Issues and Debates Flashcards
What is gender bias?
-Psychological research which does not justify the experiences of both men and women, usually favours only one gender.
What is universality?
-All behaviours and characteristics can be applied to both genders. Gender bias threatens this.
What are the two types of gender bias?
- Alpha bias,
- Beta bias.
What is alpha bias?
-Believing there are real differences between men and women. Typically undervalues women.
What study shows alpha bias?
-Sociobiological theory; states that it is in the male’s genetics to impregnate as many women as possible and pass on his genes, however, women need to do the opposite and protect the few offspring they can have. So promiscuity for men is genetically determined, whereas for men it is seen as going against their nature.
What is beta bias?
-Ignores/minimises any differences between men and women.
What study shows beta bias?
-Much of fight or flight research has been done on males, however, Shelley Taylor found that women actually inhibit the response to protect their offspring and make defensive networks with other women.
What is androcentrism?
-Behaviour and norms that are judged according to a male standard, and usually women’s behaviour is seen as deviant and misunderstood.
What study shows androcentrism?
-Anger is explained using PMS, however, male’s anger is explained as a rational response to pressure.
What are the strengths of gender bias?
- Feminist psychology; many more women researchers and women PP involved in research process which reduces the impact of gender bias.
- Reflexivity; many researchers have recognised gender bias in their studies, they have used this as a critical aspect of research and now raise more awareness of gender bias in research.
What are the weaknesses of gender bias?
- Implications of gender bias; has created many stereotypes about women, which have had an affect on the opportunities that they may have had in the workplace which have been taken away from them due to this gender bias causing stereotypes.
- Gender bias in the research process; not many women researchers or PP and so women concerns are not involved in studies, which may cause problems with generalisation.
What is cultural bias?
-Ignores cultural differences, it looks at behaviours through one culture’s norms.
What is ethnocentrism?
-Judging other cultures by the norms and values of one own culture.
What study shows ethnocentrism?
- Strange situation-can only be used for US children.
- Stated that the strange situation can be used to explain all attachments in all cultures, however, e.g. German women would be seen as cold and rejecting rather than encouraging independence.
What is cultural relativism?
-Idea that norms and values can only be understood
and applied to one culture.
What is imposed etic?
- Identifies behaviours as being able to be universal and applied to all culture.
- E.g. strange situation-Mary Ainsworth believed it could be used in all cultures.
What is imposed emic?
-Identifies a behaviour and that it can be applied to only that specific culture.
What are the strengths of cultural bias?
- Individualism vs collectivism; cultural bias says these two countries are too different, however, Osaka and Takano found 14/15 studies shown no clear distinction between the countries, so cultural bias may not be such a big problem
- Changes in research; less research has an imposed etic, more of a focus on an emic approach.
What are the weaknesses of cultural bias?
- Unfamiliarity with research; some countries may not have full understanding of research process unlike western countries, and so demand characteristics may be more of an issue.
- Operationalism of variables; some variables may not be experienced in same way by PP of different cultures and so may cause validity problems. E.g. people in China see invasion of privacy as the norm whereas in western countries it may be seen as a threat.
What is free will?
- Human beings are self-determining and in control of our actions.
- Links to the humanistic approach.
What is determinism?
-External forces control all our actions, we have no control over them.
What is hard determinism?
-Our behaviour is always controlled by internal or external forces, we have no control at all.
What is soft determinism?
-Behaviour always has a cause, however, it can also be controlled with our conscious choices.
What is biological determinism?
- Behaviour is caused by biological influences we cannot control, e.g. genes/hormones.
- Link to biological approach.
What is environmental determinism?
- Behaviour is caused by features of the environment that we cannot control.
- Links to behavioural approach.
What is psychic determinism?
- Behaviour is caused by unconscious conflicts we cannot control.
- Links to psychodynamic approach.
What are the arguments for free will?
- Face validity; as we believe we have complete control over our choices.
- Allows us to be more mentally healthy; Roberts found that teens who believed in free will were at a less risk of becoming depressed.
What are the arguments against free will?
-Neurological evidence against free will; Libbet and Soon found that our brain is predetermined when for example, we need to make a choice in what button to press. Our brain is already aware of the choice before we are made consciously aware.
What are the arguments for determinism?
- Development of treatments; the control and predetermination had led to many therapies being developed for mental disorders.
- Schizophrenia patients as evidence; SZ patients lose complete control over thoughts and so shows determinism at work.
What are the arguments against determinism?
-Inconsistent in legal system; everyone is held morally accountable for all actions and so cannot rely on the determinism.
What is the nature debate?
- Human characteristics are innate and a result of heredity.
- Empiricists believe the mind is a blank state where experiences build upon it.
- Heretability coefficient assesses heredity; 1=fully genetically determined.
What is the nurture debate?
- Behaviour is influenced by environmental factors.
- Lerner identified two types of environment; pre-natal (mother’s physical health during pregnancy) and post-natal (social context we grow up in).
What is the interactionist approach?
- Attachment between parent and infant is a “two-way” street, as the innate behaviours of the child will elicit a response from the caregiver, and this response will affect the child’s behaviour.
- Nature makes nurture.
What is the diathesis-stress model?
- We all have a genetic vulnerability for a mental disorder however we need a stressor to trigger it.
- Shows nature works with nurture.
What are epigenetics?
- Change in our genetic activity without changing our genetic code.
- Caused by environmental factors like pollution which leave “epigenetic marks” on our DNA.
What are the evaluation points of the nature-nurture debate?
- Shared and unshared environments; individual differences may result in twins who live in same environment to have different experiences, this shows that nurture and nature influence each other.
- Constructivism; people create their own nurture by picking the most appropriate environment for their nature- “niche-picking and niche-building”.
- Implications of nativism and empiricism; nativists believe environment has little input, whereas empiricists think the environment has an influence.
What is holism?
-Breaking up any behaviour is inappropriate, and the person should be studied as a whole.
What is reductionism?
-Analyse behaviour by breaking it down into constituent parts. All phenomena should be explained using the most basic parts.
What is biological reductionism?
-Explains social/psychological phenomena at lower biological levels, e.g. through evolutionary and neurochemical influences.
What is environmental reductionism?
-Explains behaviour in terms of stimulus-response experiences.
What is are the arguments for holism?
-Conformity studies like Zimbardo’s prison study had to look at the whole group’s behaviours rather than individual. This provided a more complete understanding.
What are the arguments against holism?
- They are very vague explanations.
- A holistic approach to explaining mental disorders like depression may not be effective because we are unable to see what are the direct causes of depression and so we need to break it down to lower levels.
What are the arguments for reductionism?
- Behavioural approach breaks down complex learning into simple stimulus-response behaviours.
- Variables can be broken down down and studied precisely giving psychology more credibility.
What are the arguments against reductionism?
- Oversimplify complex phenomena leading to loss of validity.
- Explanations at genetic level cannot account for meaning within a social context.
What is the idiographic approach?
-Focus on individual case as a means of understanding behaviour.
What is the nomothetic approach?
-Study behaviour through development of general laws.
Where is the idiographic approach used in psychology?
-Humanistic psychology=Rogers and Maslow focused on the individual, their “self” and unique experiences.
Where is the nomothetic approach used in psychology?
-Reductionist determinism=hypotheses are made and applied to large samples of people.
What is the case for idiographic approach?
- Produces a complete and global account of the individual.
- One case for example, HM, can generate a new hypotheses.
What is the case against idiographic approach?
- Approach may have a narrow view, e.g. Freud’s Little Hans study only done on one child but applied to all.
- Conclusions from case studies may be subjective and lack generalisation the whole public.
What is the case for nomothetic approach?
- More scientific, as there is more prediction and control, e.g. in the field of IQ found the average as 100.
- Gives psychology greater scientific credibility.
What is the case against nomothetic approach?
- Subjective experiences are ignored, so ignores any human experiences.
- Using statistics can result in the “loss of the whole person”, e.g. we don’t know what life is like for people with depression, we just know that there is a 1% risk of developing it.
