Issues and debates in psychology

Question 1

Outline the idiographic approach

Answer 1

-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

Question 2

Outline the nomothetic approach

Answer 2

-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

Question 3

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Strengths of the nomothetic approach

Answer 3

-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

Question 4

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Weaknesses of the nomothetic approach

Answer 4

• 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

Question 5

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Strengths of the ideographic approach

Answer 5

• 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

Question 6

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Weaknesses of the idiographic approach

Answer 6

• 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

Question 7

4 types of reductionism

Answer 7

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

Question 8

What is reductionism?

Answer 8

Studying behaviour by breaking it down into smaller parts/components

Question 9

What is Holism?

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Outline what is meant by levels of explanation

Answer 10

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.

Question 11

AO3
Outline one weakness of the reductionist approach

Answer 11

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.

Question 12

AO3
Outline one strength of the reductionist appraoch
(Development of therapies)

Answer 12

One strength of the redutionist 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.E.g 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 helath conditions such as OCD.

Question 13

AO3
Outline one strength of the holistic approach

Answer 13

One strength of the holistic approach is that it has led to the development of therapeutic approaches such as client-centred therapy. For example, Client centered 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

Question 14

AO3
Outline one weakness of the Holistic approach
(causation)

Answer 14

One weakness of the holistic appraoch 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 appraoch has problems when establishing cause and effect, thus weakening acceptance of the approach.

Question 15

Briefly outline what psychologists mean by ‘levels of explanation’.
(Total 2 marks)

Answer 15

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.

Question 16

What is meant by free will?

Answer 16

The belief that humans are essentially self- determining. There are other forces that may influence us, but we can choose to reject them.

Question 17

What is meant by soft determinism?

Answer 17

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

Question 18

What is meant by hard determinism?

Answer 18

Personality traits and behaviour are set by forces outside of our control with no role for free will, STATES ALL BEHAVIOUR HAS A CAUSE

Question 19

Is environmental determinism soft or hard determinism?

Answer 19

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

Question 20

Is cognitive approach soft or hard determinism?

Answer 20

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

Question 21

Is biological determinism hard or soft determinism?

Answer 21

-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 …

Question 22

Is psychic determinism hard or soft determinism?

Answer 22

Soft determinism, through psychoanalytic therapy, individuals can become aware of their unconscious motivations and gain conscious control over their behaviour

Question 23

How does humanism coincide with free will?

Answer 23

Suggests humans have free decision making choices and are responsible for these choices

Question 24

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Outline one weakness of the deterministic approach
(Oversimplification)

Answer 24

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

Question 25

AO3
Outline one strength of the deterministic approach
(Cause)

Answer 25

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.

Question 26

AO3
Outline one weakness of the deterministic approach
(Court)

Answer 26

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

Question 27

AO3
Outline one weakness of the free will approach
(Libet et al)

Answer 27

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

Question 28

6 points of comparison for the approaches

Answer 28

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

Question 29

AO3
Deterministic approach

Answer 29

-Moral responsibility
-Oversimplification of behaviour

+Establishes cause

Question 30

AO3
Outline one strength of the idiographic approach
(Use of case studies)

Answer 30

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.

Question 31

A scientific approach to psychology emphasises causal explanations. Explain how this relates to free will and determinism. [6 Marks]

Answer 31

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.

Question 32

AO3
Outline one strength of the free will approach
(Internal locus of control)

Answer 32

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.