Issues and debates evaluation Flashcards
Gender bias evaluation
limitation- gender bias creates misleading assumptions about female behaviour which can provide a ‘scientific justification’ to deny them work opportunities etc e.g. PMS
limitation- sexism within the research process and lack of women appointed to senior management means that female concerns are not reflected in the research questions asked so it is guilty of alpha bias in conducting research and beta bias with its ignoring of female concerns
strength-feminist psychologists have proposed ways of reducing gender bias e.g. Worrell suggested a number of criteria: women should be studied within meaningful real-life contexts, diversity within groups of women should be studied not differences between men and women, there should be more qualitative data
Culture bias evaluation
limitation- it creates misleading assumptions about people from less dominant cultures which provide a scientific justification to deny people from some cultures opportunities in society e.g. US army iq tests before WW1 which showed that European immigrants had slightly lower scores than white Americans so it changed attitudes towards them
limitation- cultural relativism assumes there is no such thing as universal human behaviour but this is contradicted by Ekman who found that basic facial expressions for emotions are the same all over the human and animal world so an understanding of human behaviour requires the study of both universal and variational behaviour
strength- ethnocentrism has led to the development of indigenous psychologies where theories focus on the experiences of people in different cultural contexts e.g. Afrocentrism disputes European values and focuses on African values and culture when suggesting theories
Free will and determinism evaluation
determinism strength- practical applications e.g. the idea that schizophrenia is caused by dopamine led to the use of antipsychotic medication which reduced symptoms therefore deterministic emphasis on cause and effect enabled researchers to predict and control events to the benefit of people
determinism weakness- MZ twins have a concordance rate of 40% whereas DZ have 7% for schizophrenia which suggests no singular factor can explain all behaviour and both external and internal forces have a part to play
free will strength- everyday experience gives the impression that we are exercising free will through our choices therefore the concept has face validity and so is plausible (internal locus of control are more likely to resist conformity so thinking we have free will has a positive effect on behaviour)
free will weakness- the experience of mental disorders casts doubt on this concept as no one would choose to have schizophrenia therefore behaviours would be determined and free will is an illusion
Nature vs nurture evaluation
limitation- it is impossible to separate nature and nurture e.g. in twin studies it is difficult to tell whether high concordance rates in mz twins are due to the shared genes or share environments and upbringing and e.g. epigenetics where genes are switched on and off by environmental influences
limitation- you cannot isolate nature or nurture e.g. Macguires study on london taxi drivers
strength of the interactionist approach- evidence comes from Tienari who compared adopted children whose biological mother had sz and their rate of developing sz
Reductionism and holism evaluation
holism strength- some behaviours cannot be understood without holism e.g. the influence of conformity to social roles as the interaction has to be studied not just the individual
holism weakness- by considering a wide range of factors for a behaviour it becomes difficult to establish which factor is most influential and which one should form the basis of e.g. a therapy and they cannot be rigorously tested
reductionism strength- experimental psychology is based on the assumption that human behaviour can be studied in simple experiments where complex behaviour is isolated to variables which gives psychology a greater scientific credibility
reductionism weakness- it cannot provide a complete understanding of many behaviours because it operates at a level of genes and neurones and does not consider any other vital information e.g. context of behaviour
Idiographic and nomothetic evaluation
idiographic strength- brings the focus of psychology back to the individual rather than placing too much emphasis on the objective measurement of behaviour this has given us useful insights e.g. case studies of brain damage which increase validity by focusing on real people within real life contexts
idiographic weakness- case studies are time consuming so they restrict the scope of findings (the variety and number) so its hard to establish whether they are reliable and representative e.g. Freud’s oedipus complex which was developed from a single case study
nomothetic strength- highly scientific as the research involves large-scale testing under standardised conditions and gathering quantitative data this is a strength as it allows researchers to make predictions about the most suitable e.g. treatments
nomothetic weakness- the subjective experience of individuals is ignored and pts are seen as a series of scores instead e.g. knowing there is a 1% risk of developing schizophrenia tells us little about what life is like as a sufferer
Ethical implications evaluation
weakness- a major problem of research with ethical implications is that the impact is difficult to predict and consequences can be difficult to anticipate as they can only be known once the research has been made public by which time it may be too late
weakness- socially sensitive research has been used to support extreme forms of social control e.g. 64,000 people were forcibly sterilised in the US after research argued feeble-minded people were ‘unfit to breed’
strength- socially sensitive research can be beneficial to dispel discrimination and prejudice by studying underrepresented groups e.g. studies that attempt to link race and IQ were used to justify inequality and oppression so by doing the opposite this would reduce the prejudice and benefit society
