Issues and Debates Flashcards
What is the human colony?
Neuron
Network of neurons
Region
Lobe
Hemisphere
Brain
Social group
State-nation
What is distributed intelligence?
The description of a complex system comprising individual agents. Each with limited intelligence and information.
If we accept humans. groups etc. are a form of distributed intelligence than what level should we look at?
Eg. does society affect your neurones? does a neuron ‘behave’?
What is holism?
Viewing people as indivisible being consisting of a self that can only be studied in context.
What is reductionism?
Viewing people as a complex system that consists of many small parts we should study separately
What are the three levels of explanation between holism and reductionism?
- Socio-cultural (social eg. conformity)
- Psychological (cognitive/behavioural eg. Ellis)
- Biological (Genetic, biopsychological and neuroscience eg. SERT/COMT. dopamine hypothesis.)
What is interactionism?
The belief that you should use holism and reductionism at the same time.
Eg. social alienation - social psychology, learned helplessness - behaviourist.
What are three types of reductionism?
- Biological
- Environmental
- Experimental
What are three types of holism?
- Gestalt (whole)
- humanist
- Cognitive
Give examples of biological reductionism
SERT + COMT to help with OCD
Schizophrenia is caused by excessive activity of the neurotransmitter dopamine.
Give examples of environmental reductionism
Behaviourism
Social learning therapy
Bowlby - orphans study - thinking it was all-natural and not biological.
Opposed by Rutter and genes.
Give examples of experimental reductionism
Underlying the experimental approach where behaviours are reduced to operationalised variables that can be manipulated and measured to determine causal relationships.
Milgram (person, uniform) and Ainsworth - had to redo studies to control variables.
Give examples of Gestalt holism
Speech - in damage of Brocas or Vernickes areas breaks down everything else.
Give examples of humanistic holism
Matters most is a personal sense of unified identity and thus a lack of identity or a sense of wholeness leads to a mental disorder.
Maslow Hierarchy - All layers needed before the next stage can be achieved. Contracted through biological approached.
Give examples of cognitive holism
Ellis’ ABC model - depression.
What is biological reductionism?
Reduce behaviour to the action of neurons, neurotransmitters, hormones and so on.
This is a popular way to explain mental illness.
What is environmental reductionism?
Suggesting that all behaviours can be explained in terms of simple stimulus-response.
What is experimental reductionism?
Reducing complex behaviours to isolated variables is a useful strategy for conducting research.
Underlying the experimental approach where behaviours are reduced to operationalised variables that can be manipulated and measured to determine causal relationships.
What is Gastalt holism?
Meaning the whole in german
Focused especially on perception, arguing that explanations for what we see only made sense through a consideration of the whole rather than the individual elements.
What is humanistic holism?
Believe that the individual reacts as an organised whole rather than a set of stimulus-response links.
Matters most is a personal sense of an unified identity and thus a lack of identity or a sense of wholeness leads to a mental disorder.
What is cognitive holism?
The idea of a network is that each unit is linked to many other units. These links develop through experience and with each new experience the links are strengthened or weakened.
Connectionist networks are described as holist because the network as a whole behaves differently than the individual parts, linear models assume that the sum of the parts equals the whole.
Describe cutural relativism
Appreciating that behaviour varies between cultures.
Describe ethnocentrism
Emphasising the importance of the behaviour of ones own culture
Describe universality
Believing that some behaviours are the same for all cultures.
Write a PEEL paragraph explaining how holism and reductionist beliefs are biologically oversimplified
- Oversimplification
- Reductionist thinking means some approaches produce over-simplified explanations in psychology.
- For example, the biological approach focuses on genes and hormones as the cause of mental illness, but ignores the social context from where the behaviour derives its meaning. The point at which a behaviour becomes clinical is determined by functional impairments rather than hormone levels or genotype.
- This means a biological approach alone cannot fully explain psychological disorders; instead a more eclectic approach is necessary, as evidenced by the success of multidisciplinary treatment which combines psychological and drug therapies to better effect than either alone.
Write a PEEL paragraph explaining how holism and reductionist beliefs don’t look at interactionism.
- Rather than thinking in terms of reductionism or holism, an interactionist approach has been very successful in psychology.
- Holists want to look at higher level explanations for behaviour, such as group dynamics, and reductionists only consider small contributory factors, such as genes. An interactionist approach looks at how all levels of explanation link together and influence each other.
- An example is the diathesis-stress model; currently the leading explanation for schizophrenia and depression, where biological factors create a vulnerability which is triggered by environmental stressors. Tarrier et al. (2004) showed that combining psychological and biological treatments produced significantly lower relapse rates for SZ.
- This shows that combining individual reductionist explanations can help us piece together a “holistic” overall picture that answers more questions. In modern psychology, this is considered the best solution to the H/R debate.
Explain Genotype as a category of nature arguments
Inherited genetic information determines who we are.
Eg. High SERT and low COMT activity cause OCD
Explain Evolution as a category of nature arguments
Adaptive pressures from natural selection are behind our characteristics.
Eg. attachment behaviour evolved for better survival SWM formation and more healthy development.
What are the two categories for Nature Arguments?
Evolution
Genotype
What are the three arguments for nature arguments?
- Behaviourism / Tubula Rasa
- Social learning theory
- Environment
Explain Behaviourism/Tubula Rasa as a category of nurture arguments
We are 100% shaped by experience eg. Skinner
Explain how the social learning theory is a category for the nurture argument
Our behaviour is learned and reinforced vicariously through observation of role models eg. Bandura
Explain how the environment is a category for the nurture argument
Our families/friends/school causes behavioural outcomes eg. becks negative triad.
Our families/friends/school causes behavioural outcomes eg. becks negative triad.
Give evidence of the nature argument
- concordance rates - how likely to get if parents have
- neural correlates
- drug therapies
- Eugentics
What is the evidence for the nurture argument
- Token economy
- Rutter et al’s. ERA study
- Flooding/systematic desensitisation
What is interactionism?
The view that all human behavioural traits develop from the interaction of both ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ that is from both genetic and environmental factors.
What is the token economy?
Encourage positive behaviours. Rewarding for good instead of punishing for bad.
Good for rehabilitation.
Nurture argument
What evaluation points can you use for the nature-nurture debates?
- Nature based arguments can be used in practice.
- Diathesis-stress
- Epigenetics
What is the argument for nature vs nurture vs reality?
Genes and environment both contribute to development of illnesses
The environment changes the expression of genes to produce a phenotype that is different from the genotype
Many environmental factors can contribute to this process
What is the diathesis-stress model of disease?
- Your health is like a road surface on a suspension bridge
- Good health requires the right conditions (strong supporting cables)
- Adding risky cables decreases the road’s efficiency under load (stress)
- Severe stress on a risky bridge will lead to a complete breakdown of the surface
Write a PEEL paragraph explaining the application of nature vs nurture using the diathesis-stress model.
Write a PEEL paragraph explaining why nature and nurture cannot be separated
Write a PEEL paragraph explaining how nature effects nurture
What is gender bias?
a preference towards one gender
either exaggerated or minimise differences between males and females.
What are the two types of gender bias?
Alpha
Beta
What is alpha gender bias?
- Differences between males and females is exaggerated
- undervalue on of the sexes
- sometimes attributed to differences in biology eg. genetics or hormones.
What is beta gender bias?
- Differences between males and famales are ignored or minimised
- can happen when studies include participants of one gender but conclusions are applied to the whole gender.
Other than alpha and beta bias what can research also be?
- androcentric - male focuses
- eurocentric - female centred
What is andericentrism?
- Males are viewed as being the centre of the culture.
- Male behaviour is seen as the norm meaning theories made in relation to males are also applied to women or any differences a women displays is seen as exceptions to the rule.
What is endrocentrism?
- Female behaviour is seen as the norm
- Much rarer phenomenon than androcentrism
Why are research designs so important to gender bias?
Cause the results and conclusions to be gender biases. Intentionally cause either beta or alpha bias.
What is one cause of gender bias?
publication bias
What is publication bias?
Studies that produce positive findings are more likely to be published than those with no differences.
Can exaggerate differences between males and females so produces alpha bias.