Issues and Debates

Question 1

explain Gender bias

Answer 1

• Rachel Hare-Mustin and Jeane Marceck propsed that there are two different ways that theories may be biased these are alpha bias and beta bias

androcentrism
- for most of its life psychology and society has been male dominated, almost all psychologists were and are men therefore there theories are male dominated and represent a male world view, this results in alpha and beta bias

Alpha Bias
- refers to theroies that assume there are real and enduring differences between men and women
- devalue one gender in comparison to the other
for example
Freud
- Freud theories reflect the culture in which he lived, men were more powerful and more educated and regarded as superior to women
- viewed femininity as failed masculinity and exaggerated the difference between men and women
- Josselson points out - women are seen as inferior to men as they have penis envy and they cannot undergo the same Oedipus conflict as boys do which involves casteration anxiety
- because the superego develops from the Oedipus conflict women therefore are morally inferior becasue they have a weaker identification with there mother

beta bias
- this refers to theories that ignore or minimise gender differences, they do this by assuming that all people are the same therefore you can apply the same methods with both men and women = aims to produce theories that have universality
- minimise differences between men and women and lead to the needs of one gender being ignored
for example
- fight or flight stress response -
- biological research is usually conducted with male animals because female hormone levels would make it more diffiucult, assumed that such male only samples would’nt matter because what is true for males would be true for females
- assumed that fight or flight response is universal until Shelly Taylor challenged this and provided that females produce a tend and befriend response at times of stress this ensures the survival of their offspring
- means that female behaviour went undiscovered and meant that stress response was not understood

universality

• would be wrong to eradicate gender differences as a way to resolve gender bias issues, the approach itself is a beta bias
• solution lies in recognising differences but not the superiority of one gender over another

Question 2

Explain culture bias

Answer 2

• Rachel Hare-Mustin and Jeanne Marecek suggested that before being able to decide if there are cultural differneces one must consider the extent to which any research is biased

alpha bias
- refers to theories who assume there are real and enduring differences between cultural groups
for example
- alpha bias is the distinction that is often made between individualist and collectivist cultures
- for example we would expect those members of individualist cultures to be less conformist because they are less orientated towards group norms
- to assess validity of this view Takano and Osaka reviewed 15 studies that compared the US to Japan in terms of individualist and collectivism and 14/15 did not support the common view about differences in conformity
- findings suggested that the individualism/collectivism dimension may not be a real distinction and suggested that the distinction between individualist and collectivist cultures is no longer a useful one

beta bias

• refers to theories that ignore or minimise cultural differences, they do this by assuming that all people are the same therefore it is reasonable to sue the same theories/methods with all cultural groups
• one example is intelligence testing
• psychologist use IQ tests devised by Western psychologists to study intelligence in many different cultures
• psychologists assume that their view of intelligence applies to all cultures equally
• for example Western societies see intelligence as something within in the individual whereas collectivist cultures such as Ugandan society as intelligence as a functional relationship depending on shared knowledge between the individual and society
• when western IQ tests are used on non-western cultures non western people appear less intelligent - this is imposed etic where a research method or psychological test that is developed by one group is imposed on other groups of other people

ethnocentrism
- refers to use our own ethnic or cultural group as a basis for judgements about other groups, there is a tendency to view the beliefs, customs and behaviours of our own group as normal and even superior whereas those of other groups are deviant

alpha bias - ethnocentrism is an example of alpha bias because ones own culture is considered to be different and better and the consequence of this is that other cultures and their practises are devalued. an example of this is individualist attitudes towards attachment where independence is valued and dependence is seen as undesirable in collectivist cultures dependence is more highly valued

beta bias - ethnocentrism can lead to beta bias, if psychologists believe their world view is only view for example in the example of IQ testing above results from ethnocentrism where it was believed it was appropriate to use American IQ tests all over the world because there was the assumption that the american standard was universal

cultural relativism
- opposite of ethnocentrism in psychology is cultural relativism, idea that all cultures are worthy of response and that in studying another culture we need to try to understand the way that a particular culture sees the world

alpha bias - can lead to alpha bias where the assumption of real difference lead psychologists to overlook universals for example Margarent Mead’s research in Papua New Guinea where she initially concluded that there were significant gender differences due to culture but later recognised that there were universals and that men in all cultures were more aggressive than women

beta bias - often discussed in the context of defining
mental disorder in the case of the statistical infrequency definition of abnormality behaviours that are statistically infrequent in one culture may be statistically more frequent in another
for example one the symptoms of schizophrenic is claiming to hear voices however this is an experience that is common
by assuming the rules are applied universally we may diagnose some people as mentally ill but that diagnosis is relative to our culture

Question 3

Explain Free will and Determinism

Answer 3

• Determinism is a behaviour that is controlled by external or internal factors acting upon the individual

Biological determinism
- research into the human genome is producing increasing evidence of genetic influence on behaviour
- more we discover the more it appears that our behaviour is determined by our genes
for example
- research on genes found in people with high intelligence such as the IGF2R gene
- genes in turn influence brain structure and neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine that are often implicated in behaviour for example the dopamine hypothesis

Environmental determinism
- behaviourists believe that all behaviour is caused by previous experience through the process of classical and operant conditioning
for example
- a phobia may develop as a result of conditioning and can be unlearned through unconditioning

Psychic determinism

• Freuds psychoanalytic theory of personality suggests that adult behaviour is determined by a mix of innate drives and early experience
• behaviour is driven by the libido which focuses on erogenous zones such as the mouth of the anus, if a child is frustrated or overindulged at any stage during development then the libido remains tied to the relevant erogenous zone and the individual is fixated on that zone
• method of obtaining satisfaction that characterised the stage will dominate their adult personalty

Scientific determinism: emphasis on causal explanations
- based on the belief that all events have a cause
- independent variable is manipulated to observe the causal effect on a dependent variable
for example Harlow’s research on attachment involving an independent variable and dependent variable demonstrated that contact comfort not food determined the formation of attachment

Free will
- each individual has the power to make choices about their behaviour
Humanistic approach
- humanistic psychologists such as Maslow and Rodgers argued that self determinsation was necessary part of human behaviour without it health self development and self actualisation are not possible
- Rodgers claimed that as long as an individual remains controlled by other people or other things they cannot take responsibility for their behaviour and therefore cannot change it
- things which are outside a person sense of self remain beyond personal control for example a person who says they have lied but it is unlike them does not admit that they are a liar and therefore will not seek to change the behaviour only once they take self responsibility is personal growth possible

Moral responsibility

• an individual in charge of their own actions can exercise free will
• law states that children and those who are mentally ill of not have this responsibility but otherwise there is the assumption that in our society normal adult behaviour is self determined and humans are accountable for their actions regardless of innate factors or influence of early experience

Question 4

Explain the nature-nurture debate

Answer 4

Nature
- innate influences are referred to as nature, this is not just the abilities at birth but to any ability determined by genes such as secondary sexual characteristics which appear at puberty or a condition like huntingtons

genetic explanations

• family, twin adoption studies show that the closer two individuals are gentically, the more likely that both of them will develop the same behaviour
• for example the concordance rates for a mental disorder such as schizophrenia is about 40% for MZ twins and 7% for DZ twins

evoluntionary explanations

• this is based on the principle that a behaviour or characterstic that promotes survival and reproduction will be naturally selected this is because such behaviours are adaptive and thus genes for that behaviour characterstic will be passed on to subsequent generations
• for example Bowlby proposed that attachment is adaptive because it meant that an infant was more likely to be protected and therefore more likely to survive, attachment promotes close relationships which would foster successful reproduction therefore attachment behaviours are naturally selected which can only be done through genetic mechanisms

Nurture
- environmental influences are acquired through interactions with the environment this includes both the physical and social world and may be referred to as experience includes effects on the infant before birth such as when the mother smoke

Behaviourism

• behaviourists assume that all behaviour can be explained in terms of experience alone, BF skinner used concepts of classical and operant conditioning to explain learning
• for example attachment could be explained in terms of classical conditioning or operant condtioning

Social learning theory

• banduras view was a little less extreme than traditional behaviourists
• proposed that behaviour is acquired through learning and adding the new dimension of indirect vicarious reinforcement
• Bandura did take in to account that biology had a role to play and acknowledge the urge to behave aggressively might be biological but the point was that the way that a person learns to express anger is through environmental influences

Other explanations

• there a number of other psychological explanations that are not behaviourist or social learning but are basically nurture
• for example double bind theory of schizophrenia
• suggests that schizophrenia develops in childhood in children who frequently recieve contradictory messages from their parents for example a mother tells her son that she loves him but doesnt face him
• prevent the child from developing a construction of reality

Question 5

Explain Holism and reductionism

Answer 5

Reductionism
- an approach that breaks complex phenonmena into more simple components impying that this is desirable because complex phenonmena are best understood in a simple level of explanation

levels of explanation
- reductionist apporach suggests that explanations begin at the highest level and progressively look at component elements
- highest level: cultural and social explanations of how social groups affect our behaviour
- middle level: psychological explanations of behaviour
- lower level: biological explanations of how hormones and genes affect our behaviour
- consider any behaviour in these three levels
for example
- memory can be explained at a soical level in terms how cultural expectations affect what we remember at a psychological level in terms of episodic memory and it can be explained at a biological level in terms of the areas of the brain where the memories are stored

biological reductionism

• human behaviour must be explained in terms of atoms as that is what we are based on
• biological psychologists reduce behaviour to the action of neurones, neurotransmitters and hormones and so on
• popular way to explain mental illness is in terms of such units
• schizophrenia is caused by the excess of dopamine and drugs block dopamine and this reduces the symptoms

environmental reductionism

• behaviours explanations suggest that all behaviour can be explained in terms of simple stimulus response links and reduced to a relationship between the behaviour and events in the environment
• for example - behaviourist explanation offered for attachment and the complex emotion of attachment is reduced to a set of probabilities the move is likely to provide food which is reinforcing therefore she is rewarding and becomes a loved on

experimental reductionism

• reducing complex behaviours to isolated variables is useful strategy for conducting research
• uses experimental approach to determine casual relationships

Holism
with respect to a behaviour such as a memory or mental disorder perceiving the whole experience rather than the individual features or the relations between them

gestalt psychology
- focused of perception arguing that explanations for what we see only make sense through a consideration of the whole rather than the individuals elements

humanistic psychology

• individual reacts as an organised whole rather than a set of stimulus response links
• what matters is a persons sense of unified identity and thus a lack of identity or a sense of wholeness

cognitive psychology

• memory is a complex system which is recent years has been understood in terms of connectionist networks
• idea of a network is that each unit is linked to many other units
• develop links through experience and with new experience new links are strengthened or weakened
• connectionist networks are described as holist because the network as a whole behaves differently than the individual parts so the sum of parts equals the whole

Question 6

Explain idiographic and nomothetic approaches to psychological investigation

Answer 6

The idiographic approach
- focuses on the individual and emphasises uniqueness, favours qualitative methods in research

qualitative methods

• focus is on gaining insight into human behaviour and by studying unique individuals in depth rather than gaining numerical data from many others
• focus is on quality of information rather than quantity
• also qualitative as it uses qualitative methods such as unstructured interviews case studies and thematic analysis

examples of the idiographic approach

• Freud used his patients as a way to understnad human behaviour such as Little Hans
• contains almost 150 pages of verbtaim quotes recorded by Hans’s father and descriptions of events in Hans’ life
• contained Freuds own interpretations of the events
• Fred used generalisations from his case studies but they are still idiographic because they are drawn from unique individuals
• Humanistic psychologists also favour the idiographic approach as they are concerned with studying the person as a whole and seeing the world from the perspective of that person, what matters is the persons subjective experience and not something that someone else might observe
• Allport used Jenny as a way of supporting his theory of personality, the idiogrpahic persepctive could tell us more about human behaviour and personality than the use of personality tests which could only provide statistical information

The nomothetic approach
- seeks to formulate general laws of behaviour based on the study of groups and the use of statistical techniques, it attempts to summarise the differneces between people through generalisation

quantitative research

• based on numbers, measures of central tendency, dispersion, graphs and statsitcal analysis
• collect data from large number of people rather than individuals
• IQ tests

examples of the nomoethetic approach

• biological approach seeks to portray the basic principles of how the body and brain work
• behaviourist psychology produced general laws of behaviour classical and operant conditioning, reseach may have not involved thousands of humans but they were seeking one set of rules for all animals
• cognitive psychology is also a nomothetic approach and its aim is to develop general laws of behaviour that apply to everyone
• does use case studies but these are required in order to understand the working of the normal human mind so its necessary to look at rare abnormal cases
• Hans Eysenck psychometric approach to personality, psychometric literally means measuring psychological characterstics such as personality and intelligence
• large groups of people are tested and the distribution of their scores informs us about what is normal and what is abnormal
• EPQ (persoanlity test) was used to collect large amounts of data which use factors to develop personality types