Issues And Debates - Paper 3 Flashcards
What is universality?
Results apply to all people
What is a bias?
Prejudice for or against a person or group
What is androcentrism?
Male dominates subject
Females misunderstood
Male behaviour accepted as normal
What is an Alpha Bias?
Exaggerates the differences
Presented as fixed and inevitable
Devalue women
What is an example of Alpha bias?
Psychodynamic theory - girls identification weaker
What is a Beta Bias?
Minimises the differences
Females not included but results applied to them
What is an example of Beta bias
Taylor et al - female befriend response, reduce fight or flight
Contradiction the assumed universal response
Evaluation of gender bias
- promotes sexism - male published
- challenging assumptions - Darwin sexual selection - historic
+ feminine perspective - view as normal, not deficient men
Why is there a culture bias in psychology?
Americans and students overrepresented
Who are most commonly seen in psychology? (Culture)
WEIRD
Western, educated, industrialised, rich democracies
What is ethnocentrism?
Superiority of own culture
Europe and American behaviours norm
What is an example of ethnocentrism?
Aimsworth strange situation - not appropriate for non UK / US children
What is an Emic?
Behaviour specific to particular culture
What is an etic?
Behaviour universal to all people
What is an imposed etic?
Constructs applied inappropriately
What is cultural relativism?
Norms and values only meaningful in specific context
Limits universality
What is an evaluation of culture bias?
- individualistic v collectivist - cultures not comparable, compromised validity
+ emergence cultural psychology - bias less in recent research (Cohen 2017). Shaped by culture
- cross culture research - barriers to communication, gaining trust, understanding what is said, rely on interpreters
What is an interactionalist approach?
All characteristics combine both, attachment, environmental and hierarchy
What is the diathesis stress model?
Caused by biological and environment vulnerability
Expressed after stressor
OCD - inherit vulnerability but need psychological trigger
What is epigenetics?
Change in genetic activity without change in genetic code
Lifestyle events switch genes on and off
Lifelong and passed on
What is nature
Inherited influences. Human characteristics innate
What is nurture
Environmental, mind blank slate at birth - behaviourist
What is concordance?
Degree of similarity
What is heritability
Proportion of differences between individuals in a population with regard to trait due to genes
Evaluation of nature v nurture
+ adoption studies
+ support from epigenetics - Nazi blocked food, pregnant women - babies more likely develop schizophrenia
- implication of the debate - aversion therapy
What is free will?
To act on conscious choice, control actions
Unfalsifiable - other factors
E.g. humanistic approach
What is determinism?
Factors out of control
Internal or external
Behaviour predictable
What is hard determinism?
Inevitable, not responsible e.g biological approach MAOA gene
What is soft determinism?
Accepts still have some choice
E.g. social learning theory
What is biological determinism?
Caused by biology (genes, hormones, evolution)
What is environmental determinism?
Features of the environment (reward / punishment )
What is psychic determinism?
Unconscious conflicts we can’t control
E.g. Freud, authoritarian personality - strict upbringing
Evaluation of free will v determinism
+ free will practical value - exhibit external locus of control - optimistic
- evidence support determinism - Libet et al - wrist flick, brain scan, unconscious decision first
- responsibility in law - not consistent, free will in committing
What is Holism?
The whole
Greater than sum of its parts
Humanistic psychology
What is reductionism?
Break into parts
What is parsimony?
All phenomena should be explained using the simplest principles
Levels of explanation - high to low using OCD
Socio-cultural - behaviour seen as odd
Psychological - individual thoughts
Physical - sequence of movements
Enviro / bio - learning experience
Physiological - abnormal brain functioning
Neurochemical - underproduction of hormones
What is biological reductionism?
Behaviour explained through neurochemical, physiological, evolutionary or genetic
What is environmental reductionism?
Due to stimulus - response links
What is experimental reductionism?
Complex behaviour reduced to single variable
Cause and effect
What is machine reductionism?
Functions result of units of activity in information processing systems (memory stores).
Evaluation of Holism v Reductionism
- Holism lack practical value - can’t know most influential factors
+ reductionist scientific status - objective and reliable
- reductionism higher level - Stanford prison, group behaviour, Holism may be more valid
What is idiographic?
Detailed study of one individual
Generalisations made from findings
Example of idiographic
Patient KF and Clive Wearing
What is nomothetic?
Study large groups to discover norms, universal principles or laws of behaviour.
Applied individual situations (therapy)
Example of nomothetic
Skinner - general laws of learning from animals
Evaluation of idiographic v nomothetic
+ work together - compliments providing detail
+ both fit the aims of science and - nomothetic = objective in standardisation idiographic = objective in triangulation and reflexivity
- nomothetic lose individual experience - general laws
What are ethical issues?
Conflicts between the need for valid research and preserving the rights of participants
What is socially sensitive research?
Researchers aware of the consequences of the research
Consequences should be considered at all stages of the research process
How should research methods be structured?
Phrasing can influence how findings are interpreted
E.g. alternative relationships look at homosexual and overlook heterosexual relationships
How to deal with participants?
Informed consent, confidentiality and protection from psychological harm
E.g. victims of domestic abuse worry about abuser finding out what they sold
The way findings are used
Give scientific credibility to prejudice
IQ tests in America ww1, prejudice against Europeans.
Media interested in sensitive findings
Evaluation of ethical issues
+ socially sensitive research benefit for group studies - homosexuality viewed as sociopathic. Removed 1973
+ policy makers rely on SSR - base policies on scientific research rather than politically motivated views
- poor research design have long term impact - IQ showed fixed by 11 - led to 11+ test
BPS guidelines - ethical issues
Respect
Competence
Responsibility
Integrity
