ISSUES AND DEBATES

Question 1

What is biological reductionism?

Answer 1

it refers to the way that biological psychologists try to reduce behaviours to a physical level and explain it in terms of neurons, neurotransmitters, hormones, brain structure.

Question 2

What is environmental reductionism

Answer 2

It’s the belief that behaviour can be reduced to a simple relationship between behaviour and events in the environment.

Question 3

What is experimental reductionism?

Answer 3

it’s reducing complex behaviours to isolated variables for conducting research

Question 4

What is holism?

Answer 4

It’s the idea that human behaviour should be viewed as a whole integrated experience.

Question 5

What is the reductionist approach?

Answer 5

The reductionist approach argues that several levels of explanation are necessary to explain a particular behaviour. Ranges from biological (low) - social + culture. (highest)

Question 6

What are levels of explanation?

Answer 6

they explain behaviour at different levels according to the reductionist approach.

Question 7

What is parsimony

Answer 7

the idea that complex phenomena should be explained in the simplest terms that are possible.

Question 8

What are the levels of explanations?

Answer 8

Highest level: social + culture explanations of how social groups behave.
Mid level: psychological explanations of behaviour
Lower level: biological explanations of how are hormones and genes affect our behaviour.

Question 9

What is reductionism?

Answer 9

An approach that breaks complex phenomena into simpler components.

Question 10

What is evolution?

Answer 10

Adaptive pressures from natural selection behind all our characteristics.

Question 11

What is Nature?

Answer 11

The idea that behaviour is seen to be a product of innate biological factors

Question 12

What is Nurture?

Answer 12

The belief that behaviour is a product of environmental factors.

Question 13

What is the Nature + Nurture Debate?

Answer 13

The argument as to whether a person’s development is mainly due to their genes or to environmental factors/influence.

Question 14

What is Free Will?

Answer 14

The ability to make a meaningful choice between possible behaviours.

Question 15

What is determinism?

Answer 15

The view that behaviour is controlled by external or internal factors acting upon the individual.

Question 16

What is Hard Determinism?

Answer 16

The view that all behaviour can be predicted and there’s no free will. The two are incompatible.

Question 17

What is Soft Determinism?

Answer 17

The view that causal factors influence behaviour however free will allows choice

Question 18

What is Reciprocal Determinism?

Answer 18

interactive casualty. That A,B and C contribute to causing each other

Question 19

What is Psychic Determinism?

Answer 19

The view that internal unconscious factors decide our behaviour

Question 20

What is scientific determinism?

Answer 20

The belief that all events have a cause. An independent variable is manipulated to observe the causal effect on a dependent variable.

Question 21

What is machine reductionism

Answer 21

It’s the view that humans work similarly to computers.

Question 22

What is the idiographic approach?

Answer 22

focuses on individuals and emphasises uniqueness; favours qualitative methods in research

Question 23

What is the nomothetic approach?

Answer 23

seeks to formulate general laws of behaviour based on the studies of groups and quantitative techniques.

Question 24

What is Alpha bias?

Answer 24

A tendency to exaggerate the differences between men and women

Question 25

What is Beta Bias?

Answer 25

The tendency to ignore the differences between men and women

Question 26

What is Androcentrism?

Answer 26

Centred or focused on men, often to the neglect or exclusion of women

Question 27

What is Universality?

Answer 27

The aim to develop theories that apply to all people, which may include real differences

Question 28

What is socially sensitive research?

Answer 28

Any research that might have direct social consequences for the participants in research or the group that they represent.

Question 29

What is Ethnocentrism?

Answer 29

Seeing things from the point of view of ourselves and our social group. Evaluating other groups of people using the standards and customs of one’s culture.

Question 30

Give some strengths about the reductionist approach

Answer 30

studying basic units of behaviour underpins the scientific approach / adds weight to
scientific research
• more objective to consider basic components of behaviour
• leads to greater clarity of understanding, e.g. at the chemical, cellular level
• better able to isolate cause when studying basic units of behaviour, e.g. can see
which chemicals are implicated in certain behavioural disorders, then may be able to
effect treatment
• parsimonious – the simplest explanation is often the best.

Question 31

Give some limitations about the reductionist approach

Answer 31

simplistic and ignores the complex interaction of many factors
• leads to us losing sight of behaviour in context
• less able to understand the behaviour because we do not understand its meaning -
loss of validity
• ignores emergent properties / distracts from a more appropriate level of explanation

Question 32

give some limitations of the nomothetic approach.

Answer 32

cannot find out rich / in-depth information about single cases
• less meaningful as tends to use quantitative measures.

Question 33

What are the four aspects in the research process at which ethical issues with social consequences may occur?

Answer 33

1. research question - simply asking a research question may be damaging to members of a particular racial group or sexual orientation
2. conduct of research and treatment of participants -
3. the institutional context. - research may be funded and managed by private institutions who may misuse that data or may misunderstand the data that is produced
4. interpretation and application of findings. - research findings may be used for purposes other than originally intended.