Issues and debates in psychology

Question 1

What is alpha bias in gender bias? What problems does this create?

Answer 1

The tendency to show distinct and real differences between the sexes when drawing conclusions from psychological research.

Leads to stereotypes of the sexes and the traits they possess, usually showing females to be the ‘weaker sex’.

Question 2

What is beta bias in gender bias? What problems does this create?

Answer 2

Dismisses the differences between the sexes, minimising the differences between them and assumes that they are the same.

Can lead to dismissing real and important differences between the sexes, which can disadvantage a gender as they become misrepresented.

Question 3

What is androcentrism?

Answer 3

The idea that psychology and most scientific research has been researched and participated by males and therefore show a predominant masculine perception of the world.

This can lead to either bias.

Question 4

Freud’s psychodynamic approach is what bias and why?

Answer 4

Alpha bias: Freud’s theory assumes that because women haven’t experienced the oedipus complex, they have not been able to develop a full super ego and so do not have as good moral grounding as men.

Question 5

Asch’s study can be seen as beta bias, explain why?

Answer 5

Beta bias: Asch’s study was only completed on 123 American male participants, but results about conformity theory were generalised to both sexes and so minimalist the differences between males and females in conformity.

Question 6

Gender bias A03:

How could feminist psychology counter gender bias?

Answer 6

Perspective acknowledges the differences between the sexes, but wishes to address the imbalance or outdated facts about women. For example, if women are inferior in some traits to men, like in leadership skills, instead of belittling them, better training for the right skills could be used.

Question 7

Gender Bias A03:

What is reverse alpha bias?

Answer 7

Developing theories that show the differences between men and women, but put emphasis on the value of women, by looking at evidence that women could be better in some aspects to break the prejudice of women.

Question 8

Gender Bias A03:

What is essentialism?

Answer 8

Previously gender differences were looked at this way, the way that gender is ‘fixed’ and ‘inevitable’. But this old ‘scientific research’ was sometimes politically motivated, disguised as research. For example, women were told how going to uni would shrivel their ovaries and harm her chances of giving birth.

Question 9

Gender Bias A03:

Why does beta bias have to be avoided?

Answer 9

It has unindented consequences if differences are not considered. For example, since men have most political power even in equality, they will have the upper hand. Equal parental leave ignores the biological demands of pregnancy and the special needs of women during that time, and therefore would disadvantage them.

Question 10

Gender Bias A03:

How can gender bias occur in research methods?

Answer 10

Research can show differences between genders, but this may actually be due to the researcher’s unintended influence. For example male participants have been shown to be more friendly with female participants than with male ones, so women tend to do better in such studies.

Question 11

What is alpha bias in culture? Evidence to counter argue?

Answer 11

The idea that there are real and enduring differences between the cultures.

Takano and Osaka reviewed studies to do with conformity and found all expect one did not support the differences between them, showing that some aspects of psychology may be applied to all cultures, but we sometimes assume based on bias.

Question 12

What is beta bias in culture? Evidence to counter argue this and what implication can it have?

Answer 12

Assumes there is little differences between cultures, so etics can be applied, in theory to all cultures.

This was assumed with Westernised IQ tests. For example, we assume that intelligence in innate, however collectivists cultures may see intelligence as shared knowledge, so are seen as less intelligent. This can lead to imposed etic.

Question 13

What is ethnocentrism?

Answer 13

The use of our culture group as a basis for judging other groups. Ours is seen as ‘ normal’ but others ‘strange’.

Question 14

How can ethnocentrism either lead to alpha or beta bias? Give an example for each.

Answer 14

Alpha: Attachment styles in other countries may be seen as bad or lead to consequences in behaviour later on. Here, we think independence is good, but dependance, that may be more prevalent in collectivist cultures, is actually more valued for them.

Beta bias: Such as with the IQ test, it is the idea that our way of measuring intelligence is the only, or best way and reflects appropriately intelligence in other countries.

Question 15

What is cultural relativism?

Answer 15

The idea that all cultures are different and worthy of respect and the world should be understood from their perspective.

Question 16

What is an example of alpha and beta bias in cultural relativism?

Answer 16

Alpha bias: Can overlook universals and simply see them as completely diverse. Research in Papa New Guinea showed there were universals that did apply, such as men being more aggressive in comparison to women.

Beta bias: Things such as mental health statistics could show high levels of hearing voices in one culture, which could lead to a high amount of schizophrenics, but this is not a universal principle; diagnosis may only be relevant to our culture.

Question 17

Culture bias A03:

How can indigenous researchers help counter ethnocentrism?

Answer 17

Help to us to understand their culture without imposing our etic onto them. An example of this is afrocentrism, which centre their psychology theories around African values and disputes European values to be universal. This increases emic, by looking at a culture internally.

Question 18

Culture bias A03:

How can both emic and etic be used to counter culture bias?

Answer 18

Since emic only looks at one culture, etic should be considered to also find universals in psychology, so the indigenous should be used, but in a range of cultural settings.

In one research that looked at behaviour this way, they found mate preferences were quite universal in 27 different cultures.

Question 19

Culture bias A03:

How does research bias play into this?

Answer 19

Much of the research overall is done in Westernised countries. in 1998, it was noted that one European textbook on social psychology had 66% American studies and 82% were undergrads. This means there is misrepresentation not only in cultures, but also is Western cultures too.

Question 20

Culture bias A03:

What consequences didd the US army test just before WWI?

Answer 20

In America, European immigrants had a lower IQ than Americans and African Americans lower, which created stereotypes that we have.

Question 21

Culture bias A03:

How has globalisation helped culture bias reduce?

Answer 21

Travel accessibility has helped individuals and professionals study cultures. International conferences allow discussion and exchange of ideas from all over the world. This reduces ethnocentrism and allow appreciation of cultural relativism and pay them respect but also get that emic-etic more.

Question 22

What is hard determinism?

Answer 22

Human behaviour is determined by external forces; actions cannot be controlled by the conscious mind. There is fatalism in behaviour (pre determined)

Question 23

What is soft determinism?

Answer 23

Behaviour is determined, but as humans we have the opportunity to exercise free will; in some cases we can choose.

Question 24

What is biological determinism?

Give one example

Answer 24

Our actions and behaviours are caused by our own biological make up and genetics.

Innate stress responses can be seen as deterministic such as flight or fight. We have no control how we act in those impulsive ‘knee jerk’ reactions that are controlled by our nervous system and gland system.

Question 25

What is Environmental determinism?

Give an example

Answer 25

Behaviourists like Skinner say free will is an illusion and behaviour is due to classical or operant condition, being that our behaviour is governed by past experiences and wether we experienced it positively or negatively.

Key example are phobias, which can be seen as inevitable from the two process model.

Question 26

Give two examples of the nature debate for genetics and evolutionary explanations

Answer 26

Genetic explanation- Twin studies show that MZ twins have 40% concordance rates for schizophrenia and only 7% in DZ.

Evolutionary explanations- Bowlby believes attachments are innate through natural selection. They increase the likelihood of being protected and promote close relationships, beneficial for reproduction

Question 27

Give two examples of the nurture explanation

Answer 27

Behaviourism- They believe attachments can be learnt through association by either classical conditioning (food becomes associated with love) and negative reinforcement/operant conditioning.

SLT- Vicarious reinforcement. We may be biologically predisposed to be aggressive, but how he display this is due to those we interact with and see displaying aggression (positive or negatively)

Double bind theory- For schizophrenia. More likely to develop it in childhood if given two opposing ideas for a concept which distorts reality. For example being told someone loves you but they turn their head away.

Question 28

Nature-Nurture A03:

Explain why PKU indicates why it is hard to distinguish between nature and nurture.

Answer 28

PKU is an inherited disease that develops in early childhood that creates brain damage. However, by changing the diet of a child and beyond, the gene will not be expressed and the long term effect of the disease can be destroyed.

Question 29

Nature- Nurture A03:

Explain the diathesis stress model with an example

Answer 29

A person may have a predisposition to be genetically vulnerable to obtaining certain mental illnesses or characteristics. However, they will only be displayed and the genetic information expressed for it if there is a stressor that triggers it in the environment.

This can be seen with phobias (Behaviourism) and schizophrenia (double blind theory)

Question 30

Nature-Nurture A03:

Explain how nature can effect nurture

Answer 30

This is through indirect genetic influences where the genes have an influence on the environment around them and their experiences
Plomin gave 3 ways this could be done.
-Reactive (behaviour influences their environment- aggression may lead to others being aggressive)
-Passive (parents influence on home environment may create stressors)
- Active (choosing an environment that suits our hereditary, for example extroverts may look for other extroverts)

Question 31

Nature nurture debate A03:

How does nurture effect nature

Answer 31

Brain and neural plasticity shows that our experiences can influence our nature.
In one study of taxi drivers, it was found they had a larger area of brain for spatial memory.

Question 32

Nature-Nurture A03:

Explain the influence of epigenics.

Answer 32

Epigenics are ‘switches’ in cells that turn on and off genes based on their environment and experiences that lead to modification of the gene expression that are passed on through generations. This indicates why clones are not identical and why MZ twins are not either if separated at birth and bought up in different environments.

Question 33

Explain how reductionism works on the basis of the levels of explanation.

Answer 33

Highest level- Society and cultures and how or social groups they affect our behaviour.

Middle level: psychological explanations of behaviour.

Lowest level: Biological explanation and how our genes and hormones effect our behaviour for example.

A behaviour of any form can be explained by any of these arguments.

Question 34

What are the three types of reductionism? Give examples.

Answer 34

Biological reductionism- Idea that any human behaviour can be explained on a biological level and can be seen by neurones, transmitters, genes ect. Mental illness can be explained in these ways and therefore can be treated in this way sometimes.

Environmental reductionism- Behaviourists assume that all behaviour can be explained in stimulus-response links. This can be seen with phobias, attachment theories ect.

Experimental reductionism- Making behaviours variables to conduct research. Behaviours are reduced to be operationalised so can be manipulated and measured to try and determine causal relationships.

Question 35

Reductionism A03:
What problems can occur from lower/est levels of explanation?
(Wolpe)

Answer 35

One problem is the idea that the biology may become too isolated and the problem may be overlooked as to why a person may be acting that way.
Wolpe developed SD and treated a women for her phobia of insects, but found little improvement. It was later found that her husband, whom she did not get along with, was actually nicknamed after an insect; they actual cause of the phobia was the representation of her marriage being displaced onto the insects. The whole picture was not being addressed.

Question 36

Reductionism A03:

Evaluate biological reductionism: Drug therapies

Answer 36

Good as there is less institutionalisation and is more humane way to treat mental illness in the long term as it does not blame the patient for their illness.

BUT they only treat the problem somewhat, as they not treat the cause so may not have lasting effects. It ignores the context of the behaviour, so psychological explanations have to be developed to create therapies to help.

Question 37

Reductionism A03:

Environmental reductionism evaluation: extrapolation?

Answer 37

Approach was developed from results from non-human animal experimentation, which makes it hard to extrapolate to humans who have more complex behaviour influenced by social context.
Even further, even with non-human animals, the emotions and cognitions of that animal are not looked at.

Question 38

Reductionism A03:

Evaluate experimental reductionism

Answer 38

Even though behaviour is more understood through experimentation, it is questioned how far it can tell us about real life.
For example, Loftus and Palmer’s EWT lab experiment does not show consistent results with Yullie and Cutshall’s real life testimony of EWT. The idea that real life factors that cannot be replicated in an experiment, such as the volatility of real life, and therefore findings do not always reflect real life.

Question 39

What is holism and what types of psychology take this approach?

Answer 39

Focuses on how things work as a whole, rather than the parts and cannot predict how something will work based on those smaller parts, so the whole experience is needed.

Humanistic psychology- believes we react as an organised whole rather than S-R links. It believes in the importance of identity and lack of it leads to mental disorders.

Cognitive psychology: connectionism networks between neurons when memories are created. Each neuron is connected to many other ones and experiences strengthen or weaken these links. The networks are seen as holist because they act differently than the individual parts.

Question 40

A03 Holism and reductionism:

What is the mind-body problem and how can it be dealt with?

Answer 40

The problem with describing the relationship between the mind and the body/brain or the observable and the unobservable.

Materialism- ultimately everything is reducible to the physical world. Problem is it assumes that the physical will always have a causal link to the high levels, but we can only observe and associate them with mental events. For example, we assume that REM sleep activity in the brain CAUSES dreaming.

Dualism- Analyses how the different levels of explanation interact. They believe there is a physical brain and non-physical mind that interact with each other. Research has shown our mind can affect our body, such as when psychotherapy increases serotonin and norepinephrine levels same way drugs do, which is no surprise as learning creates new neuronal connections.