Issues and Debates

Question 1

Gender Bias - What is universality?

Answer 1

This is any characteristic of human beings that is capable of being applied to all, despite differences of experience and upbringing.

Question 2

Gender Bias - What is Alpha bias?

Answer 2

• Alpha bias exaggerates differences between the sexes.
• They usually devalue females.
• An example is Freud’s psychosexual stages as Freud devalues women in his theory e.g penis envy.

Question 3

Gender Bias - What is Beta bias?

Answer 3

• Beta bias ignores differences between men and women.
• This usually occurs when females aren’t included in experiments but are included in conclusions.
• An example of this is the fight or flight response. Early research ignored women and it was considered a universal response, recent studies show women inhibit it.

Question 4

Gender Bias - What is Andocentrism?

Answer 4

• This is a male centred consequence of beta bias.
• If our understanding of ‘normal’ behaviour is being drawn from male samples, any behaviour that deviates is ‘abnormal’.
• An example of this is PMS.

Question 5

Gender Bias - Discuss evaluation points for gender bias.

Answer 5

• Lack of women appointed for research, female concerns not reflected. Institutional sexism.
• Many gender differences are based on essentialist perspective, gender difference is fixed. Creates double standard in way behaviour is viewed from a m+f perspective.
• Reflexivity is an important development in psychology and may lead to greater awareness of the role of personal biases in shaping research in the future. Modern researchers realise effect of own assumptions.

Question 6

Culture Bias - What is Culture bias?

Answer 6

• Ignore cultural differences and interpret all phenomena through the ‘lens of one’s own judgement’,
• If ‘norm’ is judged by only one standpoint of one particular culture, then differences ‘abnormal’.
• Asch and Milgram are culturally biased.

Question 7

Cultural Bias - What is Ethnocentrism?

Answer 7

• Judging other cultures by standards and values of one’s own culture.
• Extreme may lead to prejudice and discrimination.
• Ainsworth’s Strange Situation (1970) is an example of this. Only reflects norms of American culture. Very different findings were found in Germany, for example.

Question 8

Culture Bias - What is Cultural Relativism? Use ‘etic’ and ‘emic’ in answer.

Answer 8

• Idea that norms, values, ethics and moral standards can only be meaningful and understood within specific and cultural contexts.
• John Berry (1969)…
  Etic = looks at behaviour from outside of a given culture attempts to describe those behaviours as universal.
  Emic = looks at behaviour from within certain cultures and identifies behaviour specific to the culture. E.g. Ainsworth.
• Argues psychology imposes etic approach when should be emic.

Question 9

Culture Bias - Discuss evaluation points of culture bias.

Answer 9

• Western culture familiar with aims and objectives of scientific enquiry, may not be the case in other cultures. Adverse effect on validity of research.
• Conclusions drawn more valid if they include recognition of the role of culture in bringing them about.
• Operationalisation of variables may not be experienced the same way, for example in China invasion of personal space is normal, but in the West it’s threatening. Issues in these studies.

Question 10

Free Will & Determinism - What is free will?

Answer 10

• We are self-determining and free to choose our own thoughts and actions.
• We are able to reject external forces and are masters of our own destiny.
• Advocated by the humanistic approach.

Question 11

Free Will & Determinism - What is determinism? Hard and Soft.

Answer 11

• Free will no place in explaining behaviour.
• Hard = All human behaviour has a cause. Everything controlled by internal and external forces that we can’t control.
• Soft = All events and human behaviour have causes, but behaviour can also be determined by our conscious choices.

Question 12

Free Will & Determinism - What is Biological determinism?

Answer 12

• Behaviour is caused by genetic, hormonal and evolutionary influences that we can’t control.
• E.g Autonomous Nervous System.

Question 13

Free Will & Determinism - What is Environmental determinism?

Answer 13

• Behaviour caused by features if environment that we can’t control.
• BF Skinner, all behaviour is a result of conditioning.
• We may think it is free will but our behaviour has been shaped by environmental events.

Question 14

Free Will & Determinism - What is Psychic determinism?

Answer 14

• Behaviour caused by unconscious conflicts that we can’t control.
• Freud believed free will is an ‘illusion’.
• No such thing as an accident, e.g Freudian slip.

Question 15

Free Will & Determinism - Discuss positive evaluation points for Free Will.

Answer 15

• Even if we don’t have free will the fact we think we do is positive to our mind and behaviour.
• Roberts et al. (2000) = adolescents who didn’t believe in free will had higher depression risk.
• High internal LOC tend to be more mentally healthy.
• Free will makes cognitive sense, gives ‘face validity’.

Question 16

Free Will & Determinism - Discuss negative evaluation points for Free Will.

Answer 16

• Basic experiences of free will are decided by our brain before we are aware.
• Activity related to whether to press a button with left or right hand in brain was found up to 10 seconds before participants reported being consciously aware of making such a decision.

Question 17

Free Will & Determinism - Discuss positive evaluation points for Determinism.

Answer 17

• Consistent with aims of science, idea that behaviour is orderly and obeys laws places psychology on equal footing with other sciences.
• Value of research and prediction of human behaviour has led to therapies and behavioural treatments.
• In terms of mental illness, there’s no free will.

Question 18

Free Will & Determinism - Discuss negative evaluation points for Free Will.

Answer 18

• In terms of hard determinism, not consistent in the way in which the justice system works. Offenders held morally accountable for actions.
• Unfalsifiable. Based on idea that causes of behaviour will always exist, even if they haven’t been found. Impossible to prove wrong.

Question 19

Nature-Nurture Debate - What is the debate?

Answer 19

Concerned with the extent to which aspects of behaviour are a product of inherited or acquired characteristics.

Question 20

Nature-Nurture Debate - What is Nature?

Answer 20

• Nativists such as Rene Decartes argued human characteristics are innate, the result of heredity.
• Heritability co-efficient is used to assess heredity = 0-1.0. Extent to which a characteristic has a genetic basis, e.g. intelligence = 0.5.

Question 21

Nature-Nurture Debate - What is Nurture?

Answer 21

• Empiricists such as John Locke argued the mind is a blank slate: ‘tabula rasa’ and learning and experience are result of the environment.
• Pre-natal and post-natal environment, such as mother’s physical and psychological state and social and cultural conditions in which a child grows up.

Question 22

Nature-Nurture Debate - What is the interactionist approach, including the diathesis-stress model?

Answer 22

• Nature, creates nurture.
• Diathesos-stress model suggests that psychopathology is caused by genetic vulnerability (diathesis) and is only expressed when coupled with a biological or environmental trigger (stressor).

Question 23

Nature-Nurture Debate - What are epigenetics?

Answer 23

• Change in our genetic activity without changing genetic code.
• Happens throughout life caused by interaction with environment, e.g. smoking, war, diet.
• Leave ‘marks’ on DNA, tell our bodies which genes to ignore and which to use and may influence genetics of our children.

Question 24

Nature-Nurture Debate - Discuss the evaluation points of the nature-nurture debate.

Answer 24

• Notion that genes and environment interact is elaborated by constructivism the idea people create their own nurture which is appropriate to their nature.
• Siding with either nature or nurture is an example of hard determinism.
• MZ twins don’t show perfect concordance rates supports view that n+n can’t be separated. Age/ temperament/ individual differences etc mean siblings experience life events differently.

Question 25

Holism and Reductionism - What is holism?

Answer 25

• Study indivisible system rather than its constituent parts.
• Study the ‘whole’.
• View of humanistic psychologists.

Question 26

Holism and Reductionism - What is reductionism?

Answer 26

• Belief human behaviour is best explained by breaking it down into smaller constituent parts.
• Often the simplest, easiest and most economical level of explanation.

Question 27

Holism and Reductionism - What are levels of explanation in psychology. Refer to OCD.

Answer 27

• Some more reductionist than others:
• Socio-cultural = repetitive hand washing.
• Psychological = experience of having obsessive thoughts.
• Physical = sequence of movements involved in washing one’s hands.
• Physiological = hypersensitivity of basal ganglia.
• Neurochemical = underproduction of serotonin.

Question 28

Holism and Reductionism - What is biological reductionism?

Answer 28

• All behaviour at some level, is biological, and so can be explained through neurochemical, neurophysiological, evolutionary and genetic influences.

Question 29

Holism and Reductionism - What is environmental reductionism?

Answer 29

• Attempt to explain all behaviour in terms of stimulus-response links that have been learned through experience.
• Study observable behaviour only.

Question 30

Idiographic and Nomethetic - What is the idiographic approach?

Answer 30

• An approach that focuses more on the individual case as a means of understanding behaviour, people are studied as unique entities.
• Qualitative data such as case studies, unstructured interviews and self-report measures.

Question 31

Idiographic and Nomethetic - What is the nomethetic approach?

Answer 31

• An approach that attempts to study human behaviour through the development of general and universal laws.
• People are compared, classified and measured where future behaviour can be predicted/controlled.
• More scientific studies, such as experiments with large numbers of people.

Question 32

Idiographic and Nomethetic - Examples of the idiographic approach.

Answer 32

• Humanistic Psychology

- Psychodynamic Psychology

Question 33

Idiographic and Nomethetic - Examples of the nomothetic approach.

Answer 33

• Behaviourist Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Biological Psychology
• Usually more reductionist and deterministic.

Question 34

Idiographic and Nomethetic - Discuss the evaluation points of the idiographic approach.

Answer 34

• Qualitative methods provide detailed account of individual, may complement nomothetic, shed light on general laws.
• Case of HM and brain damage, findings revealed info on overall understanding.
• One criticism, Freud and case study of little Hans, wasn’t followed up so findings are restricted and narrow.
• Not scientific and are subject to interpretation.

Question 35

Idiographic and Nomethetic - Discuss the evaluation points of the nomothetic approach.

Answer 35

• Scientific, test under standardised conditions, using data sets, averages, statistical tests, prediction etc.
• Accused of losing the whole person, e.g knowing 1% risk of schizophrenia doesn’t say what life is like for someone with it.
• Experiences of individual ignored and are usually given a score.

Question 36

Ethical Implications - What are ethical implications of research studies and theory?

Answer 36

• The impact that psychological research may have in terms of the rights of other people especially participants.
• This includes. at a societal level, influencing public policy and/or the way in which certain groups of people are regarded.
• Can’t control how findings are represented or misrepresented in the media.

Question 37

Ethical Implications - What is socially sensitive research?

Answer 37

• ‘Studies in which there are potential consequences or implications, either directly for the participants in the research or for the class of individuals represented in the research’.

Question 38

Ethical Implications - What are ethical issues in socially sensitive research?

Answer 38

• Implications = Wider effects of such research should be carefully considered as some studies may be seen as giving scientific credence to prejudice and discrimination.
• Uses/public policy = What is the research likely to be used for? What if it was used for the wrong purpose?
• Validity of the Research = Some findings that were presented as objective and value-free on the past have actually turned out to be highly suspect, and in some cases, fraudulent.

Question 39

Ethical Implications - Discuss the evaluation points of ethical implications of research studies and theory.

Answer 39

• Despite controversial topics, Sandra Scarr (2988) argues studies

Question 40

Ethical Implications - Discuss the evaluation points of ethical implications of research studies and theory.

Answer 40

• ## Despite controversial topics, Sandra Scarr (2988) argues studies of underrepresented groups can promote greater understanding of these. This can help reduce prejudice.

Question 41

Ethical Implications - Discuss the evaluation points of ethical implications of research studies and theory.

Answer 41

• Despite controversial topics, Sandra Scarr (2988) argues studies of underrepresented groups can promote greater understanding of these. This can help reduce prejudice.