Issues and Debates Flashcards
Cultural biased
What is alpha bias
Exaggerates the difference between cultures
Cultural bias
What is beta bias?
This ignores the difference between cultures
Cultural bias
What is emic construct?
An idea or approach that applies to only one culture
Cultural bias
What is Etic construct?
An idea of approach that is not culturally specific and can apply universally.
What is an example of a study with Beta biased.
May Ainsworth’s strange situation method assumes that source attachment is the ideal, whereas insecure attachments are deviants from this one.
What is an example of a study which shows Alpha bias
Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg carried out a meta-analysis of strange situation studies across 32 different samples around the world and found significant differences between and within cultures.
Give an example of a study that shows no bias
Buss (1989) carried out surveys across cultures to discover mate preferences. Rather than hand out the same survey, he employed people in each of these cultures to translate the words and ideas in the survey for their home cultures.
What is biological determinism?
The idea that your behaviour is determined solely by your biology. For example, through your genes and neurotransmitter levels.
What is environmental determinism?
The idea that your behaviour is determined by learning and what has happened to you. For example, through exposure to violent role models.
What is psychic determinism?
The idea that your behaviour is caused through a mixture of your innate drives (ID) and the effects of your early experiences (ego and superego development). For example, developing an oral fixation due to issues during the oral psychosexual stage.
What is scientific determinism?
The idea that each behaviour and though has a direct cause. Focus her on casual explanations between a stimulus and a response.
What is the humanistic approach?
Believe in the idea of ‘self-determination’ where you are in charge of your actions and behaviour. Furthermore, it is possible for somebody not to have self-determination, if they are allowing themselves to be controlled by other people or things. People need to take control in order to take control in order to gain self-determination.
What is moral responsibility?
In society it is assumed that we are in control of our actions. In law, if you commit a crime, you are held responsible for it. For that reason, young children and the severely mentally ill are not tried in the same way because it is assumed that they were not ‘in control’. We also blame people who do bad things in everyday life rather than excusing hem for their difficult upbringing.
What is reductionism?
This aims to explain human behaviour by breaking it down into manageable chunks by studying them separately.
What is holism?
This aims to explain behaviour through processes and systems rather than combination of parts.
What is biological reductionism?
Any explanation that assumes that all human behaviour can be explained through basic biological means (e.g. Genes, neural/hormonal levels)
What is environmental reductionism?
Any explanation that assumes that all human behaviour can be explained through stimulus-response links and learning (e.g. Developing aggression through watching an aggressive role model)
What is experimental reductionism?
There is an assumption when carrying out an experiment with more that one level of the IV that everything else about the participant will remain constant from one condition to the next. Therefore, any change in the DV must come from the IV change, rather than a more complex participant change.
What is Gestalt psychology?
‘Gestalten’ means ‘the whole’ in German. This is the view that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In human behaviour, this means that our processes are more complex than the constituent parts that reductionists would choose to investigate separately.
What are the the three basic levels at which we can explain human behaviour?
MOST COMPLICATED
- Higher level: cultural and social expectations of how our social groups affect our behaviour.
- Middle level: psychological explanations of behaviour.
- Lower level: biological explanations of our behaviour (e.g. Genes and hormones)
MOST BASIC (REDUCTIONIST)
Nomothetic approach
Uses large samples of participants and makes general ‘laws’ and principals to apply to all people.
Idiographic approach
Focuses on individuals (e.g. Case studies) to fine out more in depth. Then tries to apply to all people.
