issues and debates AO1

Question 1

what is universality and bias ?

Answer 1

universality is the underlying characteristics of a human that are capable of being applied to all, gender and culture bias threatens the universality of findings in psychology.

Question 2

what is gender bias?

Answer 2

when considering human behaviour bias has a tendency as targeting individual groups in a different way of others

this can be the case with men and women (usually women)

Question 3

what is alpha bias ?

Answer 3

when research focuses on the differences between men and women and tends to exaggerate these differences.

Question 4

what is an example of alpha bias?

Answer 4

freud 1905, theory of the psychodynamic stages

castration anxiety

phallic stage

oedipus and electra complex

women inferior to men as they have a inferior morally as they do not identify with their same sex parent as much.

Question 5

what is beta bias ?

Answer 5

research that focuses on the similarities and tends to neglect the differences between men and women

Question 6

what is an example of better bias ?

Answer 6

one example of beta bias would be the research into the fight or flight response.

using male animals has been more favoured as female animals have regular hormone changes and ovulation so it has been assumed that males and females response is the same.

shelley taylor (2000) claimed this wasn’t true and that females had a tend and befriend response as the love hormone oxytocin is more plentiful in women.

Question 7

what is androcentrism ?

Answer 7

male centred, where ‘normal’ behaviour is judged according to male standard, suggesting female behaviour is seen as being abnormal.

Question 8

what is an example of androcentrism ?

Answer 8

feminists have objected to the diagnostic of premenstrual syndrome as it medicalises women’s emotions , suggesting that male emotion is rational and females anger is not so should be medicated. (brescoll and uhlmann 2008)

Question 9

what is an example of universality and bias?

Answer 9

joseph henrich (2010) reviewed hundreds of studies in leading psychology journals and found 68% came from the USA and 96% from industrialized nations - such findings demonstrate strong cultural bias

Question 10

what is ethnocentrism

Answer 10

judging other cultures based on the standards and norms within your own culture.

in extreme forms it is the belief in superiority of ones own culture which may lead to prejudice and discrimination towards other cultures

Question 11

what is an example of ethnocentrism ?

Answer 11

is ainsworths and bells strange situation (1970) as it reflected on the norms of a ‘western culture’ - there research was into attachment types in babies 9-18 months

this lead to misinterpretation of how to bring up your child as it only looked into the norms of that culture.

eg. japanese infants were more classed as insecurely attached as they were more upset when separated however (takahashi 1986) found that is was because in japan babies are rarely separated from their mothers

Question 12

what is cultural relativism ?

Answer 12

the idea that norms and values as well as ethics and moral standards can only be understood and meaningful in some specific social and cultural contexts.

Question 13

what is an example of cultural relativism?

Answer 13

john berry (1969) has drawn attention to the imposed etic and imposed emic approaches in study’s of human behaviour.

berry argues psychology is guilty of mass amounts of imposed etic suggesting and psychologists and researchers need to be more mindful of cultural relativism.

Question 14

what is the free will - determinism debate ?

Answer 14

its a simple question that asks whether our behaviour is a matter of free will ( selected without constraint ) or are we the product of a set of external / internal influence that determine what we are and do.

Question 15

what is free will ?

Answer 15

the notion of free will suggests that human beings are essentially self determining and free to chose their own thoughts and actions.

free will is a concept advocated by the humanistic approach

Question 16

what is determinism?

Answer 16

the belief that a individuals behaviour is shaped by external and internal forces rather then a individuals will to do something.

Question 17

what is hard determinism?

Answer 17

sometimes called fatalism, suggests that all human behaviour has a cause

thinkings that everything and anything we do is controlled by external or internal factors and we cannot control it.

Question 18

what is soft determinism ?

Answer 18

william james (1890) first put forward the notion of soft determinism.

is the view that behaviour may be predictable ( caused by external and internal factors) but there is also room for personal choice from a limited range of possibilities (restricted free will)

Question 19

what are the three types of determinism ?

Answer 19

biological

environmental

and psychic determinism

Question 20

what is biological determinism ?

Answer 20

emphasises the role of biological determinism behaviour such as the influence of the autonomic nervous system on the stress response or the influence of genes on mental health

Question 21

what is environmental determinism ?

Answer 21

the belief that behaviour is caused by features of the environment (such as systems of rewards and punishment) that we cannot control.

b f skinner described free will as an illusion and that behaviour is a result of conditioning.

Question 22

what is psychic determinism ?

Answer 22

the belief that behaviour is caused by unconscious psychodynamic conflicts that we cannot control.

freud believed that free will was an illusion but he emphasised the influence of biological drives and instincts

Question 23

what is the interactionist approach ?

Answer 23

The interactionist approach is the view that both nature and nurture work together to shape human behaviour.

taking into account biological and psychological factors.

Question 24

what is an example of the interactionist approach

Answer 24

bowlby 1958 claimed that babies attachment type is determined by the warmth and continuity of parental love but jerome kagan 1984 proposed that a baby’s innate personality also effects this too. thus, nature in a real sense, creates nurture so environment and hereditary intereacts

Question 25

what is the diathesis stress model?

Answer 25

the DSM suggests that behaviour is caused by biological and environmental vulnerability. which is only expressed when coupled with a biological or environmental ‘trigger’ (stressor)

Question 26

where can the DSM be explained ?

Answer 26

within OCD may not develop the disorder. but combined with psychological triggers this may result in the disorder appearing.

Question 27

what is epigenetics ?

Answer 27

Epigenetics is the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes are reversible and do not change your DNA sequence, but they can change how your body reads a DNA sequence.

Question 28

what are the key concepts of the nature - nurture debate?

Answer 28

nature
nurture
measuring nature and nurture

Question 29

what is nurture in the nature nurture debate

Answer 29

john locke 1632-1704 argued that the mind is a blank slate at birth which is then shaped by the environment and this is the basis of the nurture debate- this later became an important view of the behaviourist approach.

Question 30

who is richard lerner in the nurture - nurture debate ?

Answer 30

he identified different levels of environment this includes prenatal factors, such as how physical influences like smoking and psychological factors music can affect the foetus.

Question 31

how do you measure nature and nurture ?

Answer 31

the way that people are similar on a particular trait can be represented by a correlation coefficient called concordance.

a figure suggests that 0.01 or 1% means genes contribute almost nothing to a particular trait

Question 32

what is concordance

Answer 32

Concordance rates means the. probability of one twin having the disorder if the other already has it expressed as a percentage. In a twin study, MZ (identical) and DZ (non-identical) twins are compared.

Question 33

what is correlation coefficient ?

Answer 33

correlation coefficient is a statistic that is used to estimate the degree of linear relationship between two variables. It is a numerical estimate of both the strength of the linear relationship and the direction of the relationship.

Question 34

what is the holism and reductionism debate ?

Answer 34

Reductionism and holism are two different approaches in psychology that researchers use to create experiments and draw conclusions. Reductionism likes to divide explanations of behaviour into separate components, whilst holism likes to look at the picture as a whole

Question 35

what is the holistic approach ?

Answer 35

gestalt psychologists argued that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

this relates to humanistic approach where the holists approach is related and mostly qualitative data is used

Question 36

what is reductionism ?

Answer 36

Reductionism is a theory in psychology centered on reducing complex phenomena into their most basic parts. … The purpose of reductionism is to simplify psychological events and processes by looking at their smallest elements, thus “reducing” something rather complex into its most simple.

Question 37

examples of determinism could be ?

Answer 37

OCD / depression- looking at neurochemical explanations - serotonin , ssris etc

Question 38

examples of holistic could be?

Answer 38

Holistic approaches include Humanism, Social and Gestalt psychology and makes use of the case study method. Jahoda’s 6 elements of Optimal Living are an example of a holistic approach to defining abnormality.

Question 39

what are the levels of explanation in reductionism ( using OCD)

Answer 39

socio-cultural level - OCD interrupts social relationships

psychological level - the person experiencing anxiety

physical level- movements eg washing hands

environmental/ behavioural level- learning experiences

neurochemical level - eg underproduction of serotonin

Question 40

what is biological reductionism ?

Answer 40

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.

A theoretical approach that aims to explain all social or cultural phenomena in biological terms, denying them any causal autonomy. … The theories of Social Darwinism, eugenics, and sociobiology often involve biological reductionism

Question 41

what is environmental reductionism ?

Answer 41

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.

such as the learning theory of attachment reduces the idea of love to a learned association between the person doing the feeding and food, resulting in pleasure.

Question 42

what are the idiographic and nomothetic approaches

Answer 42

diographic describes the study of a group, seen as an entity, with specific properties that set it apart from other groups. Nomothetic refers to the use of generalization rather than specific properties in the same context.

Question 43

what is the idiographic approach ?

Answer 43

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. … The idiographic approach does not seek to formulate laws or generalise results to others.

Question 44

what is the nomothetic approach?

Answer 44

The term “nomothetic” comes from the Greek word “nomos” meaning “law”. Psychologists who adopt this approach are mainly concerned with studying what we share with others (i.e. similarities between people). Therefore, the nomothetic approach involves establishing laws or generalizations that apply to all people.

Question 45

key concepts of the idiographic approach are..

Answer 45

qualitative research

most idiographic research is qualitive research as research on depression would be based on first hand
accounts from a small number of people.

examples in psychology

most associated with the humanistic and the psychodynamic approaches eg. carl rogers sought to explain the process of self development including the role of unconditional positive regard this was derived from in depth conversations with patients in therapy.

Question 46

key concepts of the nomothetic approach are…

Answer 46

quantitative research

nomothetic research more closely fits traditional models of the ‘scientific method’ in psychology. - based on numerical data, samples. the nomothetic approach aims to quantify (count) human behaviour.

examples in psychology

the behaviourist and biological approaches. eg. B F skinner studied animals to develop the general laws of learning. but only a small study.

roger Sperry’s split brain patient which included repeated testing and was the foundation of understanding for hemispheric lateralisation.

Question 47

ethical implications of research studies

Answer 47

the consequence of any research in terms of the effects on individual participants or on the way in which there are certain groups of people are subsequently regarded

Question 48

ethical implications and social sensitivity

Answer 48

some research has more social sensitivity then others, eg long term memory in a student population is unlikely to have consequences for individual participants or for the broader social groups and the participants may not represent the social groups.