Issues And Debates In Psychology

Question 1

What type of culture was psychology developed in?

Answer 1

Western cultures

Question 2

Three possible reasons for not having studied other cultures

Answer 2

• Psychologists may have viewed other non-Western cultures as primitive or not worthy of studying
• Cross-cultural research is expensive, time-consuming, and demands many resources
• Psychologists may have made an assumption that other cultures were the same as their own

Question 3

Etic research

Answer 3

When research based on one culture is generalised and applied to all cultures

Question 4

Strengths of etic research

Answer 4

• Humans from various cultures do have similarities
• Human physiology is fairly consistent across all cultures
• Certain behaviours are also universal: language development, aggression levels and cognitive development

Question 5

Weaknesses of etic research

Answer 5

• The vast majority of scientific research involves taking samples of a whole population
• Researchers can be biased due to an imposed etic

Question 6

Emic research

Answer 6

Based on studying a specific culture

Question 7

Strengths of emic research

Answer 7

• By doing these studies, researcher can avoid cultural bias and bias because of imposed etic
• They are not trying to generate universal laws

Question 8

Weaknesses of emic research

Answer 8

• Bias can still happen
• This is due to researchers over-emphasising the differences between the cultural groups and not looking at the differences within the cultural groups

Question 9

Alpha bias

Answer 9

• Exaggerating the differences between men & women.
• Theories assume there are real and enduring differences between men and women.

Question 10

Beta bias

Answer 10

• Exaggerating the similarity between men & women.
• They minimise gender differences.
• Assume all people are the same and so it is reasonable to apply theories/research to both men and women.
• Often happens when findings obtained from men are applied to women without additional validation.

Question 11

Androcentrism

Answer 11

Taking male thinking/behaviour as normal, regarding female thinking/behaviour as deviant, inferior, abnormal, or ‘other’ instead of just being different.

Question 12

Ethnocentric psychology

Answer 12

• Research is based on one culture
• Theories are then generalised to all cultures

Question 13

Asch (1951)

Answer 13

• Conformity research
• Only Americans were used so the research is ethnocentric
• There study also only used males which makes it an example of gender bias

Question 14

Milgram (ethnocentrism)

Answer 14

• Milgram’s obedience experiments is an example of ethnocentric research
• The study was conducted after the atrocities committed by the Nazis in WW2
• This research has imposed etic as only American were used and he did not take into account the cultural differences between Maui Germany and USA

Question 15

Social implications of culture bias

Answer 15

If studies are culturally biased then the theories from the studies will also be culturally biased. These theories have an impact on broader society and this can be problematic when culturally biased theories affect psychological practice and therapies.

Question 16

Cochrane and Sashidharan

Answer 16

• Examined diagnosis rates of schizophrenia in the UK
• They compared rates in people of African-Caribbean origin to the rest of the population
• Found that those of African-Caribbean origin were seven times more likely to be diagnosed
• People could conclude that people of African-Caribbean origin may have a higher genetic predisposition to schizophrenia but rates in the Caribbean are no higher than the UK so people could have a misconception about schizophrenia rates in African-Caribbean’s

Question 17

Littlewood and Lipsedge (1989)

Answer 17

• Regarding schizophrenia they found that African- Caribbean patients were more likely to be prescribed stronger doses of medication
• The symptoms could be exactly the same as patients of other ethnicities and they would still be prescribed higher doses
• This suggests that doctors were interpreting the symptoms as being much more severe

Question 18

Two main issues with cross-cultural research

Answer 18

• Difficulty in interpretation
• Difficulty in replicability. This causes results to be less valid

Question 19

Reasons for difficulty in interpretation and replicability

Answer 19

Interpretation:
- Challenging communication between different languages with beliefs, customs and colloquialisms being difficult to translate or understand
- Results in data being misinterpreted
- Can result in ethnocentric bias because researchers are judging behaviours against their own cultural norms

Replicability:
- There is a decreased ability to properly translate procedures

Question 20

Cultural relativism (reducing culture bias)

Answer 20

The idea that there is no universal standard to behaviour

Question 21

Representative sampling (reducing culture bias)

Answer 21

• All sub-groups within a larger group should be represented
• Sampling should be representative of all sub-groups from which you want to draw conclusions
• This will allow for generalisability of results

Question 22

Context (reducing culture bias)

Answer 22

• Research should be conducted in meaningful contexts and use researchers local to the culture being studied
• This allows for issues of imposed etic to be reduced

Question 23

What are the two competing theories about what guides behaviour?

Answer 23

Determinism
Free will

Question 24

Biological determinism

Answer 24

Focuses on the argument that genes determine our dispositions, behaviours and responses

Question 25

Psychic determinism

Answer 25

Focuses on learned unconscious behaviours (rather than conscious decisions) guiding our behaviour

Question 26

Environmental determinism

Answer 26

Focuses on things like conditioning (to survive in an environment we may have to learn a behaviour) and this learned behaviour will then determine our actions

Question 27

A disadvantage of determinism

Answer 27

It is unfalsifiable

Question 28

Reaction range

Answer 28

Gottesman (1963) says that certain characteristics, like height, weight and intelligence have a reaction range
Everyone has a genetic potential (genotype) for these characteristics but but the environment will determine to what extent this potential will be achieved

Question 29

Reactive

Answer 29

A persons experiences can be moulded by their genetics e.g. people usually act more positively towards attractive people

Question 30

Active

Answer 30

When people with certain genetic qualities actively seek out particular environments e.g. those who inherited height IQ might actively seek out universities

Question 31

Nomothetic research

Answer 31

• Tries to find universal laws that can be applied to whole populations of people
• Quantitative research

Question 32

Strengths of nomothetic research

Answer 32

• It is a highly scientific approach as it is quantitative
• The studies can be highly controlled, avoid extraneous variables and bias
• Objective data can be obtained rather than subjective data

Question 33

Weaknesses of nomothetic research

Answer 33

• Low ecological validity due to lab studies which means it is rare that the results can validly verify applied to real life
• By examining the whole population, some details are going to be missed or ignored
• Behaviour that does not fit into the norm of the genera’s laws created is sometimes not explained

Question 34

Idiographic research

Answer 34

• Focuses on individuals (remember ‘I’ for individual)
• Looks at the individual in detail
• Relies on qualitative methods such as questionnaires, case studies, interviews and observations of individuals

Question 35

Strengths of idiographic research

Answer 35

• It can be useful in different cases
• By focusing on the individual, a more complete explanation is likely compared to the nomothetic approach

Question 36

Weaknesses of idiographic research

Answer 36

• By focusing on individuals, such as in case studies, it is difficult to generalise findings to a whole population
• Idiographic research is usually qualitative, so it can be more subjective. For this reason, it can be seen as less scientific than nomothetic research