Issues and Debates

Question 1

Alpha Bias

Answer 1

Differences between the sexes are exaggerated

Question 2

Beta Bias

Answer 2

Differences between the sexes are minimised or ignored

Question 3

Androcentrism

Answer 3

Male behaviour is seen as the norm

Question 4

Estrocentrism

Answer 4

Female behaviour is seen as the norm

Question 5

Cultural Bias

Answer 5

If the norm or standard for a particular behaviour is judged only from the standpoint of one particular culture, then any cultural differences in behaviour will inevitably be seen as abnormal, inferior or unusual

Question 6

Ethnocentrism

Answer 6

The belief in the superiority of one’s own cultural group

Question 7

Cultural Relativism

Answer 7

The facts and things that psychologists discover may only make sense from the perspective of the culture within which they were discovered

Question 8

Etic Approach

Answer 8

Looks at behaviour from outside a given culture and identifies behaviours that are universal

Question 9

Emic Approach

Answer 9

Functions from within certain cultures and identifies behaviours that are specific to that culture

Question 10

Free Will

Answer 10

The idea that we are self determining: human beings are free to choose their own thoughts and actions

Question 11

Hard Determinism (fatalism)

Answer 11

All human action has a cause- it should be possible to identify these causes. What we do is dictated by internal or external forces that we cannot control

Question 12

Soft Determinism

Answer 12

All human action has a cause but people have conscious mental control over behaviour

Question 13

Biological Determinism

What approach is this and describe?

Answer 13

Control from physiological, genetic and hormonal responses

Biological Approach:

• Physiological processes are not under conscious control (eg influence of autonomic nervous system on anxiety)
• Genetic factors may determine many behaviours and characteristics (eg mental disorders)
• Hormones may determine behaviour (eg the role of testosterone in aggressive behaviour)

Question 14

Environmental Determinism

What approach popularised this?

Describe?

Answer 14

We are determined by conditioning

Behaviourist Approach- Skinner

We might think we are acting independently, but our behaviour has been shaped by environmental events and agents of socialisation

Question 15

Psychic Determinism

Describe Freud’s beliefs?

Describe?

Answer 15

We are directed by unconscious conflicts

Freud thought free will is an illusion but placed emphasis on biological drives and instincts underpinning psychological responses rather than conditioning

Freud’s psychic determinism sees behaviour as determined and directed by unconscious conflicts repressed in childhood

Question 16

Nature

Answer 16

Nativists argued that human characteristics are innate- the result of heredity (innate and genetic influences)

Question 17

Nurture

Define nurture by Lerner’s two different levels of the environment?

Answer 17

Environmental influences. Empiricists argued the mind is a blank slate at birth upon which experience writes (behaviourist approach)

• Defined in narrow prenatal terms (eg the mother’s physical and psychological state during pregnancy)
• Defined more generally through postnatal experience (eg social conditions the child grows up in)

Question 18

Interactionism of the Nature-Nurture Debate

Answer 18

Focus of the debate is now on the relative contributions of each influence

Question 19

Diathesis-Stress Model

Answer 19

(Interactionism in mental illness). Suggests mental disorder is caused by a biological vulnerability (diathesis) which is only expressed when coupled with an environmental trigger (stressor)

Question 20

Holism

Answer 20

People and behaviour should be studied as a whole system

Question 21

Reductionism

Answer 21

Breaking down behaviour into constituent parts

Question 22

Parsimony

Answer 22

(Reductionism is based on this). All phenomena should be explained using the most basic, lowest level and simplest principles

Question 23

Biological Reductionism

Answer 23

(At the physiological and neurochemical level). We are all biological organisms made up of physiological structures and processes- all behaviour is at some level biological and can be explained through neurochemical, neurophysiological, evolutionary and genetic influences

Question 24

Environmental Reductionism

Answer 24

(At the physical level, behaviourist stimulus response links)
The behaviourist approach- behaviourists study observable behaviour and break complex learning up into simple stimulus-response links

Question 25

Idiographic Approach

What is idiographic approach associated with?

Example of an approach that’s an idiographic approach?

Answer 25

The study of unique experience- aims to describe the nature of the individual

Methods of psychology that produce qualitative data (eg case studies, unstructured interviews and other self report methods)

Humanistic Psychology. Rogers and Maslow were interested only in documenting the unique experience of the individual, and not producing general laws of behaviour

Question 26

Nomothetic Approach

What is the nomothetic approach associated with?

Examples of approaches that are nomothetic?

Answer 26

The production of general laws- aims to produce general laws of behaviour
This means future behaviour can then be predicted and controlled

Psychological methods defined as reliable and scientific (eg questionnaires and psychological tests)

Behaviourist, cognitive and biological research/approaches would all meet the criteria

Question 27

What two things do ethical issues arise between?

Answer 27

• Psychology’s need for valid and valuable resources

- Preserving the rights and dignity of participants

Question 28

Socially Sensitive Research

Answer 28

There are potential social implications, either directly for the participants in research or the class of individuals represented by the research

Question 29

Three concerns for Socially Sensitive Research

Answer 29

Sieber and Stanley:

• Implications: some studies may give scientific status to prejudice and discrimination
• Uses: what would happen if it was used for the wrong purpose?
• Validity of the research: some findings presented as objective in the past turned out to be fraudulent