Issues and debates in psychology Flashcards
Outline the idiographic approach
-Focus on individual and recognition of uniqueness
-Private, subjective experiences
-Qualitative methods - non experimental technique e.g. case studies and unstructured interviews
-Tend not to create general theories of behaviour
-Example of an idiographic approach is the humanistic approach
Outline the nomothetic approach
-Attempts to establish laws and generalisations about people
-Objective knowledge through scientific methods e.g. lab experiment
-Quantitative methods of investigation on large samples
-Examples of a nomothetic approaches are; SLT, Biological approach, Cognitive approach and Behaviourist approach
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Strengths of the nomothetic approach
-Generalisability - Data is easy to replicate, gather precisely and analyse using statistics. Allows psychologists to be more confident in generalising findings and predicting future behaviour
-Objective measures - Subjective bias is reduced because scientific methods are used
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Weaknesses of the nomothetic approach
- Misinterpretation - General trends may not represent every individual in a group
- Superficial - Fixed criteria don’t give a complete picture of the individual. 2 people with depression diagnoses have a different experience of it
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Strengths of the ideographic approach
- Rich, detailed data - The level of detailed information collected is argued to provide a more valid perspective on human behaviour than statistical data
- Hypothesis generation - While unusual cases are not generalisable, they can generate new interesting areas of research or overturn incorrect theories
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Weaknesses of the idiographic approach
- Time-consuming - Due to the depth and detail of ideographic research it can be a long process
-Subjectivity bias - The intensive data collection techniques can result in the researcher losing objectivity when interpreting data
4 types of reductionism
BIOLOGICAL - Explains behaviour using hormones, genes, and the brain …
COGNITIVE - View humans as processing machines
PSYCHIC - Behaviours are caused by unconscious and innate desires
ENVIRONMENTAL - Behaviour is explained by simple stimulus - response between behaviour and environment
What is reductionism?
Studying behaviour by breaking it down into smaller parts/components
What is Holism?
behaviour can only be understood by analysing the person or behaviour as a whole. Behaviour must include all of an individual’s experiences and factors influencing their behaviour
Outline what is meant by levels of explanation
These are different ways of viewing the same phenomena in Psychology e.g. socio-cultural, psychological, physical, physiological and neurochemical.
Reductionism suggests that lower-level explanations will eventually replace higher-level explanations, according to the reductionist hierarchy of science i.e. Sociology, Psychology, Biology, Chemistry and Physics (from top to bottom). Explanations begin at the highest level and progressively reduce down to the bottom of the hierarchy.
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Outline one weakness of the reductionist approach
One weakness of the reductionist approach is thay it oversimplifies complex phenomena. For example, biological reductionism focuses solely on biological explanations for human behaviour. Aspects of behaviour and ignores cognitive, social, and unconscious factors that influence behaviour are not considered. This suggests the holisric approach doesnt take all factors influencing behaviour into account, thus weakning acceptance of the reductionist appraoch as an explanation for human behaviour.
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Outline one strength of the reductionist appraoch
(Development of therapies)
One strength of the reductionist approach is that it supports the development and empirical testing of treatments like drug therapies. These therapies, rooted in reductionism have helped millions of people manage various mental healthy symptoms by altering neural mechanisms through the biological approach (which reduced behaviour down to genes, neurotransmitters and hormones etc) SSRI’s have been developed and proven affective at reducing the symptoms of OCD. This strengthens acceptance of the reductionist approach because it has led to development of effective drugs for mental health conditions such as OCD.
However, 1/3 of patients are treatment resistant when it comes to such drug therapies. This is a weakness as it indicates that behaviours can not be reduced down to singular factors like reductionism argues, otherwise there would be no treatment resistant patients.
Perhaps, an interactionist approach which accounts for both biological and environmental factors such as the diathesis stress model would better explain such complex behaviours such as OCD
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Outline one strength of the holistic approach
One strength of the holistic approach is that it has led to the development of therapeutic approaches such as client-centred therapy. This is a strength because these therapies are based on holistic theories, they aim to provide more personalised treatment options than alternatives like drug therapies, thus strengthening acceptance of the holistic approach
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Outline one weakness of the Holistic approach
(causation)
One weakness of the holistic approach is that there are problems with trying to establish cause and effect. For example, taking into account multiple factors/variables makes it difficult to establish causation making it hard to isolate specific variables for empirical testing. This suggests that the holistic approach has problems when establishing cause and effect, thus weakening acceptance of the approach.
Briefly outline what psychologists mean by ‘levels of explanation’.
(Total 2 marks)
Explanations vary from those at a lower or fundamental level focusing on basic components or units to those at a higher more holistic multivariable level.
What is meant by free will?
The belief that humans are essentially self- determining. There are other forces that may influence us, but we can choose to reject them.
What is meant by soft determinism?
Traits and behaviour are, to a certain extent dictated by internal and external forces. However, we do have some level of control over behaviour through conscious thought processes
What is meant by hard determinism?
Personality traits and behaviour are set by forces outside of our control with no role for free will, STATES ALL BEHAVIOUR HAS A CAUSE
Is environmental determinism soft or hard determinism?
Hard determinism because it don’t include conscious thought processes in their theories instead they support behaviour can be fully explained by a series of stimulus-response links
Is cognitive approach soft or hard determinism?
Soft determinism as it accepts influence of biological factors on human behaviour but still believes in significant role of cognitive processes which involves decision making
Is biological determinism hard or soft determinism?
-Hard determinism
-Uses drug treatments which directly influence functioning of biological processes
-States all behaviour is due to biological factors such as hormones, genes, brain strcutre, neurotransmitters …
Is psychic determinism hard or soft determinism?
Soft determinism, through psychoanalytic therapy, individuals can become aware of their unconscious motivations and gain conscious control over their behaviour
How does humanism coincide with free will?
Suggests humans have free decision making choices and are responsible for these choices
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Outline one weakness of the deterministic approach
(Oversimplification)
One weakness of the deterministic approach is that it oversimplifies behaviour. This is because it states that our behaviour has a specific cause but we know that many behaviours have multiple factors that can influence them. For example, biological determinism states that our behaviour is solely influenced by our biology (e.g. Brain structure, genes and neurochemistry), however, it ignores other factors which may influence our behaviour. This can be illustrated in depression where it is assumed that low levels of dopamine cause depression.
However, studies have shown that an individual’s environmental upbringing can also contribute to depression. For example, there is an association between childhood maltreatment and depression. Therefore the sole cause of depression can never be solely attributed to biological factors because the environment is also at play
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Outline one strength of the deterministic approach
(Cause and effect)
One main assumption of the deterministic approach is that behaviour has a cause. this is beneficial for patients who suffer from mental illness as it allows researchers to develop drugs which combat their symptoms. For example, it is suggested that an imbalance of serotonin causes OCD. As a result, researchers can develop drugs that target this system to increase or decrease the serotonin in the synapse to help improve a patient’s symptoms. Therefore, determinism has led to real-world applications, improving people’s well-being and mental health.
However, despite this, there are still 1/3 of patients who don’t show any improvements when administered the drugs. Therefore, serotonin can’t be the sole cause of OCD because if it was then we could expect all patients to show improvement in their symptoms by taking drugs that target serotonin.
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Outline one weakness of the deterministic approach
(Court)
One weakness of the deterministic approach is that people may use it as an excuse for their behaviour.
For example, in murder cases, the murderer may claim that their behaviour is determined by inherited aggressive genetics.
This suggests that, in theory, no murderer can be held accountable for their actions which poses huge problems for the judges and justice systems around the world as the murderer can argue they are ‘wired’ this way hence they committed the aggressive action. Free will would argue that even though an individual may be influenced by their genes, they still have control over their actions to do what they want. Many individuals with the same ‘aggressive’ genes are not murderers.
Therefore this weakens our acceptance of the deterministic approach to human behaviour as it lacks detail
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Outline one weakness of the free will approach
(Libet et al)
One weakness of the free will approach is that there Is contradicting evidence from Libet et al. He found that the motor regions of the brain become active before a person registers conscious awareness of a decision. E.g. A decision to move your finger was a pre-determined action of the brain. This robustly suggests that many responses are biologically determined. This contradicts what free will says, suggesting that behaviour may be down to biological determinism after all.
Therefore this research from Libet et al suggests that behaviour is biologically predetermined, thus weakening acceptance of the free will approach to understanding human behaviour
6 points of comparison for the approaches
-Scientific methodology
-Determinism
-Nature vs nurture
-Reductionism/Holistic
-Psychological treatments
-Nomothetic/idiographic
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Deterministic approach
-Moral responsibility
-Oversimplification of behaviour
+Libet et al
+Establishes cause and effect
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Outline one strength of the idiographic approach
(Use of case studies)
One strength of the idiographic approach is that it has led to the development of theories and helped us better understand rare psychological phenomena.
For example, the idiographic approach uses case studies to extrapolate data. Researchers used a case study when researching patient CW who had retrograde and anterograde amnesia. Studying patient CW through case studies helped us better understand STM and the transfer of memories between STM and LTM. This suggests that through idiographic measures, we can better understand rare psychological phenomena like memory loss and help us improve our understanding of memory as a whole, thus strengthening our acceptance of the idiographic approach.
A scientific approach to psychology emphasises causal explanations. Explain how this relates to free will and determinism. [6 Marks]
A scientific approach to psychology emphasises causal explanations. For psychology to be considered scientific, it needs to follow the experimental method. A key part of the experimental method is testing cause and effect relationships. For example, the hypothesis that the suprachiasmatic nucleus causes changes in melatonin levels throughout the day could be tested by removing the suprachiasmatic nucleus. Suppose this does not affect melatonin levels. In that case, the hypothesis that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between the suprachiasmatic nucleus and melatonin will have been falsified. In this way, cause-and-effect relationships are vital to the status of psychology as a science, because without cause-and-effect relationships, it is impossible to test hypotheses, meaning that they are unfalsifiable.
Since free will is incompatible with cause and effect, free will is unfalsifiable. If our decisions are made by free will, then they don’t have any other cause. Therefore, we cannot test the causes of our decisions. If this were true, then all psychological explanations of our decisions would be unfalsifiable. So free will is incompatible with a scientific approach to psychology.
Furthermore, determinism is also unfalsifiable, because although we could test and falsify any specific claim about what causes our decisions, we cannot test or falsify the claim that our decisions are caused by something. There would always be the possibility that our decisions are caused by something else, that hasn’t yet been tested or even discovered. Therefore, while free will is incompatible with a scientific paradigm because it makes any cause-and-effect analysis of our decisions impossible, it is also true that a cause-and-effect analysis of determinism is impossible.
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Outline one strength of the free will approach
(Internal locus of control)
One strength of the free-will approach is that it can lead to improved mental health of individuals. For example, if we treat people as if they have free will, then they will believe they have free will and develop an internal locus of control. Benassi et al found that those who have an internal locus of control are less likely to develop feelings of depression as they believe they are in control of their actions and can govern their future. This is a strength of free will because it suggests that a free will approach will lead to an individual with better mental health. Thus strengthening acceptance of the free will approach.
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Evaluation paragraph on whether idiographic and nomothetic methods can be combined. [4 marks]
Both idiographic and nomothetic methods are vital to the scientific process. Ultimately, a scientific approach to psychology aims to establish general laws, and this requires nomothetic methods. However, nomothetic methods are often only feasible after idiographic research has taken place because idiographic methods are often less resource-intensive, especially when they involve fewer participants. Furthermore, idiographic methods often provide more detail, so idiographic and nomothetic methods are often combined within the same approach. However, some researchers argue that we can go further by combining idiographic and nomothetic elements within the same methodology. One example is Q methodology, which combines a greater level of detail with a higher number of participants. However, ultimately, Q methodology fails to achieve as much detail as an idiographic study, and usually involves fewer participants than a nomothetic study. Therefore, researchers ultimately need to consider more nomothetic and more idiographic methods and make compromises between the advantages and limitations of each.
Gynocentricism
-When research uses only female ppts E.g. Moscovici
-Means studies suffer from gynocentric beta bias
-However it can also lead to gynocentric alpha bias E.g. Bowlby’s study
Androcentrism
-When research uses only male ppts E.g. Zimbardo, Asch and Milgram
-Means studies suffer from androcentric beta bias
Explain why a history of androcentrism in psychological research is a problem today
Androcentrism in experimental psychology has led to psychologists displaying androcentric bias in their research. By having a focus on just men’s behaviours, researchers have a higher likelihood to reach invalid conclusions about the behaviour of women, leaving unhelpful or inaccurate ideas of women being unchallenged.
Name an example of androcentric alpha bias
Freud’s research into the human psyche displayed androcentric alpha bias. He suggested that male traits and behaviours were normal, while women were abnormal, displaying androcentrism. Furthermore, he believed there were large and permanent psychological differences between men and women, without good evidence to support this claim. Conclusive research evidence shows that differences between genders are far less pronounced than Freud suggests, so his theories also suffer from alpha bias.
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Outline one weakness of the reductionist approach
(loss of meaning)
Taking more of a scientific approach can equally be argued to be a limitation of reductionism.
Explaining complex behaviour with simple scientific ideas can lead to loss of meaning and validity.
Certain behaviours can only truly be understood by looking at the whole social context in order to analyse why and how the behaviour is actually occurring.
This can be seen as an advantage of instead using a holistic approach as it takes into account the behaviour and experience as a whole.
This gives a better explanation for more complex social behaviours and therefore holism can be seen as a more complete explanation.
Ethnocentrism
When somebody focuses on their own culture only. This leads them to believe that their culture is correct and more important, may see other cultures as abnormal
Ethnocentric bias
When psychology research lacks validity or reliability due to ethnocentrism, we say that the research suffers from ethnocentric bias.
And this might be because the researchers ignored other cultures completely…
Or because the researchers studied other cultures, but without understanding their cultural perspective
Consequences of Ethnocentrism
-First, experiments may lack external validity and reliability, because the results may not generalise to other cultures.
-Second, ethnocentric standards for ‘normal behaviour’ mean that people from other cultures might be misdiagnoses with psychological conditions, because they are seen to be behaving abnormally.
-Other cultures may be devalued leading to the development of harmful stereotypes
One example of ethnocentric bias is Mary Ainsworth’s research on attachment styles, because…
-Babies in collectivist cultures have different attachment styles from Americans
-She assumed babies from other cultures would behave in the same way
Cultural relativism
Behaviours must be understood from a specific culture’s perspective
Consequences of cultural relativism
+Prevents against prejudice and discrimination (Prevents ethnocentric bias)
-May exaggerate differences across cultures —> Alpha bias
-May ignore the differences within a culture (Different people with in society) —> Beta bias
Cross-cultural research
-Research being carried out in different cultures, to see if theories generalise, or if there are cultural variations.
-Researchers from a number of different cultures, to minimise the risk of ethnocentric bias.
