issues and debates AO3

Question 1

AO3 for issues of gender bias

Answer 1

LIMITATION biological vs social explanations
maccoby and jacklin presented the findings of several gender studies which concluded that girls have superior verbal ability whereas boys have better spatial ability. - hardwired in the brain before birth. jorl 2015 used brain scanning and found no such difference.

SEXISM IN RESEARCH
LIMITATION gender bias promotes sexism women remain underrepresented in science. means research is more likely to be conducted by men. this may mean research is more likely to be conducted by men.

GENDER BIAS RESEARCH
LIMITATION formanowicz 2018 analysed more than 1000 articles relating to gender bias. found that research on gender bias is refunded less. suggesting gender bias less taken seriously then any other bias

Question 2

AO3 for cultural bias

Answer 2

CLASSIC STUDIES
LIMITATION feature of many classic studies is the social learning theory for instance both Asch and Milgram’s study collectivist cultures had higher rates of conformity showing individualist culture is the one to be applied to

CULTURAL PYSCHOLOGY
STRENGTH Cohen 2017 studied how people are shaped by their cultural experiences. this research is new and upcoming and included things such as anthropology, sociology and political science.

strive to avoid ethnocentrisms suggesting modern psychologist are aware of the dangers of cultural bias.

ETHNIC STEREOTYPING
LIMITATION led to prejudice against some groups of people. Gould 1981 explained how the first intelligence tests lead to eugenic social policies

world war one- piloted first IQ tests on 1.75 million army recruits. many of them were ethnocentric as they asked who the us presidents were the results were lowest for African Americans and south eastern Europe, as the questions were culturally bias as they were deemed mentally unfit or feeble minded

Question 3

AO3 for free will and determinism

Answer 3

PRACTICAL VALUE
STRENGTH we practise this in our everyday lives . Roberts 2000 looked at adolescents who had a strong belief in fatalism (events are decided by external factors courtside of their control) - significantly greater risk of developing depression - suggests tat even if we do not have free will, the fact that we believe we do may have a positive impact on mind and behaviour

RESEARCH EVIDENCE
LIMITATION brain scan doesn’t support ideas of freewill. libet 1983 instructed participants to flick their rist at a random moment as he measured activity in their brain- participants said they felt an unconscious feeling to do it - they weren’t in control- but brain scans showed brain activity leading up to the unconscious decision to move cam half a second before the participant said they consciously felt they had decided to move

Question 4

AO3 of nature nurture debate

Answer 4

EPIGENETICS
STRENGTH support for epigenetics
strength comes from the evidence from epigenetics examples from the second world war 1944 Nazi blocked food distribution to Dutch people 22,000 people died of starvation ( Dutch hunger winter ) susser and lin 1992 found women pregnant in the famine were more likely to have low birth weights and those babies were twice as likely to develop schizophrenia.

REAL WORLD APPLICATION
STRENGTH- OCD is a highly hereditable mental disorder eg. nestadt 2010 put the heritability rate at 0.76 this show’s how the debate isn’t just an important one it is a practical one as it gives sight into disorders which therefore can be suspected and registered and treated sooner

Question 5

AO3 HOLISM AND REDUCTIONISM DEBATE

Answer 5

PRACTICAL VALUE
LIMITATION - may lack practical value holism hard to use as human behaviour tends to get more complex. - reductionist may be better as there is less that may be neglected when you need to look deeper into the picture rather then scanning over the top of the whole picture

SCIENTIFIC APPROACH
STRENGTH - in order to conduct well controlled research we need to operationalise the variables to be studied. being able to break behaviours down into constitutional parts make its possible to conduct experiments or record observations in a way that is reliable eg strange situation - separation anxiety.
scientific approach gives greater credibility scientifically

Question 6

AO3 idiographic and nomothetic debate

Answer 6

COMPLETE ACCOUNT
STRENGTH idiographic approach is that is contributes to the nomothetic approach.
idiographic- in depth qualitive methods of investigation and this allows a global description of one individual. this suggests that even though the focus is on fewer individuals, the idiographic approach may still help form ‘scientific’ laws of behaviour.

LOSING THE PERSON
LIMITATION - nomothetic is loss of understanding of the person. preoccupied with general laws means ‘losing the WHOLE person’ eg known that there is a 1% lifetime risk of someone developing schizophrenia isn’t going to tell us what its like for someone living with it.
meaning it fails to relate to experience

Question 7

AO3 ethical implications

Answer 7

REAL WRLD APPLICATION
STRENGTH the government looks to research wen developing important social policies for example decisions relate to childcare, education and mental health. so it is clear to base such policies of scientific evidence. therefore psychologist have an important role when it comes to providing high quality research on socially sensitive topics.

POOR RESEARCH DESIGN
LIMITATION poor research design may lead to erroneous findings which when in the public arena can continue to have an impact therefore any research on socially sensitive topic need to be planned with the greatest care to ensure the findings are valid to ensure the findings are valid