Issues and debates in psychology Flashcards

Question

AO3 Outline one strength of the deterministic approach (Cause and effect)

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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

Answer 3

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

Answer 4

-Scientific methodology -Determinism -Nature vs nurture -Reductionism/Holistic -Psychological treatments -Nomothetic/idiographic

Answer 5

-Moral responsibility -Oversimplification of behaviour +Libet et al +Establishes cause and effect

Answer 6

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.

Answer 7

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.

Answer 8

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.

Answer 9

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.

Answer 10

-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

Answer 11

-When research uses only male ppts E.g. Zimbardo, Asch and Milgram -Means studies suffer from androcentric beta bias

Answer 12

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.

Answer 13

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.

Answer 14

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.

Answer 15

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

Answer 16

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

Answer 17

-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

Answer 18

-Babies in collectivist cultures have different attachment styles from Americans -She assumed babies from other cultures would behave in the same way

Answer 19

Behaviours must be understood from a specific culture's perspective

Answer 20

+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

Answer 21

-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.