Issues and Debates in Psychology Flashcards
What are the two different types of gender bias?
Alpha bias - differences between genders are exaggerated, meaning one sex can be undervalued
Beta bias - differences between genders are ignored or minimised, for example if an androcentric sample is generalised to the whole population
How can publication bias cause gender bias?
Studies producing positive findings regarding gender differences are more likely to be published in scientific journals, exaggerating differences and causing an alpha bias.
What are two theories that demonstrate gender bias?
- Freud’s theory of psychosexual development and the electra complex suggested that girls suffer ‘penis envy’ and wish to be boys.
- Asch’s research into conformity was androcentric.
What is etic research?
Etic research refers to research from a specific culture which is then applied to other cultures to find universal laws, giving the studies universality.
What is an imposed etic?
Occurs when a researcher assumes that an emic construct is actually etic, and a culture-specific idea is imposed on other cultures.
What is emic research?
Emic research is culture-specific, and is used to understand a culture from within, by studying variations in behaviour between different groups of people. It isn’t generalised.
What is ethnocentrism?
Ethnocentrism is when our own culture is taken as the norm that other cultures are judged against.
What are two studies that demonstrated ethnocentrism?
- Milgram’s study which aimed to investigate the ‘germans are different’ hypothesis using american ppts
- Asch’s research into conformity, which used american students and was applied to collectivist cultures
What is cultural relativism?
The belief that behaviour can only be understood if the cultural context is taken into consideration.
What is determinism?
Suggests behaviour occurs in cause and effect relationships. This is scientific in the sense that complete understanding of cause and effect will allow behaviour to be predicted.
What are hard and soft determinism?
Hard - completely rules out the idea of free will
Soft - we choose our behaviour, but our choices depend on our own personality traits and intentions
What is reductionism?
The scientific view that complex things can be explained by reducing them to simple structures and processes.
What is holism?
Holism is the argument that human behaviour is more complex than simple processes, and that behaviour is due to the interaction of multiple factors.
What are the three different forms of determinism?
Psychic (innate drives) , environmental (external influences) and biological (genetics).
What is the idiographic approach?
The idiographic approach focuses in detail on the individual. It avoids making general laws and typically uses RMs such as interviews and case studies. It typically uses quantitative methods to draw conclusions.
