issues and debates A01

Question 1

Gender Bias

Answer 1

The differential treatment and/or representation of males and females, based on stereotypes and not on real differences.

Maccoby and Jacklin (1974) concluded that there were only four differences between boys and girls:
 Girls have greater verbal ability.
 Boys have greater visual and spatial abilities.
 Boys have greater arithmetical ability, which is a difference that only appears at adolescence.
 Girls are less aggressive than boys.

Question 2

Alpha Bias

Answer 2

An alpha bias refers to theories that exaggerate the differences between males and females.

Question 3

Beta Bias

Answer 3

A beta bias refers to theories that ignore or minimise sex differences. These theories often assume that the findings from studies using males can apply equally to females.

Question 4

Androcentrism

Answer 4

Theories which are centred on, or focused on males.

Question 5

Culture Bias

Answer 5

Cultural bias is the tendency to judge people in terms of one’s own cultural assumptions.

Question 6

Ethnocentrism

Answer 6

Ethnocentrism means seeing the world only from one’s own cultural perspective, and believing that this one perspective is both normal and correct.

Question 7

Universality

Answer 7

When a theory is described as universal, it means that it can apply to all people, irrespective of gender and culture.

Question 8

biological determinism

Answer 8

Biological determinism refers to the idea that all human behaviour is innate and determined by genes.

Question 9

Determinism

Answer 9

Determinism is the view that free will is an illusion, and that our behaviour is governed by internal or external forces over which we have no control.

Question 10

Environmental Determinism

Answer 10

Environmental determinism is the view that behaviour is determined or caused by forces outside the individual. Environmental determinism posits that our behaviour is caused by previous experience learned through classical and operant conditioning.

Question 11

Hard Determinism

Answer 11

Hard determinism is the view that forces outside of our control (e.g. biology or past experience) shape our behaviour. Hard determinism is seen as incompatible with free will.

Question 12

Psychic Determinism

Answer 12

Psychic determinism claims that human behaviour is the result of childhood experiences and innate drives (id, ego and superego), as in Freud’s model of psychological development.

Question 13

Soft Determinism

Answer 13

Soft determinism is an alternative position favoured by many psychologists. According to soft determinism, behaviour is constrained by the environment or biological make-up, but only to a certain extent.

Question 14

Free Will

Answer 14

Free will is the idea that we can play an active role and have choice in how we behave. The assumption is that individuals are free to choose their behaviour and are self-determined.

Question 15

Environment

Answer 15

The environment is seen as everything outside the body, which can include people, events and the physical world.

Question 16

Heredity

Answer 16

Heredity is the process by which traits are passed down genetically from one generation to the next.

Question 17

Interactionist Approach

Answer 17

An interactionist approach argues that several levels of explanation are necessary to explain a particular behaviour, ranging from lower (biological) to higher levels (social and cultural).

Question 18

Nature- Nurture Debate

Answer 18

The nature versus nurture debate is one of the oldest debates in psychology. It centres on the relative contributions of genetic inheritance and environmental factors to human development and behaviour.

Question 19

Reductionism

Answer 19

Reductionism is the belief that human behaviour can be explained by breaking it down into simpler component parts.

Question 20

Biological Reductionism

Answer 20

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

Question 21

Environmental Reductionism

Answer 21

Environmental reductionism is also known as stimulus-response reductionism. Behaviourists assume that all behaviour can be reduced to the simple building blocks of S-R (stimulus-response) associations and that complex behaviours are a series of S-R chains.

Question 22

Experimental Reductionism

Answer 22

Experimental Reductionism is where a complex behaviour is reduced to a single (isolated) variable for the purpose of testing.

Question 23

Holism

Answer 23

Holism comes from the Greek word ‘holos’, which means ‘all’, ‘whole’ or ‘entire’ and is the idea that human behaviour should be viewed as a whole integrated experience, and not as separate parts.

Question 24

Interactionist Approach

Answer 24

An interactionist approach argues that several levels of explanation are necessary to explain a particular behaviour, ranging from lower (biological) to higher levels (social and cultural).

Question 25

Parsimony

Answer 25

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

Question 26

Idiographic

Answer 26

The term ‘idiographic’ comes from the Greek word ‘idios’, which means ‘own’ or ‘private’. Psychologists who take an idiographic approach focus on the individual, and emphasise the unique personal experience of human nature.

Question 27

Nomothetic

Answer 27

The term ‘nomothetic’ comes from the Greek word ‘nomos’ which means ‘law’. Psychologists who take a nomothetic approach are concerned with establishing general laws, based on the study of large groups of people, and the use of statistical (quantitative) techniques to analyse data.

Question 28

Ethical Implications

Answer 28

Ethical implications consider the impact or consequences that psychological research has on the rights of other people in a wider context, not just the participants taking part in the research.

Question 29

Social Sensitivity

Answer 29

Sieber and Stanley (1988) used the term social sensitivity to describe studies where there are potential social consequences for the participants or the group of people represented by the research.