psychology to develop treatments for disorders like schizophrenia
-As it is caused by the neurotransmitter dopamine
-It’s led to The development of antipsychotic medication
-These drugs have been proven to be an effective way of reducing schizophrenic symptoms for example, hallucinations and delusions
-The idea of determinism has allowed us to understand, explain and help people
-suggesting that deterministic emphasis on cause-and-effect has enabled researchers to predict and control events to the benefit of people who suffer from a wide range of mental disorders
Free will and determinism A03 - determinism weakness , legal system
A limitation of the deterministic stance as it may provide a potential excuse for criminal act which is in conflict with our legal system
-For example, Stephen Mobley argued that he was’ born to kill’ as his family had a disposition towards violence and aggression
-How determinism would support Mobley claim proving undesirable as it allows people to mitigate their own responsibility
-Additionally research into the role of the MAOAG in aggression argues that we may be somehow pre-programmed to be aggressive therefore have no Freewill over our aggressive behaviour
- Therefore soft determinism is a much more reasonable approach in explaining behaviours
- As it considers the idea that people have free will
Free will and determinism A01- free will criticism
However, the idea of free will has had some criticism
-Skinner argues that freewill is an illusion and that behaviour is environmentally determined
-This is supported by libet et all
-As he found that the motor regions of the brain became active before conscious awareness of a decision suggesting that many responses are biologically determined
-However it is apparent that behaviour is too complex to be explained solely with biology which draws us back to the conclusion that a soft determinism is a more valid compromise to explain behaviour
-Additionally it also seems unlikely that someone would choose to have certain mental disorders for example schizophrenia
-Free will is a subjective notion
-Just because people believe that they have free well it doesn’t necessarily mean that they do
-It is inconsistent with the assumptions of science
-Free will implies that behaviour is random and without cause
-Very few people want to argue for such an extreme position.
Free will and determinism A03 conclusion
-overall a soft determinism approach to explaining behaviour might provide the best compromise in the free will determinism debate
-The social learning theory is a good example for an approach that takes this position when explaining behaviour
-For example banjo argued that although environmental factors in learning our key we are free to choose who or what we pay attention to and when you perform certain behaviours
-Like the mediational processes which date that we must pay attention, remember, be physically able to and be motivated to perform said behaviour.
Gender bias A01
-bias occurs when researchers view things in a way that is unbalanced or unfair
- gender bias refers to the differential treatment and/or representation of males and females based on stereotypes and not real differences
- because psychology has been male dominated for many years, many of the studies suffer from androcentrism
-this means that the theories or research are focused on the male view of the world
-often to the neglect or exclusion of women
- however there is also gynocentrism which is much less common in psychology, which is theories that are solely focused on females
Gender bias A01 alpha
- alpha bias occurs when the differences between men and women are exaggerated
-thus men and women are seen as being ‘different’ - this undervalues the members of either sex but typically women
- for example freuds theory of psychoanalysis viewed femininity as failed masculinity by exaggerating the differences between men and women suggesting women are inferior to males because they are jealous of males penises ,and develop a weaker superego and therefore morally inferior to men
Gender bias A01- beta bias
- occurs when differences between men and women are minimised
- such theories tend to either ignore questions about the lives of women or assume that what is true for men must also be true for women, mistakenly minimising gender differences
For example biological scientists have typically only used male animals to examine the fight or flight response , causing females to go unexamined until recently
-by Taylor et al who found that females adopt a tend and befriend response to dangerous situations as they are more likely to protect their offspring and form alliance with other women rather than fight or flee.
Gender bias A03- Darwinian
- one of the main limitations of psycological research in that the issues of gender bias often go unchallenged
- foe examples Darwin’s established theory of sexual selection suggests women are selective in terms of mate selection
- this view has recently been challenged bye dna evidence suggesting women are as equally competitive as men when the need arises
- this highlights the importance of continually challenging earlier generations research and reducing gender bias to ensure that a valid picture of women is portrayed in contemporary studies
Gender bias A03 - scientific justification
- another major issue with gender bias is that it creates misleading assumptions about female behaviour
- these assumptions can provide scientific justifications to deny women opportunities within the workplace in wider society
- for example critics claim that the diagnostic catergory premestrual syndrome medicalises female emotions especially anger by explaining these in hormonal terms
- thus being diagnosed with PMS may affect how a women’s is viewed by herself and society in general
- addditonly up until 1980 in the DSM hysteria was classed as mental disorder whixh was the belief that women’s emotional states stemmed from reproductive organs and it was used to describe excessive emotionality in women
- therefore this diagnosis often dismissed women’s experiences and attributed their problems to emotional instability.
-serving as a reminder of the importance of gender bias in healthcare and other fields
Gender bias A03
However contemporary psychologists have looked at ways to reduce gender bias proposing a number of solutions
- e.g some psycologists attempt to develop theories that emphasis the importance and value of women
- Cornwell et al noted that females are better at learning as they are more attentive and organised thus emphasising both the value and positive attributes of women
- as a result this type of research helps to reduce or challenge gender stereotypes which is important in reducing gender bias
Culture bias A01- ethnocentrism
-The tendency to judge people in terms of one’s own cultural assumptions
Culture bias can be understood through the distinction between ethnocentrism and cultural relativism
- Ethnocentrism is seeing the world from one’s own cultural perspective and believing that this one’s perspective is normal and correct
-For example aims with strange situation: she applied findings on attachment based on American culture to other cultures
-Her measure of attachment viewed German mother’s attachment as ‘ abnormal’ incorrectly as encouraging independence since the child’s infancy is a norm in German culture
Culture bias A01- cultural relivitism
On another hand, cultural relativism insists that behaviour can only be properly understood if the cultural context is taken into consideration
- it argues that there are no universal norms or standards of behaviour common to all cultures and, instead, these norms or standards are determined by and within each particular culture
-For example, the meaning of intelligence is different in every culture
-For example, Sternberg pointed out that coordination skills that may be essential to life in a pre-literate society E.G those motor skills required for shooting a bow and arrow
-Maybe most mostly irrelevant to intelligent behaviour for most people in a literate and more developed society
-Therefore the only way to understand intelligence is to take cultural context into account
Culture bias A01- emic and etic
- There is also an etic approach which means studying behaviour across many cultures to find universal human behaviours
-However an imposed etic - Is a test, measure or theory devised in one culture that is used to explain behaviour in another culture
-Aims with study had an imposed Etic by assuming that the US model of classifying attachment is the norm
-As a result, imposing her own cultural understanding upon the rest of the world - There was also an emic approach
- This is studying cultures in isolation by identifying behaviours that are specific to that culture .
Culture bias A03 - ww1
-culturally biased research can have a significant real world affect
-For example, amplifying validating damaging stereotypes
-The US Army use an IQ test before World War I
-Which was culturally biased towards the dominant white majority
-Unsurprisingly the test showed that African-Americans were the bottom of the IQ scale
- The data from these tests had a profound effect on the attitudes held by Americans towards certain cultural groups
-This highlights the negative impact that culturally biased research can have
Culture bias A03- contemporary psycologist
-Contemporary psychologist are significantly more open-minded and well travelled than previously
-And have increased understanding of other cultures at both a personal and professional level
-for example, international psychology conferences increase the exchange of ideas between psychologists
-This has helped to reduce centrism in psychology and enabled a more nuance understanding and appreciation of cultural relativism
Culture bias A03- indigenous
-The height and awareness of cultural diversity has led to the development of
-‘ indigenous physiologies ‘
-These theories draw explicitly on the particular experiences of people in different cultural contexts
-One example is Afrocentrism
-A movement which suggests that because all black people have their roots in Africa theories about the most recognise the African context of behaviours and attitudes
-This is an example of an emic approach which emphasises the uniqueness of every culture and looks at behaviour from the inside of a particular cultural system
-This matters because it has led the emergence of theories that are more relevant to the lives and cultures of people not only in Africa, but also to those far removed from the African origins
-The development of indigenous psychologies is often seen as a strength of cultural relativism but there are limitations as well
-For example, our Afrocentric theories not as culturally biased as though they claim to replace?
Culture bias A03- Ekman
-One problem with cultural relativism is it assumed that there is no such thing as universal human behaviour?
-However this is contradicted by research
-For example, ekman found that the basic facial expressions for emotion
-Such as happiness or discussed
-Are the same over the human and animal world
-Equally some features of human interaction in attachment such as interaction synchrony, appear to be universal
-this suggests a full understanding of human behaviour requires the study of both universal and variation among individuals and groups
Nomothetc and idiographic a01- nomo
-The central argument is whether the aims of psychological research is to discover universal laws of human behaviour or develop an in-depth understanding of unique cases
-nomothetic
-Understands behaviour through developing general laws that apply to all
-The approach studies large numbers of people in order to formulate general laws of behaviour
-The data gathered from the studies provide a standard against which peoples behaviour can be measured and compared
-The approach uses experimental methods to produce quantitative data
-E.G measures of central tendency expression percentages
-An example is the biological approach
-This uses a normal pathetic approach when explaining disorders such as OCD and depression
-They pinpoint biological factors such as neurotransmitters that are responsible for these disorders.
Nomothetc and idiographic a01
-idiographic understands behaviour through studying individual cases the approach focuses on individuals
-Each individual is considered as a unique case each with their own experiences values and motivations
-It’s generally associated with methods that produce qualitative data such as case studies uninstructed interviews, diaries and other self report methods
-No attempt is made to compare these to a larger group standard or norm
-This often means the only relatively small numbers of people can be tested
-However, the use of qualitative methods reflects on the central aims of idiographic research
-Describing the richness of human experience and getting insight into the persons unique way of viewing the world
-One example would be the humanistic approach
-They described themselves as anti-Scientific
-Rogers and Maslow were more concerned with the unique experience of the individual rather than producing general laws of behaviour
-Additionally, another example would be shallice and Warrington’s case with patient KF
— Who suffered brain damage from a motorcycle accident which damaged his short-term memory?
Nomothetc and idiographic a03- N - strength
One strength is the methods are the scientific
-Is very useful for predicting and controlling behaviour
-For example, biological psychologists take a nomothetic approach when explaining obsessive compulsive disorder
-And clean the OCD is caused by high levels of dopamine and lower levels of serotonin
-Drug therapy are developed on the basis of nomothetic research and work by re-addressing a biological imbalance
-SSRIs are used to treat OCD and increase the availability and uptake of serotonin
-Thus reducing the anxiety associated with OCD which helps to improve the lives of people suffering from this condition as a result of nomothetic research
Nomothetc and idiographic a03- N weakness
-One weakness is that some argue that the preoccupation of this approach on large samples, statistical data and generating laws means participants are seen as a series of scores rather than individual people and their subjective experience is ignored
-For example knowing there is a one percent risk of developing schizophrenia tells a little about what life is like for a sufferer
-some argue that the nomothetic approach loses sight of the” whole” person due to its fixation on quantitative data and statistical analysis
-Furthermore it’s also claimed that the approach only provides a superficial understanding of human behaviour
-Another example would be Milgrim research who found that 65% of participants obeying authority figure and inflicted a 450 V electric shock because they were ordered to do so
-This fails to provide an explanation of why each personal bead
-There may have been different circumstances as to what led the obedience found in each participant.
Nomothetc and idiographic a03 - I weakness
-this approach is unable to produce general laws or predictions about human behaviour which severely limits it’s usefulness as a source of practical knowledge about the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders.
-For discipline so dedicated to the application of its scientific understanding this is a devastating limitation
-Many psychologists criticise this approach for essentially unscientific nature
-The emphasis on in-depth data collection and the difficulties in arriving at justifiable generalisations contradicts the central purpose of any mature science
-Therefore research practices that do not address these goals it seems scientifically pointless
Nomothetc and idiographic a03 - i
-however there are numerous strengths of taking a idiographic approach and a case study method is a powerful tool for evaluating psychological theories
-The patient of KF exposed a limitation of the multi model of memory, by providing evidence that our STM compromises of at least two components
-Auditory and visual memory
-And not one a stipulated by Atkinson and shiffrin
-Consequently, a single case study can generate further research into a particular phenomenon
-E.G memory
-Therefore contributing to the development of new theories that further are understanding of human behaviour
Nomothetc and idiographic a03 - i weakness
-while case studies can highlight laws and psychological theories and prompt further research
-The case study method and other quantitative methods are extremely time-consuming
-For example Freud’s case of little hans consists of almost 150 pages of verbatim quotes from Little hans’ father
-as well as detailed descriptions of the events in his life
-Freud did go onto to create universal theories of personality development during childhood
-However, these were based unlimited and unrepresentative case studies that many psychologists would discredit
Nomothetc and idiographic a03 - N
The use of experimental, quantitative methods, controlled measurement and the ability to predict behaviour
-Are all seen a strength of the nomothetic approach
-Furthermore controlled methods allow for replication to examine the reliability of findings which has helped psychology established itself as a scientific discipline
-The development of theories and empirical testing are just one of the key features of science that are employed by the nomothetic approach
