Issues and debates Flashcards
What is the idea of holism?
Viewing people as indivisible being, consisting of a self that can only be studied in context
What is the idea of reductionism?
Viewing people as a complex system that consists of many small parts we should study seperately
What are the 3 levels of explanations?
- Sociocultural (social psychology e.g. conformity and obedience)
- Psychological (cognitive/behavioural e.g. Ellis, Bandura)
- Biological (genetics, biopsychology and neuroscience e.g. fMRI scans)
What are the types of reductionism?
- Biological e.g. in OCD, the COMT and SERT
- Environmental e.g. Ainsworth
- Experimental e.g. Milgram
What are the types of holism?
- Gestalt (whole)
- Humanistic e.g. Maslow’s heirachy
- Cognitive e.g. Beck
What are some evaluations of reductionism?
- Reductionism is effective when looking at simple human behaviour and trying to find a causal relationship. E.g. conditioning
- Reductionism (biological) has had positive effects on mental health treatments, eg SSRIs for OCD lowered symptoms for 3 months
What are some evaluations for holism?
- Holistic views are seen as unscientific because they don’t examine human behaviour with operationalised variables that can be measured so its less valid, as there are no explanations with causation
- Focus on self. Humanistic approach
What are the arguments for nature?
- Genotype- inherited genetic information determines who we are e.g. high SERT and low COMT activity –> OCD
- Evolution- adaptive pressures from natural selection are beyond all our characteristics e.g. attachment behaviour evolved for better survival and healthy development
What are the arguments for nurture?
- Behaviourism- we’re shaped 100% by experience e.g. Skinner –> phobics must have an original trauma, tabula rasa
- Social learning theory- our behaviour is learned and reinforced vicariously through observation of role models e.g. Bandura –> phobics may learn extreme fear from parent models
- Environment- our families/ friends/school causes behavioural outcomes e.g. Beck -triad –> repeated failure can lead to withdrawal and hoplessness
What is evidence of the nature argument?
Concordance rates with eugenics, drug therapies (benzos and SSRI drugs)
What is evidence of the nurture argument?
Token economy (young offenders centres for desired prisoner behaviour), flooding/systematic desensitisation
What are some evaluations of the nature argument?
- Too determinist e.g. assumption that black americans have lower IQ ,very negative.
- Good mental health treatments, in OCD, SSRI can inhibit seratonin production
What is free will?
The ability to make meaningful choices between possible behaviours and options- we can choose at the point of action
What is determinism?
The idea that all behaviours depend on situational factors- behaviour is fixed before the point of action
What are the types of determinism?
- Hard determinism- direct causality (A causes B)
- Soft determinism- indirect causality (A causes B, when C is present)
- Reciprocal determinism (Bandura 1985) -interactive causality (A,B and C contribute to causing each other)
What is biological determinism?
Certain genes means you will turn out a certain way e.g. MAOA –> violence
What is environmental determinism?
Experiences change who you are and what you do e.g. Skinner
What is psychic determinism?
Internal unconscious factors decide our behaviour e.g. phallic fixation causing mis-assigned gender identity
What is scientific determinism?
All events must have a cause- IV leads to change in DV
What are some arguments for free will?
- The humanistic approach, Rogers said taking responsibility for our own outcomes was the only way to achieve high self worth
- Moral responsibility, because we’re all personally responsible for our own outcomes which can only be true if we have free will. If we don’t have free will criminals can’t be guilty and moral responsibility is prevalant in court (Steven Mobley murderer tried to claim it was biologically determined)
- Diathesis stress shows genetic determinism isnt 100% accurate, concordance rates are never 100% because environmental triggers are required
What are some arguments for determinism?
- Neuroscience research concluded that brain activity before consciousness and action was just a ‘state of readiness’ rather than a fully formed decision
What are the ethics principles in the research process?
- The research question (avoid social sensitivity)
- Conduct of research and treatment of participants (importance of confidentiality)
- The institution context (research may be funded and managed by private institutions who may misuse/misinterpret the data)
- Interpretations and application of findings (research findings may be used for purposes other than originally intended)
What are the ethical principles in socially sensitive research?
- Privacy (respect ppts private life)
- Confidentiality
- Valid methodology (don’t waste peoples time)
- Deception
- Informed consent
- Equitable treatment (ppts are and should be treated as equal)
- Scientific freedom (duty to engage in research but hurt nobody)
- Ownership of data (e.g. sponsorships of research and public accessability
- Values (people vary in idiographic or scientific approaches and there is issues when clash in values)
- Risk/benefit ratio (risks/costs should be minimised but sometimes they cannot be avoided)
Some evaluations for ethics in research?
- It is important to consider ethics to avoid unintentional harm e.g. male XYY chromosomes by court brown produced harmful prejudice against these males
- Not always possible to avoid all harm but sometimes the benefits are worth it e.g. Milgram ppts were fully informed and received support, many said they were glad to have taken part
What is nomothetic research?
General laws of behaviour can be applied to all people.
What are features of nomothetic designs in experiments?
- large samples
- numerical data
- comparing mean, variance, SD etc
What are features of nomothetic research?
- attempts to establish laws and generalisations
- objective knowledge through scientific methods
- quantitative methods of investigations
What are features of idiographic research?
- focus on individual and recognises uniqueness (HM is great example)
- private, subjective and conscious experiences
- qualitative methods of investigation
What are some examples in psychology of nomothetic research?
- Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation. He had a control group thus lots of ppts. Plasticity and critical period is very valid and generalisable.
What are some examples in psychology of idiographic research?
- The humanistic approach emphasises the focus on the individual and has a lot of benefits for reducing mental health disorders (not treatments though)
- Psychodynamic approach- use of case studies
What is androcentrism?
Psychology is male dominated, both in terms of researchers and participants. Their research might represent only a male world view.
What is alpha bias (gender)?
Exaggerating gender differences e.g. Freud due to historical context
What is beta bias (gender )?
Ignoring gender differences; assuming male results apply to females e.g. Milgram
What is ethnocentrism?
Focused on one ethnic group e.g. Ainsworth
What is cultural relativism?
Behaviours are relevant to their context e.g. Ainsworth
What is alpha bias (culture) ?
Exaggerating culture differences e.g. Van Ijzendoorn et al
What is beta bias (culture)?
Ignoring culture differences; assuming all cultures have the same norms e.g. Ainsworth secures a generalised american idea
