Issues and Debates P3 Flashcards
Types of determinism
Biological
Environmental
Psychic
soft/hard
determinism and free will defininition
Determinism = all behaviour has a set of causes
Free will = humans are free to choose their behaviour
Biological determinism
Behaviour is caused by biological influences that we cannot control
The idea that traits and behaviours are governed by internal factors like genes, neurochemistry, brain structure and function
Environmental determinism
Behaviour is caused by features in the environment that we cannot control
The idea that traits and behaviours are governed by external forces such as experiences, upbringing, learning, schools, parents, peers etc.
Psychic determinism
Behaviour is caused by unconscious conflicts that we cannot control
The idea that traits and behaviours are governed by unconscious instincts and drives, the cause of behaviour is rooted in childhood experience
Why is determinism incompatible with the legal system?
- retribution/revenge
- Implies that offenders are responsible for their
actions - Determinism: people do not freely choose actions
- So, determinism is incompatible with our legal system)
Determinism is not falsifiable why?
- Assumes that all behaviour has a cause
- If a cause is found, determinism is supported.
- If not, determinists assume that it will be one day.
Determinism is compatible with science and free will not
- Scientific approach to psychology seeks to find cause-and-effect relationships
- This assumes determinism, with the manipulated IV being the determining factor on behaviour, the DV.
- Science assumes that physical causes bring about physical effects, e.g. low serotonin levels cause OCD.
- The idea that something non-physical like free will can have an effect on the physical world in the form of behaviour contradicts this assumption.
Libets findings on determinism
- Libet found that a specific pattern of brain activity preceded a conscious decision up to 0.5 seconds before conscious awareness of making the decision. (2)
- This undermines free will as the conscious experience of free choice is determined by the brain. (2)
- Therefore, free will is an illusion
Roberts et al. effects of fatalism
- adolescence with strong belief in fatalism greater risk of developing depression
- ppl with external LOC are less optimistic
- free will has a positive impact
Difference between hard and soft determinism
Hard determinism
- These are internal/external events outside our control
- Free will is an illusion
Soft determinism
- Some internal mental process are within our control
- This gives us free will
Which approach rejects determinism
Humanist approach
Adoption studies in the nature nurture debate
Twin studies in nature nurture debate
interactionist approach nature/nurture
Heritability coefficient
Heredity
The genetic transmission of mental and physical characteristics from one generation to another
What is epigenetics
- A change in genetic activity without a change to the genotype.
- The environment leaves epigenetic ‘marks’ (‘tags) which turn genes on or off.
- Some marks survive in egg and sperm cells…
- … meaning that a person’s experience can affect the lives of future generations.
Empiricism/nativism
What is Reductionism
Behaviour is best understood by breaking it down to its constituent parts (parsimony - use lowest-level principles)
What is holism
To understand a system we should study it as a whole (e.g.
Gestalt psychology, humanistic approach)
What is environmental reductionism
Explain behaviour through stimulus-response links learned through experience (behaviourists).
What is biological reductionism
Explain behaviour at lowest biological level, e.g. genes, hormones
Level of explanations reductionism/holism
Increasingly reductionist = Socio-cultural -> Psychological
> Physical -> Environmental -> Physiological ->
Neurological
Strength of the holistic approach
- Holism involves studying and valuing human experience as a whole, considering meaning, feeling, personal experience / context.
- Only by studying the whole can we really understand human experience
- Types of investigation preferred by humanistic psychologists such as Maslow and Rogers achieve this
- Use of case studies, diaries, interviews - to yield richer, more detailed information - enhances validity
Weakness of the holistic approach
- Less scientific
- Difficult to obtain meaningful information without losing objectivity
- Use of qualitative methods less reliable
- Overly complex: many variables involve
Strength of the reductionist approach
- More scientific: focus on empiricism
- Studying basic units of behaviour similar to natural sciences
- Parsimonious – the simplest explanation is often the best.
- More objective: evidence should be observable and unaffected by opinion/subjective interpretation.
- Clarity of understanding, e.g. at the chemical, cellular level
- Better able to isolate cause when studying basic units of behaviour, broken down into elements
Weakness of reductionism
- Reductionism leads to loss of meaning – basic components do not add up to reflect whole experience- loss of validity
- Interaction: simplistic and ignores the complex interaction of many factors
- Loss of context: lose sight of behaviour in context
- Some behaviours, especially social behaviours, can only really be investigated in the holistic context in which they occur
- Other levels: distracts from a more appropriate level of explanation
Strength and limitation of the idographic approach
Strength: reveal insights and increase understanding
Limitation: results are often open to the subjective conculusion
Strength and limitation of the nomothetic approach
+ uses scientific methods
- looses the whole person
- misses complex interaction of variables
how is the nomothetic approach scientific?
Use of quantitative methods
*+ statistical analysis
*+ large samples
*=> measure strength of relationships between variables
Use of experimental methods
*=> identify causal relationships
how does the idiographic approach contributes to the nomothetic approach?
Enhance testing of theories
- Some case studies are natural experiments
- => appropriate test cases for general laws
Enhance generation of theories
- Exploration of examples can provide ideas for large scale studies
- Can identify key variables / hypotheses likely to apply to others
explain the processes of the idographic approach
Use of qualitative methods
- open to interpretation
- open to researcher bias
- harder to replicate
- explore inner world of participant
- from their subjective perspective
Use of case studies
- unrepresentative
- ungeneralisable
- involves variety of methods
- detailed data on participant
- triangulation of data
3 sources of bias
sampling
measurent
theorising
androcentrism
When behaviour is judged to a male standard alpha and beta bias is the concequence
universality
Any underlying characteristics of human beings that is capable of being applied to all, despite differences in experience and upbringing
gender bias
When considering human behaviour, bias is a tendency to treat one individual or group in a different way. In terms of gender, research or theories may offer a view that does not represent male or female behaviour
beta bias
Theories that ignore or minimize the differences
alpha bias
theroies that suggests thier is more differnce between men and women than is
structure of how to answer a question about bias
A01
- failure to consider differnces between women can lead to gender bias
- histrocaly smaple based on men
- beta bias
- alpha bias
A02+3
- ugh there is so fucking much j look at the handout
examples of smapling gender bias
- social influence classic studies sampling is beta bias
- schizophrenia anti-psychotics research sampling is beta bias
eaxamples of measurment gender bias
- social conformity task is alpha bias
- schizophrenia diagnosis of women is alpha bias
examples of theroising/ interpreting finidings gender bias
- Psychodynamic, (kolhberg i think) theroy of moral development, the super ego is androcentrism
cultral bias in sampling
Stragne situation
- More than ½ of studies in Van IJ & K’s meta- analysis from US, rest mostly Western
* Collectivistic cultures under- represented
* Eastern, African and South American cultures not / under- represented
* Non- western cultures more traditional, infants rarely separated from parents- results will not generalise
* 12/31 studies using Asch’s paradigm for testing conformity took place in collectivistic cultures
* This is somewhat biased
* 0/9 studies using Milgram’s paradigm for testing obedience took place in collectivistic cultures
* This is completely biased
cultural bias in measurement
- Strange Situation supposed to be mildly stressful, but is very stressful for Japanese children…
- …who are rarely separated from mother…
- … so become very distressed and look like insecure resistant, but aren’t really
- Using Strange Situation to measure behaviour in other cultures does not work, i.e., involves an imposed etic
- Belief in communication with dead common outside Western cultures
- Seen as normal and often desirable
- But is assumed to be a sign of schizophrenia by Western psychiatrists
- Involves an ‘imposed etic’
cultural bias in interpreations of findings
- Features of atavistic form often associated with those of African descent, e.g., curly hair, dark skin
- Atavistic = ‘uncivilised, primitive, savage’
- Draws on stereotypes of black people
- Links to eugenics movement: saw some (usually non- white) as genetically inferior
but aslo social infuilence and authoritarian personality
what is cultral bias
Refers to a tendency to ignore cultural differences and interpret all phenomena through the “lens” of their own culture
ethnocentritism
juding other culturs from the standard of your own culture, somtimes belivng your culture is better and can lead to prejudice and discrimination
Werid countries
Western
Educated
Rrich
Industrialised
Democratic
- 99% of all published studies rely on ppts recurituted form weird countires
- 80% of all pps are from these cultures
- whilst only representing 12% of the worlds population
- 67% of american psych studies use collage students
etic and emic approach
etic - looks at behavoir form outside a culture an attempts to desribe said behavoir as universal e.g use of questionares on equity testing in relationships
emic - looks at behavoir inside a culture that is spesific to that culture
cultrial relatitivism
norms and moral standards can only be understood within a given culture
universality
beliving that some behavoirs are the same for all cultures
collectivistic/ indiviulaistic
- an etic approach designed to identify and understnad cultral differnce
what are ethical implications
wider influnce of reserch on others including impact on minoirites, may effect how people are treated, regarded or
examples of ethical impications
- the impact of thoes representing in the research
- effect their self esteem feelings and life changes
- consider the impact of others opinions in sterotyping and discrimination
- should consider wider impilcations
- such as when governmtnt usues reserch to make public economic and social policy
socially sensitive research
when researchg raieses controversial issues/ potentiollu negative consequences for groups represented in the research / the population
particully vunrulbe or minority groups
three considerations for socially sensitive research
- government policy
- stereotypes
- self esteem
whats the differnce between socialy sensitve issues and implications?
issues - for the ppts within the study
implications - impact on the wider group the ppts represent
methods researchers could use to deal with social sensitivity
- consult interested parties (ones represented and experts
- valadity of research incerdibly important
- when writing research be considerate of language and offer alternative explanations/ clarify findings
reduce gender bias in sampling
- proportinal and represeitive of target population
- recruite more females in areas that are traditional under represented
nature/ nurture
Concerned with the extent to which aspects of behaviour are a product of inherited or acquired characteristics
ideographic nomothetic
nomothetic - Attempts to study human behaviour through the development of general principles and universal laws
ideographic - focuses more on the individual case as a means of understanding behaviour, rather than aiming to formulate general laws of behaviour
